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00:00:01 [Applause] [Music] ah okay we're gonna do a very serious topic today and this is an article with brother john go wrote last month which is a great article i'm not gonna go into it in detail but just to follow up on what july spoke besides what happened with the mco besides financial problems when people have financial problems other things come out and you stick people in a apartment a small apartment or home and they have no money and they just see four walls emotional issues come out and last few months in family life
00:00:58 ministry we had a lot of a lot of cases coming out a lot of people struggling so one thing which i was very thankful was the team started what was known as the talk to you initiative which was for people to call a telephone counseling line and after that also we did a lot of much more in the earlier years so this is a combination of maybe the last the last three years of me doing this and also the last few months which has been very heavy the article is self-explanatory uh let me just start with this
00:01:32 these are the common things people say why why do you need to talk about this why do we need to talk about counseling etc etc let me just give you one reason just one and i hope it's enough because people who suffer tremendously like this especially when they go to what is called a clinical disorder they won't tell you they will suffer in silence let's just take depression you have severe depression you will not tell people so if you're watching this or you're here just for the few people in our
00:02:17 church that suffer we will do this sermon because that's what jesus would have done he would have gone out for the lordship so i just asked you to bear with me if even if you feel you're in one of this just for those that suffers that they do not suffer in silence before i continue i just want to attack many people uh i'm only three years doing this to technically talk about this you should be a trained therapist and a have some pastoral training i'm an architect so i'm completely out of my league this is
00:02:56 not my aerial experience i don't even think my area of of gifting but i thank god i have a very good committee they have been with me for years i won't mention their names they work very hard i thank also for a team of what we call para councillors we have a pool of 25 last few months after now we are using 10 of them so we're at peak already and i thank the live bruce many people have supported us the way we do this we do this in teams and i'd like to thank you let me just uh before i start the message say this uh
00:03:26 i'll be talking about some quite heavy stuff i'm not referring to anyone because people can be very sensitive hey honest talking about me no you're not talking about you i had the privilege of meeting many people struggle and this is just a general talk so today we're gonna look at the idea of mental health wholeness struggles illness disorder let me give you two caveats before we start number one is a very complicated topic people assume they know they don't you can't even get a definition of mental
00:03:55 illness the most common definition is found a book called the diagnosis and statistics manual or mental disorder by the american psychiatric association you take that and with the myoclinic definition they don't even match then what's the role of the church is this what's the difference between a psychiatrist psychologist psychotherapists and therapists and you have a problem who do you see is it medicational is it therapy advice pastoral care is it something for a few people just to be involved in is it something that
00:04:25 everybody involved in and when you talk about training what do you mean by training what do you mean by biblical counseling what do you mean by counseling what's the end goal of counseling so they're all lot of confusion so let's have grace i notice a lot of people are very opinionated on this matter but there is no consensus even on the definition we should have grace to say we should not have any consensus on this so today we are just going to have a conversation this is not what you call prescriptive
00:04:53 summon it is basically a conversation here's the second thing it's not the holy grail of discipleship just because someone doesn't is not very passionate about it don't judge the person i notice one thing but evangelical christians we can take everything and go off stream with it no many things we just make them or i was recently reading a movement that says we should go back to the torah that that the reformed position about doing away the ceremonial laws is unbiblical jesus should be called yeshua
00:05:24 you should all not eat pork very big movement now you have a right to that after what they only judge you on that is the last time they judge you whether you speak in tongues or you judge you whether you got five points judge you whether reform judging whether you're baptized judge you let's not do that let's not judge people whether they do counseling or not yeah this is a very very difficult topic let's all have some humility and we learn and so today we are just going to have a conversation and we're
00:05:52 gonna continue this conversation to next week and i hope after this we talk more about it that's actually the main aim i ask we talk about it because this is a topic we do not talk about it and so today we look at the gospel and mental wholeness let's come before the lord in prayer lord i i'm not trained uh although i've been doing this for three years i don't know much i know extremely little the more i read the more i see how divisive this topic is lord we ask for your your mind to ask what is the role of psychology
