Turn in your Bibles in the New Testament to Mark chapter five. We continue in Mark this morning. Mark chapter five, reading the first verses one to 21. Begin looking at this passage this morning. We won’t finish it. But before we hear Mark chapter five, let’s ask the Lord’s blessing upon the preaching and the reception of that word. Let’s pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we do come once more before you. We thank you for the good news of the gospel and for Christ Jesus, our Savior, who not only is the gospel, but who emptied himself and has promised to come and to preach the gospel to us, Lord, by the Spirit, from every page of this, his word and from every line of every page. And we pray now as we Once again, open Your Word that Your Holy Spirit would open our eyes that we may see wonderful truths written there that You have for us, Your truth, Lord. And we pray that by His power, our hearts may burn within us as though we were walking, though He were walking with us by the way, even as our eyes are upon His Word. We thank You, Lord, for all the blessings that You have poured out upon us and upon generations past. in faithfulness and power and love. And we pray that again today, Heavenly Father, that you would make our experience full of Christ as we come to his word and through it to Christ himself. We ask, Lord, hear us and help us. And we ask all this in Christ’s name and all God’s people together said, amen. Amen. Mark chapter five, starting at verse one. Please give your full attention once more. This is the word. of God. They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of Gerasenes, and when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him. Out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, 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. 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. 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? And 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 in the sea. And 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 begged, and they began to beg Jesus to depart from their country 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 and how he has had mercy upon you. And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him and everyone marveled. So for the reading of God’s word, you may be seated. Unless we forget, let us declare together what we have just heard. This is the word of the Lord. Amen. Well, I remember when I was a sophomore in high school, that odd time when you were a wise fool, you know, that’s what sophomore means, a wise fool. 10th grade, and I’d broken my hand on the first day of that year in football practice. And it left me in a cast for four weeks, of course. And for everything, I had to use my left hand, my non-dominant hand, which is extremely clumsy. Some of you may have gone through that little exercise, that experiment, trying to use your non-dominant hand for a day or an hour or to write something. Those of you who have had to have a cast or been incapacitated on your dominant side know how truly awful it is to do that for any length of time, let alone a month or for longer. It’s extremely clumsy, not comfortable, right? Have you ever written with your, again, your non-dominant hand? Everything, for a month, I would have to do this. I remember trying to sign my name with my left hand, and you end up pulling back through your own signature. It was terrible, let alone dressing or washing or eating, cutting food. Everything was off and odd and difficult and out of sync within my body. It was comical and ridiculous, difficult, painful, working against myself. Well, not so comical and tragic, not so comical and tragic, rather, is human nature after the fall. After the fall, nothing’s working together, right, as it should. Not the case before the fall, though, right? Before is harmony. And when was the last time, I wonder, that you reflected upon or thought deeply about that, about God’s creation before the fall of man? the world that God had created and filled and placed man into, the beauty and the harmony and the symphony of that world, and the peace and the calm, the tranquility, if you will. Most of us don’t do that enough, right? Reflect upon God’s good creation and what it was, indeed, and what it will be. Most of us don’t do that, but we should, right? Because what? The heavens declare the glory of God, the psalmist tells us. And the heavens, the glory of the work of his hands. And so perhaps you could meditate later this day, fill up your Lord’s day, meditating about talking amongst yourselves about God’s creation. It’s pre-fall for his glory and for his praise, right? A good exercise, a good thing to think upon in a world so full of ugliness and non-beauty. So that’s the world, right? Consider not just the beauty and the peace of God’s good creation, But what it was like to live at that point in a pre-fall world, what was it like to live at that time? What would that have been like? Working, if you will, or walking in God’s creation before the fall. All that Adam set his hand to do, all the tasks that he endeavored to accomplish, everything working together, working good as it should. His gardens, his seeds bringing forth fruit, flourishing. No thorns, no thistles we know before this time. No creeping things working against him, like the gross things that creep and work against us in our gardens. No worries of creation working against his labors, but always impeccably working with him prior to the fall. Not only the word or the walking, but think of the woman pre-fall, right? The marriage or man and woman together pre-fall. Think of that together. Consider the peace and the unity of purpose in that relationship before the fall. What would it have been like? What would life be like or feel like without sin? What would it be like to have no inner stress or friction or turmoil whatsoever? Never lying, never going to rest or parting from your spouse with regret or remorse, never feeling proud or entitled, never longing or lusting for anything beyond what is rightfully yours. Imagine the freedom of that. Imagine that. No more feeling rejected, no more being alone, no sense of the crushing stress and heat from the built-up pressures and wrongness and corruption of