Everything Changes.

Gospel Lesson from Luke 8:26-39

Transcript

But I say this because in the events that unfold in the rest of our lives, in the world, if we do not seek to come under God's Word, we will not be able to have a right way of thinking about these events that might transpire in our lifetime. We have to be people who think rightly. And we only come to think rightly by knowing God's Word. I spoke at our annual meeting this last November, all the way back in November, that I wanted this year to be about God's Word, to establishing his preaching and teaching in this place, so that we can be an educated people, not educated by me or anyone, but by God Himself, by His Word. And here we're experiencing things.
We're experiencing our own personal lives and difficulties and challenges and struggles. And we're experiencing the world as it's set aflame. And how are we to understand these things? What are we to do about them? Well, God has not left us alone.
He has not abandoned us, and he's not left us as orphans. But he has given us his word, his trusted word. He has spoken to us in His Son, Jesus Christ. And today we come to this story that we can approach all various ways. Matter of fact, I love this story so much because it's so deep, it's so multifaceted.
There's so many stories working all at once. In this story about the demoniac, the guy possessed by Legion. So many things are happening that I didn't know which angle I ought to preach this morning because I don't know. Every. Every turn, every character in this story of the demoniac, we can learn from, we can grow from, we can draw nearer to Christ from.
I don't know which one to go with. It's kind of the burden I have to carry every week is what do I present to you as God's word that might help motivate you to leave and be sent out to transform your life and to also to transform your community. I thought maybe I'll just talk about the people in the scene, the crowd, the city. Right. The herdsmen, the ones who have their pigs for their livelihood.
Right. We could talk about them and we could probably relate to a lot of them. They're living in houses, they're living in a city. This area, the garrisons, is known as the Decapolis, the city of 10. Right.
It's a metropolis area. They're thriving with their pig herds. They even seem to be able to control something that's really drastic and extreme and crazy. Right. They got a demoniac, a Guy possessed by a legion of demons, and they think they have everything under control.
They're just going to shackle him outside of the cities. They're going to put him among the tombs because he's basically dead, left alone to deal with his own demons. He's under control. We got him. He's taken care of, right?
They have their livelihood. They have things under control. And then Jesus shows up and Jesus frees the one that they had under control and sends them. Sends the demons into their swine, which is their livelihood, and then they go off plummeting into a lake and drowned and die. And they're frightened by this.
They hear about this. They go out and see, and they see the guy who had all the demons in his right mind. They see the swine all gone, their livelihood's been interrupted, and what's their response? Instead of great joy, they're like, this scares us. This isn't what I want.
Jesus, leave now, preach. I thought to myself, well, if I go with that story and preach that story, I mean, that really might hit somebody in the face. Jesus interrupting their livelihood. Jesus setting people right, People that we cast out of our lives, Lord forbid. I was like, well, maybe I'm just not in the mood to maybe punch somebody in the face with that story.
So let's not go there. Let's not talk about the people this morning. Let's maybe go to a different category or a different character in the story. Let's talk about Legion. I mean, that'll preach too, right?
Spiritual warfare. After all, doesn't Paul tell us in Ephesians chapter six that we don't wrestle against each other flesh and blood, we wrestle against the principalities of the air. We wrestle against and have spiritual warfare against Satan and his demons. But then it's like, do we talk about spiritual warfare? There's quite a bit we can learn from this.
There's quite a bit from this story that we actually get to learn about the demonic, about the spiritual realm, about what spiritual warfare really looks like, what kind of plot that they have against humanity. I mean, think about it. Think about Legion and the demonics that are possessing this one man. They have him. They have led people to lead him into places of the dead.
He is living in the tombs. They have the demons have this man naked in his shame to live there, to dwell there. They have him shackled up. They have him under control. They.
They have him enslaved.
I feel like that can preach because I feel like a lot of us are enslaved to something because we're all Sinners, we're all influenced by the demonic one way or the other. We're often led astray by how much knowledge even the demons seem to have. They have this knowledge. Did you catch that? They call Jesus when he steps foot on land, son of the Most High God.
They come down, bowing down before him. They even pray to him, asking for him to grant their request of sending him into the pigs. Isn't that interesting? The demons themselves shudder. The demons themselves acknowledge Jesus as the son of the Most High God.
The demons realize that he is the one in authority. But they will do everything in their power to make sure that you do not do what they have to do. That you will not worship Jesus, that you will not pray to him, that you will not ask him to do things even though they themselves do it. They would rather have you comfortably numb and not worshiping Jesus. They would rather have you live segregated from community, by yourself, left to wrestle with your own demons.
