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158 | Speak Your Story: How Your Testimony Changes the World
7k Plays6 days ago
This powerful conference session connects directly to our previous episode about our 5-month podcast break. While the last episode shared the "happy ending" of our infertility journey with baby Olivera's birth, this session was recorded in the middle of that same story - during failed fertility treatments with no promise of resolution.
In This Session:
- The demon-possessed man's story from Mark 5
- Why Jesus intentionally enters our broken stories
- How sharing your story defeats the enemy
Breaking through 4 lies that keep us silent:
- "My story is insignificant" → Your story has IMPACT
- "My story is a trigger" → Your story TRANSFORMS
- "My story is intimidating" → Your story is INTIMATE
- "My story needs a happy ending" → Your story proclaims God's goodness NOW
The Connection: This session shows what it looks like to live out faith in real time during trials, before knowing how God will answer our prayers. It's the theological foundation for everything we shared in our previous episode about living out theology in pain.
📖 Scripture Focus: Mark 5:1-20 - The healing of the demon-possessed man
🎥 From Verity Conference 2024 Want more sessions like this? Verity Conference 2025 is online October 3-4! Register: https://verityconference.com
EWAT resources: https://phyliciamasonheimer.com/store/
💭 Discussion Questions: What story is God calling you to share? Which of the 4 lies resonates most with you? How can unfinished stories still glorify God?
Note: This session discusses miscarriage, infertility, and child safety concerns. Viewer discretion advised.
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Transcript
Introduction and Theme
00:00:00
Speaker
When you share your story, like the demon-possessed man did, the enemy loses. When you bring it out into the light, the enemy loses.
Verity Conference Announcements
00:00:15
Speaker
Hello friends, Felicia here. I am coming out of my maternity leave to do the introduction for this episode. If you listened to the last episode of Verity Podcast, I told you that during my leave, we're going to be running a series of recordings from Verity Conference 2024. These are some of the best of the sessions from last year's theology conference here in Northern Michigan.
00:00:41
Speaker
But there's more. This year, Verity Conference 2025 is completely online.
Felicia's Personal Testimony
00:00:48
Speaker
So if you like what you hear in these episodes that are running, it's not too late to grab a ticket to Verity Conference 2025 and watch it from the comfort of your own living room.
00:00:59
Speaker
You can do that at verityconference.com. Now, one thing I want to mention about this episode in particular is that this one is very special. And there's a reason that Zach, our videographer, our photographer, and our podcast editor put this one first.
00:01:16
Speaker
It's because in the last episode, I talked about our testimony of walking through secondary infertility and the miracle of our daughter, Oliveira, who was born a week ago.
00:01:28
Speaker
But in this particular episode, you're going to hear the recording of my teaching from Verity Conference 2024 when I was in the middle of that testimony.
00:01:42
Speaker
So at the time that this session went live, we were in our third or fourth round of Letrozole, which is a fertility medication.
00:01:53
Speaker
And not only did that round fail, but the one after it failed as well. and so In the midst of that grief and not understanding which way to go, seeking the Lord for that journey while also grieving everything that we lost earlier in the year, i shared why our story matters so much, why the testimony God has you in matters so much, and why you should share it even before there is resolution to it.
00:02:23
Speaker
And so it's really unique to get to share this session with you because last episode kind of gave you the happy ending of the
Faith and Testimony
00:02:32
Speaker
story. But last year i was sharing this testimony without a happy ending and with no promise of a happy ending and with no idea that we would not only get pregnant again, but be able to keep that pregnancy and see that pregnancy turn into this sweet miracle baby girl.
00:02:53
Speaker
So there's a reason that we have these episodes back to back. So if you haven't listened to the first episode, you can listen to these in either order. You can listen to the one that just ran and then listen to this one or listen to this one and then go listen to that one.
00:03:08
Speaker
um They dovetail together very well because they're essentially two halves of the same story. And I hope that no matter where you are in your journey, if you're in the middle of it, if you're on the other side of it, if you're in a season of abundance and you're not in a season of trial, but you know people who are, that this encourages you to put your faith in Christ alone.