living lives in a fallen world with fallen people, with other fallen people, yourself a fallen person, no broken relationships, no more hurtful words spoken to you, no more hurtful words spoken by you to others. Incredible thing. Pre-fall, no pain, no health maladies, no such thing as heart disease or cancer or deflating discs or broken bones. No such thing as infant mortality. No such thing as loneliness and abandonment or mental disorder. All of these things that plague so many of us now that we see as normal realities of life. It would have been non-existent in a pre-fall world. No fear, right? Totally gone, unknown, envy, hate. Not a reality, right? Imagine that, actual true peace of mind and body. This is what it would have been like, right, prior to the fall in some way. But that’s not the world that we find ourselves in, right? That’s not the world that we live in. It’s not the world we live in. And as you hear those problems and all these difficulties, as you consider even your own consequences, your own existence, You know with certainty that that’s not the world that you live in. It’s not the world that I live in. And we see this all around us, evidence of this screaming to us, right? We live it out ourselves. It’s not just around us, but we are fully aware that there are many things that plague us on a regular basis. Not so in the pre-fall world. This pre-fall world is not the world into which you were born, but it’s the world as it was created. not in chaos, not in calamity. Oftentimes, the world in which we live is very much working against us in all that we do, it seems, whether it be by nature, by flood, hurricane, whatever it is, plagues. This world not always cooperating with our desire, not always working in purpose together. It’s more like that caste hindering, harassing, holding us back. We all know this, right? We build things, and the weather destroys them. We plant things, and things die. They don’t last. The nature of this world itself works against us in this present world, unlike it would have prior to the fall. We must recognize the great fall that has taken place, recognize the great rescue and the redemption and the solution to that by the Lord. But that’s not all. I mean, it’s worse than that, right? Because you have your own personal turmoil and issues. You have your own sin and guilt and your own remorse for things that you’ve done. You have things that you should be remorseful for that you don’t even realize at this time, right? You have things that you look back upon and wish you could take back, but you can’t. You have your own inner struggles that you fight with. You have your own places and shortcomings in your life, and you have personal relationships that have collapsed around you. You’ve probably been the cause of some relationship collapse yourself, right? That is the world in which you and I live. And add to that, again, as I said, the physical weakness, the diseases that afflict so many of us, even in this room, we’ve all seen and gone through these things. These things, the Bible says, are what? Effects of that fall. We know them intimately. If we’re to look and be honest with ourselves, we all sense this inner disappointment for many, many, many issues in our lives, and we will continue to sense this and encounter this as we grow in our sanctification. We know our own radical, personal imperfection, and therefore we have a longing. We know that longing that’s universal for more, right, for something more, something better. Deep down, each one of us longs for something better. Christian and non-Christian both have this longing. Every one of us longs for a day when all of this brokenness, all of this wrongness will be made right and whole again. And you can’t look, you can’t open a book or go to a movie or be at music or philosophy, whatever it might be, down throughout the ages without encountering this common hunger and longing from the hearts of mankind. the resolution of these things, right? This longing for man is common across cultures and times, this hope for wholeness, the longing for resolution. This kind of longing resides in the human experience, this desire for the story to come to a happy ending, if you will. Many of the atheistic existential philosophers who you’ve probably read or studied or encountered, I’m sorry, in college, those ones who’d gone mad, committed suicide, those are the ones that are actually consistent in their own worldview. They’re the ones that are actually honest with what they say they believe and trying to live it out because they saw that if this world is all that there is, there is no resolution. There is no peace. There is no reason for any of it. It’s not just merely a frustrating bummer of a life, but it’s cruel and meaningless, even torturous. And in that, and in this world, unless somebody acts, unless somebody does something to change the direction of that current manner of life, all is truly frustrating and meaningless. There is no point, there is no purpose, there is no justice, there is no resolution, let alone peace. And so, We long for a day, right? We long in hunger for a day where we might be freed from all of our enemies, right? Enemies within and enemies without. All of the strains and pains of life, all of the losses, all of the crosses, all of the hurts. And I know this is some bummer, downer language, right? But it’s true, and apart from the gospel, apart from God’s gift of forgiveness, and life in Christ, that bummer, downer life is all that there is here, and the worst is yet to come. So is there hope? Is there hope? And if there is, where does hope come from? Where does our hope come from in the midst of such longing? Is there resolution to that hunger and that longering for something more? From whence comes hope, you might say, and what, if anything, does Jesus, What does Christ offer to deal with all of these problems? If he does it all, does he offer anything to give us a hope in an existence full of these things, full of these pains and turmoils and problems? My prayer is that we’ll see that Jesus indeed does provide hope for us as we turn to Mark 5 this morning and for the next few weeks. We’re just gonna be able to just look, just dip into it this morning. So let us turn there, turn that with me and