A New Spiritual Life

I'm also thankful you're with us today. We're beginning a new message series called The New Normal and as you can see I am in Norfolk, Virginia. I'm in Norfolk kind of looking over Hampton Roads, all of Hampton Roads this morning. And it's interesting that as you get out of your car and you start walking through the streets and you walk through different parts of the city, you notice that it's a little different. There's a new norm going on.

For many of you there is a new norm and there's a lot of things that are different right now and you're getting used to that new norm. And that's the tagline today, right? The new norm. This is about the new norm and we need to be prepared for the new norm coming out of this. So many things to think about today.

So that's why I'm introducing this message series called The New Norm because I want us to look at things a little differently. Think about 9-11 back when I was in college. That happened, the moment that happened. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I was walking out of my marketing statistics class and I heard chatter in the hallway that a plane had hit the World Trade Center and nobody knew what it was.

A lot of commotion about it, uncertainty about what was happening. Most people at the time thought it was just maybe an accident or something wasn't communicated properly in the travel of the plane. The satellite wasn't hitting well or something like that. And then by the time I got to my next class, which was my sales management class. I remember my sales management class because I had this wide-eyed professor.

He was kind of a bit on the crazy side and he was very passionate about what he taught about. But we were walking into the class and we heard the next part of the story. That a plane had hit the other World Trade Center and what a, we were just amazed at what was happening. We didn't know what to do. We didn't know what to do.

We were shocked. And that day, needless to say, we didn't have class. And I remember my wide-eyed professor sitting on the edge of his seat and he was talking to us and giving us this basically pep talk about what had just happened and how we can be encouraged. But he said this, and I'll never forget it. He said, life will never be the same again.

Life will never be the same again. Normal will be completely different from this day forth. We thought that it was just, you know, him being radical. But it was true. Things were different from that day forth.

Travel was never the same. The way we thought about terrorism was never the same. It was not just some distant story in another country. It actually, in fact, happened to us. And we saw the greater risk involved of being in this country.

And never again would we think of our world, our country, the way that we have before. And if you were post or pre-9-11, pre-9-11, if you were during that time, you know the changes that took place. It's kind of the normal now, but then it was a completely new normal. Well, what if I were to talk about that as we come out of this and we're thinking about a new normal? What if I were to ask you, what if we looked at a different new normal?

What if the new normal we were looking at was some completely something internal, not necessarily external? And during this time, we've had time to pause. We've had time to think about things. A lot of us have grown closer to God during this time. Our prayer lives are stronger because of the uncertainty.

We're more connected to God probably than we've ever been. But we're coming out of this. And my question for you, what is your new normal going to be with God? Rather it being these external things that are going to be different, are we going to go back to the same way it was before? Because if I remember correctly, the way it was before was busyness and things and about the world and all those things we put in our life to keep us from connecting to God.

But what if our new normal was different? What if our new normal was something that we took forward steps in rather than taking back steps back to a regular normal again? So let me take you to Scripture in Matthew 11. Jesus talks about a new normal. It's a very popular Scripture, and many of you have heard this before, one of Jesus' teachings.

And He talks about a yoke, a yoke that He wants to give us. If you'll turn to Matthew 11, 28 through 30, and we don't have, right now we don't have the Scripture at the lower thirds section. So if you have a Bible, if you have an app, if you want to pull that open and just follow along with us, that will be great. Here's what He says. See, He's giving people a new way to think, a new way to live.

He's offering them something different, and He talks about a yoke. And in that day, yokes were very common. Everybody probably had a yoke for agricultural purposes. It was an agricultural industry. People were out plowing and working, and that was a main job description for most people in that day.

And most yokes were labeled in two different categories. One of those categories was your Walmart yoke, your standard yoke, the yoke that you would go to the store and buy, anybody could afford. The problem with these yokes, though, is they worked, but they weren't the best yokes. When they laid them on the oxen, and when the oxen pulled, it usually dug into them because it wasn't fitted according to that oxen or that animal. And it made it very difficult for the animal, made it much more difficult for the animal.

They got the job done, but not as easy as they normally would. It was a heavy yoke. It was not a custom yoke. But those who could afford it would go out and get the tailored yoke. The tailored yoke was custom-fitted for each animal.