00:03:32
Speaker
Not in things, not in promises, not in changed circumstances, not in a baby, not in marriage, not in a job. but to put your faith in Christ alone and in the gospel that he has given us, because it's only through our faith in Christ that we're able to weather these trials.
00:03:53
Speaker
And in the end, when you get the thing that you've prayed for and you get the thing that you hoped for, It doesn't remove the suffering completely. There are other challenges, other trials that you're still going to walk through and what's going to sustain you then.
00:04:10
Speaker
It has to be your faith in Christ. It can't be a change in your circumstances. There's a famous Elizabeth Elliot quote where she says, so the difference is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.
Interactions with Jesus in Scripture
00:04:25
Speaker
And I hope this episode illustrates that for you. Wow, you guys, I can't believe that we are at this point in the conference that we are at the final keynote. And I am just overwhelmed with gratitude to get to celebrate the Lord in this way with you this year. I've gotten to greet some of you this afternoon and um yesterday and talk to you and see the faces behind the Instagram handles, which is fun.
00:04:51
Speaker
I do try so hard to remember your faces and names, and um i I really appreciate getting to see the community that is online around the world come to life in person once a year. So thank you for taking the time to come and join us and to celebrate the Lord with our team.
00:05:09
Speaker
We are going to be in Mark 5 today, and I would love to read this entire account, but We're going to shorten it just a little bit for the sake of time.
00:05:23
Speaker
And you're probably familiar with this story. This is a story of a man who was abandoned and lost and seemed like there was no way back. There was there's no hope.
00:05:35
Speaker
And Jesus told a different story. So Mark 5, I'm going to summarize this story and then we have a focus part of the text sort of in the middle of the chapter.
00:05:48
Speaker
So anybody seen the famous painting, Storm on the Sea of Galilee? You've seen this painting? Beautiful painting. It's really dark. There's this ship. It's being tossed by the waves.
00:05:59
Speaker
Jesus is napping, as one does in the middle of a storm. And his disciples freak out. They come and beg him to save them. And what does he do?
00:06:10
Speaker
He stands up and he says... peace be still the storm is calm so we know that story but did you know that this story comes right before the one we're about to read about jesus healing the demon-possessed man and driving the demons into the pigs See, I actually didn't know that those two stories were so closely connected until I studied for this session.
00:06:36
Speaker
Jesus gets in the boat. He crosses the sea. The storm happens. After the storm, he comes to the shore that he was headed for. He arrives in the night in the region of the Gerasenes.
00:06:49
Speaker
Now, the region of the Gerasenes was a Gentile region of Israel. There's the Sea of Galilee where they had this storm. He's moved from one side to the other.
00:07:00
Speaker
when he gets to this side, he's coming into a region of Gentiles, so non-Jewish people. Now, if you look at how Jesus interacted with people in his ministry up to this point, he continually said that his message was for the Jews.
00:07:14
Speaker
He was bringing the good news of God's Messiah, he is the Messiah, to the Jews. And he did not interact a whole lot with Gentiles. One of the most specific examples of him interacting with someone who was not Jewish or purely Jewish is in John 4, the Samaritan woman.
00:07:32
Speaker
And if you've read my book, Stop Calling Me Beautiful, you know that John 4 is the anchor text of that entire book talking about his interaction with that woman. And this was the first time we see Jesus interacting with someone who is non-Jewish.
00:07:49
Speaker
And what does he do? He reveals the fact that he's the Messiah to her. And she becomes the very first evangelist. Incredible story. Absolutely beautiful.
00:08:00
Speaker
So here we see Jesus once again kind of going out of his way into a Gentile territory, crossing the sea. He arrives and it says, if you look at ah verse 2,
00:08:12
Speaker
they came They came to the other side of the sea, to the region of the Gerasenes. As soon as he got out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came out of the tombs and met him.
00:08:23
Speaker
He lived in the tombs, and no one was able to restrain him anymore, even with chains, because he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but had snapped them off and smashed the shackles, and no one was strong enough to subdue him.
00:08:36
Speaker
And always, night and day, he was crying out among the tombs and in the mountains and cutting himself with chains. the stones. And so Jesus arrives, most likely in the nighttime, after the storm, at this shore, this Gentile shore, and he shows up in a cemetery.