look at the first five verses of Mark chapter five. Because there we find indeed that Christ provides peace. He is the peace provider, the provider of hope in the midst of all of these things that we find in this world in which we find ourselves. Christ can and does provide peace in the midst of life, the stuff of life. He is the peace provider because why? He is powerful. He is powerful over creation. He is powerful over corruption, and he is powerful over recreation, as we’ll see in this passage. versus 1 to 21 in total. But he’s powerful over, again, chaos, corruption, and then recreation. We’ll see this over the next few weeks, but first let’s look at Christ’s power over the chaos of creation, the chaos of creation. Mark continues this theme from the passage before us today. And the passage previous that led into this one, our text this morning, remember, there is sea, and there is fear, and all that that stood for, and on and on. And once more, let me read for us these first five verses. Coming from off the sea, the journey over to the land, and they came to the other side of the sea, the country of the Gerasenes, and when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately they met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit. And he lived among the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, 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 peace. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains, he was crying out, cutting himself with stones. So you go from chaos to calm, right back into chaos, the chaos of creation. This is what this man is a picture of. And we know when we look at Genesis 1 and 2, right? We read Genesis 3, but Genesis 1 and 2, we know when we look at those, they show us a picture of what God intended for us in his world. his creation. And as created man, we see a place of peace and ultimately a place that was to be under control of man. Man was to control this land. He was the height of creation to be God’s under shepherd over this creation. But that’s not what we see in our text this morning. That’s not what we see post fall, particularly typified in our text this morning. entering back into chaos with this man, with the unclean spirit, foaming, crying out to Christ. We get a very different picture when we open up Mark chapter five. In a place of peace, right, the calm out of that storm that’s been gone, there’s upheaval, right? Upheaval again, like on the sea, the raging sea, in the place of man, Instead of man keeping and tending and controlling and guarding creation, there’s all manner of destruction evidenced here in this man. Not abundant life, but there’s death all around. And nothing is as it should be, right? Things are not as they should be. Even as we know, even as that longing is evidence of for something more, things are not as they should be. And as we look at verse 4, we see the passage mirroring the story from last week, right? The storm upon the sea, right? In verse 4 again, he often been bound with shackles and chains, wrenched them apart. He broke the shackles into pieces. Christ brought his disciples again into the boat, and as they crossed the water, in the midst of that travel, the waters began to rage against them, upheaval, and it began to be threatened. It threatened the existence of Christ and his men, right? The creation itself acting against man rather than being subdued underneath it. Creation showing us in its actions something is terribly, terribly wrong, radically wrong with this world. Something has gone terribly wrong from how God had intended originally, when the ocean itself is acting as an enemy, right? Seeking to destroy Christ and his man. Remember, from there we saw that this shows us that the sea is often portrayed in scripture as how, as a place of judgment, as a place of death and destruction. We saw this, remember, brings to mind Noah’s flood, right? The flood, the great flood of Noah, where God unleashes the waters and those waters uncreate, if you will, all that had been made. And ultimately they become what? A grave, a watery grave, all of humanity minus one family, Noah and his sons. The same waters we read in the story of the Red Sea, where God’s enemies are what? They’re put under that watery death. And again, those waters become a grave, a place of judgment for the enemies of God, a place of undoing and uncreating for those who hate God. The sea is a place of death, as we saw. And recall the disciples. Recall these men who had been with him. They were experienced fishermen. They came to Christ, and they said what, you recall? What do these men who had been committed to him, been faithful and listened to him say? Don’t you care that we’re dying? Don’t you care that we’re perishing? Those who had rejected Christ were safe on the seashore, but they’re in danger. Their life is slipping away in their minds, those who followed Christ. This was not just discomfort. They weren’t just getting nauseated because of the rocking of the boat, right? They weren’t just getting green and seasick. They were worried that this water would become their grave. And so they cry out to Christ to wake him up because death is truly approaching. But in that story, we see Christ brings peace with the word. He speaks. and all is calm, right? He speaks the world into calmness. And right after that calm, that kind of a resolution, as I said, chaos breaks out again. And as we turn to the story, we turn into it, Christ has brought this raging sea and made a peaceful, placid, right, calm lake. But as soon as he steps off, there’s this raging man. Chaos returns from raging to raging. Notice the description of the man as we run into it in chapter 5 once more. He lived among the tombs, no one could bind him. He’s chained. It says he wrenched them apart, broke the shackles. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the mountains he lived and he cut himself, crying out. What was once a man, as you listen to this description, is now being described in terms of a rabid animal. of a mad animal or even an untamed seed. Similar language. All that that man was created to be at the beginning of scripture is horribly reversed. And we know the macro, right? The beautiful, merciful manner in his ultimate resolution, don’t we? We know how this is resolved ultimately and finally, right? We know this. because the Lord has told us this. And we know because the Holy Spirit in first Corinthians five tells us of that reparation, that resolution and bringing new creation. This is just a brief outline of what we’ll see throughout this whole passage. It’s glorious. Indeed, the Lord undoing what has been undone and bringing that new creation for those in Christ is a good thing. For those who are not, it is not a good thing. New creation will come. 1 Corinthians 5, verses 1 to 5 say, for we know that if, it’s truly glorious language, for we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, wanting to put on our heavenly dwelling. If indeed putting it on, we may not be found naked. You see references there to Genesis. Once again, they found themselves ashamed. Verse 4, for while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened, not that we would be unclothed. And then listen to the glorious language. Not that we would be unclothed. Once again, we are still in this tent. We groan. We groan, being burdened. Not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed. so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life, right? What is mortal may be swallowed up with life. Isn’t that the opposite of how we usually think of these things, where death is wrapped up and snuffed out by death? Paul says, what is mortal will be swallowed up by life in the clothing that we receive. And you know a little further down what it says. In that most glorious passage, And verse 14, for the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died. And he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised, no longer living for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. And then verse 17, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, He’s a new creation. The old has passed. Behold, the new has come. And what a glorious thing, what Paul brings here, all of the import, all that is freighted into this language, because really what it says is, if anyone is in Christ, new creation, right? It means the whole of it. You’re a part of that, individually, yes, but part of that whole new creation. The old has passed away, including the sea, Revelation tells us. But behold, the new has come, the new creation. Have you grasped that? Have you thought and considered that? The oldest past for you, dear Christian, you belong to Christ. You identify with him, you’re united to him. You comprehend, you grasp, you trust in the forgiveness given to you, the forgiveness merited for you by Christ. You are his and he is yours. Have you grasped the glory of this reconciliation, this great exchange that’s been offered to you? The glory of that message, right? Where the hand of eternal blessing falls on you, but you didn’t deserve it because the hand of God’s wrath and curse fell on his eternal son. New creation, new creation. Christ’s work, that great exchange renders you the righteousness of God. What an incredible thought, what an incredible truth that we are told here. He became saying that you might become the righteousness of God. Now those in Christ, not only in pain and loss, right? God provided for all and pleads to you, there is more, there is more. Come, come for the first time, Come again and come again and come always come. Let us be reconciled to God. Let us be reconciled to God, brothers and sisters. Let us live to him and live for him out of gratitude for all that he did for us, because we are freed when we are saved. We are free to begin to keep the law with joy because we love him and we want to. Let us live to Him, never forgetting the glory of that truth in all that we do for all of our lives. And as you live on this side of the consummation, on this side of the completion, the finalization of that glorious new creation of which you are a part, already but not yet finalized, until He comes again and He performs that final, that final glorious tear wiping of your eye for the last time. And He ends mourning and crying and death forever. Until then, and for this time in between, dear Christian, remember and be assured and be secured that that which was needed to be done has been accomplished for you in Christ, if you belong to him. God in Christ has reconciled you to himself. This is our comfort. This is our peace. This is our sweet hope. When we never overlook that or take that for granted, May that never become normal to us, but glorious, glory unto glory. Whether it’s an inconvenience of something like a broken hand, or the raging sin within your own lives, or any other thing, in Christ there is restoration, there is new creation, and wholeness, and meaning, and life, and peace. Ephesians 2, Christ himself is our peace. here in this life and the next. You see who we are? You see who you are, brothers and sisters in Christ, if you belong to him. The offer still waits for anyone who will call on the name of Christ. You see who you are in him, unite it to him. Therefore, let us be who we are. and live from that identity. Give him praise, brothers and sisters, for life, for moment by moment by moment, life, now and for always. Go from here, brothers and sisters, praising and loving this Savior, telling of others of this Jesus, and living for your King. Amen. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you and we praise you for this wonderful truth. Lord, we thank you that Though we in our fallen state were indeed rebels, fallen, children of wrath, raging against you, that you subdued us, that you conquered our hearts, that you give us life in Christ our Savior. Father, help us to trust and believe these things that you tell us. Prepare us to continue to learn for all of our lives and appreciate and grow. Oh, just the magnitude of all of that. that we would be refreshed and that we would delight even through the strains of this life, even through those things, the sufferings that we go through. Lord, help us to delight in them because we know who our Savior is. We have the guarantee of the spirit of our true home and glory in the sure eradication of all these things for your glory, Lord. Help us, we pray. We are weak, but you are strong and mighty. of us to glory in Jesus, our savior, now and forever. We ask it in his name, amen.