So when they put the animals together, they had the perfect position, the perfect amount of circumference around the neck, perfect of everything for that animal so that when they pulled, it was a light and it was an easy yoke. So when he talked about yokes in that day, they knew exactly what he was talking about, that this was a yoke that was easy. And the yoke that they normally bear, that we normally bear, may be a heavy yoke, and it might not be a physical yoke, but a spiritual yoke, a spiritual yoke that is heavy. And our souls and our spirits tend to be heavy. But God wants to give us something different.

Jesus teaches us that His yoke is easy and His burden is light, a new normal. I love how Paul puts it in 1 Thessalonians, and this kind of sets the groundwork for future messages in this series. And it says this in 1 Thessalonians 5, 23 and 24. It says, May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through, and may your whole spirit and your soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.

So we're going to look at the body, the soul, and the spirit. So in the coming weeks, we're going to talk about emotional health. How we can come out of this with a new normal in our emotions. We're going to talk about how we can become new normal in our bodies, in our physical lives, with our families. All those things that are valuable and help.

We're going to walk you through that in the Christian life, in Christian living. How you can wear an easy yoke. But today I want to talk about spiritual. The spiritual. A new spiritual life.

Because if you don't get the spiritual right now, Nothing else will work. You can do all the right things. You can walk all the right ways. You can have all the healthy habits possible. But unless the spiritual is right, you have nothing.

And no matter where you are in your spiritual life, some of you are new Christians and you're just starting off on these steps. Some of you have been Christians for a long time. Maybe you're die-hard Christians, but you can always take a step closer to Christ. Some of you have been religious your entire life. That's where I came from.

A background where I was very religious, but I didn't have a personal relationship with Jesus. And some of you are walking that. You're doing all the right things. You're thinking the right ways. You go to church because your family went to church.

And you kind of adopted Christianity because of your family and your denomination or whatever your background is. And then for some of you, you just don't really know God at all. You're just trying to figure this thing out and this is your first time really listening. Or maybe you've listened a few times and you're just kicking around Jesus to see if this is for you. Wherever you are in your spiritual walk, it's important that we get the spiritual right first.

Because without the spiritual, we can't get the emotional, we can't get the physical, we can't get the soul part. We can't get all those things that we need to live a successful life in Jesus Christ. Now let me say this real quick. When Jesus says the yoke is easy, it doesn't mean the external pressures of the world aren't easy. Sometimes they're hard.

Disease still comes. Sickness still comes. People die. Things happen. But you can have a spiritually light yoke.

You can have a healthy spiritual life. You can live without this heaviness on your heart. And I think it's really cool if we look at the story in the Gospel of where Jesus is confronted by a demon-possessed man. And we can learn three things with this. If you'll follow along with me, if you'll turn to Mark, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Mark is one of the Gospels Mark wrote. And he shares about Jesus being confronted by this demonic man, this demonically-possessed man. And if you'll follow along with me, starting with verse 1, chapter 5, verse 1. And we're going to go through 5. And we're just going to stick with this today.

And we're going to talk about and break this down a little bit for you today. And we're also going to kind of compare it to Luke's Gospel as well because there's a little more information in that Gospel. So if you'll follow along with me. So they arrived at the other side of the lake in the region of the Gerasenes, which was a region of about a few cities that were gathered together. I think there were about 10 cities or so that were in that area.

And so he's arriving into this region. He's coming with his disciples across the water. They've probably been ministering or just taking a break. And they roamed along to different places because they were sharing the good news. And they come across this man.

And here's what happens. And when Jesus climbed out of the boat, the man possessed by the evil spirit came out of the tombs to meet him. This man lived in a burial caves and could no longer be restrained, even with chains. So he was in the burial caves. He was isolated.

He was pushed out of his city. And he was in these burial caves, a very, very dark, kind of lonely place. And he was in chains. And it says this, whenever he was put into chains and shackles, as he often was, he snapped the chains from his wrist and smashed the shackles. So we see that they put the shackles on him.

He's very strong. Something inside of him is taking over a spirit, an evil spirit. He's breaking the chains. But they're putting the chains back on him. It's like this bondage he can't get out of.

He can't move past. And no one was strong enough to subdue him. And then it says this, day and night he wandered, he wandered among the burial caves in the hills, howling and cutting himself with sharp stones. So I think we can grab three things out of what happened here, out of this story, about what the spiritual condition of someone who is far from God looks like. And we can assess our own lives in this way.