00:08:54
Speaker
And as they're getting out of the boat, out comes this man. It says he runs up to Jesus and he kneels down before Jesus. I just want you to picture this for a second. You cross through a storm. I'm just picturing being one of Jesus' disciples right now.
00:09:07
Speaker
You cross through a storm, thought you were going to die. Thought your rabbi was just going to let you drown. He gets up. he He calms the sea. Now you land on the shore and what comes hurtling out of the graveyard?
00:09:21
Speaker
But this man who's covered in broken chains and wounds and comes screaming up to Jesus. I'm telling you, that is the plot line of a horror movie right there.
00:09:33
Speaker
terrifying. And so as Jesus comes to shore, this man comes up to him and immediately the demons within him speak out and say, what do you have to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?
00:09:45
Speaker
I beg you, don't torment me. Because he had said, Jesus had said to them, come out of that man, you unclean spirit. So Jesus meets this man, the disciples I picture kind of huddling on the boat at this point,
00:09:58
Speaker
but maybe retreating into the boat at this point as he's talking to this man. And Jesus goes on to kind of engage with him and so speak to the demons, cast out the demons, which were many.
00:10:13
Speaker
He asked them, what is your name? And they said, Legion. He cast them out. And what do they go into? Herd of pigs, 2,000 pigs. And the 2,000 pigs immediately run off a cliff and drown in the Sea of Galilee.
00:10:27
Speaker
Naturally, the owners of the pigs are a little upset. Just a little bit. Now, remember, this is a Gentile part of the country. So it makes sense why they are raising pigs. The Jewish community would not be raising pigs because they did not eat them.
00:10:42
Speaker
So this is, again, Gentile country and the pigs are running off. Once the people see that their money is running off of a cliff, they turn and they say, we don't want you here to Jesus.
00:10:54
Speaker
Get out of here. We don't want you. And Jesus gets in his boat and he leaves. It's such an interesting story because Jesus comes across the sea. He meets this man.
00:11:05
Speaker
He heals the man, dresses him, clothes him, throws the demons into these pigs. The community says, get out of
Felicia's Personal Trials and Faith
00:11:13
Speaker
here. And he does. And he leaves this man behind with very specific command. And I want you to look at verse 18. This is going to be our text.
00:11:24
Speaker
As he was getting into the boat, Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who'd been demon-possessed kept begging him to be with him, but he would not let him. Instead, he told him, go back home to your own people and report to them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you." So he went out and he began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him.
00:11:52
Speaker
And they were all amazed. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. So this section here where he talks about this yes man who's been healed and he wants to go with Jesus, but Jesus says, no, you can't go with me. I want you to stay here and share your story.
00:12:10
Speaker
This is the anchor of my last session with you. The Decapolis, where Jesus wanted this man to go, was and was a group of Greek greek cities.
00:12:22
Speaker
They Jewish cities, but they had Greek culture had ah kind of been absorbed into them. And so it's called the Decapolis, the Ten Cities. And this is where he left this man.
00:12:36
Speaker
This year in our life, we have had quite the story. And some of you have been following along for our journey for most of this year. So last Verity, we had an amazing time, amazing celebration. It was just a phenomenal time of prayer and worship. And as we went into November and December,
00:12:56
Speaker
we were thinking about, you know, what is our next year going to look like? What do we want to pray for? What do we want to focus on? And as I look toward Christmas specifically and listen to the emails I was receiving and what people were saying to us as ah as a team and as a community, I realized that there were a lot of people really struggling with the problem of evil and the problem of suffering.
00:13:17
Speaker
And so in December, for our Advent series, we have a free email Advent series. I decided to do a series on the problem of evil. Very um bright and cheery, merry and bright um for Advent.
00:13:32
Speaker
But it was something that we needed to talk about. And so ah created this series as 24 emails that were each talking about the problem of evil and specifically sharing my struggle with the theology of suffering in the world.
00:13:47
Speaker
Several years before last year, when my son Ivan was a baby, so four years ago, I had severe postpartum depression and anxiety. And what happens when this is occurring in your body is, yes, it's hormonal. Yes, it's physical. But I think it also brings up spiritual things that we haven't always dealt with.