They would rather have you tormented. They would rather you live in your shame.
And it seems like the demoniac story is something that we should preach. This morning we learned quite a bit about the spiritual warfare that all of us made in the image of God. The demons, Satan and his demons are at war with because they despise you, they want to ruin you and they gnash their teeth at Jesus. But at the same time, they recognize they have to do exactly what Jesus tells them to do. The request, don't send us into the abyss.
Because they even know where they're going. They know their end, the abyss, the lake of fire, where God in his wrath and justice will one day finally hold them captive and enslave them under his wrath, never to torment man again or his creation. They know their end. Don't send us into the abyss. And even they're so bold, right?
Because they asked Jesus, just send us into the swine. Now a lot of people are like, that's just an interesting fact. Why would they do that? Why would they ask Jesus, son of the Most High God, not to send them in the best way into the swine? What does that have to do?
Well, I think when you consider the whole story, when you think about the fact that it led people to reject Jesus because he. Because they asked to go into the swine, which is the livelihood of the community. And then Jesus sent the swine into the lake to drown and die, I think you kind of get the ruse that the demons were trying to pull one over on Jesus, but Jesus granted it to them. But what they thought they were getting as a benefit actually led to their justice. For Jesus gave them their request, gave them over to the swine.
But then Jesus sent them into the lake of fire, which is symbolism. The lake which is symbolism of their end. They didn't foresee that doing. And if I may just point out that Jesus does this very well. He takes what is a deception towards him and he uses it to actually lend out his justice.
And this is greatly and ultimately seen when Satan, who's working behind the scenes to betray Jesus, to get him arrested and to have him beaten and to have him placed on a cross to die. Jesus gives into it all willingly because he recognizes that though Satan might try to be killing me through my death, I'll make death no more and I'll win victoriously the salvation of my people and set them free. Ultimately, Jesus is most wise and he's not easily sidetracked or deceived, but he uses what they think to get them what they want, the demons, and he uses it to be victorious over them and to give them justice. So already I'm even partly preaching about the legions, the spiritual warfare that exists in the story that we can learn so much that would really a lot of people could benefit from. But then maybe that's too much of a scary story.
Maybe that's too extreme for you. Right? Maybe that is like, don't preach that. You're one of those pastors that believes that there's a demon behind every bush. Yeah.
Because they want you to believe that or they don't want you to believe that. They would keep you comfortably numb. So maybe we won't go into that story. We'll keep it under lock and key, not to really talk about that one. So let me move to the other character.
Maybe what you might consider as the main character, the demoniac, the man himself. Maybe that's what we should be preaching this morning. Maybe that's what we should be looking at. Got a man tormented by legion of demons. Not just one, but a legion that means many, many demons.
He's been cast out of his community. He's naked. Matter of fact, Luke goes so far as to mention he's not in a house, he is in the tombs.
Luke is painting us a dreary picture. He's chained up under lock and key, left to those demons, left to fight and fend for himself. And there is no way out. He can't free himself. Now every once in a while, the a demon would break his shackles.
And saints. That's torment. I mean, I don't know, if you. If you don't possess the physical ability to break metal, but then you're possessed and the demons breaking metal. The demon's trying to ruin your body.
And he goes, and the demons take him out into the wilderness even further out. Demons want him tormented. This guy is tormented. He's naked. He's clothed in his shame.
We learned this right from the very beginning. Our nakedness means our shame. Adam and Eve, right, they were naked at the beginning, but it's when their eyes were opened and sin entered the world that they saw what was innocent now as their shame, and they covered themselves. And so now every person born in sin, their nakedness is their shame. So he's clothed in his shame.
And man, this story is very relatable, right? Because all of us have these demons that haunt us. All of us have these struggles that we cannot control or break out of. We have addictions in our lives that we would love to overcome, but we can't. We're not in our right minds.
Our shame is ever before us, and we wallow in it. There's no victory. Everywhere we look feels like death. We feel like we're living among the dead. No signs of life anywhere and no one to help us.
We feel all alone. We feel miserable. We feel torn apart.
And maybe that's not even your story that you can relate to. Maybe, like. Well, that's actually not me, Bruce. I'm not that extreme. I don't think I have demonic influence in my life.
I'm not really shackled. I'm not living among the dead. I actually have a pretty good life. I'm living in a house. I'm living in a city.
I have a livelihood. I'm good. Say, well, maybe you can see the first story that I talked about with the people so that you might be able to relate. But then what about the good part of that story with the man, the demoniac, right? Jesus does set him free.