00:06:28 and and scripture what is the role of biblical counseling what's the purpose of biblical counseling and you have said to renew our mind oh lord that is what roman teaches us but for men a woman who struggles so heavily with mental disorders and has to take medication how do they renew their minds oh lord and yet this is a commandment of scripture so where does the church come in teach us oh lord when we look today the text of a man will unsound mind and let us learn from jesus and we say this in jesus name amen
00:07:04 and we read the fact just now uh our sister so i'm not gonna go to it uh just go through the whole thing let me just give you a few contacts which is very important for us to pick up alright number one the region is jurassians is the town of gadara you find this also in the book of luke it's a pagan area now let me ask you a question when was the last time you saw a man or woman who demon possessed very very unlikely unless maybe it comes from something it is suspicious when someone tells you i
00:07:34 saw a demon possessed man you go hmm but you tell someone that i met someone who had schizophrenia or bipolar problem or adhd or you know anti-social personality disorder or ocd you said okay that means if i tell you now you meet someone with a with what we call classified mental illness you said yes but if i ask you have you met a man with a with a demon possession you get suspicious now you flip it the other way around in the time of jesus is the opposite you know the word demon possession was common is
00:08:07 common because even in a pagan town they accepted it you find the book of luke whether you're in a synagogue everywhere they top demon possession as common so here is the theory which may not be correct is that what people saw last time as demon possession was actually mental illness now that's a proposition for you to consider for example epilepsy in the early centuries was considered demon possession but it's not so there's something for you to already tell you the controversies about this matter because there's a lot
00:08:41 on clarity because what mark is writing is that a pagan town who does not believe in god saw this as demon possession is a common thing now here's the second thing which is more critical in biblical exegesis or biblical text the story first starts off with four accounts of the kingdom of god god and basically uh mark gives you a parable so you find it in chapter four four parables it starts on the parable of the sower and it goes all the way down so the context is the kingdom of god always remember that after that when it
00:09:19 comes to the there are four accounts jesus and the storm jesus and a demon-possessed man jesus and a woman who is very sick and jesus and a young girl who dies you notice that four parables four miracles they are match because jesus is talking mark is telling us here is the kingdom of god this is how the kingdom of god operates notice there's environment the storm demon possession the mind there is illnesses and then there is death it communist at the end of the story this is what he says in chapter six he
00:10:00 says this they went out this is not about jesus this is the church they went out and preached that people should repent that's the gospel here's the second part to tie in they drove out many demons yesterday's tax anointed many sick people that's the next account we've all and healed them what is the second part that's the gospel that's how you understand it so it gives you a hint of the rule of the of the role of discipleship it is not just about sin and repentance it goes out to the community so we're going to
00:10:44 study a little bit of the context now the way to do this is i'm gonna take this in four vintage points that means we're gonna take it from the position of the demon possessed man some people call it the demonic the demon itself the people of the town and jesus so four perspectives to give you four points created uncreated recreated that's the gospel story number two the domain of mental brokenness and we're not going to go clinical we're going to go biblical and this one do you know those that stay
00:11:20 at tamantum do you know or not you should and it's a strange commandment jesus says follow me but to this person he says don't follow me so let's go to the first one now the first one is interesting the niv version says a man with an impure spirit if you take the message the message says mad man now that's fascinating why because unlike other accounts of demon possession in the bible we basically had someone yelling this person has what we call behavioral symptoms and the behavioral symptoms are very
00:12:04 very detailed and that's why this is the classic text on mental disorder so here's the first objection this is about demon possession nothing to do with mental illness that's the first objection some people say now that is a valid objection and we're going to study this but let me give you example let me give you a detail when you look at his symptoms i read from another pastor who's a psychiatrist online they say he's got two symptoms you know one is he's got bipolar with a symptom of mania the second because of the name
00:12:38 legion he suffers some schizophrenia with the symptom of mania now the point is this an unsound mind is it spiritual warfare or clinical disorder that is the key question uh one book david murray as the brain is the most complex organ in our body it is liable to be the most affected of all the organs by the fall and the divine curse on our body once you say that this is not the domain of clinical signs it is the domain of the church that's important and at well she founded a very uh with david paulinson founded a very
00:13:25 famous movement called the christian country evangelical uh uh foundation says the problem of immediately opting for medical explanation is that once the decision is made every other perspective seems superficial or irrelevant so here's the thing someone's got depression go see a doctor the perspective is clinical but i humbly suggest to you what why this text is important is that the starting point is always spiritual you see what the bible says it doesn't matter whether it is in a sense everything that happens in
