Vibrant Spiritual Vitality – Sermons – Sam Van Scoyoc – 8/8/21

hi guys pastor matt chandler here pray that this sermon this resource uh be used by god in conjunction with you belonging to a local church to grow you and sanctify you in your faith if these resources bless you would you consider giving back to us here at tbc you can do that either through the app or you can go online to tbc resources and give there again pray that this blesses you and grows you in your love for jesus christ morning village church my name is sam van scoyk i have the joy of serving as your middle school minister i love getting to serve as your middle school minister as matt mentioned i grew up here my family came to the village church when i was in sixth grade and i grew up in the student ministry here and jesus got a hold on my life in those years in a way that i haven't been able to shake since and uh fair warning i'm praying he does it again for your student um just like he did for the bellas the small group that you got to see the video of i am praying for more of that in our student ministry um this morning we will be in mark chapter 5. but before we get there i am entirely convinced that nothing of any significant consequence will happen this morning apart from the spirit of god that it's him that we need to come and form us soften us and fill us so if you would to that end pray with me heavenly father we love you we thank you that you are a god who loves us and has made yourself known to us in your word father i pray now that the seed of your word would land on good soil lord give us ears to hear what it is you might say to us this morning heart soft ready to receive it holy spirit we need you to do what only you can do in this room and right now for the glory of your name and it's in jesus name that we do pray amen in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit this is the opening line of j.r.r tolkien's book the hobbit and uh i do have to confess that i haven't always given the lord of the rings world maybe all the credit i should have uh but it seems like lately the lord has providentially put multiple friends in my life who have insisted that the eternal state of my soul rests on my appreciation for lord of the rings so recently i was on vacation started reading the hobbit just to get some of you clapping for that i got stuff you clapped about later don't talk about this right now uh i was reading about the hobbit and the hobbit opens up detailing the lives of hobbits surprise surprise hobbits they are comfortable little creatures they live in holes in the ground laden with every sort of comfort imaginable the pantry is always stocked ready for a feast at any moment there's always a fresh fire going in the fireplace enough blankets to go around and it seems that a perfect pot of tea is always freshly brewed and hobbits live together they live in a community a place known as the shire and the shire is idyllic there is lush green grass it's this nice pleasant valley it is a postcard the sky is crystal clear blue there is never a bad day in the shire but the shire doesn't have one thing adventure every day in the shire looks the same uh hobbits they all get up they're not only creatures of comfort they're creatures of routine they check their mail at 2 30. they have you know their tea together at four they have their dinner at six they're in bed all ready to go at 8 30 and the inner old man in me just said amen to all of those things right every day looks the same there is no adventure to spice up the lives of hobbits and as i was reading about considering the shire i couldn't help but wonder if sometimes some of us feel hang with me here like we are in the shire spiritually and by that catch me i don't mean that everything is easy but that we can easily go on autopilot with god where every day of our spiritual life looks the same to the point where we have lost our sense of adventure we've lost our sense of faithfully responding to the lord's daily promptings for faith in our life if you want to put a term on it call it spiritual apathy when we feel numb and sluggish and indifferent to the things of god and we would never say this out loud but we're not that bothered by it it can be easy in the christian life to have apathy as a comfortable companion so what do we do when we find ourselves here what do we do when you feel like you and jesus are on cruise control when we're foggy to the things of god indifferent kind of okay with it how do we wake up the primary question i want us to consider this morning is how do we maintain a vibrant spiritual vitality how do we maintain a vibrant spiritual vitality and by vibrant spiritual vitality i am not talking about church camp chipperness of which i am familiar but by spirit vitality vibrant spiritual vitality i'm talking about that intangible something that comes from jesus having his grip on your life that spirit animated zest that color is your daily walk how do we maintain a vibrant spiritual vitality when we're apathetic indifferent and okay with it fortunate for you i won't keep you in suspense too long my big idea my primary point my take it home and hang it on the fridge truth is this spiritually vibrant disciples keep in step catch me here with jesus's holy disruptions in your bible meet me in mark chapter five mark chapter five as you're turning there uh let me set a bit of the context for you uh our passage today picks up right after jesus has calmed the storm jesus and his disciples are in a boat crossing the sea of galilee and a great wind storm arises not only does wind start beating against the boat but waves start flooding into the boat and they begin to drown and the disciples the bible says were afraid and while they are afraid and freaking out our lord is napping and they have to wake up jesus and inform him of their situation say lord do you not care that we're perishing and then he stands up and just like in genesis 1 creation obeys the voice of god the sea is calm the wind is still and there is a great hush and the bible the text said after this happens the disciples were afraid they were afraid they went from being afraid of the storm to being afraid of jesus to the point where they have to ask themselves this question you can read it with me the last verse of mark 4 and they the disciples were filled with