A Kingdom Presence in Exile 2: Don't Waste Your Pain by Brandi J. Ray

 

As I was working on my initial or trial sermon, I was given an outline to follow, including sharing my conversion and receiving the call stories. Playing around with what to include, I transitioned from the Scripture to my personal transparency with this statement:

Most people are typically afraid and ashamed to share why they needed Jesus.

For many of us, our conversion story isn't as glamorous as we know it to feel. It feels glamorous because we have finally understood and embodied the reconciliation with God that has been promised to us. So much so that we are heirs of God with Christ (Romans 8:17). Paul tells us in the passage that if we indeed share in Christ's sufferings, we will also share in His glory. Yet, our conversion comes with a cost. Our transformation comes with us denying ourselves (Matthew 16:24). And many of us have fancied our former selves around a particular shame we no longer wish to share. 

Although I was born and raised Christian, who would want to follow a minister who once left the church? For many, that story of doubting God may be something that I should be ashamed of. But, I have come to rally around the experience and relationship that I built with God, that I have the confidence in God to know that my story was all the purposeful for His will. However, for someone else, their battles with depression and suicide, or alcoholism and substance abuse –our demon(s), if you will, make us feel shameful. We like to talk about how we were saved yet, don't want to talk about what we were saved from.

I've been taking evangelism this semester. Because of the titles and positions in the church, I thought evangelism was a term for people who studied and were degreed for the position. Yet, I am breaking away from the hierarchal attitudes once taught and am learning that evangelism is all of ours' call. What good is our individual state of worship, the idea of raising hands and even shouting in church? What good is our servant evangelism, being kind to others because Christ called us to bear fruit? What good is any of these things if we are not fulfilling the Great Commission, Matthew 28:16-20, where all of us are called to go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe all that Christ has commanded?

I bring you this evangelism definition today; I share this snippet about our demons with you because while Christ is the message, many of us still need a Christ-For-Dummies lesson. That lesson isn't just the Gospel. For many of us, we wholeheartedly know the theological implications of our faith. However, many of us still need to grasp what it means for Christ to save you, to take you from your former self and make you brand new, not to be conformed any longer to this world but to be transformed by the renewal of your mind. And that type of teaching, that type of witnessing – takes a little more transparency than what many of us are willing to expose and divulge.

"Return home and tell [about] all the great things God has done for you." So the man went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him. – Luke 8:39 [AMP]

As I have been through a very distinct season with my life, I finally got a grip over my temper tantrums with God and said, "What is it that you want me to do with this?" Because, by far, I know God enough to know that there is a reason for every season. And although sounding very cliché, each hardship in your life does, in fact, have a reason. In reading devotionals, I came across a line that said, "Don't waste your pain." It was then where I knew that even if just for this time in my season and longing, that God wanted to move me from the idea of being hidden and private to public worship of Him.

At this point in the Luke text, Christ's ministry was underway at total capacity. Christ was doing massive things in such tiny dosages. He was turning water into wine here, he was walking on seas there, he was feeding multitudes of crowds here, and healing the lame and the blind there. All the while planting little seeds that would go forth and blossom into big harvests. In layman's terms for you, Jesus was slowly showing others that He was the Messiah, the Son of God, and bringing people step by step into a full belief of His divinity. 

And throughout the Gospels, you see the response very differently each time. Some of the Gospels give straightforward stories, while Gospels like John fill in those details differently. You see people like the Pharisees, growing more of disdain with each miracle. You see the disciples growing more in faith with each impossible transforming to the possible by the hands of Christ. 

So, Christ gets off the boat. In Luke 8:27, the text says a man possessed with demons cried out in dread and terror. Asking Christ, "What business do we have in common with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?" It takes me to a very recent and growing favorite passage of mine in James 2:19 when James says, "You believe that God is one; you do well [to believe that]. The demons also believe [that], and shudder and bristle [in awe-filled terror—they have seen His wrath]!" This man that questions Christ when Christ arrives is said to have been stricken for years, isolated, homeless, and naked because he was filled with demons. The demons in this man were more than capable of identifying God when He came into their presence. Let me pause the story real quick. Let me set the scene for you.

