Take your Bibles, open up to the Gospel of Luke chapter 8, Luke
chapter 8. That's page 917.
If you're using one of the Bibles in the seat around you,
and if you're here today and you do not have a Bible, please go
ahead and grab one. That's our gift to you.
I just found out this week that we've given out in the last six
months about 100 Bibles to people, which is pretty cool.
And and so we're glad we could put God's word in your hands
that way. Well, over the last number of
weeks we have been walking through a series of stories here
in the book of Luke. And each story reveals one part
of an answer to one question. And the question is, who exactly
is Jesus? Who is this one that we sing
about, that we follow, that we declare as Christians?
And a lot of times when we are answering a question like that,
we answer that with just the facts, like he was a baby born
in Bethlehem. Sometimes there are people who
will answer it with a deep theological answer.
So they'll say something like, well, he was the Son of God.
He's the second person of the Trinity.
Sometimes we will answer it with the spiritual work that Jesus
does by talking about like what we did last week where we say
Jesus is the one who forgives sin.
Today what we're going to look at is an intensely practical
answer to the question of who Jesus is.
It's a practical answer that not only applied 2000 years ago, but
is real and practical for our lives here today.
And I want to read just three verses from Luke chapter 8,
beginning at verse one. Afterward he was traveling from
1 town and village to another, preaching and telling the good
news of the Kingdom of God. The 12 were with him and also
some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses.
Mary called Magdalene, 7 demons had come out of her.
Joanna the wife of Choosa, Herod, Steward and Susanna and
many others who were supporting them from their possessions.
A couple years ago, Shannon and I had the opportunity to go with
our youngest son Sam to New York City.
I don't know if you've ever been to New York City before, but it
was an experience. If you've never been to New York
City, just free. Bit of advice, don't go when
it's going to feel like 40° outside.
Concrete jungle is real. You feel the heat, you feel it.
And if you're going to do that, don't go on a tour bus and don't
try to walk through Central Park.
It's hot. Cranky Kirk came out.
It was not a great experience for my wife especially, but one
day we were walking through times, walking towards Times
Square in New York City. And as you can imagine, in a
large city like New York, there's crowds of people walking
down the street and, and they're kind of, we all get crowded into
at, at a corner and we wait for the light to change.
And then we all try to get across the street and we're,
we're all crowded in. And at some points, you're just
walking really slowly. Now, I was a tourist, didn't
know where I was going, what I was doing.
And so I do what any good tourist would do.
I pull out Google Maps on my phone to try to figure out where
am I supposed to be going, How are we going to get there?
So not only are we walking slowly, but I've got Google Maps
out on my phone, which means we're walking even slower as I
try to figure out where we are supposed to be going in New York
City. While there was a gentleman from
New York City who was walking behind us and he was being
irritated in a New York City kind of way.
And, and so he he was, you could tell he was a little agitated
with how slow we were walking. And eventually he kind of pushed
his way past us to to kind of get in front of us.
He, he, he was like so annoyed at the tourist who was holding
his phone, walking slowly through New York City, getting
in his way of how fast he needed to get somewhere.
And so he pushes his way by us, says a few kind of welcoming to
New York City words. And and what he didn't realize,
though, was that the biggest reason we were walking slowly
was not because I was staring at Google Maps.
And it wasn't because there was a bunch of people, but it was
because in front of us, there were two elderly people who were
having a hard time walking. And so we were all slowed down
as we followed behind these people.
But he was too busy to see them. He easily overlooked these
people who are walking slowly in New York City.
And that experience reminded me how many times as people, we go
through life laser focused on the next task, the next
appointment, the next thing that we need to get done.
That all the stress and the pressures that we're feeling of
what we got to accomplish next and how many times we overlook
the people that are right in front of us.
But Jesus is different. In fact, in these few verses
that we've read this morning, what we see is that Jesus does
not overlook people. Instead, Jesus is the one who
elevates the overlooked. In general, within this room,
there are a couple of different types of people, groups of
people, and one is, and most of us fall into this reality.
We overlook people all the time for various reasons.
Sometimes it's because we're busy.