Jesus comes and sets him free, and we're told he's actually in his right mind. And somehow he's actually clothed now and he's sitting at the feet of Jesus. Oh, that's the good part of story. Maybe we could do that this morning. Maybe we could just talk about the good ending of the man, the transformation that takes place, him setting free.
That's really good news. Until we get to the very end of his story where he's desperately begging Jesus, we're told, Let me follow you. Right? The people are coming. The people say, jesus, get away from here.
We don't want you here. Jesus steps into his boat and. And the man who was sitting at Jesus feet, who he just freed from the demons, is like, please let me go with you. These people are crazy. Jesus says something interesting.
He says, no, I thought you. I thought we always talk about, like, take up our cross and follow after you. Jesus, this guy wants to follow you. Jesus says, no, go home back there to the people that put me out here under lock and key, had it all under control for me, left me to my own demons, the people that just witnessed my transformation. But they're going to continually remind me that I'm the demon possessed guy that lived among the two.
You want me to go back there? Jesus, I thought a prophet isn't accepted into his hometown. What do you. I want to follow you.
But he does. The man goes back and the man declares that Jesus changed everything about his life. And Jesus gets into his boat and he crosses back over and goes to Galilee. Now that'll preach. That's probably the story.
We should just settle in. But I have this deep conviction that all of scripture isn't about the demoniac. It isn't about you. It's not about me. All of scripture is about Jesus.
And so I want to spend time with the Jesus part of the story. Because what you're going to find is a story about a hero, a savior, one who beckons with his words and commands things to cease and sets people free. You see, Luke carefully tells us this story about Jesus when he says that Jesus left Galilee. Jesus was itinerantly preaching and healing people on this side of the sea. And he leaves this side of the sea in his ministry for one purpose, for one man, this demoniac on the other side of the sea.
So Jesus and his disciples get into the boat intentionally to go to the other side. Jesus is asleep. A mighty storm comes and it rages. The disciples are all freaking out and scared. Jesus wakes up and with the command of his voice calms the storms.
And the disciples marvel. And Jesus demonstrates that he commands even creation with his word. And then Luke says once he touches down. And this language is very image filled. Luke says once he touches down, he comes onto land and it's this image of this foot stepping on the land.
And immediately Luke tells us the demonic come crawling to his feet. Jesus, the king, the hero, steps, not having spoken a word, not having done anything. And all evil has to come crawling at his feet. And he deals with it. He deals with the enemy of the man.
And he questions, what's your name? What do you have to do with the son of the Most High God. What's your name? We're legion. We're many come out of him.
And he commands even the supernatural with his word. They're like, well, don't send us into the abyss. Send us into the swine. Okay? You and everything that's unclean.
Go. The swine, along with the demons fall, are executed and plummet into the waters and experience the justice of this righteous, good Jesus.
And Jesus puts the man in his right mind. I believe he gives the man his clothes.
And Jesus says, it's time for me to go. Jesus is rejected by the people. So Jesus gets in the boat, and we come to that end. It seemed right. We see how powerful Jesus is.
Jesus has been calling people to himself. Crowds are following Jesus. This guy wants to follow Jesus. I mean, we have other stories of my dad's dead. Let me go bury him, and then I'll come and follow you.
Jesus says, no, let the dead bury the dead. Come follow me now. Right? Go sell everything. Another guy.
Go sell everything you have and come follow me now. But Jesus doesn't do this with this man.
And what you quickly find is that we're here at the end of the story. Jesus is in a boat going back to his ministry on the other side of the sea. Credits roll, the lights in the theater come on. And if you're like me, you're like, well, that was good enough. That was a great two hours well spent watching this story unfold.
Jesus is amazing. He set this guy free. I bet he can do that for me. But you're also kind of left wanting. You're kind of like, I would like to know.
I'd like to spend another hour kind of figuring out why. What is Jesus doing? And see, you have to realize, this story that I've been talking about this whole time with these different characters and these different images and all these other things, is actually only an introduction to the real story. You see, you have to keep reading, and you're gonna find out just exactly how all of it unfolds. And in order to better understand that, I have to paint a picture.
The greatest story actually ever told in all of the scriptures until Jesus comes on the scene is the story of the Exodus, right? You guys remember at Easter time, they put on the Ten Commandments, right? What was the main actor's name? I forget his name. It doesn't matter.
Yes, that guy, right? Greatest story in all of Israel's history. This is their story. It is their testimony. We were slaves for 400 years in Egypt, we had this horrible Pharaoh.
Pharaoh enslaved us, whipped us. And we were crying out to God. God heard and God came across the waters and he set and he. And he lifted up Moses, his agent, to go and speak to Pharaoh on behalf of God and said, let my people go. And Pharaoh was hard nosed.