00:14:11 mental illness comes from a spiritual attack from the devil uh a macarthur i'm not a big fan of john mccarter but he gave an exegesis very interesting he says you look at serial killers you look at charles manson jack the ripper why do you call them monsters why does someone go become psychopathic and that's not something we talk about in church right you don't you think that there's a demonic force behind it i think he's quite right so here's the point the point is the demon says this to jesus
00:14:51 my name is legion for we are many very chilling world this is a extremely chilling fact so so let's recap a little bit you know uh what happens is that when jesus arrives this man runs to him we find from the book of luke that he's not the only one so the tombs are the place where the town people throw rejected people in fact luke tells you that two of them so very likely all people who who are not normal are all stay in tamantum and you get fed la and this guy is so unrestrained they tied him down basically tamanthum
00:15:32 is your first tanjong rambutan only thing is there's no padded walls and no straight jackets they tie you with irons and you're in so much pain you cut yourself with stones it's the first account of bodily harm in the bible very frightening how the bible is so accurate to one of the things we see out there and of course he runs to jesus that's very interesting because it talks about the authority of jesus and of course is what he wants we find that when we look at verse 8 we meet jesus son of most high
00:16:10 did you come to torture me and then jesus says come out the man you evil spirit and jesus asked him what is your name my name is legion for we are many and he begged jesus again again not to send them out the area number one it shows you the authority of jesus he has authority over the storm his authority over the demons he has authority over his body's work aching and the final arch of the story his authority over death that is the gospel and the power of the gospel and we live in a time of now and not yet
00:16:44 the gospel is not completely fulfilled the church fulfills that function in the not yet don't quite get that we will go slowly in that not a select few people but the church as an entire body but when he says my name is legion we are many a legion is an is an army is a roman garrison of two thousand soldiers at least why do you think there were two thousand pigs by the way you drowned two thousand pigs are you bankrupt the whole town uh that's all your chest gone there's all your blue chests liquidated zero
00:17:24 two thousand pigs the the narrative is telling you that what is he saying he's saying this it's not one demon jesus isn't squaring up no this isn't wwf with one demon versus jesus who is jesus squaring up against the entire army of satan that's the way the story is presenting itself it is jesus versus the devil you must understand how the story moves and so when you when you break it down this is what the gospel is in in genesis god created us that is fall and at the fall the mind as david murray says is the first thing
00:18:10 that falls that's why we have depression anxiety and all sorts of things that goes about it and then the psalms picks up the heart that's broken so much of the psalms is about of the depth of darkness i cry out to you o lord and we get the culmination of it here and so jesus recreates fall redemption recreation notice everything in the narrative does not suggest counseling should be a small sub ministry of the church by a few people who are trained everything in biblical evidence shows you it is the role of the church because the
00:18:52 church is the body of christ i wanna suppose take this now i wrote it up there that's what the devil did and what jesus recreated so something for us to look at so let me give you a few scenarios about this which is something very practical and you see how complex this topic is and like i said today we are just going to go into having a discussion very common i can't sleep i wake up many times worrying about many things and again i want to stress if you're you're watching this i'm not referring
00:19:29 to anyone i meet quite a lot of people tell me this can't sleep i lost my job last two months i wake up three four in sweats now if someone tells you that what do you tell that person number one go see dr la he will prescribe you some medicine to help you sleep psychosomatic you have a problem so medication will help you sleep is it wrong doctor could be christian right here's option two you go and see a therapist he teach you how to breathe in for breathe out seven do this do mindfulness meditation
00:20:15 sit down look at all your past you know maybe go for a retreat somewhere in kosamue sit down eat organic food do yoga not yoga but you know and then release all your inner pain and um correct if you think it's unbelievable there's even a christian version of that there are christian camps to help you do this don't see a doctor you get addicted to the medicine go and see a therapist the doctor only prescribes you psychotropic drugs but therapy eight sessions we will take through your inner problems we'll wrestle with it
00:21:00 that's why you need training you see and we will deal with it so another person said cannot this is very humanistic this is not from scripture we are supposed to disciple people so third option go see your pastor will counsel you didn't the bible says all scripture is useful for you know first time 3 16. are we saying the word of god is not enough isn't scripture full of people who are depressed have mental issues are you saying we cannot find from scripture do you not have faith to use the bible
