Be With Me: 7 Minutes of Biblical Wonder

"These are my People" Martyn Lloyd-Jones Luke 8:21

A choice for the Lord is also a choice for The Lord's people.  We don't walk without the Holy Spirit within us, and we don't walk without the people of 
God around us.

Jesus redefines bonded, long-term, faithful, "blood" relations as people who are doing His will. Today hear a man who was wrestling whether to walk with God; whether to go all-in with Jesus.  Of note, his salvation moment came through the dorky people-of-God, rather than a more typical story of a sinner at the cross.  

Martyn Lloyd -Jones runs into a Salvation Army band and walks away "a part of the band" so to speak.

 Listen to his exact words, "These are my people, these are the people I belong to, and I am going to belong to them"

Jesus breaks into some very personal health issues here.  He breaks the "guy code".  He breaks the "purity law" code.  He breaks the illness code.  Once again Jesus rattles the known world.

Listen.  You'll see.

Join me as we admire the man who gets healed from a legion of demons.

At the end of the account, we find him "sitting at the feet of Jesus" and Begging to BE WITH HIM.  Somehow, he gets the message of the whole bible in 3 words.

What are you begging for this day?  Join me as I beg for Your Presence for a few people.

Today we see some responses to the day Jesus comes to visit.

We see the herdsmen Fleeing
We see the townspeople coming, seeing, then being afraid and asking Jesus to leave
We see the demons being TOLD to leave
and then my favorite:  the healed man BEGGING that he might BE WITH JESUS.

If you read this, and if you LISTEN, you are doing the same thing...

Jesus has a conversation with a demon.  That is interesting in and of itself.  I certainly squirm knowing there is evil and sickness and death and judgment and opposition to God.  The demon requests, and Jesus grants.

There is an ABYSS that the demon knows about.  He seems to hint that it is his final destination.  He asks that it not be now.  Yes, Jesus forebears.  He has patience in His ultimate judgment.  The demon has a volition and has rebelled against God and has tormented this poor man and his whole town.  He is accountable for all that...but not just yet.  Jesus FOREBEARS.  He waits.  Jesus delays final judgement.  There will be justice.  Just not today.

How about us?  Do we want final judgment upon our sin and rebellion TODAY?  Only with Jesus paying the penalty, thank you very much.  Otherwise, please be patient, please forebear until more people can RECEIVE you.  Until Your Day Lord.  Bring more into the Kingdom.

Listen as Jesus does NOT fill up His ABYSS.

Today's passage has Jesus confronting evil.  We meet a legion of demons in a man living across the sea of Galilee.  The demons though powerful and nasty, have met their match in Jesus.  It is not a fair fight.  Jesus wins with a word.

Before He does, there is a bit of a conversation from this evil world.  We find the demons perfectly willing to torment this man, to gang up on him with legions, to have him run around naked, amidst desert and tombs, freaking out his townspeople, breaking chains and many times seizing him.  In a word, they torment him and the town.  Yet, curiously, they ask not to be TORMENTED.  Or at least not YET.

Listen.  Today you will hear from an unclean spirit by the name of Legion.

When Jesus rebuked the wind and the waves on the sea of Galilee, they obeyed Him and there was calm.  I got to thinking: What if the waves said, "NO?".  What if the wind refused to stop raging?

Everything changes.  He's not the creator.  He's not the Author.  He doesn't have AUTHORity.  He doesn't have the power over sin.  He doesn't have the power over death.  You are still in your sins.  Your faith is in vain.  Christianity is a lie.  Christians are the MOST PITIED people on earth.  1 Cor 15:14.

EVERYTHING depends on whether He is who He says He is.  That's why He first demonstrates it in the "little stuff" like calming a storm.  Bigger things are ahead, like dealing with sin and death.  He proves Himself reliable here, so that we can have belief in the big stuff to come.

Marveling isn't faith.  Marveling is ALMOST faith.  
Fear isn't faith.  Fear is ALMOST faith.

Jesus rebukes wind water and bunch of disciples.
WHERE is your faith? what location? what object? what person? 

This is a good interaction in scripture.  Jesus demonstrates mastery and authorship of wind and water and somebody notices.  

The disciples are afraid AFTER the storm is calmed.  AFTER the storm.  May we so be as well.  Listen and be afraid:

There is stuff to like about creation.  How nice to have lakes and sunshine and seasons.  But today's creation sometimes needs to be REBUKED.  Why?  Well because creation got caught up in man's sinfulness, at least in the CONSEQUENCES of man's sinfulness.  It got cursed, through no fault of its own.  It groans.  It is out of order.  It awaits a savior to make it right.  

The disciples, too, are worried about PERISHING.  They are very much under the curse of creations raging, but also under the curse themselves.  Specifically, they are most concerned with dying, with perishing.  They are saying that we too, are under the curse and we don't like it.  Just like creation.

Jesus will make things temporarily right.  He demonstrates the greatest "I got this" over their contemporary creation.  

This will blow the disciples minds.  In the end, they MARVEL.  They MARVEL. Listen and Marvel too.

Is Jesus really Master?  Sailing with Jesus who is sleeping.

He is human and tired.  That is amazing enough.  He came all the way down to tiredness to show us Himself and eventually to save us from sin and death.  But for today what about this storm?  And by extension, what about heart attacks and cyclones and novel viruses?  Why does He allow it?  Isn't SOMEBODY in charge here?  

Mostly just observations.  Whatever you do, don't read ahead.  

Listen for the real Jesus, in a real place with a real situation.