The Authority of Christ

by Youth Pastor Kyle Mellander

I want to invite you this morning to take a journey. I’m 26 years old and I don’t have everything figured out. So instead of me sitting up here this morning teaching you what God has taught me, my hope is that you, sitting there in your seat, can accompany me on a journey. The journey might be difficult. In fact, I pray that this morning will be difficult to hear. What Jesus said was often difficult, and when things are difficult, they force you into movement – either toward Christ or away.

So if you were coming here this morning hoping not to think, I want you to mentally slap yourself in the head and wake up and get ready to think. I do not intend to close all the points in tidy – that will be your job. My goal this morning is to guide you to explore yourself – to explore Jesus – and to explore how Christ will interact with you.

But before we get too deep into that, I want to tell you a little bit about myself. Like I said, I’m 26 years old, I’m married to my lovely wife Emily, and we’ve got a future baseball player getting set to enter this world soon. We have an awesome dog named Faile and a feisty cat named Rand. I am huge sports fan – I love baseball the most. This is one of my favorite times of the year. This year, I am a little saddened because the Braves are not in the playoffs, but if you ask my wife, it’s a great thing, because I really get into the playoff games. But this year I am blessed because after years of watching the Bears play horribly, I am finally getting to see them get some respect.

I like to travel, but I am horrible at it. Some people can go to someplace new and just explore and never feel the need to know where they will be ending up next. But not me. I am a home-body. I LOVE being home. I love being able to kick up my feet and relax in my own house, to watch my own tv, to sleep in my own bed…I’ll stop there.

It seems so American to want to be comfortable. Even the adventurous types seem to still crave the stability that America is based around. That’s why 9-11 freaked us out so much – I think for so many people it was less of a fact that people died, because people die tragically everyday, but moreso it freaked us out because it means that we could end up being the victim of a tragic death. That our secure life would be challenged.

We create savings for ourselves, we own our houses that are somehow creating paper wealth for us as we live in them. Even the government follows what we want to be comfortable. We vote for the people that are most like us to be in government and we push for the laws that agree with our moral outlooks to be put into place.

We are in control! We are masters of our domain. We are able to kick back in our Laz-E-Boys and click on the TV of our lives while we trying to get through this life as comfortable as possible. Anything that threatens our control over our environment makes us nervous.

This is one of the reasons why Jesus’ life is so amazing. He went around his country – sometimes facing happy faces, but sometimes meeting glares – never settling into his own – never reaching that plush spot. And don’t get me wrong – Jesus totally could’ve done this. He could have picked a spot – been a rabbi at that place and let people come to him – meet them on his terms – do things when his schedule was free. But the cool thing about Jesus is that he didn’t do that. Jesus didn’t have to be comfortable. Jesus did not have to control the situation to be in authority over the situation.

Lets take a look at this story where Jesus walks into an uncomfortable situation.

Read. Mark 5 – Stand up.

Pray.

So right after the storm that Jesus calms, he crosses over into Eastern Israel. I want you to picture the situation that Jesus steps into as he steps off the boat. He steps down and he sees this crazy demon possessed man (show picture) – I’m guessing he might look something like that. And the text says that this crazy demon possessed man came to MEET Jesus. He came to meet Jesus. And I want you to imagine this man in detail. He lived in tombs – lived where they buried their dead, so I’m guessing he didn’t smell very good. His clothes were most likely extremely old, beaten and dirty and bloody. He looked like a mess. It said that he cut himself – so he probably had scars and blood all over him. And not only that, but he was probably a pretty intimidating guy. The townspeople had tried to chain him up, but he had ripped those chains apart. Whether this guy was average and just had the super strength because of the possession, I’m not sure, but I’m sure that if you had this guy walking up to you to meet you, you would go out of your way to avoid him. I’ve done it many times to people like that. In fact, the townspeople had chained him up for that very reason – to keep him as far away from them as possible.

The description of him doesn’t stop there – it says that he cried out in the night and cut himself with stones. So even though people had tried to keep him out of their hair, they still heard him cry out. Probably freaked their kids out. I’m sure it did great things for their home values.

So he came down to meet Jesus after ripping himself free from his chains and something amazing happens. I’m guessing he’s like a half mile from the docks where Jesus lands and he just starts to book it. The next events are not as clear as to the progression, but I’m guessing it might’ve gone something like this. He is running as hard as he can. Jesus sees this scary looking guy running at full speed towards him. I don’t know about you, but at this point I’m freaked out. Jesus calmly says to him as he gets within hearing distance “Come out of this man, you evil spirit.” The man then falls down on his knees and looks up at Jesus and yells – YELLS at the top of his lungs “WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ME, JESUS, SON OF THE MOST HIGH GOD? SWEAR TO GOD THAT YOU WON’T TORMENT ME!”