00:21:37 to help you notice in all three scenarios let me ask a question if someone had a problem like this how would you answer and if you like most of us we don't know we will just google find the nearest thing or someone told us this we do that that's why this thing has so much confusion let me give you a little bit of this because they break this down into a few things because if i say it's highly controversial option one is a is a theological position called levels of explanation it simply means the church should not
00:22:13 get involved in clinical matters that means like i have a flu i see a doctor you got a depression you go see a psychiatrist the sjmc is down the road why is the church doing this that's position one it caught it's called levels of explanation after you cure the guy come back we do bible study with you we pray for you i had one visiting preacher got very annoyed when i brought this up with him and literally told me that over out there in the table zero shouldn't be doing this the church has no business of getting involved in
00:22:45 this it's called levels explanation let me go to option three yeah and you'll see where fbc is option three is a is a position called biblical counseling or to be more accurate is under a movement called ccef biblical counseling argues that all psychology is essentially evil their grades of it because counseling and psychiatry and psychology comes with freud and freud hated god his predecessor jung hated god the guy before he called nature hated god psychiatrists and psychologists and therapists teach
00:23:25 empowerment by self and self is idolatry when you teach people in church to do empathy listening to people self-care you are teaching people humanistic thing because that kind of training is exactly a secular training the church should not do this see the confusion do they have a whole program on this and then the secular psychiatrist psychiatrical organization take port shots at them to say it is completely irresponsible completely not supported by signs he denies signs denies research because neuroscience is
00:24:08 a science that's called biblical counseling option two has two one is called integration and there's fbc's position see a therapist preferably christian god is the god of science god is the god of scripture and they too go hand in hand it's a very elastic relationship and that's why it is so difficult to understand this because which part of therapy do you take someone takes what we call cognitive behavior therapy cbt how much of that is biblical is not another person takes emotionally focused therapy how much is
00:24:44 there someone does family therapy and you find a lot of therapy really is actually humanistic you know they teach empowerment by yourself you can sort your problem that is not what the bible says god can solve your problems not you and and therapy has the end result i cure you the symptoms is successful that's not what the biblical say no no no what the bible says the bible does not define success by curing your system of your symptoms the bible defines success by you repenting of sins and glorifying god and if
00:25:23 a person cures your depression and in that process makes you so self-empowered that you have no place for the church he has basically led you down the road to hell why do you think this topic is so dangerous and difficult and we're having a conversation of it and so after that another movement started called christian psychology i won't even go there very difficult so let us do a little bit and and and try to learn so now let me look at the domain of the unsound mind and we try to break it down
00:25:57 now if you look at this why this text is so interesting is because you look carefully at the way it's described by why people are fascinated by it because mark is very detailed by his behavior one we noticed there's a change to his physiology he suddenly became superhuman you know number two there's a change to also the fact that where they put him there's an environmental impact and obviously there's very certain patterns to his behavior let me give you three and this is very critical to the tech to me this is a centerpiece number
00:26:31 one there's a biological change his unnatural strength he's able to break his restraint the text says no one was strong enough to subdue him we find it in verse 4 he had often been chained hand and food but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet wow why because he's legion and against science tells you uh science tells you when people have a certain condition they can amplify their bodies there's a lot of research to show you they can break bonds so there's one very obviously market
00:27:10 detail so the first thing to look at is biological and and i'll tell you later on what dr martin lloyd jones one of the most famous reformed preachers talks about this the second is environmental he's in tanjung rabutan you know or not basically what is this the town of garada or gracie were all like us upper income chinese people we watch astro we got live we've got no time for a cheese in person so we stick the guy at taman tomb and feed him obviously he's being fat we stick him there far away so
00:27:45 number one he's living in what in complete isolation he has no society and we all know without people around you you do not develop number two he's living among the dead the text is telling you that you know he's living in a place not fit for a human being to live three times it is mentioned he's living in the tombs mark is trying to give you a point that's not how you treat a human being third point it is the will or some people call it violation and this is key to the bible because the will is it this is the whole idea the either
00:28:28 thing of being predestined and we are we are free to choose his life functioning cognition is impaired why number one he's naked he's running around naked we know that because at the end of the text when he is recovered he is said to be fully dressed we said that in verse 15 when they came to see they saw the man we possessed the lemon sitting there dressed and in his right mind that means he was naked before that we find he is in pain why because we are told in verse 5 night and day among the tombs he would
