The Sovereign King Over Darkness

Transcript

Welcome to this week’s sermon from Trinity Church in Portland, Oregon. Following the scripture reading from Pastor Ryan Lister, Pastor Thomas Terry will deliver his message entitled, The Sovereign King Over Darkness. This message is from Mark chapter five and is often referred to as Jesus healing the man with the demon. This message is also part of our ongoing series called Follow the Son, which is teaching through the gospel of Mark. Thanks for joining us. Here’s Ryan. This morning we will be in Mark chapter five, verses one through 20. They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when Jesus has 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 and 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 cutting himself with stones. 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. 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, that is Jesus, gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs. And the herd, numbering about 2,000, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea. The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. 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. And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. And 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. And he did not permit him, but said to him, go home to your friends and tell them how

Three Ways to Hear

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 Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And everyone marveled. Trinity Church, this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Well, how do you hear this story? And what I mean by this is, how does this story sit with you when you hear it? As Ryan read this text out loud, what was going on in your mind? I mean, this is obviously a crazy and supernatural story that is in many ways incomprehensible in our natural world. So my question to you this morning is, how do you hear it? And the reason why I ask, how do you hear it, is because typically people respond in one of three ways. The first way to hear it is with a sense of disbelief, because this story is absolutely

supernatural and because it seems like this is so far removed from our present reality. And given the fact that a lot of people have a bent towards analyzing the Bible through our grid of human reasoning or filtering everything through a scientific method, when they hear this story, they hear it with a sense of suspicion and doubt. Because science doesn’t really make space for these kind of supernatural situations, this seems completely unreasonable. And so for them, this story seems a bit more like fiction than fact, something akin to a Stephen King novel or a dark and twisted horror film. It’s thrilling to hear, it’s scary and suspenseful, but it’s entirely disconnected from our reality. The second way people hear it is with a sense of indifference and irrelevance, because some people feel like this kind of story is so far removed from our modern and sophisticated

age. They don’t disbelieve that the story happened, they just disbelieve that it’s relevant to us today. So this story is much more like a history lesson or something equivalent to a history channel movie. This is what happened, this is what Jesus did, this is how the characters in the story responded, and that’s it. They view it as historically accurate, it’s factual, but it doesn’t really move them emotionally or speak to them personally or spiritually, because it’s only retelling the details of some disconnected event that happened so long ago with this strange dude in some, you know, age of unsophistication. There’s really nothing in terms of personal application because it’s just historical data. They don’t see it as relevant today, and so they dismiss it as irrelevant. But the third and appropriate way to hear this story, the Christian way to hear this story is to be moved by the character and power of Jesus.

To see this story not only as a factual and historical retelling of what God did to this enslaved man, but to hear this story as a reminder of the power of God over the very real and very relevant dark world of demonic forces that is all around us. But also to hear your own story within this story, to recognize the similarities between this story of deliverance of this crazy demon-possessed man and you and your story of deliverance. And that’s my hope for us this morning. That as we unpack this very strange and very powerful passage, that we would see the power of God. That we would see the mercy of God and the grace of God as he so radically extends it to this demon-possessed man and how he extends it to us. How he gives us the same radical mercy and grace. And so this morning I’m gonna unpack our passage into four parts because I think it will help

The Context

us as we move along this big chunk of text. So verses one through five, we’re gonna look at the context. Verses six through 13, we’re gonna look at the confrontation. Verses 14 through 17, we’ll look at the community. And verses 18 through 20, we’ll look at the commission. So let’s begin in verse one by looking at the context. They came, that is Jesus and the disciples, to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. So if you remember over the last few weeks, we’ve been hearing about Jesus sitting in a boat preaching to this massive crowd. Now it seems like every week we hear about this boat. This boat is always in the story. In one passage, it’s a getaway boat. In another passage, it’s a pulpit. In another passage, it’s a barricade from the crowd. Last week it was a bed for Jesus.

And so again, this week we hear that this boat is present. But this time the boat serves as a bridge to connect the narrative from last week’s passage concerning the Lord’s power over the natural world to this week’s passage concerning the Lord’s power over the spiritual world. So Jesus was in a boat and he had just finished preaching, if you remember last week, and he told his disciples to shift the boat to move over to the other side of the sea. And Jesus was exhausted after preaching all day long. And so he fell asleep in the back of the boat when suddenly the weather shifted and they’re stuck in the middle of this crazy and violent storm. The disciples, afraid for their life, they wake Jesus up in a panic, rebuking Jesus for not caring about their safety. Jesus wakes up and with only his words, he exercises his sovereign authority over creation.

