Messed Up | Pastor Chris Kouba

And I remember being somewhere at a shower or something, they wanted me to give marriage advice.

And I remember saying, whatever you think it's gonna be, that's not what it's gonna be.

Sing this chorus with me now.

I was born and raised a uh Southern Baptist minister of music.

So church every Sunday, every Wednesday, every Sunday night, and uh was basically told you know how to act at church and how to be at church.

Got baptized and quote saved when I was, I think, nine or ten years old.

It was kind of the thing to do.

As I got closer and closer to heading off to college, I couldn't wait to head off to college.

For me, it was a lot of years of um drinking, doing drugs.

So we've been married about a year when I started trying to figure some things out and uh understood that a softball game really ended in the sports bar for a long, long time.

Lying to her, hiding things from her.

I think I maybe had a little bit of depression in there somewhere.

Somewhere.

It was nothing for me to go do a job for$300, go cash a check, tell her I've gotta go do some late bad estimates, walk into that bar and$300 and walk out owning$125.

Sometimes there was a lot, not a lot of good thinking went into some things, and I did find a little baggie of cocaine on time.

Doug was ending a five-year probation term, and on the 60th month, he was violating this probation for not spoken.

Then he didn't do something and had a 10-day jail stay.

You pretty much did what you wanted to do.

The lies I was coming up with, I thought were just brilliant.

At the time, I was like, How do you come up with this?

This is awesome.

I began to suspect enough that I discovered some things.

Uh, but I found some five-gallon buckets with bottles of vodka upside down in them.

Like they were the extras.

And I thought I had a job, I had a business, which was the pressure washing business.

One day, uh truck and trailer got repossessed by a job at a house.

He probably had not done any jobs in a couple of months.

Uh, he would go to the library and rent movies and watch movies all day.

So it did get to a pretty dark place.

And then it was one morning she'd already left for work, and uh I was getting ready to make my breakfast, and then go out to my barn in my little room and start drinking my vodka.

The phone rang, but it was my sister, so I answered it.

And she was telling me that God had told her that I'm defeated, that I'm dying.

Dying, bleeding to death, and that I'm bleeding to death.

Grab your Bibles if you would and open them up with me to Mark chapter five.

Mark chapter five is where we're gonna be.

Let me add my word of greeting to Pat's earlier.

My name is Chris Cuba.

I'm the lead pastor here at United City.

I'm so grateful that all of you are here today.

I want to give a special word of greeting to all of the men and the women and all of our correctional facilities that are joining with us today as well.

We are so thankful to be able to bring this message to you and excited to see how God is going to speak to you today.

That was the story of Doug and Kathy Rucker.

I've been longtime members and former staff member, today Kathy was for many years at our church.

Um, and I just want to ask you the question that I asked last week Do you need a miracle?

Do you need God to intervene in your life in some way where the songs that we just sang, that anything is possible could actually be true in your life?

Do you find yourself at a place today where you have a version of this story?

God, unless you do something in me, or unless you do something in them, unless you do something in us, this ain't gonna work.

I defined a miracle last week as this, this is a dictionary definition.

It's an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.

Do you need a miracle?

I'm gonna look in Mark chapter five at a story where intense evil is met by Jesus.

Mark chapter five, beginning in verse one, it says, They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Garasenes, and when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit.

He lived among the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain.

For he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart and he broke the shackles in pieces.

No one had the strength to subdue him.

Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out and bruising himself with stones.

The Garrishenes is a Gentile territory, meaning that Jesus was entering into a place where he was not going to be welcomed and he was not going to be admired.

This is a situation to where Jesus was entering into enemy territory.

It says there that he meets a man.

We learn actually in later parallel passages in other gospels, that this man would walk around naked aimlessly by himself.

This man was a loner and this man was a loser in every possible way that you could see it.

This man is somebody who spent his time around the cemeteries.

This is a weird thing to be able to do.

And so, therefore, as a result of that, you can just imagine that is the guy when you're walking on the road and you see something, you can't take your eyes off of it, but you're scared to death of what you see.

I want you to feel the absolute angst that not only this individual had, because it says that he was trying to cut himself, seemingly not knowing what else to do.

