If ever a person experienced
transformation in the fullest sense, it was the man Jesus met on the far side
of the Sea of Galilee in the region known as the Gerasenes. Luke 8:26-39
records the bulk of the story. I think Jesus deliberately crossed the sea
because he had a transformation appointment with someone whom everyone else
considered a hopeless case. I would’ve thought he was hopeless too way beyond
reformation much less transformation.
Luke 8:27 (ERV) tells us “When Jesus got out
of the boat, a man from that town came to him. This man had demons inside him.
For a long time he had worn no clothes. He did not live in a house but in the
caves where the dead are buried.” He
was homeless, naked, stinky, and miserable. The man was also tortured by an
evil spirit. “The demon inside the man had often seized him, and he
had been put in jail with his hands and feet in chains. But he would always
break the chains. The demon inside him would force him to go out to the places
where no one lived. Jesus commanded the evil spirit to come out of the man.
When the man saw Jesus, he fell down before him, shouting loudly, “What do you
want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Please, don’t punish me.” (Luke 8:29, ERV).
Everyone in the town probably
thought, “He’s a danger to all of us,
even to himself. He’s crazy. There’s nothing more we could have done anyway.
Goodbye.” Then Jesus arrived. He extended compassion to the man. Jesus
commanded the demons to come out of him, allowing them to enter a herd of pigs
that ran into the sea and drowned (Luke 8:32-33).
What happened to the man? When the
townspeople came to complain about the financial loss of the drowned pigs, they
encountered the transformed man “sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed
and in his right mind.” (Luke 8:35) Note
the hallmarks of transformation: “sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed
and in his right mind.” First, to sit
at the feet of a rabbi meant that one had become his disciple forsaking all to
become a follower, to learn everything possible, and to pattern one’s life
after the rabbi.
Second, “dressed” implies a new standard of behavior: “God has chosen you
and made you his holy people. He loves you. So your new life should be like
this: Show mercy to others. Be kind, humble, gentle, and patient. Together with these things, the most
important part of your new life is to love each other. Love is what holds
everything together in perfect unity.” (Colossians 3:12, 14, ERV)
Third, the phrase “right mind” suggests wholeness. All the fragments of that man’s life
had been gathered, mended, and fitted together. “The Spirit God gave us does not make us
afraid. His Spirit is a source of power and love and self-control.” (2 Timothy 1:7, ERV). The man had
been transformed into a complete person the one God had designed him to be.
The transformed man then begged to go with Jesus and the disciples. He desired to leave the people who had known his shame and the place that had brought him nothing but misery. But Jesus insisted that he stay: “’Go back home and tell people what God did for you.’ So the man went all over town telling what Jesus had done for him.” (Luke 8:39, ERV) Two more marks of transformation are the hunger to be with Jesus, and the desire to tell others what he has done for you. From hopeless and tormented to honored and commissioned. That’s complete change. That’s a transformed spirit and a renewed mind.
So what does transformation look
like for us? Romans 12:1-2 (MSG) says it this way: “So here’s what I want you to do,
God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating,
going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.
Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even
thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside
out. Readily recognize what he wants from you and quickly respond to it. Unlike
the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity,
God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”
That’s what occurred in the
demon-possessed man, and that’s the transformation God desires in you and me. Ask
yourself these transformation questions:
·
Do
I truly seek to pattern my life after Jesus rather than after any cultural
mirage or personal fantasy?
·
Do
I clothe myself in virtues that model Jesus, or do I dress myself in attitudes
that reflect my culture?
·
Do
I truly desire to be the person God designed me to be not my culture’s
caricature of me or my idealistic version of me?
·
Do
I hunger to know Jesus more than I hunger for any other knowledge, status, or achievement?
·
Am
I willing to proclaim what God has done for me wherever I am and to whomever he
places in my path?
Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to live
within us. He alone has the power to complete the transformation within us. Our
job is to allow him to do so with no interference. Transformation is absolutely
possible. Jesus specializes in sin-chained, failure-tormented cases like you
and me. The next time you catch yourself saying “hopeless” about yourself or
someone else, read Luke 8:26-39 again. Rejoice with the transformed man.
Worship your Savior. Then go tell someone about the transformation God has done
in your life.”
“Renewing the mind is a little like refinishing furniture. It is a
two-stage process. It involves taking off the old, and replacing it with the
new. The old is the lies you have learned to tell, or were taught by those
around you. It is the attitudes and ideas that have become a part of your
thinking, but do not reflect reality. The new is the truth. To renew your mind
is to involve yourself in the process of allowing God to bring to the surface
the lies you have mistakenly accepted and replace them with truth. To the
degree that you do this your behavior will be transformed.” (Charles
Stanley)[i]
[i] Inspired by the sermon “Our Path to Transformed
Lives” Sunday December 29, 2019, Pastor Dave Jansen,
CenterPoint Gahanna Church Gahanna, OH.
Sources
used:
·
“Five
Hallmarks of Being Transformed by Christ” by Denise
Loock
·
“Transformation” by Cambridge
Dictionary
No comments:
Post a Comment