He rebukes the winds and he stills the waves, demonstrating this magnificent power over nature. The disciples, looking at just what happened, fearfully respond by asking this very important question, who is this man that even the winds and the sea obey him? So after Jesus powerfully calms the sea with just his words, his disciples and Jesus eventually make it to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. Now one thing to keep in mind, and we’ll see this fleshed out a bit later, is that this region or this country that’s on the other side of the sea is predominantly a Gentile region. And you know it’s a Gentile region because there’s mad pigs running around everywhere. And there just happens to be this demon possessed man who just got done walking out of the tombs of dead people. And just Jewish folks, they just, they weren’t down with that.

They just didn’t, they didn’t rock with that because the Old Testament prohibited it. Both pigs and dead people were considered unclean. You see, up to this point, Jesus had been doing most of his ministry in the Jewish parts of the region. But here Jesus now moves into this unclean Gentile region. That’s highly likely that Jesus has come into this Gentile region precisely to cue his disciples, to hint to the reality that the gospel will eventually spread from the Jewish world into the Gentile world. As we know, the gospel came first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles.

Romans 1 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes first to the Jews, then to the Gentiles.

— Romans 1

(ESV)

So this whole encounter here could be somewhat of a teaching moment by Jesus for the disciples

to illustrate that the gospel will eventually spread into the unclean Gentile parts of the world. Now, Mark doesn’t give us the exact location of where they landed, but we know it’s somewhere within the country of the Gerasenes. And so right when they land, right when the boat hits the shore, Jesus is approached by this demon possessed man. We see that in verse two. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit. Now, Mark has used this word immediately over and over again in his gospel. He uses this word for dramatic effect to draw your attention to the pace and to the movement of this narrative. But here, when Mark uses the word immediately, he’s being literal, which means right when Jesus steps out of the boat, bam, he’s confronted with this unclean spirit.

And just so we don’t get confused, Mark uses the term unclean spirit and demon interchangeably. It means the same thing. So Jesus steps out of the boat into this unclean region where he’s immediately approached by an unclean person who is possessed by an unclean spirit who has just come from walking among unclean tombs, dead people. So there’s a whole lot of unclean things going on in this scene. Now the term unclean has little to do with being dirty and personal hygiene, although this dude was probably pretty dirty and grimy. He probably lacked a significant amount of personal hygiene. But the term here, unclean, has everything to do with being ceremonially unclean. The reason why Mark uses the term unclean spirit here is likely to pull your attention to all the unclean things about this whole scenario. See, people who were unclean could not be in close proximity to God.

They could not come close to God or relate with God unless they were made clean by the priests. In fact, even Jews had to be ceremonially clean whenever they came into contact with anything or anyone that was considered unclean. And so what’s happening here is that Jesus is literally stepping into a totally unclean environment. There’s pigs running around everywhere. And according to the Old Testament, Jewish people couldn’t eat pig, they couldn’t even touch pigs. In fact, this particular region that they landed in happened to be a pig farm. So there’s pig farmers. That’s why there’s so many pigs. Gentile farmers who were raising pigs to sell pigs to Gentile people, which is why these pigs were just kind of floating around on the hilltops. And remember, this demon-possessed man was walking among tombs of dead people. And Numbers 19.11 says, whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven

days. That’s touching a dead body. This dude was living among dead people. So Mark is giving us these explicit details concerning the unclean nature of this whole situation to illustrate how Jesus makes unclean things clean. And not only does Mark give us the details about these unclean things going on, Mark gives us the details on just how bad this demon-possessed man’s situation is. And we see that clearly in verses three and five. He lived among the tombs and no one could bind him anymore. Not even with chains. 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 he was cutting himself with stones. So this man is in a really bad place.

He was in every possible way completely enslaved to these demonic forces. The darkness had completely taken over this man’s life. So this man was living, but he might as well have been dead. He was literally living among the tombs of dead people. He was continually bound and he was constantly placed in shackles and chains, but the demons that possessed him continued to break his chains. So even though the chains continued to be broken, he was still very much in bondage. He was freed from the physical chains by the demons, but in every way he was spiritually enslaved to the demons. And not only that, but in his community, he was treated like an animal. The very fact that they continued to try to shackle him and keep him chained up was because they considered him to be a threat to the other people in that community.