But I want you to also see the townspeople.

They tried to tie him up like a dog.

They didn't know what else to do.

And every single time they tried, it didn't work.

I remember whenever I was in college, I went to Baylor University, and it was just a few years after the whole Branch Davidian thing.

And so, therefore, my freshman year, we all got together one night and we decided it'd be really, really cool in the middle of the night to go to the Branch Davidian compound in the middle of Mount Carmel, in the middle of nowhere, and to be able to go and just see what we could see.

Let me just tell you, it was as freaky and scary as you could possibly ever imagine.

I remember my junior year, I had this philosophy, my junior and senior year of no regrets.

That's not the best way to live, but I didn't do anything that was too bad.

But I would tell you, I had this idea of what I didn't want to have a scenario where we had some fun activity or some fun event, and we would decide that we wanted to go do it, and I was gonna say, Man, I wish I would have gone.

And so therefore, we decided in the middle of the night, it would be really, really fun to go all the way to Abilene from Waco and to go to this thing called Anson Lights.

I've heard of it, and basically, apparently, you go there and you go at the end of some road and you flash your lights, and some spirit of some car that got in a wreck is supposed to flash the lights back.

It worked, it was the weirdest thing I've ever seen.

It scared me to death.

It was one of those types of moments.

I had another one where we went somewhere in the middle, literally, of Texas, my senior year, and we went to this abandoned school, and at this abandoned school, apparently a bus full of kids got in a wreck and they died back in the 1800s.

And if you go and turn your car off, you can hear the voices of the little kids.

This is weirdo stuff.

If I had to guess, you probably have a version of your weird story too, right?

Those places where you're drawn to the sheer interest of it, but you're also kind of scared to death about it.

I want you to visualize what we're talking about today is not just college random road trips, it's the epitome of despair.

It's a situation where you literally don't know where to go.

You need a miracle.

Let's talk about something really quickly here.

It talks about how he was had unclean spirits.

We know that actually means that he was possessed by a demon.

And it's important for us to just kind of have a little theological conversation about demons.

One, are demons real?

And the answer would be yes, demons are real.

Are demons something that we should be afraid of?

Well, there's two different things when it comes to demons.

There's the idea of demon possession and demon oppression.

I think C.S.

Lewis really probably captures this the best in his book on demons.

And he has this quote in that book.

He says this.

He says, There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils.

One is to disbelieve in their existence, the other is to believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.

So we see a situation where demons are involved, and we gotta ask, okay, can that happen to me?

Let me just tell you that if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, according to Romans chapter 8, it says that you are indwelt with the Holy Spirit of God, which means then that you are not able to be possessed by a demon.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Praise God for that.

But what we do see is that the devils and Satan himself will often oppress us.

Now we don't need to blame the devil for every mental illness that is out there.

We don't need to blame the devil for every bad decision that maybe you or I make, but we do need to recognize that what Satan does is he takes our spiritual weaknesses in our lives and he exploits them for his good.

Meaning you can't be possessed by a demon if you believe in Jesus, but you certainly can be oppressed by a demon even while you believe in Jesus.

In this situation that we see here, what we find is that this person was possessed, meaning his personality in every single way was taken over by this devil, and we see it wasn't just one devil, but it was many.

In fact, pick up the reading in verse 6.

And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him.

And crying out with a loud voice, he said, What have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?

I adjure you by God, do not torment me.

For he was saying to him, Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.

One thing is certain, demons have great theology.

Which shows you this.

You just having great theology isn't enough.

And maybe you are here today, and the devil has convinced you not by acting out and needing to be tied up and changed, but instead he's convinced you not to worry about things because you're good.

And the reality is you're so far from where you need to be.

Ephesians chapter 6, verse 12.

Ephesians 6:12

Listen to what it says.

It says there that for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Every day we are engaged in a spiritual battle.

We may not be able to see what is taking place in front of us, but behind the scenes, there is a war that is going on for our souls, between evil which wants to exploit every bit of spiritual weakness in our lives, and then over here we have God who is fighting up against this.

And praise God, first John chapter 4, verse 4.