00:29:01 cry out he's in pain and his mind is so tormented he is self inflicting himself you know people who are suicidal first go through that right they'll cut themselves it's very descriptive and i want to suggest this is key so even if you don't have a mental issue i suggest that this is key to your thing and the summit church put it in a very very good diagram the summit church proposes number one counseling is the domain of the entire church not a select few trained people and these are the three areas you got to
00:29:41 look at but before that let me give you what dr martin lloyd jones says you see the christians don't understand how physical psychological and spiritual realms interrelate because again it's interesting satan murders the boundaries many of our troubles are caused because we think a problem is spiritual when it is physical our thing a problem is physical when it's emotional or spiritual so it's an interesting point so let me go back to this diagram and i want to see whether we can help you see the reason why
00:30:18 a lot of us don't like to get involved in this because we find that it is beyond us but it is actually a bit easier if you understand some broad parameters and i suggest it's something every christmas to understand i'm going to give you four disorders again i'm an architect not even a doctor but to understand let's give you the first one it's called postpartum disorder you you do the studies on these people who do this can commit suicide you know extreme cases they will drown their babies do not do not take this lightly and they
00:30:51 are church going people what happens to this this very simple postpartum is something that happens after a woman gives birth so where is the centering of this is obviously biological once you understand that you understand a woman after giving birth you really really have to take care don't be like most men try to rationalize i don't know what's your problem you know oh you like that behavior because it's a disorder the moment a diagnosis is made the church supports by giving space because it's
00:31:29 biological you you ankle yourself and then you understand how to how to basically support here's another one post traumatic stress disorder much more common than you imagine i give you a very simple case you as a teenager were in a car with your friends very very happy driving and bang you had an accident your car boom boom boom boom boom at that moment you think you're going to die and the car turns turtle you are now 45 you think you got over it you never did you know why because every time you're
00:32:06 in a car and someone goes very fast before you you bagata that's called environmental so when you are a church and you decide as a life group to go on outing everybody said go whoa go very far go fast the guy is behind his sweating you know and you don't realize it this one anchors itself in what environmental is a trauma from the past another one this one is very deadly the simple english body is called a social path the deadliest part of it is called a psychopath anti-social personality disorders are
00:32:45 people who very young are cruel you know so imagine you're a parent and your child is cruel i had a friend who used to share me he had a girlfriend and one night he thought he caught the girlfriend outside you know what the girlfriend was doing the girlfriend caught the cat no and was bashing the cat against the tree church going man so people who do this have one thing they are manipulative they get married they can show tears but the intention is really to hurt you but you cannot see it and you do the
00:33:28 research the family members are the ones who get hurt the more they call you cannot accept your child like that so you meet a christian you know what he sees he sees sucker boy i'm gonna take you for a ride and the research shows this one is audrey you know it's biological normally the environment pushes it and he has lost his will because these are people who can do cruel things they feel absolutely no remorse nothing whether it's bashing a kid a cat stealing money and a statistics they all go into crime
00:34:08 here's one very common they call this add adhd and this is biological and environmental and again parents don't like that you sometimes see a young kid running around running around running around maybe he's hyperactive but what if he's got an all disorder and then you just add to it that you're an environment where you're busy parents you have no time you give the kid a device he spends all his time on his device and he's running around guess what you're done to your kid and please don't tell me the church
00:34:40 isn't involved in this this is the domain of the church now this is very complex and we will do a bit of this detail next week but let me tell you for myself even what we call a functioning person i found this helpful so here's one for all you simple people for all of us who think we are normal number one biological that's what dr martin lord jones does sleep nutrition exercise me time these are things which are critical to discipleship don't think he has nothing to do your spiritual work it has everything to do
00:35:16 your spiritual remember jesus aim is to go form creation you are now uncreated by the devil but to recreate you and look at certain genetic disposition if you look at genesis abraham's family abraham was a liar he lied about his wife his son was a bigger liar his son's son was an even bigger liar his name and deceiver that genetic the bible tell you genetic so i i tend to ask myself what am i particularly prone to like for example i i am kanchong you know i will tell you it takes a lot of courage to say i'm kanchong i get
