THIS was the ‘sermon’ that I put together for my Very First ‘Lay-Speaking’ class back in March of 2001!!

The Scripture was from Luke 8: 26-39…

I think that it was 1965 when my grandpa on dad’s side decided to retire and sell off most of the farm ground and equipment. We had been looking for a small farm of our own and wound up buying one near Edwardsville at about the same time, so some of the equipment and animals made it to our place. I was 12 and my brother 9 when we moved there over the Christmas holiday that year.

Growing up in a small town was neat, but being on the farm was fabulous! Our old farmhouse was on the side of a hill, and when the snows came you could really get a sled moving down into the field. In fact, I got the notion to take buckets of water and dump them down the path that I had made so that it would freeze over. It worked pretty well. I could almost make it to the road. Well, at least I made it over halfway there.

It was also great, for me, to be around so many animals. We had brought our cat with us from town, and had gotten a young collie to take with us. That winter we hauled several of our Hereford cows from the the farm near Prairietown to our pasture… after we fixed all of the fences… along with one ‘prize’. Grandpa had gotten a genuine Mexican burro included with the purchase of that farm, and Cookie became a member of our family. She was old and arthritic and stubborn as a…. well, stubborn as a donkey! But, she was what I learned to ride on. That’s why, to this day, I don’t really know how to gallop!

Over the years, dad had been putting some money into my brothers’ and my savings account, so when he wanted to buy four bred sows that summer, he asked us if we would each like to go halves together on one. We said YES. After we hauled them and unloaded them into their pasture, my brother and I got to pick out which one was ‘ours’. One sow was far-and-away bigger than the other three, and we enthusiastically chose her.

“Now,” dad said, “just because she’s the biggest doesn’t mean that she’ll have the most pigs!” We didn’t care. That was our choice, and we were sticking with it! And you know what? She DID have the most pigs! If I remember right, she had thirteen and managed to keep 12! We were happy.

Sometime after that, one of our sows had a litter with a little runt in it. Dad brought it into the house to hand raise. The poodle that we had by then adopted it and stayed by its box. Pierre would bark to let us know when it was awake so that we could feed it, first with an eyedropper, and eventually with a baby bottle. Baby Huey survived and became another family pet. She was housebroken, just like the dog. First to a newspaper, and then to oink when she needed outside. When she got big enough to start rearranging the furniture, she became an outside pet. I vividly remember friends from church coming to visit and start to come up the walk only to turn around and run back to their car screaming “PIG” when they saw ‘Huey’ running towards them.

Now, I told you all of this to make a point. I appreciate the many values of a pig. Pigs are intelligent. Pigs can be loyal. And, normally, pigs are valuable. I said normally.

So when I read how Jesus sent these spirits into a herd of pigs, my first reaction is…WHY mess with the pigs?! These pigs were valuable! Mark 4:13 tells us that there were ‘about two thousand’ of them! That’s a lot of pigs! WHY mess with the pigs?

Because, to Jesus, this one man was worth more than any number of pigs!

What price do you put on a mans’ soul? Can you value it in dollars and cents? What kind of price tag would you put on your own soul? There have been times when I thought mine wouldn’t have been worth very much.

But God’s values are different from our own. Each and every one of us is invaluable to Him.

Now, we’re told that when the people who saw all of this happen reported it, everyone had to come out and see for themselves. And, instead of rejoicing for the mans’ recovery, they were ‘overcome with fear’, and asked Jesus to leave.

Are you afraid of Jesus? Afraid of what He might see in your life? There’s no need to be. Because He values each one of us just as much as He did this man. In fact, helping that man only cost a herd of pigs. To save you and me, He gave His life. And how much is that worth?