As a side note, I just want to say – isn’t it interesting that this detestable, crazy, disgusting, demon possessed man can recognize that when Jesus comes around, he has to do whatever he says. Even when no one can control him, he recognizes Christ’s authority.

I want to say that I do not know exactly how demons work. The spiritual world seems somewhat of a mystery. I think that the devil is crafty and that in our American world he makes his evil work much more subtle. That being said, I wonder if it was almost like a split personality deal with this man. Because otherwise, why would Jesus do what he did next.

Jesus looked at the man – this horrible, terrifying, disgusting, unlovable, demon-possessed man and says “What is your name?” I would not care about names at this point – I’d be like just get out of here, I want nothing to do with you!

But at this point, the demons spoke up and named themselves as Legion and again begged for them to stay in the area. I don’t know why Jesus granted them their wish, but He did. Maybe it’s because He didn’t need to be free from affliction to be in the presence of God. Maybe He didn’t need to be free from the presence of evil to be able to do God’s work. Why do we think that we need to get as far away from evil when we have a God with us who has conquered death and sin and evil. Is it because we are searching for that comfort?

So Jesus sends out the demons and sends them into 2000 pigs, who go straight into the lake that Jesus just crossed and killed themselves like lemmings. I’m sure that it was a terrible sight. I’m sure there was a lot of shrieking pigs. I’m sure there were a lot of panicked and confused people. And I imagine that the man who had been demon possessed stayed their on his knees watching all this in wonder. Why did he deserve to be freed from his affliction. I imagine that Jesus again asked him his name and he told him. Jesus took him and helped him wash up, clean up his wounds, and get some clean clothes on.

Some time had passed and so the news had spread throughout the town. The men who owned the pigs went out into the town nearby and spread the news. To them, this was terrible news. Their business was destroyed. They lost everything. And everyone else had their lives at risk.

So they go up to Jesus and see the demon-possessed man sitting there like a normal human being – sitting there as a respected man. I can’t blame them for being a little upset. The first thing it says is that they were afraid. I wonder what crazy thoughts went through their mind. They were hysterical because they were so scared about how this was going to change their life for their families. As they stood their in disbelief, people told them the story of what happened, and they tell Jesus to leave. I assume that this was not a kid asking. I’m guessing they were pissed and were commanding Jesus to get out. Jesus HOW DARE YOU ENTER INTO MY LIFE IN THIS WAY!

How often do we cry out to God when things don’t go our way? It’s hard to understand the way God works sometimes, so I think we are all too guilty of asking Jesus to leave us alone. To get out of areas of our lives.

We lose a job and we question if God thinks that we are good enough. We lose a close family member and we get angry that God would take them away. Our children don’t live up to our expectations and we cry out to God why He could let this happen. We feel lonely and we close ourselves off from God. Our marriage starts to deteriorate and we blame God. When God shows us that He is in control of our lives – it can be very scary. It means our insecurities, our shortcomings, can be laid bare. I don’t want to say that it is wrong to emotionally respond to the hard things of this world. But I wonder why we get angry at God when they happen. I wonder what it was that caused the owners of the pigs to be so angry! Why are we so scared to let God take full control of our lives?

We distance ourselves from God because if we let him be in control, it could mean an uncomfortable place where things can seem so unsure. Crazy how Jesus never seemed to experience that. Jesus never seemed to wonder if God really loved Him or if the things He was going through were some kind of anger overcoming the love.

But Jesus exercises his authority again in not having to keep control. He hears the angry cries of these well respected men to leave and so he does. He sadly packs his things back up and starts to load himself and his disciples into the boat. And to think, this is all over some unclean animals that the men probably shouldn’t have been raising anyways.

Could it be that when we ask God to leave us alone that He does? Could it be that when we tell God that we want to be comfortable – that we don’t want things to change – that we want to stay in control – that He lets us? He’ll leave us alone on our Laz-E-boys.

But I think it is amazing the reaction of this demon-possessed man. The irony here is so amazing because they never actually give him a name in the passage, but he is so well respected by Jesus. He looks at Jesus and begs Him to let him come with. He wants more and more of Jesus. He invites Jesus, who has seen the darkest part of him, to come even deeper into his life – to capture it all.

But Jesus instead knows the bigger picture and sends him of to share throughout all his homeland what Jesus had done. Jesus used this broken, demon-possessed man to change many people’s lives.

So, I ask you, who was it that was a follower of God – the demon-possessed man or the owner of the pigs? This is challenging to me, because it is scary to be in that place where our sins and insecurities are laid bare before others and before God. How will He respond, how will WE respond? The comfortable do not often respond well to the broken.

May you be blessed to have God take control of your life. May you invite Him to take a look at those nasty parts of you. May you take the risk to give up your control so that God can be in authority over your life. May you feel secure and put together in His grip.