1 John 4:4

Look at what it says Little children, you are from God and have overcome them.

For he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Look back in Mark chapter 5, continuing in verse 9.

Mark 5 · chapter mention

And Jesus asked him, What is your name?

He replied, My name is Legion, for we are many.

And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country.

Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him, saying, Send us to the pigs, let us enter them.

So he gave them permission, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs, and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and were drowned into the sea.

The scene is meant to show you the greatest display of evil that could ever possibly come up against Jesus.

Remember the townspeople that tried to deal with this guy.

They tried to tie him up in chains, they tried to put him in an area that no one wanted to go to.

But every single attempt that they had to manage the situation only led to them realizing how little control they actually had over the man's life.

It says that Jesus wasn't scared of the demons, but with words, Jesus ordered the demon out of the man.

What an incredible display of power.

I want you to hear me.

There is no evil, too much for Jesus to handle.

I want you to know that all of our attempts to try behavior modification to make up our list of what we're gonna do in order to not do what we previously did that we regretted, or not do what we previously did, which caused so much pain, all of our list and all of our promises are nothing more than trying to tie this man up.

Knowing eventually he's gonna break out.

For some of you, here's the lie that you've bought into.

You assume that if you can just change your situation, meaning if the job is the problem, if I can just get a new job, then everything's gonna be fixed.

If my wife or my husband is the problem, if I can just leave that relationship, then I'll be in a better place.

If this place is a problem, if I can just move to another location, another city, then I'm gonna be fixed.

Here's what you're gonna discover.

None of those things work.

The only thing that will ever work in your life is a miracle.

And praise God, we serve someone who with the words of his mouth can perform miracles in your life.

Meaning, this your marriage is not too far for Jesus to heal.

Your addiction is not too great for Jesus to bring breakthrough.

Your spiritual rut that you have found yourself in because of just years and years of apathy is not beyond Jesus' ability to give and to bring life to you.

Here's the big question that we have to ultimately wrestle through.

Do you believe it?

Look at what it says in verse 14.

The herdsman fled and told it in the city and in the country.

And people came to see what it was that had happened.

And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.

This is what can happen when you come to Jesus.

You can be made whole, you can be restored, you can be offered a new beginning.

You can experience a miracle.

This can be all of us, whenever we see the power of God in our lives, it says that this one who they did not know what to do with, this one who they tried to tie up in chains, this one who they were always looking at out of interest, but also always looking at out of fear, was sitting there in front of all of the people in his right mind.

Which bears the question.

Do you believe that Jesus can still do that today?

Do you believe that Jesus can actually bring change in the life of somebody that you know who in your mind you're thinking, yeah, but you don't know my husband.

You don't know my son.

You don't know my wife.

You don't know my addiction.

You don't know how hard I've tried and it's never worked.

Who is that person in your life?

Who immediately, whenever you hear about how Jesus can bring change in the heart and the life of someone else, you think, yeah, but not probably not them.

Is it you?

Is it possible that you look at your story and you look at your decisions and you look at your mistakes and you just assume that God could have nothing to do with you?

Is it possible that you have found yourself at the place where because of the fact that you have made choice after choice after choice, lie after lie after lie, you find yourself in a barn right after your wife leaves for the day drinking, trying to just make it all go away.

Only to discover it's still there.

Maybe some of you, your problem is you grew up in the church, you knew what you were supposed to do, and for years you have played the part, acted it out, but you have no relationship with God.

Maybe you're here today because last week is whenever you're supposed to go to church, and maybe you just thought, is it maybe true what we talked about last week?

This miracle-working, wonder working God, could he maybe do something in me?

Do you believe that God is powerful enough to save your son or your daughter who has made choices that continually fly in the face of everything that you know is true?

Do you believe that God is powerful enough to save your marriage, which you guys have both done everything in your power to try to break it up?

Do you believe that God is powerful enough to overcome your addictions and your bondage?

Church, this is why we pray for the lost.

This is why we are patient with those who reject the message.

This is why we love people even though we hate their sin, because we have hope that the Son of the Most High God, Jesus, is able to stare in the face of sheer evil.

And he can do a miracle in your life.