00:14:07
Speaker
And so for me, what I had kind of pushed down in all my theological studies and all of the work that I've done over the years was the problem of evil. Specifically, why children die.
00:14:21
Speaker
And this will be a session where we do talk about this. So if you need to leave, I do understand. But for me at that time, had not lost a child.
00:14:33
Speaker
So you might think, like, why would you be so upset? Why would this be so burdening your heart? You have a living child. After I had my baby, with this living child in my arms, why are you struggling with that?
00:14:44
Speaker
But the struggle for me and was, why did this baby live and another die? And this brought up the theology of suffering, the theology of pain.
00:14:55
Speaker
When you look out at the world and you look inside your own Bible, you see death and you see grief. And I could not help but think, there are so many people who I want to reach.
00:15:07
Speaker
I want to evangelize. I want to disciple. But how do I talk to them if my child has lived, but theirs has not? And what kind of God would allow that?
00:15:21
Speaker
And so this led me to spend a long time, weeks and months reading so many different books to the point that Josh actually got concerned and came up to me and said, I really want to take these books away.
00:15:36
Speaker
ah good husband, very sweet husband, to try to take the stack of books I'd ordered off Amazon. Not your typical nursing station stack, let me tell you. ah Five views of the Canaanite genocide was one of them.
00:15:52
Speaker
He was sweet to care about it, but I told him, if I do not wrestle with this now, I will not be able to do the work I'm called to do.
00:16:04
Speaker
If I do not pin this to the ground with God, if I do not get an answer, I don't think I can continue to teach authentically and ignore a question that I know the people that I'm serving will ask.
00:16:24
Speaker
So I had not lost a child, but I'd spent so much time reading and studying and trying to hear the different perspectives on how can a good God let something like this happen.
00:16:37
Speaker
And that work bore fruit, and I came out on the other side, not deconstructed, but reconstructed into the truth of what Scripture teaches on suffering and on the goodness of God in light of it.
00:16:49
Speaker
couple years go by, and now it's December of last year. Then I decided to share what I learned in this Advent series, writing it out and summarizing it as best I could in these 24 emails.
00:17:03
Speaker
And in it, I admitted the issue for me was infant and child death. ah For other people, it's natural disasters, or you know it might be questions about space and the universe.
00:17:17
Speaker
But for me, that was the question. And so that's what I wrote about in December. Now, up to that point, my husband and I, we have three children, Adeline, Iba, and Ivan.
00:17:28
Speaker
They are nine, seven, and four. Up to that point, we we were able to get pregnant very easily. And I know some you resonate with this, but it was a little bit like I look at Josh and I have a baby.
00:17:39
Speaker
And so I was not concerned about us maybe ever having another child. I know some of the men in this room are like, get me out of here. This is getting too personal.
00:17:50
Speaker
i felt like we were too busy. we We talked about it and we prayed about it. We thought like the timing is just not right with everything that's going on with the growth of the ministry. And besides, we just get pregnant so easily.
00:18:05
Speaker
But then time went by and we didn't. And more time went by and we didn't. More time went by and we didn't. And we thought, this is this is strange, you know.
00:18:15
Speaker
um Our previous three children, this was not a path that we walked. And so in December... As I'm writing this story, the you know, the story of the Advent series, um we thought, well, we we'll continue to pray about this, but it is starting to look like this is different than than we're used to.
00:18:34
Speaker
This is a new path for us. But in January, we found out that we were pregnant. And we were so excited because it had been a year and a half or so, and we were delighted to share the news with our friends and to just celebrate with them and um to tell our kids. And so we did. We told our kids, and um they were delighted and thrilled.
00:18:56
Speaker
And then almost as soon as we found out that we were pregnant, um we lost that baby. And so that was it's very disconcerting, very hard to navigate and to think through, as anyone who's lost i vi a child via miscarriage knows.
00:19:14
Speaker
and A lot of hormones, a lot of um questioning. i didn't know how to tell our friends, many of whom are here. We didn't know how to tell somebody, I was pregnant and I was about to tell you, and now not.
00:19:28
Speaker
it's It's a difficult situation. So fast forward, we mourned this sweet baby and we get into March and April. Last Verity Conference, one of the things our team prayed for very specifically, I've always prayed specifically for Petoskey in northern Michigan. This is where we're rooted. This our first ministry.