great fear and said to one another who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him maybe i plan for that to happen like wind in our sails this is the passage this is the question that propels us into our passage today mark chapter 5 verse 1. read with me they came to the other side of the sea to the country of the gerizines and when jesus had stepped out of the boat immediately there met him a man with an unclean spirit he lived among the tombs and no one could bind him anymore not even with a chain for he had often been bound with shackles and chains but he wrenched the chains apart and he broke the shackles in pieces and no one had the strength to subdue him night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones okay this is the first time in mark's gospel that jesus has crossed the sea of galilee into gentile territory he is leaving the safe confines of israel for the very first time and who does he meet this man a demoniac a demon possessed man a demoniac and i think it's interesting here that this exorcism this miracle is also recorded in matthew's gospel as well as luke's but mark's account is the longest which if you know your bible you know that's highly unusual matthew and luke are the longer gospels and mark is the shortest mark is pretty punchy mark is and this and that his favorite word is the word immediately immediately this happened immediately that happened but when mark gets here he slows down more than any other gospel writer mark gives us five verses of detail to describe this man's condition and i think that's purposeful i think mark has a message for us in the details consider with me mark says this man came running to jesus immediately he saw jesus coming undoubtedly just the night before in his little graveyard home by the sea he was experiencing a great storm wind beating against this house rain may be starting to drip in and then all of a sudden there was a great calm don't you think the demons in him knew who was coming i can't help but wonder if maybe for the first time in years this man in the calming of the storm and the shrieking of evil in his head maybe for the first time in years he had hope wondering about who was coming everyone else in the town doesn't know about jesus but this man does he knows a holy one's coming uh this man lived among the tombs uh at this point i'm gonna do this once more i'm gonna raise my levitical red flag and call unclean uh corpses in the old testament were unclean they were unclean to touch associate with be around so the fact that mark says this man lives among the tombs is mark's way of saying this man is perpetually unclean uh he is always on the outs a total outcast uh not only do demons live in him but death surrounds him the people of his town have quite literally left him for dead no one could bind him with any chain because he would wrench the chains apart i don't even know an accurate definition of the word wrench but i know in the context of chains it's powerful this is freakish strength no one had the strength to subdue him how many times do you think people tried neighbors loved ones family members maybe a parent maybe a sibling would visit him to try to keep himself from cutting himself to get food in his system they used to bind him but they had given up night and day he was crying out how many people must have heard him i mean just imagine this you've got your in-laws staying with you right they're in town and you've got to explain to them that they're not going to get much sleep that night because of your town's demoniac shrieking night and day he was always crying out maybe sometimes he is yelling the most evil vile things maybe sometimes he's just yelling nonsense maybe some days some nights i can't help but wonder maybe he's crying for help but the people of his town can now sleep through the night unbothered by him i think it's fascinating we are told so much about this man except his name mark identifies this man solely based on his desperate condition uh this man is a picture of the walking dead a living portrait of death and i can't help myself here at some level isn't this all of us before we know jesus dead in the trespasses and sins in which we once walked aren't all of us the walking dead apart from jesus going through all of the motions of being alive but actually dead as i thought about and wrestled with this text i think part of mark's intent in lingering in the details of this man's condition is to offer us a warning here's what i mean by that i think mark lingers in the details of this man's condition to offer us a warning about the presence of evil in our lives how on earth could his neighbors get to thinking this was normal they used to bind him with chains but they don't anymore night and day he is always crying out but catch me here like hobbits in the shire they carry on with their day-to-day unaffected probably thinking to themselves on their worst day at least i'm not that guy i think there's a real warning here and the warning is this to be content with sin in our lives is like a daily injection of poison into our spiritual vitality a quote that i think captures this well comes from george eliot she was a 19th century novelist and she says it like this no evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love and desire to continue in and make no effort to escape from uh maybe you could consider getting that by the entry way of your home painted in like a nice script or something to welcome people into your home right it's chipper uh but her point is this the only sin that kills us is the sin we love the sin we choose the sin we hide like the people who lived among the demoniac after a while we can become numb to the presence of sin where we call chaos order the reality of our world is sometimes that sin is what feels normal it's holiness in righteousness that feels unnormal but what a gift we have in jesus to say no i think this is part of paul's point in romans 6 do you know that part of coming to jesus is the gift of choice whereas before you come to know jesus the bible describes us as slaves of sin and death but in jesus you are empowered gifted with the holy spirit able to say no to sin jesus gives us the gift of choice sometimes not all the times sometimes not all the time sometimes we are spiritually apathetic because we are tolerating a