00:35:52 worked up very easily but to say it is very liberating i i don't need to go and psychoanalyze it too much but i sit down and say i'm very disposable uh uh genetically uh inclined towards certain sinful behaviors i admit it i bring it before god so biological is critical i i am i confess i'm considered health free don't you don't have to be extreme as me but a lot of christians sing think all of these things like sleep and nutrition and exercise and having down time has nothing to do discipleship that's
00:36:25 completely nonsense you know especially men and men like to be hero no i can do it i can do that you can't do it you're so stressed at work you keep saying i've got no time for church no time when i'm free i do it which actually means you will never do for church you so burn yourself out and you don't realize how that affects your daily rhythm and your emotions and your spiritual world so here's the first thing when we look at the story and i think john picked it up we look at the story of of elijah wanting to kill himself
00:36:59 he said he got fed up he fought with jezebel like he and he got so fed i said god take me home what's the first thing god says go get some rest and get some food biological here's the second one and this is to me the key area of the church the church provides the environment so you run a family and when mom and dad is fighting all the time you become collateral damage if you go to work and from young everybody makes fun of you they all tell bad jokes they know that you're the religious joe you are ex you are outsider all the time
00:37:37 if your family has no time all the time you do you glue to a computer don't know where you go and serve the dopamine is a dopamine fix is the addiction uh transmitter by the way uh because you need to get a high note whether it's a like or serving to websites you should not be surfing to and you don't recognize that you need a deeper high deeper high that's how people go into this they need to go deeper and deeper into it and bearing things that happened to you in the past the church job is to substitute this
00:38:09 let me give you a simple thing that our live group did yesterday we went hiking to monterrera mount carol we did two things one we exercise two we became family we created an environment because what's the difference between a church family and an outside family outside people outside people they judge you you know if you don't talk like them speak let them do that you cannot join my clique but the family of god invites everyone along for a hike so yesterday we hiked we had people from hong kong
00:38:56 people from sweden kids old people and it was such a great time and i came back here's the word uh spiritually refreshed spiritually refreshed and i'll tell you what we did last night yesterday we did discipleship we didn't open the bible we didn't go on the top of mount cara and did the sermon on the mount we didn't do all that we just walked and we talked and we bonded and you have no idea how that on a spiritual level forms you and here's the last one will and will comes in many ways the renewal
00:39:38 of mind comes with tiny habits little habits you do every day habits become you in many ways you are the sum of your daily routine what you repeatedly do every day becomes you so you every day do certain things you do not realize that actually shapes your identity you know there's a lot of research into this they call these tiny habits so if you're in addiction or you're in bondage or in things where you cannot break out and you're too ashamed to tell everyone you come to your guild conscience you have tried to
00:40:15 break out it you can't break out of it here's one single simple tip you can talk to me personally do small little habits you know what it does there's a biological shift to it it actually improves the serotonin level because serotonin is something that is released when you have achieved something so after that you just increase the bar increase the bar increase the bar one day you wake up you find you know what this addiction i'm not so attracted to it a lot of science into this and it's actually very
00:40:46 biblical coping mechanism we all cope with issues one way which is very unhealthy is we just block it out you cannot block it out you actually have to talk it out and work with people to do it but this to me is critical so let me just quickly end in a short while do you know those that stay at taman tomb you see the end of the story talks about 2 000 round picks what happens is the story is the the demon enters into these pigs the pigs run down the hill and they all drown and although they find verse 14 though
00:41:23 10 of the pigs ran off you know why because they just bankrupted their bosses and reported this to the town and countryside the people went out to see what happened now verse 15 is really interesting because it's what you call a jukta position when they came to jesus that means uh what happened is this this big herders or the guys that went back and say hey all your pigs all die already you know effectively the whole town is not bankrupt so everybody gets very upset also the whole time comes out
00:41:52 so they come out look at how verse 50 says they when they came to jesus they saw the man who'd been possessed by the legion of demons sitting there dressed and his right mind and they were afraid you know what the text is telling you they came they saw two things two thousand round picks one man made whole and then the response is they were afraid you know what they're telling you two thousand pigs is more valuable than one man made sound that's what the text is trying to tell you because if you value that man that you
00:42:36 stuck in tamanthum you have been overjoyed that he is now made whole but they did not see a man made whole they saw their economy in ruins and they were afraid how do we know that we reinforce it after that and then we find in verse 17 then the people begin to plead with jesus leave wow wow who really is in spiritual bondage demonic man or the town and we turn it around today sometimes we see people here who charm or this person was schizophrenia this person got bipolar this person got ocd this person got adhd