The people in this community viewed him as wild and dangerous, unpredictable, aggressive and inhuman. The demon possession caused for him to act like a violent animal. So the community treated him like a violent animal. This was the epitome of dehumanization. They tried and tried to lock him up to keep him away from the people. He was banished from the community to keep him away from the safety of the community, which means this man was completely isolated. This man had no one, no family, no friends and no help. He’d been completely pushed out from any human contact. And so he’s left to roam around the graves of dead people. In fact, his only community was a community of dead people. He was living, but he was very much longing to die, to be like the people he was hanging out with in the tombs. He was so tormented by the darkness.

He screams out loud and he cuts himself with stones. This man was oppressed and so helpless, so hopeless. He was literally cutting himself to numb the pain of his existence. And this here is a perfect picture of a helpless and hopeless human being who was completely overcome by the darkness. He was living and breathing, but he doesn’t feel like it. So he might as well be dead. And this is sobering when you see the situation for what it is. This poor man was literally totally enslaved to the darkness of this oppressive demon. And it was so easy for the community to simply turn their eyes away from this man and write him off, to only see the effects of the demonic possession, to only see his reckless behavior, to only see how he’s acting like an animal. There’s nothing good or beautiful about the situation.

He’s so far gone. He’s so inhuman that people want nothing to do with him. Yes, he looks entirely out of his mind. He was dirty. He was crazy, scary, and disgusting even. He looked like an animal, but this man was a human. And don’t we sometimes do the same thing in our city, justifying our eyes turning away from a situation when we see people overcome by the darkness, and there are people literally walking around this building looking exactly like this man, and we conveniently turn our eyes because it’s ugly to see. It’s easy for us to write these people off because we only see the effects of the darkness. We only see how they’re enslaved to the darkness, but they are humans made in the image of God. And in this narrative, this man made in the image of God just happens to be completely

enslaved to the darkness. And you see, this is what Satan loves to do, to bend and to distort that which is made in the image of God, to take the beautiful thing that God creates, to take God’s beautiful creation, his image bearers, and make it detestable, vile, inhuman, and disgusting. This is the effects of Satan in this dark world, the undoing or the reversing of God’s creation design for man. It starts by degrading dignity, the disintegration of value and self-worth, the complete hijacking of human freedom. This man was completely possessed by this demon, and so he was moving at the impulse of his captor. He did what his captor said to do. He was completely under the power and influence of his possessor, so he was tormented, he was tortured, and he was haunted by this unclean spirit. This man was demon-possessed, but he was still a man, and Jesus saw this man as an image

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The Confrontation

bearer and is moved with compassion. And what’s about to go down on the shoreline as Jesus steps out of the boat is an all-out war for this poor man’s tormented soul, because Jesus has compassion on this man made in the image of God. And this brings us to the confrontation in verses 6 and 8. 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. The demon in the man immediately recognizes the presence of God. From a far-off distance, the demon in the man senses the overwhelming power and presence of God. From the moment Jesus’ feet stepped off the boat onto solid ground, the demon recognized

his inevitable defeat. See this here is a no-contest kind of confrontation. This is a battle between two spiritual forces, but this battle was won even before it began. The demon forces the man to run towards Jesus in a posture of defeat while screaming out loud, What have you to do with me? What business do you have with me, Jesus, the son of the Most High God? And again, what you see here is that there’s no ambiguity from the demons concerning the true identity of Jesus. The demons get his identity right. You remember the question that the disciples were asking earlier the night before when Jesus stilled the storm, Who is this man that even the wind and the waves obey him? Well, here the demon immediately identifies it is Jesus, the son of the Most High God. There’s no confusion. There’s no speculation. The demon knows who he is facing, and because he is facing the all-powerful God, the demon

