What God loves To Do

—Mark 5:1–20 (Betel)

Andrew Fountain – Feb 7, 2016

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God’s Favourite Work

If God were to tell us his favourite work, what would it be?
Saving the lost?
Love?
How about: “Undoing all the evil Satan has done”
The most hopeless defeat ➜ the greatest victory

Mark 5:1-20

1. God Loves Unlovely People

Jesus came to show us what God is like
God loves the unlovely:
This is at the centre of his identity

2. Saving someone like this reveals his power

“He/she’s a nice person—would make a good Christian”
Jesus has greater power than all the other powers in the universe put together
There is no situation so bad that Jesus cannot turn it around

3. What God loves to do more than anything else

To undo all the damage that Satan has done!
Two kingdoms: Kingdom of God & Kingdom of darkness
no contest
Satan likes to twist & destroy people—Turn them into garbage
Jesus loves to turn garbage into jewels

The Story of Raúl

Sean

Always drugs around the house—he and his dad would roll marijuana
Started on marijuana at 11
- One day he brought home a big bad of ecstasy pills to sell, and his dad didn’t freak like most would. He just demanded what percentage he was going to get of the profits.
- He hated school because he got picked on, but loved it at home when his dad brought home a new type of burglar alarm or safe and they learned how to crack it.
- Soon his dad started taking him out on field trips—to rob wealthy homes!
- Soon he was old enough to do his own burglaries and got a lot of praise from mum & dad
At 14 he was getting in at 5am and using drugs to keep awake.
- Problem with coming down off amphetamines
- marijuana good, Vallium or other tranquilizers better
- Still very painful
- Same with crack cocaine
- One day one of his friends turned up with some white powder, heroin, which he said would help. p.28 “I had seen... ”
- The reaction of his dad is “there’s a lot of money to be made in this... I want in”
Meanwhile, back at school he was being bullied by a big guy called Tank
- Took a wooden mallet from the school wood shop, split his head open.
- after that nobody bothered him and he got a lot of attention from the girls
After that he became increasingly violent—it worked!
- One day he was waiting in a theatre line-up when some big guys started giving him trouble. He went for one of them, bit his nose and just held on with his teeth.
  - The man was screaming and all the others backed off
  - He got his first prison sentence of 3 months
He was spending $750/day on drugs, and breaking safes
- then he decided it was less effort just to walk into a place with a sawn-off shotgun and demand money.
He was soon in and out of prison and his face was constantly getting ripped up in fights.
This lifestyle continued into his adult years
- Then his house was invaded by a gang of men and he fought them off with a kitchen knife until he was unconscious.
- The police came and he was arrested on 13 charges of burglary
- Now he was an adult, he was sent to a maximum security prison for 7 years.
- It would have been 18 months shorter, but for the incident with the metal tray…
He came out and went to a rehab centre
- but after a few weeks he had a knife fight and was back to heroin and burglaries.
- The heroin was tearing him apart and one day he just started crying “I can’t take it any more”
- His friend spotted a church and said “Let’s go in there”
- The pastor talked, prayed, showed Betel flyer… called… bought him ticket…
- On the train there spent the whole time in the washroom shooting heroin
Very antagonistic to Christianity
- p.61.. 62.. 63..
- Went cold turkey
- He says he couldn’t sleep for a month
- In desperation started to read the Bible
- “If you are really there, let me sleep”
- Woke up hours later with his face in the Bible
Went back to court… 38 charges against him, but the magistrate was so amazed at the change in him that he dropped the sentence.
- Now he is a leader!! A gentle, godly man.

4. How should we respond?

Maybe your life is in a mess
Jesus specializes in turning them around and replacing the bad stuff with good stuff
We are either members of the Kingdom of darkness or the kingdom of light
If Jesus is not your king, then don’t waste any time

Our Response

God Loves Unlovely People
- We respond by having the heart of God in us
- but first we must be secure in his love for us!!!
Saving someone like this reveals his power
- We believe in God’s awesome power for today
What God loves to do more than anything else
- We join him in doing this
- Trusting his power in you, join him in undoing all the damage that Satan has done in this world