Basics | Week 6 | Sermon · Rewind

Basics | Week 6 | Sermon · Rewind

Pastor Bill Bush · Oct 20, 2025

Big Idea

Quoting the message: Your story is a mission, not a memory, end quote. — Jesus wants you to go and use your story of what He's done to point others to Him, starting now, not someday.

Jesus meets us where we are and changes everything, but He doesn't call us to just remember that moment — He sends us out with it. Like the healed man in Mark 5 who Jesus refused to let stay close but sent home to tell his story, our testimony is meant to keep growing and to be used right now, not filed away as an old memory.

Key points

1
1Knowing, growing, and going are the basics of being a disciple, and going means living intentionally with the power God gives us.
Pastor Bill frames the whole 'basics' series using his punting trip in Cambridge as an extended illustration: planting your feet is knowing Jesus personally through public worship and private practice, steering is growing in biblical community, and pushing off and leaning in is going and living intentionally. He says it's uncomfortable and hard at first but gets easier and more fun the more you lean in.
2
2In Mark 5, Jesus crosses the storm for one demon-possessed man, and the town's response reveals they cared more about their pigs (their money) than about the man being healed.
He walks through the story of Jesus calming the storm, casting the legion of demons into the pigs, and the herdsmen and townspeople begging Jesus to leave because their industry was destroyed. Pastor Bill points out they never even acknowledged the healed man — they were more upset about the financial cost than glad for what God had done.
3
3We often care more about our own 'pigs' — comfort, money, convenience — than about people coming to know Jesus.
Pastor Bill applies the story directly to the church culture: we want people to meet Jesus but don't want it to cost us anything or disrupt our comfort. He confesses he does the same thing, framing this as one of the biggest problems keeping disciples from going.
4
4Jesus refused to let the healed man simply stay with Him and instead sent him home to tell his story immediately, with no waiting period.
The man begged to go with Jesus in the boat, but Jesus said no and told him to go home and tell his family what the Lord had done. Pastor Bill notes the man had known Jesus for maybe an hour and still went and started a movement across ten towns, proving we don't need to wait until we feel ready or know enough.
5
5A story only carries power when it's current — if we've 'punted' on living out our faith, our testimony becomes an old memory instead of an active mission.
Using the image of a washed-up fitness influencer showing decades-old photos, Pastor Bill argues that many Christians' stories have gone stale because they stopped adding new chapters of God working through them. He ties this to Pastor Nolan's point from the prior week that stagnant faith shows up as old, unchanging stories.
6
6Pastor Bill shares his own conversion story to model how ordinary and simple sharing a story can be.
He recounts growing up in a nominally religious home, his father's heart attack shaking him at 14, his own failed attempt to earn God's favor by reading the Bible and being good, and finally his best friend inviting him to a youth group Halloween event where an intern explained the gospel using John 3:16 and Romans 3:23 and 10:9. That simple invitation and explanation led him to confess and profess faith in Christ.
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7The gospel is that God is both perfectly just and perfectly loving, and at the cross He satisfied both at once so we could be forgiven.
Pastor Bill explains that sin means missing the mark of God's holiness, and that God's righteousness demands justice while His love offers mercy — something only God could hold together, which He did through Jesus taking the punishment on the cross. Confessing and professing faith in that is how a person's story with God begins.

Application

Pastor Bill's charge is to stop treating your story as a finished memory and start using it as your mission, starting with the people closest to you.

Put your faith in Christ today
If you've never confessed your sin and professed Jesus as Lord, do it now rather than waiting until you feel ready or know more, just as the healed man did within an hour of meeting Jesus.
Stop protecting your pigs
Examine whether you care more about your comfort, money, or convenience than about people coming to know Jesus, and be willing to let that cost you something.
Keep your story current
Don't let your testimony become an old memory; keep adding to it by actually living out your faith so it has power when you share it.
Tell your story this week
Share what the Lord has done for you with the friends and family in your life who don't know Him, or at minimum invite them to church like Pastor Bill's friend Dave did for him.

Take it into your week

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7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

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Day 1

Before Jesus sent anyone anywhere, He crossed a storm. Mark 5 opens with a man living among tombs — isolated, tormented, beyond what anyone around him could fix. And Jesus sailed straight to him. Not to a crowd. Not to a synagogue full of ready listeners. To one broken person on the wrong side of the lake. That detail is worth sitting with. The disciples probably didn't vote to make that crossing. The storm was real, the destination was unfamiliar, and the welcome on the other shore was a man screaming from the graves. None of it looked like a promising ministry opportunity. But Jesus came anyway — because to Him, one person is always worth the trip. That reframes how we think about mission. We tend to imagine it as something that requires scale: big platforms, wide reach, impressive results. But the story starts with Jesus going out of His way for a single human being whose name we never even learn. If you've ever wondered whether your story, your circle, or your neighborhood is significant enough to matter to God's mission — this crossing is your answer. He went through a storm for one. He'll work through your ordinary Tuesday for one, too. The question is whether we're willing to make the trip.

For reflection

Is there a person in your life right now whom Jesus might be nudging you toward — someone others might overlook?

Pray

Pray for eyes to see the one person God may be putting in your path this week.

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

The man in Mark 5 had known Jesus for less than an hour before Jesus sent him home to tell his story — and he ended up reaching ten cities. This message asks what it might look like for each of us to treat our own story the same way.

Discussion questions

1
In Mark 5, after the man is healed Jesus tells him, 'Go home to your friends and tell them what the Lord has done for you and how merciful He has been' (Mark 5:19). What do you notice about the timing of that command — and what does it suggest about what qualifies someone to share their story?
2
When Jesus arrives on the other side of the lake, the townspeople's response to the miracle is to ask Him to leave — because they had lost their pigs. Pastor Bill used 'our pigs' as a picture of the comfort, reputation, or convenience we protect at the cost of caring about people. What does that reaction in the crowd reveal about how we tend to weigh those things against each other?
3
Pastor Bill made a strong claim: that knowingly withholding your story when God prompts you isn't just a missed opportunity — the Bible calls it sin. How does framing it that way change the way we might think about the everyday moments when we could say something and don't?
4
The message described a testimony as something meant to stay current — an ongoing account of what God is doing, not just a one-time conversion story filed in the past. What's the difference between those two versions of a testimony, and why might the 'current' version carry more weight with the people around us?
5
Pastor Bill pointed to the gospel foundation — Romans 3:23, Romans 10:9, and John 3:16 — as the frame every personal story fits inside. How does having that shared foundation affect the way we might help each other sharpen how we talk about what Jesus has done for us?
Related passageJohn 3:16; Romans 3:23; Romans 10:9
6
Pastor Bill challenged us to start small: invite someone to church, send a text, or tell one person what Jesus has done. What would it look like, in the normal flow of a week, for a group like ours to actually hold each other to that kind of low-barrier step?

Pray together

Courage to treat our stories as an ongoing mission — and eyes to see the people right in front of us

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Topics

Active Discipleship Evangelism Personal Testimony Sharing Your Story The Great Commission

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