Sometimes it's because we're just selfish.
Sometimes it's because we frankly have certain people we
don't like and we don't even want to pay attention to them.
There's people I know in churches who go, I don't like
that person. When you see them at church, you
just kind of turn around and walk the opposite direction.
You're overlooking them. It happens in all kinds of
different ways. You've probably experienced some
crazy drivers this winter. Crazy drivers in the winter time
are overlooking everybody else on the road.
They're only thinking about their own survival.
Even at home, you can overlook people.
You can come home from a long day at work where you are busy
and you are tired and you're exhausted and you get home and
your spouse and your kids have needs.
Your friends have needs and you are frankly too busy, too tired
to even pay attention to them and their needs at the end of
the day. Now on the other side, there are
also a ton of people even right now in this room watching online
who you go. No, it's not just that I
overlook people. It's I am the overlooked person.
I am the one that people don't think about.
Some of you have felt overlooked your entire life.
You were the last person to ever get picked to to be on any team
when you were growing up. Always overlooked.
Some of you were the child that nobody paid attention to.
Some of you are here in a church service on a Sunday morning and
you sit here by yourself and nobody ever talks to you.
You feel overlooked. Some of you are the ones who've
experienced so much pain and so much suffering and so many
difficulties in your life that you honestly have come to the
place of going. People can't handle all the
things that are going on to me. I don't want to bother them.
People are overlooking the realities of my struggles every
single day and you feel the weight about it.
But I want you to know today that these verses, just these 3
short verses, show US1 amazing truth that Jesus sees you.
And not only does He see you, but He is the one who can
rewrite the story that has been written over your life.
See, Jesus, not only is someone who preaches a message of good
news, He is one who lives this message of good news.
As he's traveling from town to town and village to village
preaching his message of the good news of the Kingdom of God.
People are hearing this message and they're responding to the
message. They're seeing him heal people
and and they're responding to that.
And soon there's this community that's starting to form around
Jesus because people are going the Kingdom of God is not merely
this hypothetical theoretical thing that Jesus is talking
about. We are seeing him live, practice
what he preaches right in front of us.
They're getting a taste of what it feels like and looks like to
live life inside the Kingdom of God.
And what starts to unfold is a vision of life that is very
different than the one that celebrates the elite or the
powerful or the popular. In God's Kingdom, the ones who
are unwanted have a place to belong.
In this passage, there are two groups of people who are
described as walking with Jesus as he's traveling around from
town to town and village to village.
These two groups are his disciples and a group of women.
The disciples are a group of men who could never quite measure up
to being good enough for religious standards.
None of them would have won the Most Likely to Succeed award in
school by the time Jesus calls this group of men to follow him.
Their status in life would have told everybody that they had not
been called by any other rabbi, that they were not good enough
to be called by any other rabbi to follow him.
They were completely overlooked as having any real value or any
real potential as an apprentice of Jesus.
But Jesus comes and he takes these men that all the religious
leaders said weren't good enough to be trained as religious
leaders. And he says, follow me and he
trains and trust them with the message in the Kingdom of God.
That's radical. And then there's this group of
women who show up. Women in the 1st century were
not well respected. The common idea was that women
were inferior to men. A woman's testimony had no legal
standing in the courts. There were some rabbis who
vehemently, strongly opposed women being educated in any way.
There are Jewish religious texts that include a daily prayer.
Listen to this, A daily prayer of Thanksgiving that I am not a
woman. Imagine going to synagogue and
listening to some guy pray. Thank you God that I don't have
to be a woman. One rabbi at the time of Christ
is quoted as saying this. Better that the words of the
Torah be burned than entrusted to a woman.
In Greco Roman culture, women were also viewed with disgust,
many in many cities in that area in that time.
They were seen as wives who had one purpose and that was to
produce sons. And if they couldn't do that,
they existed for the pleasures of men.
And honestly, some things never change.
I read an article this week from an American posture who said
that Wimp said just in the last couple of weeks, women lack the
emotional capacity to vote. And here's Jesus with a group of
12 men that nobody wanted and a group of women that nobody else
thought had any value. And he does something radical
for that time. He doesn't walk around and
protest what's wrong in the culture and just fight for
everybody's rights. No, no, he decides he's going to
create a new and better story. Instead, he, he doesn't simply
come alongside people and say they're there.