certain sin and sin numbs us to the things of god and if sin is numbing us of course we're apathetic maintaining a vibrant spiritual vitality begins it begins with being honest about our sin our story continues in verse six read with me and when he saw jesus from afar he ran and fell down before him and crying out with a loud voice he said what have you to do with me jesus son of the most high god i adjure you by god do not torment me for he was saying to him come out of the man you unclean spirit and jesus asked him what is your name he replied my name is legion for we are many and he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside and they begged him saying send us to the pigs let us enter them so he gave them permission and the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs and the herd numbering about 2 000 rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned into the sea all right well isn't this lively when the middle school minister preaches you get demon pigs drowning themselves all right you're welcome uh undoubtedly a emphasis in this story is jesus's absolute lordship over the spiritual demonic realm uh just like jesus calm the storm he is lord over creation so to here he is lord over demonic powers and in the stories after our text today jesus heals someone raises someone from the dead jesus is lord over death sickness demons and creation right now the focus is on jesus being lord over the spiritual realm this man comes cries out jesus's identity jesus son of the most high god which is so incredibly ironic because do you know who still doesn't get who jesus is the disciples seven verses earlier we read it they quite literally turn to themselves after years of following jesus and go who is this but this man knows who jesus is and sometimes the most unexpected among us get who jesus is um he says my name is legion we are many legion was a term for a few thousand roman soldiers and i don't know if that's supposed to be taken literally or not but given the fact that 2 000 pigs rushed down a steep bank possessed by demons and drowned themselves i'm going to venture a guest to say that the presence of evil in him was powerful uh what bondage he must have been in have you ever considered that how tormented was this man to live days months years of his life hopeless captive to demons and how particular the mercy of jesus to him jesus crosses the sea to save this man everyone else in his town had left him for dead but not jesus our story definitely takes a turn when the demons beg jesus to not torment them but instead to send them into pigs and at this point i would like to once again raise my giant levitical red flag and call unclean uh pigs were unclean in the old testament to eat uh this is how you know again how we're in gentile territory uh jewish people do not farm pigs we are in gentile territory so catch me here there is like a trifecta of uncleanliness jesus comes to heal a man with an unclean spirit mark calls it unclean he lives among the tomb among corpses who were unclean and now there are pigs this is a trifecta of uncleanliness and jesus is lord over each one like fireworks the grand finale of this exorcism is the demons actually enter into pigs 2 000 of them run and drown themselves in the sea uh this is wild like this is weird this doesn't just happen this isn't just pigs running in the water to uh swim this is them drowning themselves this is a year's supply of bacon gone away uh the language the imagery here of the pigs drowning themselves in the sea actually recalls pharaoh's army drowning in the sea just as god rescued his people from the hand of pharaoh by drowning his army in the sea jesus has delivered this man from the hand of satan by drowning his enemies in the sea while this story yes is a warning about sin and evil in our lives i think another part of this story is that it is so bizarre it is so weird because it is meant to encourage you mark is holding up this story and saying if jesus can turn this guy's life around whose life is out of his reach uh do not ever assume that you are too far gone for jesus you are not the exception to his power your life your marriage your addiction is not the footnote to omnipotence jesus christ is resurrected from the dead glorified infinitely powerful to work in your life he is limitlessly alive and he is powerful to work in your life so when we're in the shire when spiritual apathy colors our life it begins by being honest about our sin but the next step is to take a fresh look at jesus take a fresh look at jesus in his word among his people through song because it is so easy to live the christian life only thinking about yourself always looking down always caught up in how we don't measure up and how we're not good enough and we don't let ourselves have our heads lifted and get caught up in jesus when spiritual apathy colors our life take a fresh look at jesus so i think when we find ourselves numb apathetic indifferent to the things of god and we would never say it but we're okay with it when we find ourselves here we begin with being honest about our sin we take a fresh look at jesus but the story doesn't end here the temptation when reading this story is to kind of draw the curtain after the pigs drown and go you know the end and it's kind of the way we read the prodigal son story sometimes where after the prodigal comes home you know we're giving a round of applause and the curtain gets drawn it's like the end but we forget there's an older brother in this story don't let the pigs distract you from the people pay attention pay attention in the gospels to when jesus heals someone or performs some miracle pay attention not only to the miracle but how people respond to him because so often that is where the message of the text is not only in what jesus is doing but how people receive him so we're not going to let ourselves get distracted by pigs we're going to look at the people verse 14. read with me the herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country and people came to see what it was that had happened and they came to jesus and saw the demon-possessed man the one who had had the legion sitting there clothed and in his right mind and they were afraid and those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs and they began to beg jesus to depart from their