00:19:47
Speaker
We also pray for the Upper Peninsula, which is very unreached in many ways. Many good churches doing good work in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, um but we wanted to pray for them and come alongside them and support them.
00:19:59
Speaker
And in April, we had the opportunity to go up there three times. which had not happened previously. And so I was standing in my friend's church um yeah doing ministry with her at her Sunday school. And as I'm standing in the church there, Josh texts me and says, the truck just died. And he was about to take the kids to church. The truck just died and I need to take it um into the shop.
00:20:21
Speaker
We ended up taking it in and they said, well, you need a full engine replacement. So it's going to be $8,000. And of course, nobody loves to get such news. So we thought, okay, well, we'll do it. We'll save our pennies we'll make it work.
00:20:34
Speaker
then I had had a friend in um early April, a prayer partner of mine, reach out to me and say, Felicia, I had this dream about you. And in this dream, you were in a house and there was a storm coming.
00:20:47
Speaker
And the storm was swirling around the house and you and Josh were inside and you were looking out the window and you could see it around you, but it wasn't touching you. And I thought, that's profound. I'll always pray. If one of my faithful friends has a dream and it may be from the Lord, I'll ask the Lord for insight into that.
00:21:03
Speaker
And so when the truck died, i thought, this must be the storm. This must be it. $8,000 feels like a storm to me. Let me tell you. And so I actually posted on Instagram...
00:21:17
Speaker
that day that this dream had been given told to me and how it was comforting me that even in the middle of this storm with this truck breaking down and and as we're moving into a space, we prayed to evangelize and to disciple that I knew that no matter what happened, God would have us protected and we would watch the storm, but it would not touch us.
00:21:36
Speaker
And when I shared that on Instagram, two other women from our community reached out and said, I want to tell you about a dream I had. And they said, one of them said, I'm a good Baptist and I don't do dreams.
00:21:52
Speaker
I just loved it.
00:21:55
Speaker
But she said, i had the same dream. I had the same dream, two women. I had the same dream that a storm was coming. Slight differentiation, but the same story. A storm was coming for us, but it wouldn't touch us.
00:22:14
Speaker
three times. And so I thought, well, ah Lord, I'll take that to heart. I don't know what that means, but I'll hold on to that. Not knowing how much we would need it.
00:22:26
Speaker
So as April turned into May, we found out we were pregnant again, and we were rejoicing with joy. We told our kids, And as we got to the end of the month, in one weekend, we found out that we were pregnant.
00:22:45
Speaker
We got devastating relational news in two different relationships. And someone who I prayed for for three years became a believer in Christ. And I remember thinking, God, I don't know what's going on, but it seems like as we are here and we're praying and we're moving and into where you've called us, like you're you're birthing new life in these new places at the same time that there's all of this difficulty, the truck dying and these relationships breaking apart. But look, there's this new life happening. And this is this is so exciting because the the prayers that I prayed are being answered. And if this is the storm in a way with the truck and the relationships, well, I know that I'll be okay.
00:23:28
Speaker
And a week or two later, we lost that baby. A week after that, our family dog got Lyme's disease and we watched her lose the function of her legs and then not be able to stand and then look like she's going to die.
00:23:43
Speaker
And that that second one, that that third one, that that our little dog Maple, doesn't seem so significant maybe, but for our kids, that was the third blow. For our kids, the two previous losses, they couldn't see.
00:23:58
Speaker
But now they could see it. And now they were in tears because this animal that they loved was dying too. And that's what they said to us. What else is going to die?
00:24:12
Speaker
And I remember coming to Josh and saying, everything has been touched. Our money... our fertility, our family, our dog.
00:24:30
Speaker
But at least my kids are okay. My living children. And a week later, we were at our local beach. I was with one of our beloved um employees of Everyone a Theologian.
00:24:46
Speaker
My children were with their babysitter at the beach. And a man stalked them down the beach and exposed himself to them and their babysitter.
00:24:58
Speaker
Now, I want you to understand this area is a very safe area. This is a family beach. We were 300 feet away. There were people on the beach with our children. And so you can imagine how after an experience like that, when I had just said, at least it didn't touch our children.
