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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

David Wright

Touched Not Trained

I'm going to tell you a story here about Mayami Nagano.

Mayami says she nearly died twice before the first grade.

She grew up with an alcoholic father and a mother who suffered a mental illness.

Neither of them kept a close eye on her and on 2 different occasions at age 3 and again at age 5 she knocked a kettle filled with boiling water off the stove both times drenching herself and scarring her body.

God saved my life twice, she says in an interview.

When she was 9, her mother decided to disappear, never to be seen again.

But a glimmer of hope came for Naomi in the sixth grade.

An American moved next door and taught her to speak English and how to read the Bible.

She could not believe her ears when she read the golden rule in Matthew 7, verse 12, where Jesus says, therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them.

She said, when I heard that verse, I knew that I found a way forward.

You see, I could provide a childhood that I didn't have for somebody else.

She couldn't change her past, she couldn't change the scars, but she could do her best to move forward and be parents for another child.

She married at the age of 21 and divorced 10 years later.

She herself became an alcoholic and a heavy smoker, was overweight, decided she was going to commit suicide, and then she remarried at age 38 and began to build a new life.

She was horrified at what she saw when she began working at a daycare center.

The daycare set strict rules there in Japan and desperate parents had to work around the rules, no exceptions.

And she says the turning point came when people brought in a young child with a high fever, just 1 year old, And the mother was desperate to return to work because she was not allowed any time off, she would be laid off.

And so the next morning the mother brought this same child that was rejected for the fever and pronounced the baby well.

Miami couldn't understand how the child had recovered so quickly.

And but she found the answer when she changed the baby's diaper.

The mother had inserted a suppository to keep the fever down.

I thought no it should not be this way she said.

So I decided to start my own daycare business with a customer first policy.

I would take children without conditions, even those with a fever.

The daycare, while it was located in Mayami's home, was open 24 hours a day, year-round.

500 families in Japan flooded her with applications for the 10 available spots.

50 times the number of what she could handle.

If a child had a fever, she sent a babysitter to the child's home so the other children wouldn't be infected.

While Mayomi was taking care of other people's children, she was having trouble with her own.

She had 2 daughters, and the young child, the youngest of the 2, refused to go to fourth grade classes.

She complained that the public school teachers called her stupid and punished her by hitting her on the shoulder or on the arm.

So, Naomi looked for another local school option and found the Adventist school nearby.

The Adventist school was like a paradise in comparison to the public schools, she said.

The teachers were so nice, and so her daughter quickly adapted and loved her new school, and was just so excited and happy all the time.

And eventually, a few years later, was baptized as a Seventh-day Adventist.

Soon, Mayami, her husband, and the other daughter were baptized as well.

And after baptism, Mayami herself began to change.

Once overweight, she became trim and fit.

Friends and parents even asked former daycare children what had happened to Mayami, she was so different.

And she would tell them boldly, I found Jesus Christ and my love for him has changed me.

In fact, 30 of her former daycare children, now teens and young adults, are studying in Adventist schools because she counsels them, you need to go to this school as well.

She says, I advise my former babies to go to the Adventist schools long after they've left the daycare, and many agreed.

About 45 of her former daycare children and their parents have been baptized over this past, over the past 4 years.

The Adventist Church has just over 15, 000 members in all of Japan, a country of a hundred and 25000000 people, only 15, 000 members or Seventh-day Adventists.

But local church leaders say that this dedicated daycare owner, who I remind you had an alcoholic father, mentally ill mother, who herself became depressed, overweight, an alcoholic, chain smoker, and suicidal, according to the local church leaders, has led more people to Christ than any other Adventist in Japan.

Yes, God can make a way when there seems to be no way.

And I believe it's because Jesus is always in relentless pursuit of his children.

No matter where they are, no matter what their circumstance, Jesus is always in relentless pursuit of you and of me and of people in this world, planet, community, you name it.

He's in relentless pursuit because he loves his kids.

A verse for that, Luke 19 10, for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.

Not just to save them, but to seek after them.

He initiates, he is always the beginning force that starts the process.

And that's why he came, to seek and to save that which was lost.

This morning I wanna take a look at a story from scripture where Jesus relentlessly pursues his children.

Children who don't even know they are in desperate need of a savior, and so I invite you to turn with me to Mark chapter 5.

This is the story that follows the story we looked at 2 weeks ago, where Jesus was out on the water and the wind and the waves came up and Jesus was asleep on the boat.

But remember, it's Jesus who says, let's set a cross to the other side.

And so we pick up the story now in Mark chapter 5.

We have this story in 3 different gospels, but we're gonna be staying in Mark this morning.

Mark chapter 5, verse 1, it says, then they came to the other side of the sea to the country of the Gadarenes.

And when they had come out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs, and no 1 could bind him, not even with chains, because he had often been bound with shackles and chains, and the chains had been pulled apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces, neither could anyone tame him.

And always night and day he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones." Now you talk about a hopeless situation.

Here we're in an unclean land with an unclean spirit who is demon possessed.

We find out a few verses later when he's asked his name, he says, I am Legion.

Legion was the highest Roman unit of Roman army consisting of up to 6, 000 men.

And so here we have a man who's possessed with 6, 000 demons, perhaps.

And the community doesn't know what to do.

We've tried everything we can to keep ourselves safe.

We've tried to bind him, we've had all kinds of people get on top of him to shackle him, all the rest, nothing seems to work.

But somehow this arrangement has been made that this is a place that he can dwell.

But who is going to minister to this man?

Who's gonna help this man in this helpless situation?

Somebody that doesn't even know I'm coming.

Perhaps that's the reason why the devil stirred up that storm in the first place, to keep them from going on this assignment.

As far as the verbiage, this is the largest legion of evil angels that Jesus ever confronts.

Now you and I know that he was constantly confronted with evil forces all the time.

But this certainly looks like a hopeless situation.

To try to find some relief, this man cuts himself.

The 1 area he feels he has control, and to see the blood trickle down his arm or his leg, he feels a sense of release and empowerment and somehow this will be okay or will it?

Reading on verse 6, when he saw Jesus from afar he ran and worshipped him or bowed to him and he cried out with a loud voice and said, what have I to do with you, Jesus, son of the most high God?

The demons are speaking, I implore you by God that you do not torment me.

Verse 8, for he said to him, come out of the man unclean spirit.

And he answered saying, my name is legion, for we are many.

Also he begged him earnestly that he would not send them out of the country.

Even the demons know who's in charge, they know who's more powerful, they know who He is and what He's capable of doing.

And so now they are resorting to begging, please don't send us out of the land.

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Touched Not Trained

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