So we believe that no one, not one person is beyond the ability for God's grace to transform their heart.

Keep inviting, keep sharing, keep loving, keep believing that the evil around us is no match for the power of the living God.

Look at the results in verse 16.

And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pig.

They began to beg Jesus to depart from their region.

As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him.

He did not permit him, but said to him, Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you.

And how he has had mercy on you.

And he went away and began to proclaim in the decapitalists how much Jesus had done for him.

And everyone always results in a response.

God woke me up last night and laid you on my heart very heavy.

And I got up and went to the table and began to read my Bible and pray.

Very clearly, I felt the words, are you going to let him bleed to death?

I don't really understand what God meant by that, but maybe you can call me and together we could figure out what God was trying to say.

When we hung the phone up, I got on my knees right there.

I could just, I could feel my body starting to sweat, starting to like you feel like when you're blushing, you just feel kind of warm.

And so I just got on my knees and I prayed.

I said, Lord, I can't do this anymore.

I can't keep doing this.

I need you in my life.

I give you control of my life.

Come in, take over.

When I got up, I was changed.

I felt something.

I felt like I was a changed man.

And immediately the desire for alcohol was gone.

The desire for lying and deceiving was gone.

There is a peace, you know, the scripture says there's a peace that passes all surpasses all understanding.

That's what I was experiencing and still experiencing.

I'm not the victim anymore.

This is you know what I mean?

God can control.

So he's got it.

It's total polar opposite from what it used to be to what he is now.

He felt the change.

I saw the change.

First couple of years I worried about my past and what's gonna come upon me and what's gonna remind me of it.

But she always taught me about a lot about mercy and grace and the fact that that's over with.

That's the past.

She's never once, never once, threw it up in my face.

I was married to a guy who was too busy hiding things.

And perhaps running, actually running from the Lord.

To now I'm married to one that pursues him.

So really, it's like being married to two people.

So that's that's what's different because I didn't have that before.

Backstory is I was taught how to be at church, how to act at church, how to look at church, you know.

I guess I just always assumed it was automatic that I was a believer, that I was saved.

I don't remember being taught about a quiet time and just getting alone with God and getting to know him.

I was changed.

I felt it.

And for the the desire for the things that I was doing to immediately just go and do some things with God, you know.

And I know a lot of people can't stop alcohol like that.

But for me, it was it was really the desire for drugs, the desire for alcohol, the desire to lie.

It's what I'm experiencing in my heart and my mind and my soul and praising Jesus for A, for loving me.

Okay?

That's how I basically start every verse.

Thank you, Lord, for loving me.

When I go to bed, I sing the song to myself.

Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul.

Thank you, Lord, for making me whole.

Thank you, Lord, for giving to me your gift of salvation, so rich and free.

Is that a good sound check?

Are we done?

Thank you, Lord, for giving to me.

So rich salvation, abundant, and free.

Doug Rucker runs a successful pressure washer company up in New Caney.

It's a company that has gone through a couple different iterations and different things.

He recently sold off part of his business, and now one of the main focuses that he has is a pressure washing school.

Where he has the opportunity to have guys, many of them, just like him.

Who he gets a chance to meet to talk about what it means to start up a business and what it means to be able to be successful in this industry.

But guess what Doug also gets to tell them?

Hey, this is what I once was, this is who I now am.

Kathy Rucker was on staff here at this church for 17 years as the kids' minister.

She did an incredible job here, and so many folks in this church have been able to benefit from her direct ministry in that specific way.

And God called her a few years ago to leave her role as a full-time vocational minister on a church staff in order for her to go to a full-time ministry role as a wife to her husband with his business.

Something that she said she could have never imagined even having the desire to spend that much time with Doug on a daily basis.

And now God's doing something in this couple.

She's teaching a small group for us, she's leading in our baptism area.

What I want you to see is this no matter what your story is, let God write the final chapter.

And you see, if you have a relationship with Jesus, then what that means is that you have a story to tell.

Who do you need your to share your miracle story with?

Is it a coworker?

Is it a neighbor?

Is it a family member?

Is it a friend?

Who do you need to share your story of redemption with?