Number one, the man was isolated. Isolation. Isolation. The worst place you could possibly be is in a place where you are alone. Being alone.

Yeah, for some of you, you're like introverts and you're, hey, I'm going to, I'm okay being alone. You know, let me go off to a foreign place. But you have the choice to do that, right? This man didn't have the choice. In fact, when we look in Luke, we see in chapter 8 that this guy actually had a family.

He had a home. He had a life. He had a job. He had all those things. But when this happened to him, when he was possessed by this demon, he was moved out of the town.

He was ostracized. He was moved away, over, out of the town, get away from the town. And he was put off by himself. He could not be a part of the community because of the condition he was in. And the spiritual condition he was in.

And for so many of us, the true test is not that we have a lot of friends. Not that we have a lot of family. But when we're all alone, when we're on our own and with our spirits and that's it. And we're just sitting alone. Are we truly with someone or are we feeling truly alone?

Are we spiritually alone? The worst place you can be is alone. Alone. There's just something missing there. There's something that you want there.

There's a relationship that you're missing, even among. We can see people with all kinds of friends, all kinds of people that gather around them all the time. But really, are you fulfilled or are you alone? The second thing is the man was imprisoned. He was imprisoned.

He had chains. He had shackles on his wrists and his hands and on his feet. And he kept breaking them. And they kept putting them back on him because they were trying to keep him in place. He was in a cell, a prison so to speak, in the caves.

He was isolated. He was in prison. He had no liberty. He had no freedom. In fact, Luke 8 even says he was without clothes.

There was shame. And for so many people, maybe that's you. Maybe that's somebody out there watching right now. You feel ashamed. You feel imprisoned.

Even the Gospel tells us, or the Romans tells us, the book of Romans tells us that we are in bondage. We are in bondage to our chains, our sins. And you can't quite put your finger at it. Maybe you're doing the right things, or you feel like you're doing the right things, or you're trying to live the right way, but there's something inside of you that says, I'm in prison. I'm in prison in some type of sin, some type of thing that's keeping me from connecting to God spiritually.

Maybe that's you. You're in chains. You're in bondage. You're in bondage. Or, maybe it's the third thing.

You're incomplete. The man was incomplete. It says, day and night he wandered. He wandered among the burial caves and hills, howling and cutting himself. It says he was wandering around aimlessly.

He had no direction. He knew not of what he should do. He was just a man in shackles and chains in the burial caves, just doing whatever. There was nothing he could do. And what a very painful state to be in.

As we see, he cut himself with rocks and stones. It's very painful when we're incomplete. And perhaps you've been there. And you've taken every road. You've tried to figure out every way to bring completeness.

But something inside of you says, I'm missing something. I'm missing something. That's why you look at people who seem successful on the outside. Maybe it's a movie star or a musician or somebody. And we say, they've got it all.

They've got money. They've got fame. They've got friends. And they're even doing good. They're contributing to society.

They're doing amazing things socially. But when you hear them talk, it really comes down to this. I'm still trying to figure out what it is that I'm missing. I'm still trying to figure out that thing that completes me. Incompletion is there.

And they're looking for that thing. I love how Jim Carrey... I love how Jim Carrey... He said it in an interview, he says, I think everyone should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they could see that it's not the answer. So as you can see, it doesn't matter who you are, without God, without a connection to God, we are empty and incomplete.

Can I ask you this? If you're in any of those places, would you consider God? Would you consider Jesus Christ? Perhaps that's the answer. If you're not ready, let me ask you this.

How's it going for you where you are? How do you feel right now? Maybe Jesus is the answer. Maybe that's what we need. That's what you need.

I ask you just to consider him for a moment. And when we look at this story, we see this as we move on. In verse 6, it says, When Jesus was still some distance away, the man saw him. I love that. Saw him and ran to meet him.

And he bowed down. He bowed low before him. So he saw Jesus. He saw Jesus. He looked to Jesus.

So the man was in shackles. He was isolated. He was imprisoned. He was by himself. He was incomplete.

But he saw Jesus. And here's what happened when he saw Jesus. It says, And he bowed low before him. And with shrieks and screams, this is the demon that was inside of him. It says, Why are you interfering with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High?