begs for mercy. He begs Jesus, Swear to God that you won’t torment me. Now why does the demon swear to God? Well this could be an attempt to subvert or delay his ultimate fate. See demons are keenly aware that their doom is certain. There will be a future judgment that will destroy all the evil in this world. Satan and all of his demons will eventually be destroyed. It’s just a matter of time. So the demon is essentially trying to buy some time by prolonging his inevitable destruction so he appeals to Jesus. Give me mercy. Give me mercy. And the reason the demon is asking Jesus for mercy, the reason he’s begging not to be tormented by Jesus, is because Jesus has already begun the tormenting. He’s already begun to cast this demon out. It’s so interesting to me that the audacity of the demon asking Jesus not to torment the

demon, not to torment him when he is actually tormenting this poor soul, it’s ridiculous. And look what happens here in verse 9, and Jesus asked him, the demon, what is your name? He replied, my name is Legion, for we are many. What’s interesting here is that Jesus begins a dialogue with the demon. Jesus asks him his name. And listen, when we hear this, we shouldn’t think of this as some kind of power move by Jesus, as some kind of strategy. Jesus is using the same power tactics that other people tend to use when, you know, exercising demons by calling them by name to somehow gain power over the demon. No, that’s not what’s happening here. Jesus is in every way in complete control over the situation. I mean, look, this demon has already surrendered himself to Jesus. That’s why the man was postured in a position of submission and pleading for mercy.

There’s no need for Jesus to try to gain power over the demon. Jesus already has power over the demon. So don’t read Jesus, don’t read into this as Jesus asking his name for something spiritual or some kind of strategy. It’s just simply part of the dialogue. So Jesus asks this demon his name and the demon responds, Legion. He says, Legion, for we are many. Now this word Legion is a military term. It’s used to describe a military unit, a group of soldiers that move together in battle. These Roman units called legions would have about 6,000 soldiers in this unit. So what’s happening here is that this man is possessed by a whole lot of demons, a legion of demons to be clear. Now we’re not sure as to how many demons there were. And I’m not sure as to how this whole thing works, how all of these demons could possess

this one man and still move with a sense of unity. I’m speaking on their behalf or how they’re functioning. I don’t understand how that works. You can sort of kind of figure it out in your mind when you imagine soldiers in battle moving together as one unit and there’s one lieutenant giving the orders. It’s probably something like that, although I’m not quite sure. But trying to figure out the logistics of how many demons or how it worked was not really important. What is important, however, is how Jesus powerfully deals with all of these demons. The number of demons, however many there were, thousands, however many, is no match for Jesus. In this clash of kingdoms, the odds are thousands to one, and Jesus powerfully and effortlessly dismisses them. He deals with them. Look at how this whole thing goes down in verse 10. And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country.

Now a great herd of pigs was feeding on the hillside and they begged him saying, send us to the pigs. Let us enter them. So he gave them permission. So if you notice, the language has moved from singular to plural. So the demons are begging for mercy. The demons are pleading with Jesus, don’t send us out of the country. Why they ask not to be sent out of the country? Well, think about it. They’re in a Gentile country. There’s very little emphasis on the God of Israel in this country. They’ve probably enjoyed the fact that there’s been very little mention about the God of Jews. Also their demonic work seemed to be flourishing in a Gentile country. I mean, this was a severe situation with this demon possessed man. We’ve not seen anything like this so far in Mark’s gospel. They’re enjoying it. So they don’t want to leave.

So the demons see this great herd of pigs and they try to broker a deal with Jesus. Why don’t you just send us into the pigs and be done with us? You go your way. We won’t interfere with what you’re doing. We’ll go our way. We’ll call it a day. We’ll just call it a deal and be done. And what’s crazy is that Jesus appears on the surface to grant their request. This is crazy. Did Jesus just make a deal with these demons? Did he just extend mercy to these evil demons? Well, look at the second half of verse 13. I love this because this is how Jesus jukes these demons. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs. And the herd numbering about 2,000 rushed down to the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea. So Jesus doesn’t deal with these demons.

He doesn’t make a deal with them. He doesn’t give them what they actually want. In fact, he does the ultimate power move here. Oh, you want to go into the pigs? Okay. Okay. Jesus pushes them into the pigs. But then he pushes the pigs into the sea where they’re destroyed. See what’s beautiful about this is Jesus exercises his sovereign authority over the spiritual world by moving the demons from this man into the pigs. And then he exercises his divine authority over the natural world by moving the pigs into the sea to drown. Jesus again demonstrates his incredible power with only his words. Jesus silenced the winds and stilled the sea by the power of his words. And here he casts out the demons and drowns them in the sea by the power of his words. He is sovereign over the natural world and he is sovereign over the spiritual world.