00:25:18
Speaker
To now see my children affected this way. Will make you ask God every question under the sun.
00:25:30
Speaker
Why have you allowed this? Why did you take these babies? Why did our dog nearly die? Why is our truck still in the shop?
00:25:45
Speaker
All of these things that are so heavy. all congregating at once. And that's when those dreams of those faithful women reminded me God knew.
00:25:59
Speaker
and he equipped the church to carry me in a time I did not yet know would come.
00:26:09
Speaker
This is a long, little bit of a long story, but I wanted you to hear from me directly the full range of what happened over the course of our year. And the reason I chose this particular passage is because I want you to know two things that this story teaches us about stories like mine and like yours.
Storytelling and Community Impact
00:26:32
Speaker
Number one, Jesus is intentional and he intentionally came into your story. Jesus crossed that sea to come to that man.
00:26:44
Speaker
He didn't cross the sea arbitrarily. He didn't cross the sea because he wanted to go for a joyride. He didn't cross the sea because he thought he'd run into one of the pig shepherds.
00:26:58
Speaker
I don't know what the name of a pig person is.
00:27:05
Speaker
He came for the demon-possessed man. He came to that story and he is intentional in his salvation. None of you are here by accident. God wants all people to be saved and he comes to your story specifically.
00:27:20
Speaker
The second thing that this story teaches us is that when you share your story, like the demon-possessed man did, the enemy loses. When you bring it out into the light, the enemy loses.
00:27:35
Speaker
See, this man, he was enslaved by the community who should have cared for him. He was still wearing chains, even while he thought he was free. He appeared free, but he was still in bondage. He was socially isolated and self-destructive, and he was owned by a legion of demons. A legion is 6,000 soldiers horsemen.
00:27:56
Speaker
the enemy did not want this man to be free Why? Because he hates image bearers, but secondly, because he knew this man's potential. See, when you're set free from your demons, from from whatever it is that has owned you, whatever past sins, sexual sins, pornography, ah addiction, unforgiveness, anger, anxiety, somebody loses.
00:28:19
Speaker
First, the enemy, but also everybody around to you you who wants you to maintain the status quo. If you change, if you transform, if you bring your story into the light and you hold it up and you say, God redeemed this,
00:28:35
Speaker
And you no longer identify by your pain, but you let God redeem it. Those who want to identify by their pain lose. And they want to keep you in a place where your pain remains your story.
00:28:51
Speaker
This man was healed by Jesus. And the people around him, they didn't even care. They didn't even care about his healing. They didn't care that there was no longer a crazy man banging rocks and chains in their cemetery.
00:29:07
Speaker
They just wanted Jesus out of there because they lost money. So they weren't even aware or appreciative of the miracle that Jesus had done because it was inconvenient for them.
00:29:18
Speaker
And let me tell you, when you share your story with others, when you say, God is setting me free from anxiety. God did this through my miscarriage. God is healing my family relationships. There will be people who don't want to hear it because it's inconvenient for their story.
00:29:36
Speaker
And so you must be bold enough like this man to continue to say, you know what? Jesus came intentionally into my story and I'm going to keep sharing it because I want other people to be free.
00:29:49
Speaker
But when I started talking about this online, really after our first miscarriage, I really struggled because I do believe that our culture has kind of made a commodity out of trauma.
00:30:04
Speaker
We've kind of started to take our stories and use them to garner attention and to garner pity. And sometimes I think we use it as a replacement for real community.
00:30:17
Speaker
I have real community. I have amazing friends who've walked this road with us. Many of them are here right now. So I was hesitant to share this online because I didn't want it to b another commodity.
00:30:31
Speaker
I didn't want it to be like, here goes Felicia turning her grief into a platform. But when I prayed about it and asked the Lord, the Lord told me, you must share this story because there will be people who need to know that I am there for them too.
00:30:51
Speaker
But when I was thinking about how to share, how to talk about it, there were four lies that kept creeping into my mind that made me want to stop sharing and still do. I still feel this way. I feel this way standing right here right now. I don't even really want to talk about it. But they these lies are keeping us from the witness that would change the world.
00:31:12
Speaker
The first lie, my story is insignificant. My story is insignificant. See, I have a story. This is hard, but you know what? I bet if I asked you to raise hands, all of you have had a car in the shop.