00:43:27 you know what god is trying to tell you you know that person could be closer to the kingdom of god than all you fine mentally healthy people that is the story that twisted that's the twist in the story because in the end i'm going to use a crude word uh they don't give a damn about this guy they don't give a damn that's how mark is putting it so i'll tell you one might one and let me just close today why this is important because the same thing is thrown back to us today do you give a damn about these people
00:44:09 how do we know that let me tell you few things people like this suffer number one stigmatization you can't have them living with us stick them in the tombs among the dead we feed them they cause trouble we chain them up we keep giving them food no we don't say we're cruel no we go over and give them food i think an animal even lives better than that so the first thing with people who struggle with mental disorders and the family along with them is they have strong stigmatization they feel people in
00:44:40 cantonese thai soybe the mentally ill are one group of handicapped people against whom it seems to be socially acceptable to whole prejudice you you look and nowadays be in an egalitarian time movies must have a gay person must have a black person as a hispanic person can even have a physically disabled person but this is one group for all the left is saying is invisible this is the last bastion you know and the church has to step in this gap because the world is not doing it number two you feel overwhelmed
00:45:20 my name is legion people who have this problem they feel they have a hundred voices in their mind so here the opposite end can one use the label of mental conditions as a crutch for avoiding taking responsibility for action so someone said i got depression i can't do my job because i got depression actually you can do your job but you're convincing yourself because your depression you can't do your job when people feel overwhelmed there are three things they always feel like let me just say number one they feel no one
00:45:56 understands them they think the whole church talks a lot but doesn't do i'm not saying it's true but how does how to feel number two they'll come and tell you don't preach to me don't lecture me don't tell me all of these things no don't give them don't give me all these things but arnold stop telling me i need to be better don't stop telling me about triumphant life don't tell me that god has a good thing and totally they feel they cannot break out of it so they feel overwhelmed legion is at their door last one is
00:46:29 collateral damage and this is probably the most important we're not talking about pizza do you know who are the real collateral damage and this one is very heartbreaking the family the family because as that person suffers the loved ones around them suffer why do you think we call ourselves family life ministry a we become the substitute family family b we do life because all these people their life is like this person is a hellish life and tree is a ministry so let me just say this is a long and
00:47:22 hardest journey friendship is very important for those with poor mental health but it's very hard to be a true friend to someone in such a condition and when you get involved this mystery is one step forward two steps back but as jesus did it so the church is called let me end by this don't follow me a strange commandment why actually jesus is saying following me by not by saying not following me why because look at the last verse as jesus getting the boat the man who had been demon possessed begged to
00:47:59 go with him of course his life was held jesus meaning hope but jesus did not let him but said go home hear the word to who your family and tell them how much the lord has done for you and how he has mercy on you then after they it increases on family the man went away and began to tell in the decapolis you know what the decapolis the decapolis of ten cities in the greek roman empire they are your kuala lumpurs of today the man went beyond that and he witnessed jesus told him just go to your family
00:48:42 he was the samaritan woman many times over he went to his family and not only that he went to the streets of kl and said jesus is lord that's the power of this ministry and why it should involve everyone and so i close with few questions for you to consider like i said today we just have a discussion number one how do you view mental health issues within the church there are no answers here i just want you to pray over this secondly what is the relationship between spiritual warfare and mental health issues again there's
00:49:23 no answer and lastly how should the church disciple someone who has severe mental health issue because his will is not there how you bring about renewal of the mind but let me end with one proposition to do this you need the whole body of christ working together not a few people and i will close with the words of luke and before he went out to his ministry to all his people this is what jesus said as i asked the worshipped him to come up he went to nazareth where he had been brought up and on the sabbath he went
00:50:02 into synagogue as was his custom he stood up to read and the scroll the prophet isaiah was handed to him unrolling it he found a place where written the spirit of lord is on me because he has appointed anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor he has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind to set your press free to proclaim the years of the lord's favor this morning i challenge you to think of those who are oppressed mentally and it is the role of the
00:50:38 church with the work of the holy spirit the gospel duty to do what jesus did to set them free