I know that you're having a hard time and I, I, I feel bad for
you that you're going through such a thing and people would
treat you that way. That's not what Jesus does.
He doesn't simply identify with them and encourage them with a
few words. He invites them into his life
and into his mission as well. There can be all kinds of
reasons why people feel unwanted in this world.
And this morning we're going to unpack the stories of three
women, Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna.
The first woman that's named is Mary Magdalene.
Now, this is not the mother of Jesus.
She's a woman who lived in the city of Magdala.
But Mary's story tells us this. If you're broken, Jesus is the
way to find healing and purpose. Mary is a woman who had an
incredible level of brokenness in her life.
Luke says at one point here in these verses that she had seven
demons living inside of her, seven demons living inside of
her. And while we don't know much of
what that looked like and what kind of demons were living
inside of her, but we do know that it was severe.
The number 7, when it shows up in the Bible, it usually
emphasizes completeness or severity.
And what Luke is trying to communicate to us here is that
Mary had complete, severe brokenness.
Her life was messed up in all kinds of ways.
Whatever it was that was oppressing her, whatever demons
she was experiencing, Jesus refuses to let what defined her
in the past define her future. And so Jesus comes along and he
heals Mary Magdalene, which in and of itself is amazing that he
would heal her of these demons, but he also makes her an
important part of his life in ministry.
Now, if you're sitting here today and you go wait a second,
my life is feeling completely broken.
I identify with Mary Magdalene. I feel like I am just completely
messed up. Do not walk out of here saying
Pastor Kirk said you're filled with seven demons.
OK? That is not, it's not what I'm
saying. That's that's a whole different
conversation than what is trying to be communicated in this
passage. Mary gets invited into this life
with Jesus and it's profound that not only a woman, but a
woman who's experiencing so much brokenness that nobody wanted to
be around her. Nobody wanted her at all.
She walks with Jesus every day, and by the time we get to the
end of his life, when most of the men run away from Jesus at
the cross, Mary Magdalene is still there.
When Jesus is buried, Mary Magdalene is still there.
The Gospel of John records her as the first one to discover the
empty tomb, as the one who would report the news of Jesus being
resurrected of the empty tomb. She would be the one to carry
that message to the disciples. And the Bible also records her
as the first person to see the resurrected Jesus.
All that from a woman who started out her life and her
journey as a complete mess. A complete mess of brokenness
and pain and suffering. You know, the brokenness of life
is one of the stories that faces every generation for all of
human history. If you've ever walked the halls
of a long term care home, you'll see dozens and dozens of people
who frankly have been forgotten by most of society.
Most of them as are seen as having no real value, nothing to
add any more to the world that we live in.
And for them, loneliness and isolation is very real.
The brokenness of their life is very real.
Some of you have suffered from immense trauma, from mental
health challenges, from poverty and chronic health issues.
And you can go on and on and on. And you often find yourself in a
spot where you just go, I know how broken my life is.
And you feel very alone, like you cannot do this anymore, Like
you're constantly in this deep black hole and no hope of ever
getting out of it. I want to say if the story of
life, if the story of your life is 1 of brokenness and that has
become the story that defines you, if you're convinced that
nothing can ever change for you, I want you to know Jesus came
for you. He came for you.
Where the world writes people off, Jesus writes news stories.
Jesus sees you. Jesus has the power to heal you,
and Jesus has the ability to give you purpose by inviting you
to be part of his mission in the world.
One, one of the reasons why we encourage you to connect with
things like biblical counseling or with Freedom Session or with
Grief Share is because we believe so much in the power of
Jesus to bring healing to people's lives.
It's why our elders are out in the lobby to pray for people
after every service on Sunday mornings.
Because we believe so much in the power of Jesus to bring
healing to the depths of any brokenness that anybody's
experiencing. We want you to experience and
know the healing, gentle, loving touch of Jesus, that you're not
alone. But it's also important for you
to know that when you follow Jesus, he's going to take your
mess and he's going to turn it into a message, a message to
help other people know the grace and love of Jesus as well.