00:31:24
Speaker
One in four of you have had a miscarriage. Many of you have lost a dog. There's a lot that you've gone through and more that I have not shared. So the lie is my story is insignificant. Somebody else has suffered more.
00:31:41
Speaker
somebody else has suffered more. The man that Jesus healed was all but forgotten by others. They were busy selling pigs while this man rotted away in a cemetery. And they knew about him, but he was just another story. He was just something they managed.
00:31:55
Speaker
And we kind of treat ourselves and our stories the way these people treated the demoniac, while other people have suffered more. It's not that big of a deal. I don't want to draw attention to myself.
00:32:08
Speaker
Well, maybe the person who suffered more than you can be encouraged by your faith in suffering. Maybe it's not that big of a deal to you, but it would be to somebody else.
00:32:21
Speaker
Maybe you're not drawing attention to you, but to the God who saved you and who redeemed you. That's who this is about. One scholar says this about this man.
00:32:33
Speaker
Jesus met a man whose family and neighbors had given up on him, a man who had given up on himself, who'd been possessed by a legion of demons, and Jesus brought healing and wholeness to him. And as a result, an entire region became receptive to the gospel, and more than that, became proclaimers of the gospel themselves.
00:32:53
Speaker
From the tight grasp of Satan to the warm embrace of God, a man was transformed.
The Power of Personal Stories
00:32:59
Speaker
Your story is not insignificant. Your story has impact.
00:33:05
Speaker
From insignificant to impact. Lie number two, my story is a trigger. So this has been the probably the hardest part for me is when you talking about miscarriage or talking about loss or even just talking about the difficulty of the year that it can be triggering for people because it's hard to hear hard things.
00:33:28
Speaker
It's hard to hear hard things. But what I did not anticipate was how sharing those hard things would open the door to the healing of hard things.
00:33:41
Speaker
So I must not hide my story because of what it could be for someone else. I must tell my story because of what it will be for someone else through God.
00:33:57
Speaker
Your story is not a trigger. Your story will transform from trigger to transform. Jesus was not interested in just healing the p demoniac. He wanted to cure the whole community.
00:34:11
Speaker
And this man played a role in saving the Gentile cities of the Decapolis. Jesus saved this man for a specific reason. It was no accident.
00:34:21
Speaker
You are saved. You are in Christ by no accident. And you are placed where you are for a reason. In the cities you are in, on the street you are in, with the friends you are in, you have a story to steward just like this man.
00:34:38
Speaker
Lie number three, my story is intimidating. My story is intimidating. I don't want to share it because I don't want to be too much. If I share it, it's going to be too much.
00:34:50
Speaker
I don't want to talk about how my parent passed away, or I don't want to talk about the stillbirth that I had because it's too much for people. They can't handle it.
00:35:03
Speaker
Something that's interesting that Jesus says, if you look back at Mark 5, he says in verse 19, go back home to your own people. In other translations, it says, go to your friends.
00:35:16
Speaker
First of all, did he have any friends? Maybe from before. But do you know what? Everybody in that community knew who he was, right? Oh, that guy who lives in the cemetery and bangs rocks around? Yeah, yeah, I know who he is.
00:35:30
Speaker
He had people who knew him. God didn't ask him to share his story with all the strangers first. He asked him to share his story with his friends. Go back home to your own people and share what God has done for you.
00:35:47
Speaker
Who are your people? Who are your friends who need to hear what God has done for you? it doesn't have to be big. It doesn't have to be huge. It can be something small.
00:35:59
Speaker
What has God done for you? And who are the people that you can share that with? The people who are in your real life, they're the ones. They're the ones who need the gospel the most, who trust you, who know you, and who are watching you walk out your faith in whatever hard thing you're in.
00:36:18
Speaker
And therefore, your testimony is that much more powerful because they're watching you live it. He sent this man to his friends, to his own people.
00:36:29
Speaker
Your story is not intimidating. Your story is intimate.
00:36:35
Speaker
So the fourth lie that I believe, the first three are, if you haven't written them down, my story is insignificant. And the truth is my story has impact. The second is my story is a trigger.
