Live Free with Josh Howerton - Fully Clothed & Fully Sane | Ep. 424 | Thursday, September 19, 2024

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

Remember, there's nothing in your life that God can't uncover. Jesus will always be there to cover you in His righteousness. This truth is beautifully illustrated in the story found in Mark 5, where Jesus Restores a Demon-Possessed Man. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our Church Online live weekend services on Saturdays and Sundays. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive ‌

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's Word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. Church slash daily drive. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. What is up, everybody? This is the Daily Drive. And I'm Mike Bro, and we've been unpacking a story this week where we see Jesus as this fearless chainbreaker who chases away darkness with light. The scene is this. Jesus and his guys, they pull up on the shore of the other side of the lake where the others live. It's around midnight. It's dark. It's creepy. And this scary dude comes running at them. And this guy is uncontrollable. He's been banished to living chains. up in a graveyard. He is tortured by demons. And when he encounters Jesus, he falls on his knees in front of him. More accurately, the demons fall down before him. And Jesus commands them to leave

this man. And because he says so, they got to go. So the evil spirits try to negotiate with Jesus. Check this out. Verse 11. There happened to be a large herd of pigs feeding on the hillside nearby. Send us into those pigs, the spirits begged. Let us enter them. So Jesus gave them permission. The evil spirits came out of the man and entered the pigs and the entire herd of about 2,000 pigs

plunged down the steep hillside into the lake and drowned in the water. Now a couple of quick things here. The demons wanted to enter to pigs because they're bent on destroying anything. They hate to be idle. And Jesus gives them permission because

he has that authority. And he doesn't completely put them out of commission. Yet, he would do that on the cross. Where it says in Colossians chapter 2, verse 13, and following, you were dead because of your sins and because of your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his vision.

victory over them on the cross. But so because of the cross of Jesus Christ, evil has no ultimate power over anybody who embraces that forgiveness. Jesus Christ has stripped the way Satan's power to hold us to the debt of our sins, and through the cross and empty tomb, he has canceled any victory party the demonic world wanted to throw. Now, culturally, it didn't get much worse than being a pig herder. The pig herders didn't live in the burial caves like this guy,

but they weren't far from it. They were outcast, too. In fact, maybe the only person who might make these pig herders feel better about their status was this wild dude that was living in the tombs. And now, thanks to Jesus, they're going to be in big trouble. So they run back into town and wake everybody up to tell them what happened. Well, the townspeople hurry out to the scene with lanterns and hand, and this is what they find.

Verse 15. A crowd soon gathered around Jesus, and they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons. He was sitting there, fully clothed, and perfectly sane. And they were all afraid. This guy who everybody knew about, the crazy guy that they chained up and banished to the graveyard, is now calm. He's in his right mind, and don't miss this.

He's fully clothed. Now, I can't prove this, but if I were a betting man, I'm guessing it was Jesus who dressed him. I would just bet that Jesus took off his outer garment and wrapped it around this guy. Here's the deal. There is nothing that could be uncovered about you that cannot be covered by the grace of Jesus Christ. When they find this man, he has been clothed by Jesus, covered in its grace, covered in his peace, covered in his freedom.

I love the truth of Isaiah 61, verse 10. It says, I am overwhelmed with joy in the Lord, my God. For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation and draped me in a robe of righteousness. One of the verses of one of my favorite old hymns simply says, When he shall calm with trumpet sound, O may I then in him be found, dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne. What once belonged to Jesus now belongs to this man.

This man who was once known only by his self-inflicted wounds, his nakedness, his psychotic outbursts, his dangerous behavior, has now been clothed by Jesus. Jesus has broken his chains and wrapped him up in grace and peace. And man, he wants to do that for you. Listen, you're not too bad. You're not too far gone. You're not in too deep.

You're not too hopeless. Your chains are not too strong. Come to him. Cry out to him. Humble yourself and ask him to break the chains. Ask him to stop the crazy. spin cycle you might be in, and then cooperate with whatever he asked you to do. And I'm praying you'll do that today. And I'll see you back here tomorrow. Have a good day.

Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays and Sundays. For more information about all the digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lakepoint.compt.ch slash daily drive. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out.