Like I've seen this play out in so many people in this room,
people who have felt the pain of isolation and you just feel
convicted. Like it's my calling in life to
go and help the others who are isolated.
People who have felt the weight of poverty, who end up becoming
advocates and providers for the poor.
People who have been, who've walked through the darkness of
depression, who now walk alongside those who are
experiencing anxiety and depression themselves.
This is how Jesus works. It may feel like your brokenness
makes everyone else run away. But Jesus sees your brokenness
and he comes running towards you.
It may feel like your brokenness is a death sentence over your
life, but Jesus sees the opportunity to bring you life.
Now I know that for most of us in our hearts, it makes sense
that Jesus would care for and pay attention to someone whose
life is completely broken. That that makes sense to us, we,
we can understand someone in that situation feeling
overlooked and Jesus wanting to step into that.
What we don't often think about is someone who seems to have a
great life as being overlooked. But that's exactly who Joanna is
in this story. On one level, Joanna had it all.
She's the wife of Herod's household manager, Chuza, which
means she had a position of significant influence and
wealth. Her husband was responsible for
overseeing everything related to Herod's household, which meant
he was also responsible for managing even the finances of
Herod's household. So Joanna had a lot going for
her, but she had two strikes against her.
First, she's a woman. Second, her family is very much
part of the oppression against the Jewish people that they're
living and experiencing. And yet that does not stop Jesus
from seeing her and saving her and bringing her into his
mission. And I want you to understand
this, that those who are labeled as part of the problem can be
part of the solution. Joanna reminds us of a hard
truth that sometimes the people we label as part of the problem
in the world are the very people Jesus wants to redeem and use
for his mission. I want you to just take a
minute, think about people in your life or in society that you
go, these are the biggest problem people.
These are the people who make my life difficult.
These are the people who are making things hard in society
and culture. Get some names in your head
right now. Get some faces in your head who
are the people that are making things difficult.
If you think that wealthy people are part of the problem, that
the system is set up so that the rich get richer and the poor get
poorer while everyone else struggles, those might be some
names and faces that come to your mind.
If if you think politicians are the biggest problem, you're
going to have some pictures of politicians in your head right
now. Maybe it's the employer that you
don't like or don't trust. Some people have been so deeply
hurt by another person. You've labeled all people as
part of the problem. There are so many men who are
quick to label all women as being part of the problem and
vice versa. There are so many women who've
been hurt by a man who are going.
All men are part of the problem. They can't be trusted.
Now I hope you got a name or a picture in mind.
When you think about people that God could save or would even
want to save, does that person's name ever come to your mind?
When you think about people who could be used by God to help
advance the mission of Jesus, does that person's name ever
come to your mind? You see, the very people that
you and I assume that God would never save.
Those may be the people he plans to use, even the people who look
like they have life all together, who have all the power
and all the opportunities. At the end of the day, they are
still just people. They are sinners like you, like
me, who need the grace of God in their life.
They need Jesus as much as anyone else needs Jesus.
It is remarkable that Jesus would take someone like Joanna
to care enough for her to heal her in some way and then include
her in his mission to rescue the world.
Like think of the irony of this. Joanna's husband works for
Herod. Herod is the Roman appointed
king of Judea. She is so changed by Jesus that
she takes some of the money that Rome pays her husband with and
take some of that money to help fund the ministry of Jesus.
In a roundabout, backwards kind of way, Rome funded the ministry
of Jesus. Don't ever underestimate who God
wants to reach and how He wants to use them for His purposes.
Now, Mary and Joanna, they're these extremes.
You have the one who obviously needs help and the the one who
doesn't seem to need anything because of their status, both
with the potential being overlooked by different types of
people. But then there's this third
woman named Susanna. Susanna was a nobody.
She's actually not mentioned again in Scripture other than
what you see here in these verses.
She's a random woman who just shows up.
No spotlight, no platform, no famous story.
And honestly, Susanna is really the vast majority of us.
Most of us see ourselves as nobody special.