region as he was getting into the boat the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him and he did not permit him but said to him go home to your friends and tell them how much the lord has done for you how he has had mercy on you and he went away and began to proclaim in the decopolis how much jesus had done for him and everyone marveled uh maybe it's just me but maybe it's you and me uh i can't help but wonder like wasn't there at least someone like one person who was glad jesus just healed the town demoniac like one no the text says that they were afraid they were afraid to the point where they begged jesus to leave beg is a colorful word like the demons begged to be thrown into the pigs and not tormented these people begged jesus to leave this is not jesus when your uber shows up could you please get out of here this is this is leave us now they are afraid they went from being afraid of the demoniac to being afraid of jesus what were they afraid of um i'm willing to guess i don't think the people in this town ever thought this man would be healed i think they had given up on him he was an allowed nuisance in the daily hum of their lives so i think catch me here they were afraid of jesus disrupting their lives disrupting their communal living i mean for sure the pig farmers i mean that is your job to herd pigs jesus shows up and all of your herd goes and drowns itself the people in the town see this and they think oh my gosh like he just drowned all those people's things like what else is he going to do we're going to have a minor economic crisis here we need this guy to leave they were paralyzed by fear jesus shows up trying to communicate truth about himself truth about his authority over the demonic realm they are paralyzed by fear they like hobbits in the shire want to carry on with their life unbothered are you afraid of jesus disrupting your life it's kind of a weird question do you ever sense him prompting you to confess something uh to give something up uh maybe to finally invite that person over for dinner have that conversation with a co-worker do you ever sense him prompting you do you ever sense jesus trying to bring his holy disruption to the ordinary hum of your life because i think i think a main cause of spiritual apathy in our lives comes from us having fenced off areas of our life where we put up signs and we say no holy disruptions allowed but one thing's for sure this man embraced jesus's holy disruption uh right then and there this man is healed clothed in his right mind and then jesus tells him to go home and tell everyone about him i can't help but chuckle here did you realize jesus just saved him from the clutches of satan and then gave him a hard ministry he's like you know all those people who were just begging me to leave yeah go tell them about me this man goes from mad man to minister and what i think is so cool what is so cool at the very end of mark 7 jesus comes back here he performs more signs and instead of begging him to leave it says the people marvel at jesus and i can't help but wonder if it's because the lord blessed this man's preaching ministry he went from being sidelined by satan to be putting on the front lines for jesus our text yes has demons and pigs uh but i think it's about so much more than that i think this is a text about how we respond to jesus and it's as if this story ends by putting before us two paths two ways uh the way of the healed man who embraced jesus's forming of his life or the path of the town's people who heard jesus saw jesus had an invitation from jesus but begged him to leave nudged him away i think the call for us this morning is to be honest about our sin when we find ourselves in the shire on cruise control with jesus indifferent to the things of god unbothered we begin by being honest about our sin we take a fresh look at jesus and then primarily i think we keep in step with jesus's holy disruptions this is the point i've been getting at spiritually vibrant disciples keep in step with jesus's holy disruptions uh brothers and sisters pay attention to the lord's promptings in your life pay attention to your loves and the areas that you're fencing off from him because catch me here i think you'll find that jesus disrupting your life is really jesus saving your life him disrupting your life is not him disordering your life it's him bringing order to chaos you see it's we who are backwards and he sets us straight what we perceive as disruption is really his sanctifying i think with a sermon like this what's so comforting to preachers is that right now the holy spirit is working on each one of you uh bringing someone or something to mind a fresh step of faith that you need to take today that person that you need to forgive that sin that is wearing you out and you finally need to confess it maybe it's a step of faith that you thought about last week matt last week preached on uh quenching the spirit and the spirit brought it to your mind last week there was some fresh step of faith you're going to take but by the time you got to the parking lot you had forgotten about it and today again the lord is stirring something someone in your mind some fresh step of faith some holy disruption that you need to embrace brothers and sisters we're not unaffected when we quench him these decisions numb us as i said earlier i think a main cause of spiritual apathy indifference cruise control with jesus is because there's some area of our lives the lord once laid down to him but we don't want to allow jesus to edit your life today and even though we don't become the most spiritually vibrant disciples overnight we do the same way we do everything else one step at a time let's pray heavenly father we thank you for your love for us uh we thank you for sending jesus jesus we thank you that you are risen from the dead ascended glorified that we your people get to be glad in you so holy spirit i pray you would take our eyes off of us fix us on the gaze of jesus and would we worship you in spirit and in truth holy spirit bless the ministry of your word we pray all of this in jesus name amen

Channel: The Village Church Resources

Views: 2,987

Rating: 4.8620691 out of 5

Keywords: Matt Chandler, The Village Church

Id: Gt9P8fzacI4

Length: 37min 25sec (2245 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 09 2021