No, no, no, no, no. Finally, through all the miracles, they're set free. And they got riches in hand and Moses leads them out. They cross for through the waters into the wilderness. But then they look around and their enemies on their heels.
And as their enemies enter the water, God plummets them into the water and he leads his people into the wilderness and they sit down and they eat together. And God offers his instruction on how now to live your new life in freedom. And that's been their story. That's been the greatest story of salvation that has been told for generations. But now we have this story.
Now we have a better Exodus, we have something new taking place. Let me just help you connect the dots. Jesus comes across the waters to free one man who doesn't just have one Pharaoh, an enemy over him, but legions. And he doesn't send an agent to represent him. He goes himself.
Jesus goes himself to free this man, to deal with his enemies and to make him right. And then he takes the enemies and he plummets them into the waters. Man story is identical, Exodus and Exodus. This is a reoccurrence of a great story of the Exodus. But then it changes at the end.
The guy's in his right mind, he's set free. He's just like Israel was free. With his right mind and clothes in his hands. He's ready to follow God across, back over the water and be his disciple, feeding off his words. But he doesn't go with Jesus like Israel went with God.
Jesus says, no, you stay here and you go in there where you are cast out, where people rejected me. And you go declare what I can do, which is change everything. See, Jesus has given us a better Exodus, a better and more truer salvation. See, Israel had to leave Egypt, but Egypt was still in their heart. Jesus comes and when he sets people free, he not only transforms them, but they become the very change that that Egypt needs.
So Egypt can be turned into the kingdom in the city of God. They don't have to leave Egypt. That's how good Jesus is. Not only does he set you free, give you a right mind, he clothes you in his righteousness. But he says, now go back home and transform home into a city of God and You're left.
Well, does it happen, Bruce, this new Exodus that Jesus is doing with this man, does it work? Does this happen? Does this one man, who everybody's going to identify as the demoniac, demon possessed, crazy dude living in the tombs when he goes home to these places, does it work, Bruce? I'm dying to know. I'm on the edge of my seat and boy, do I have good news for you.
It works. This area known as the Ten Cities, the Decapolis, right? Jesus goes over to Galilee, leaving this one man with 10 cities. And the man goes and he goes and declares. Jesus changes everything.
And this story, the demoniacs in Mark, in the Gospel of Mark and Matthew, Mark tells us that this Decapolis, this is the place where Jesus comes back to and feeds 4,000 people, a massive crowd. When Jesus came back to this area, some 4,000, that's just men, 4,000 gathered to see Jesus. See, when Jesus came to that community, they rejected him. Jesus changed one man. That one man stayed home and transformed Egypt, the Decapolis.
And there were the people that once rejected Jesus because of the demoniac. The one who was once the demoniac transformed the community. And when Jesus came back, they were ready to receive him. And they didn't reject him this time. And Jesus fed them, sat down.
It's a new Exodus. See, this is why I want to preach this to you. Because it has to do with. We all have personal things to do. But I want to talk about all of us as the church.
I want us to talk about the Exodus. Many of us would sit here and say, I am that man. He has set me free. He has given me a right mind. He has clothed me in his righteousness.
But Jesus is telling his church, which this man represents, to go and transform your community now. Make it a city on a hill. Turn it into the city of God. You have my power and my transformation to do that. And this is the lesson for us, is we just don't gather.
We gather here for worship. And that's what we do. That's our thing. That's our church. We worship the one who has set us free.
But every Sunday you receive a word of benediction to be sent out through those doors and to carry this light and this community and the love and the peace and take it out there into our communities. We transform not just people, but we can transform places. That's what Jesus is telling us. Jesus says, when I tell you I change everything, I just don't change you. I'm changing the world.
And I'm sending you to do it.
So, beloved bride of Christ, your groom says, I've changed you. I've washed you with my word. I've presented you to myself, radiant, white, wrapped in my righteousness. Now, will you go and prepare a place for me while I go and prepare a place for you? Will you go and expand my kingdom here?
Will you change the places of Egypt into cities of God? Because you can. Because I change everything. Because you have me in you. You can change your community.
So, church, will you begin to think about this? Will you begin to realize your own transformation that Jesus has caused and that it's just not for humanity, but it's for all of creation that this Fairview community can be transformed into a city where God dwells and all his people gather. And this community and this economy and even the politics of around here reflect God and his rule and reign. It can be done. Why?
Because Jesus changes everything. Not just some things. Everything. And it can begin now. I think that's what the Word is for us this morning.
Let's pray.