But what Jesus shows us is this is if you feel like a nobody,
Jesus makes you a somebody, you, you might feel like you're a
nobody like, like your life has no real say or real value to it.
You might compare yourself to other people and, and think,
hey, that person, they've got more money that that person is
more popular. That person, they're more gifted
than I am. I'm a nobody.
They're the ones that everybody looks to.
But I want you to know today in the eyes of Jesus, you are a
somebody. You are made in the image of
God. Nothing else in all of creation
gets that designation other than a human.
Jesus died on the cross for you, Not just in some general way of
he died for all humans. No, he went to the cross for
you. That's how much of A somebody
you are to Jesus. The world we live in operates on
power structures. Jesus says those who are humble
become great in the Kingdom. The world operates on titles and
status. Jesus says we are all equal at
the foot of the cross. The world operates on striving
to work your way up the ladder of success.
Jesus says all of his disciples are part of 1 body.
That we might have different roles but we all have equal
value. Kirk has a title of lead
posture, but Kirk is not more important than any other person
in this room. We are all equal at the foot of
the cross. Male, female, whatever your
title is or isn't. All of us are equal before
Jesus. The truth is, in the grand
scheme of things, all of us are like a Susanna.
Because you're a nobody to most of the world.
Of all the billions of people in the world who pays attention to
you, you're a nobody. In the pages of all human
history, you're a nobody. That's an encouraging word for
today, right? Carry that with you.
I'm a nobody. It's good to be a nobody.
It's OK. You know why?
Because you matter immensely to the Creator of all things.
Jesus is the one who elevates the overlooked.
Now we can walk away from today thinking about those words and
go, man, those are nice encouraging words, nodding her
head in agreement and man, that's nice thoughts.
You can nod your head like that or you can walk away today
changed by Jesus. So I want to ask you a couple
questions to consider in response to this truth of who
Jesus is. First question is this, do you
value the overlooked the way that Jesus does?
Do you value the overlooked the way Jesus does?
See, if we are disciples of Jesus, we don't just talk about
what Jesus is like. We determined to pursue his way
of life. We we surrender ourselves to
seek to become like Jesus. So what does it look like to
value the overlooked? I think about people I know who
don't spend time with their family or friends on Sunday
morning when they come to church because they're too busy looking
around for people who have nobody talking to them so they
can go and talk to them and just say hi.
That's valuing the overlooked. I, I, I think about people who
are part of our seniors care team who go and visit some of
our seniors who are living isolated in retirement or long
term care. That's valuing the overlooked.
I think about the number of stories that I've heard in our
church family where people are walking into church on a Sunday
and they will see someone sitting in a car, unable to get
out of their car because life is so hard and so heavy and they're
just sitting with tears in their eyes.
And the number of times where I have heard stories of people
from our church who have stopped to knock on a car window to say,
hey, are you OK? Can I help you in some way
that's valuing the overlooked. When you do that, I think about
people in our church who are foster parents of kids who are
living in heartbreaking situations.
Every foster parent, you are valuing the overlooked.
You're being like Jesus. A while ago, a man in our church
drove by what looked like a homeless man hunched over at the
end of the driveway of the Toyota plant here in town.
And frankly, he could have just kept driving and kept going home
at the end of that day, could have just overlooked that man as
just another homeless person. And originally he did.
He just kept driving. But something told him to turn
around and go back, and he did. And when he got back to the
parking lot at Toyota, he found this man hunched over at the end
of the parking lot, and he was unconscious, and he had
overdosed on drugs while the man from our church was there.
He calls 911 and while he's on the phone with 911, a woman sees
this man from our church helping this this homeless man at the
side of the parking lot. And and this woman stops and she
comes to help. And this woman just happened to
have an overdose kit in her car and she gave it to this man.
And she looked at the man from our church and said, you know,
to be honest with you, I never would have stopped unless I saw
you sitting there on your knees at the edge of this parking lot
helping out this homeless man, a disciple of Jesus, refusing to
overlook this man literally saved his life.
I know men in our church who have stopped looking at porn for
one simple reason, because they started to recognize that by
participating in porn, they were overlooking the inherent value
of a woman as a person made in the image of God.