Now that right there is significant. Even the demons bow down to Jesus. When we call out on the name of Jesus, even the spirits that try to manipulate and control our lives and do the things that it tries to do, whatever the devil tries to do, when you call out the name of Jesus, demons have to submit. And they recognize him as the Son of God. They recognize him as the King of Kings.

They recognize him as Jesus Christ, the living Lord. And they had to bow down before him. They bowed low. And he says, Why are you interfering with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In the name of God, I beg you, don't torture me.

The demon would say, Don't torture me. For Jesus had already said to the Spirit, Come out of the man, you evil spirit. All the man had to do was run to Jesus. No matter how spiritually low he was, imprisoned he was, no matter how much these demonic presence were in his body that were keeping him from being close to God, he called out on the name of Jesus. And all it took is one word from Jesus and everything was better.

So there's three things that that offers us right there. Three things in closing. The first one is, we have new access. We have new access. Mark 5 15 says this, A crowd soon gathered around Jesus and they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons.

And he was sitting there. Now that sitting there is very significant because if we compare it to Luke 8, it says he was sitting at the feet of Jesus. He had access, direct access to Jesus, his friend. He became his friend at that point. He became his Lord at that point.

It says in Ephesians 2 18 and 19, For through him we both have access to the Father by one spirit. Therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens of the saints and members of God's household. You know what that means? When you give your allegiance to Christ, guess what? You become his family.

You're no longer a slave. You're brought into a family. And you can enter the throne room with boldness before God through Jesus's blood. That's what it's all about. You have access.

You can go to him anytime, anytime you want. But typically, even as believers, we sometimes don't act like we have access, right? We don't act like he's available to us anytime we pray. We don't even believe that prayer works. But he says you have access to me in prayer.

You have access to me anytime you want it. And what we often do, I'm going to put my quiet time over here and section it off. And then, you know, the rest of my days, you know, I've got to prioritize those things because they're really important, God. But you're over here. But what if I said, instead of making him, and not even first.

Some of you are like, I need to make him first. Let me say, it's not about being first. It's about him being the center. The center of all you do. Right dead in the middle of your job, your family.

Everything you do needs to be centered on Jesus Christ. You have access to him. So are you growing closer to him? Are you taking steps towards him as you walk in access with him? Are you taking steps towards baptism?

Are you taking steps towards getting plugged in more? Are you working on your spiritual life? Well, if you have access to him and he has the power to change you right now. The second thing is we have new freedom. We have new freedom.

He was in prison, right? But immediately we see this in verse 15. A crowd soon gathered around Jesus and they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons. Legion meaning many. So there was a part of the scripture I didn't share with you, but we learned that the name of this demon was legion and there were many in this man.

So he was sitting there fully clothed and perfectly sane. Perfectly sane. He was fully clothed and perfectly sane. And the people around him were like, wow. They were afraid.

They were like amazed. They couldn't believe it. Like what's going on? What's the son of man? What is all this?

So he's here and he's fully clothed and he's perfectly sane. He's free. He's in his right mind. Before he was crazy and people were like, whoa, what's going on here? Now he's in his right mind.

See, Jesus can do that for us. No matter what our imprisonment, whatever our sin, the things that we can't break through. He has the power to deliver us. Freedom comes by the power of God. But get this.

But we live in it. We live in freedom. Freedom goes forward when we surround ourselves with like-minded people and believers. And this is why this is so significantly important, okay? That's why you need to be connected to the church body.

That's why you need to be in a small group. That's why you need to be on a serve team when we come back together. If you're not, you need to be on a serve team. You need to be in a small group. These are ways that you connect with believers and surround yourself.

Because if you're not surrounding yourself with the right people, spiritually, they can lead you out of where you need to be with God. You need to be with people. Yes, you can love the unbeliever. You can love your friends that are not in the faith. But I can tell you this.

If you spend all of your waking hours with them, guess what? You start acting like them. You don't experience growth. And we need to experience growth. And we do that together.

We can have freedom. And thirdly, we have new purpose. And this is significantly important. Look at Mark 5, 18 through 20. Kind of finishing this up.

And it says, As Jesus was getting in the boat, the man who had been demon possessed begged to go with him. He begged to go with him. He wanted to go with him. Lord, let me go with you. I want to be a preacher.

I want to be a teacher. I want to be this. And you know what? Jesus said, No. Go home to your family and tell them everything the Lord has done for you and how merciful he has been.