00:36:47
Speaker
The truth is my story transforms. The third is my story is intimidating, but the truth is my story is intimate. The fourth lie is probably the one that many of you believe right with me.
00:37:00
Speaker
My story is not worth sharing because it doesn't have a happy ending.
00:37:09
Speaker
I know that many of you in this room do not have happy endings. I read the prayer cards in our prayer chapel. A lot of you don't have any ending in sight.
00:37:23
Speaker
And so you might think, well, I can't share what God has done because there's no ending to this story. My mother is dying.
00:37:34
Speaker
I'm still infertile. My marriage is ending. My child is unsaved.
00:37:41
Speaker
There is no tidy bow on this story. So I don't want to share it. But see, when Jesus saved this man, he cast out the demon. He dressed him.
00:37:54
Speaker
And then the people drove Jesus away. And this man was left sitting on a rock with the shirt on his back, told to go and preach in the Decapolis.
00:38:06
Speaker
That is not a happy ending. Jesus didn't build him a house. Jesus didn't give him more than enough food for the present time that we know of. He sent him on his way with almost nothing to proclaim the goodness of God.
00:38:24
Speaker
So you can go out with an unfinished story proclaiming the goodness of God, even in the middle of an unhappy ending.
00:38:37
Speaker
Our story is not over. I'm not pregnant. Our last attempt at fertility treatment failed. When we share a story that is unfinished and can still say he is good, that is still a testimony.
Conclusion and Encouragement
00:38:59
Speaker
And you can go out with your unfinished story, with your story that does not yet have a happy ending, and you can proclaim the goodness of God. And the Decapolis, the ten cities, that's your city.
00:39:13
Speaker
You can go out and you can share that. Jesus didn't ask this man to clean up his story. He didn't solve every problem in his story, but he did ask him to share what God had done.
00:39:24
Speaker
And this man became an evangelist to the Gentiles. And when Jesus later returns to the area, the people already know who Jesus is, all because of this man. See, your story might not have this happy ending. You might be still sitting in the graveyard.
00:39:44
Speaker
But God is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the beginning and He, He is the end. In the book of Job, it says a verse that many of us know. We know it as in certain translations.
00:40:00
Speaker
It says that though He slay me, I will hope in Him. In my CSB, my HCSB translation, the verse that I love, Job says, I know that my Redeemer lives and he will stand in the dust at last.
00:40:19
Speaker
He will stand in the dust when that's all that's left. When everything is gone, he will still be standing.
00:40:31
Speaker
And that's why you can stand and you can say, you know what, my circumstances aren't good and the answer isn't what I wanted. It didn't turn out the way that I hoped even though I prayed faithfully.
00:40:48
Speaker
But my hope is not in changed circumstances.
00:40:53
Speaker
Many of you read a newsletter I sent a few weeks ago, the title of which was, My Faith is Not for a Baby.
00:41:01
Speaker
And that's true.
00:41:05
Speaker
My faith is not for a baby.
00:41:09
Speaker
My faith is in the eternal God. And the eternal God does not change, even though circumstances do.
00:41:19
Speaker
You can stand and say, my God is good. My faith is in a good God. My hope is in a good God. And he's a God who carries me who loves me, who crossed the sea and came to heal me, who set me free and took my chains, who loved me and gave me a new name.
00:41:44
Speaker
And in your story, you can walk out and you can say, you know what? Yes, I started in a graveyard and my feet are still here, but I will not stop proclaiming the goodness of the God who set me free.
00:42:02
Speaker
Psalm 66, 16 says, Come and hear all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul. Psalm 71 says, My mouth will tell of your righteous acts, of your deeds of salvation all the day, for their number is past my knowledge.
00:42:21
Speaker
With the mighty deeds of the Lord God, I will come. ah will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone. O God, from my youth you have taught me, And I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
00:42:36
Speaker
So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me. Until I proclaim your might to another generation. And your power to all those to come.
00:42:49
Speaker
You can proclaim his might to the next generation. When you are not afraid to share your story. And you don't believe the enemy's lies that your story is not worth sharing.
00:43:01
Speaker
Your story is a vessel of God's goodness. And I hope when you leave here, you are never ashamed to share it with anyone that God brings across your path.