And they said, that's enough. I have to see women in a better
way than that, so I'm going to stop looking at porn.
That's valuing the overlooked. Giving money to help rescue kids
from human sex trafficking. That's valuing the overlooked.
I know women who have changed their attitudes towards men when
they realize how they overlook the value a man can have in
their life. It's happening all over the
place, but I think we can be better.
As a disciple of Jesus, one of the most important prayers that
you can pray is to ask God to give you the heart and the eyes
of Jesus that you would see people the way Jesus sees
people. It's amazing what will happen
when you pray a prayer like that.
You will not see the people who are slowing you down.
You're not going to see the people who who are getting in
your way of moving ahead in life.
You're going to see people who need to encounter the love of
Jesus through you. You're going to see people who
need a hand. You're not going to start by
assuming the worst in people. You're going to start by
wondering how have the lies of sin shaped their life in the
message and how can the message of Jesus set them free.
So ask yourself, do you value the overlooked the way that
Jesus does? Here's the second question.
Will you let Jesus define you more than culture or past pain
does? A lot of you have a story that
has been used to define your life, and it is anything but the
way that Jesus sees you. You.
You might be a guy like one of the disciples where you could
never measure up to other people's standards and they are
always told you, hey, you're going to be a loser.
You're never going to be good enough.
You're never going to be smart enough.
You're never going to be gifted enough to be able to do
anything. There's no hope for you to ever
amount to anything. You could be a woman who's been
told and treated like you've got nothing to offer in society and
even in religious environments. You could be a woman who's been
told you only exist for the pleasures of men.
Some of you know just how broken you are and you think the story
of your life will never change. Please, please, please hear me
on this. Every one of those stories is a
lie from the devil. He wants to hold you back from
experiencing the freedom and fullness of who your Creator
made you to be. Please do not allow anything or
anyone to define you differently than your Creator does.
If you are here and you feel unseen and unwanted, I believe
with every fiber of my being that Jesus wants to rewrite your
story. Will you trust Him?
Jesus comes and He heals the broken.
That starts with our salvation, the reality that we are all
sinners held in bondage to sin. And Jesus came and died on a
cross. So you can not only be forgiven
of your sin, but you could be set free from the power of sin
over your life. But then he not.
Only comes in a moment to set you free.
He brings you into a way of life that is filled with freedom.
These women walk with Jesus and they learn to follow Jesus as a
way of life. That freedom's not only about a
moment. Freedom is a lifestyle.
And then Jesus comes. Along and he just says, hey, in
your brokenness and in your suffering and in your hardships,
I can still give you purpose. I can give meaning to your life.
He gives purpose to the broken. He gives purpose to the
ordinary. And as you follow Jesus, he's
going to invite you into the single greatest mission you
could ever give your life to. Because it's the one mission
that matters for all of eternity.
It's the one thing you can give your life to that matters
forever. But.
The way that Jesus. Rewrites our stories requires us
coming to the end of ourselves and our own need for control and
our own need to to believe that the stories that have been
spoken over our lives, to stop thinking that we can fix what is
broken on our own to. Receive His love.
And to surrender to his ways. So my question to you today.
Is will you allow Jesus to define you more than culture or
your past pain has defined you? Let me pray.
Heavenly Father, I come to you today.
And I'm so grateful that the. Kingdom of God.
Looks so different than what we experience in the Kingdom.
Of this world. The.
Overlooked. Have a place to belong, to be
set free, to have purpose and meaning.
That Jesus elevates the overlooked God out of my heart
cries out for any person in this room today, any person watching
online who's experiencing the reality of that in their life
today. Jesus, would you come?
Holy Spirit, would you come and bring this this reality not just
to our heads, but to our hearts? We would see.
The depths of the love of Jesus for us.
We would experience Him breaking the lies that have been held
over us. And we would be empowered to be
the. People who are on mission.
To bring this good. News of hope and freedom to a
world that so desperately needs it.
God come in. Your grace come in your power
ministry to the hearts of your people.
Today I pray in Jesus name, Amen.
Would you stand as we sing this?