Have you ever been so deep in your sin that your spirit is terrorized when the Son of God is in your midst? You don't have to answer that to me. But, I'll be honest with you. I never forget that period when I rebelled against God and made accomplices with the demons in my life. My grandma would always come and want to pray for me. She'd always ask me to go to church. And my soul would shudder. She didn't sit right with my spirit. Not because her spirit was off but because mine was parlaying with my demons, and I knew that her Christ-like presence, the one that would look to heal me and pray for me, would counteract the spiritual warfare coming against me.

When the demons speak on behalf of this man and ask Jesus, "what business do we have together," They're asking Him, what could something so holy and righteous want to do with me? They shuddered in awe-filled terror in knowing that He was powerful enough, sovereign enough to stand against the army of them. And it's said to be an army because when Christ asks the man for his name, he responds back, "Legion." And Legion was a reference to the largest unit in the Roman army. That man was filled with many demons.

I read a blog or heard something not too long ago about our identity. It said something to the effect that the enemy of lies is so solid and conniving that he will have you believe your sin is your identity. So much so that you begin to identify yourself as the demon. I am an alcoholic, you say. I am a drug addict, you say. And the more you say, "I am *inserts demon's name*," the more you feel attached to this identity. Theologians question whether or not the man's name was "Legion" or if the demons were speaking out and identifying themselves. Nonetheless, we can surmise that the longer you are friends with your demons, the more acquainted and accustomed to this identity you become. So, that you begin to forget your true identity – that you are a child of God, the child of the Most High God, an heir of His glory and salvation. 

The next part of the story is that the demons were more than afraid. The first thing they do is break the chains and the shackles that the man was confined to. You see, when our spirit recognizes that something more powerful has come to challenge it, we begin to try and exert some fear over it. We say to our opponent, "let me show you that you don't want to mess with me." Yet, Jesus wasn't taken aback. Instead, when they noticed this, they begged Him, "please don't put us into the abyss."

A note to make here is how the devil cannot move without God's permission. Don't get it twisted; the devil is quite powerful in himself. I am not going to discredit Satan's capabilities. But even the devil knows that there is still an Authority he has to follow. So, Jesus honored the request. You might ask, "why would Jesus do such a thing with the devil?" I'd tell you to go visit Job for that answer. Nonetheless, it should bring us some form of confidence to know that if the master of lies still has to obey the Master of the Universe, that even when our demons come upon us – they too will have to answer to Him one day.

Jesus heals the man, and the demons flee from him into some pigs and drown. When the people saw what Jesus had done, they were frightened. As I grow into my ministry, I have had to make some tough decisions about my friendships. I have learned that I won't remain friends with everyone I was once friends with. Not because I think I am better, but because I know that many will be frightened. When you begin to disregard your demons and become new in Christ, people who are not there yet, will start to ask the same questions the demons asked Christ when He arrived, "what business do you have with me?" 

The text ends with the man being more than blessed at being healed, wanting to go with Christ. Yet, Christ gives him a very particular command: return home and tell them about the great things God has done for you.

Those friends who will ask about your business together, the ones who will be frightened at your healing and newness, need to hear what God has done for you. They don't need the surface story that says, "I got with Jesus and I am healed." They need to hear how deep in your illness, how acquainted with your demons you were – so they can come to learn how God moves. How God will look past the person of you and into the eyes of the demons making a residence out of your soul and will cause them to shudder. They need to know that even amid something so powerful like the devil having a hold on your soul, he is still powerless to the extent that even he has to submit to the Great Master's Authority. They need to hear how every battle you fought and the army of demons surrounding you can be cast out with one word from God. 

I promise you, the message is Christ. But the greater story comes not only in being saved but what it was that God saved you from. 

May you be encouraged today to share how God has healed you, that you too can remember it is our renewed mind which is our spiritual worship (Romans 12:1-2).

Be kind to yourself, 

Mrs. Brandi J. Ray