I want to ask you to bow your heads and to close your eyes all across this room.

If you're joining with us online, I want to invite you to do the same.

Do you need a miracle today?

Do you need God to intervene in your life in a supernatural way?

Because the natural is a mess.

Do you have a marriage that feels beyond repair?

Do you have an addiction that feels too deep?

Do you have an apathy in your soul that you feel like and only have radical transformation to wake you up?

Maybe you have a family member who has walked away from the Lord and you need desperately to see a miracle in their life.

Maybe you've got a close friend that needs something to wake them up to see where they're headed.

If that's just you today, you're here in the room, would you just do me a favor and would you just lift your hand so that I can see it?

No one looking around.

Lift your hand and say, I need a miracle today.

I see them back there in the back.

Absolutely.

Who else?

Back in the back, I see you guys there.

In the front, I see you.

Who else?

I need a miracle?

I need a miracle today.

Praise God for you.

For those of you that raised your hand, I'm gonna ask you to do something.

We've built in time in the service to do this.

No one looking around.

If you raised your hand and you need a miracle today, would you just look up and would you see who the nearest person is to you?

We've got some folks up front, we've got some folks on the sides.

We want to pray and ask God for miracles today.

We want to pray and ask God for healing today.

We want to pray and ask God for him to do what only he can do in that situation.

And we're not doing this to be weird and we're not doing this to make you uncomfortable.

We're doing this because we believe he's the actually the only one who can do it.

And so, therefore, we don't want you to walk alone just with hope, without hope in anything, but instead, you can have hope in the person of Jesus.

And so today I want to ask that you be prayed over, that you be prayed for.

Last week we did this at our services and we saw so many people come and to be prayed for.

We want to ask that you do the same today.

Some of you are here today and you need the miracle of salvation.

You need God to save you from your sins.

Maybe you grew up and you are like Doug, and you knew what to do, and you you went along with all of the checklist and you you look the part, but the reality is you never had a relationship with Jesus.

I want you to know this: God hasn't forgotten you, and instead, he longs and he desires to know you and call you his child.

It means you're gonna have to turn from your sin and you're gonna have to recognize your desperate place before God, but you're then gonna be able to cry out to him just like Doug did there in that barn, and guess what?

God met him in that place, changed his life.

For some of you, you just need to pray this simple prayer.

Just pray these words with me.

If you're joining me online and you need to do the same, you do the pray these words with me.

Just say, Dear God, I need a miracle.

I need you to save me from my sins.

I need you to change me.

Change my heart, change my desires, change my life.

I give myself to you.

I believe that you died on a cross for me and that you rose from the dead.

And right now I invite you to come into my life.

It's in the name of Jesus that I pray.

Amen.

Would you look up if you just prayed that prayer with me in just a moment?

I'm gonna ask you to come forward and tell one of these folks that are here up front or on the side that you just gave your life to Jesus.

If you're joining me online, I want to invite you.

You can just text the word UC Next to the number 55498.

You can let us know about your decision.

Others of you that are here, you need to come and join United City.

God is leading you to make this your church home.

I'm gonna invite you to come forward as well.

Maybe others need to be baptized.

If God is calling you to respond to him through the public testimony of baptism, I'm gonna invite you to come forward.

And then others, as we said, you need prayer today.

You raise your hand and you would say, I need God to do a miracle in my life.

I need God to do a miracle in my family.

I need God to do a miracle in my marriage, whatever it is.

We want to use this time as an opportunity to pray with and for you.

I'm gonna ask you to stand, and as you stand, our team is up front, ready to receive you.

You've come as God is leading.

Come on, right now.

What an encouraging message from God's Word.

At United City Church, we just believe that the Bible speaks.

It speaks louder than culture, it speaks louder than our opinions and even our own thoughts and emotions.

And so we are so thankful that we get to bring this message to you today.

Hey, a couple things that you can do.

If you don't follow us on social media, go ahead and follow us at United City Church on Instagram and Facebook.

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Again, we can't wait to meet you in person right here at United City Church in Umble, Texas at 9 30 or 11 a.m.

on Sundays.

Thanks so much for tuning in, and we can't wait to meet you soon.