So here's what the man did. He said, He started off to visit the 10 towns. That was that region that we were talking about of the region and began to proclaim the great things Jesus had done for him. So he was proclaiming it. And everyone was amazed at what he told them.

So he was communicating the gospel. See, God gave him a purpose. For many of us, we think that a calling is just a pastoral calling or a five-fold ministry calling in which we go out and start churches and plants. No, no, no, no. It's more than that.

It's who God uniquely made you to be. That's why his yoke is easy because he created a yoke specifically for you to work in your gifts, to work in your talents, with your personality, whatever. You can communicate to people. You have a sphere of influence. You have people that you can reach that I can't reach, that I can't even touch.

Some of you have huge spheres of influence. And the question is, are you ready to walk in purpose as this man did? He was delivered. He was free. And yet, Jesus didn't allow him to go with him, but he told him to go out to his people, his community, his family, and share the good news of what Jesus has done for him.

How can you do this? Well, it starts with your family. It starts with your community. And it starts with your church. Just being a part of a church that evangelizes the world, that's reaching a community, but sharing together, because we are better together.

And you have a gift, and everybody, we need your gift as churches. We need, the body of Christ is full of gifts to make a complete body. And that's what we need. And that's what God wants for you. And you can find fulfillment and completeness and purpose in him.

Here's what Rick Warren says, and I love this. I had to quote this. Without God, life has no purpose. And without purpose, life has no meaning. And without meaning, life has no significance or hope.

So, we need hope. We need significance. We have this search for significance, but it can only be found in God. And we see this clearly here in the passage of Scripture. So, here's my question as we begin this series and look next week, and further walking into the things of God.

This is just a very basic question. When the flames of crisis finally die out and everything's gone, as far as this crisis is concerned, what new normal will rise from these ashes? Will you go back to the same way you were? Are you ready to take steps forward? There are some of you on this side of the equation that don't know God at all.

So, I ask you, I just put out this simple thing. Do you know Jesus? It's simple as believing or confessing your sins, knowing that you are a sinful person, that thing that you said that was imprisoning you, that you know that you can't really touch or is not tangible necessarily. That thing that's incomplete in your life, perhaps that's the thing that's keeping you from God. So, it's about admitting that you are a sinner, that you are far from God, confessing your sins to God, believing in your heart that He is the Son of God, that He rose from the dead, and that He can come to your heart and make you new.

That's what it takes. And for others of you on the other side, maybe you are a follower of Christ, but you need to take, you realize that you need to make a confession to God, and a confession before, you know, right there in your room. And say, I've made it about me. I've made it about everything but me. So today, I ask you to consider walking closer to Jesus today, to ask that God would forgive you for making it about you, putting everything before God, and begin to walk a new spiritual law.

We've got to get the spiritual right. So, if I could pray with you today, and I'll pray first for those who are not believers, and then I'll back it up with believers. And everybody, everybody in every living room, in every place that's listening to this, pray this with me. Lord Jesus, I believe that You are the Son of God, and I realize that I am a sinner, and You died on the cross for my sin, so that I can be forgiven. So come into my heart, Lord.

Come into my life. At this moment, change me from the inside out. And Lord, maybe I've drifted far from You, God. I was with You once, but I drifted far from You. And I was walking close to You, but I still allow all the things in the world to get in my way, Lord.

I pray, God, that You would come into my life once again, and that You would make me a better person to walk in the way that You would have me to walk, Lord. I'm so sorry, Lord, that I put things before You. But today, I surrender completely. I sanctify, I give my life, my body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable. Every part of me, my spiritual life, my soul, my physical life, everything is Yours, Lord.

I make that confession today in Your name. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much for being with us today. If you gave your heart to Christ, hey, listen, I want you to plug that in.

I want you to let us know. You can private message us here right here on Facebook. You can go to our website. There's a number of links. If you go to the Connect area, there's a number of places that you can connect with us at.

And you can also fill out the baptism form, because the next step is baptism. So you need to begin to take those next steps, okay? And when we're back together, we're going to begin to move in those steps together. You need to get connected. You need to be with people that love the Lord, with believers.

Believers unite and be together. Thank you so much. And I'm so thankful that you tuned in today. Join me next week as we talk about healthy emotions. And I think that's going to be an awesome, powerful message for you.

God bless you. Don't forget to give. Don't forget to connect with somebody this week. We love you. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.