Nothing can compete with his power. Nothing. He is exceedingly powerful. The demons wanted mercy from Jesus, but Jesus was merciless. The demons received from Jesus no mercy. He destroys them with his words. But the man who was possessed by the demons, he receives from Jesus, incredible, incomprehensible mercy. Jesus frees this man of his captors. Jesus liberates this man once and for all from the shackles and chains of the dark world of the demonic. This man who was treated as less than an animal, who was tormented by these evil, unclean spirits whose dignity and humanity was robbed from the darkness. Jesus shines the light into the darkness and restores him back to the image of God, which means his dignity was restored. His humanity was restored and he is finally free. And see, this is what Jesus does. He liberates, he restores, he frees, he shines light in the darkness and the darkness cannot

overcome it. He reshapes the image of man that is destroyed and disfigured by sin back into the image of God. This is Jesus recreating creation. This is what the kingdom of God is all about. And you would think that after this incredible display of power, as Jesus effortlessly deals with these demons, that the people in the community would respond with awe and a sense of wonder, and most importantly, with a sense of submission to this God who exercises demons. Everyone in the community knew about this man who was possessed by demons. They viewed this man as the greatest threat and the biggest fear of the community. You would think that they would be relieved, that they would be thankful for what Jesus has done. But look at how the community responds in verse 14. The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country.

And the 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. And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. So word has quickly spread about what Jesus has done. The people from all over the place had come to see what just happened. And as the people from all over the community have come to see Jesus, they see the man who was previously possessed by the demons sitting there with Jesus. He’s sitting normally with Jesus, clothed, and he’s cleaned up. He has all of his faculties. He’s sober and he’s safe. This man is free. The community can’t believe their eyes.

Is this the same guy? What happened? What happened? The pigs? No. That couldn’t have happened. That’s not possible. That’s not reasonable. But they’re looking at the demon-possessed man and they’re seeing the resemblance. He looks like the same man that was demon-possessed, but he looks totally different. What accounts for the difference? They can see this man has obviously been transformed. The person he once was, isolated, shackled and chained, crazy, out of his mind, running around, screaming. The guy who used to hurt himself by cutting himself, who used to walk among dead people. The violent guy. The one who was a threat to our community and to our safety. The one we had to keep chained up because he looked like an animal. He acted like an animal. It’s crazy, but this man now has dignity. He has value and worth and he’s surrounded by people.

He’s clothed and he’s clean. He’s speaking soundly. He’s calm and he’s collected. Obviously something powerful and supernatural just happened, but the people don’t respond how you might imagine. Instead of wonder and curiosity as to who it was that caused this incredible transformation, they were afraid. They were uneasy. See, they weren’t used to this type of supernatural stuff. This is obviously a power that is far beyond human comprehension, so they’re overcome with fear. It’s the same kind of fear that the disciples had when they saw Jesus calming the storm. The community was fearful of the demon-possessed man, but now they’re extremely fearful. It’s the same type of fear the disciples experienced, but the community had a totally different response to the fear. The disciples had a healthy fear of God, and what did they decide to do? They decide to follow him. The community, on the other hand, had an uncomfortable fear of the power of God, and so they rejected

him. So they want Jesus and everyone who came with Jesus to get back in the boat and leave. They don’t care where he goes. They just don’t want Jesus anywhere near them. They don’t understand Jesus. They can’t figure him out. They can’t control him. He’s way too powerful. He’s too much of a threat to their Gentile world. They could handle the demon-possessed man, relatively speaking. They could handle that, but they could not handle the God who handles demons with just his words. So in their fear, they want him gone. They want him to leave, and this is exactly what we experience today. The culture sees the powerful and transformative work of God in the lives of Christians, people who have been totally transformed by the gospel, people who are freed from drug and alcohol addiction, people radically freed from sexual enslavement, people liberated from their anger

issues, people freed from the bondage of all types of sin. The culture sees this liberation. Of course they see it. They see what comes from Jesus and his beautiful gospel, but instead of being curious and intrigued by it and drawn to it, they write it off and they want nothing to do with it. And you would think, given how open the culture is to personal experiences, how much weight the culture places on people’s personal spirituality, that there will be a stronger sense of interest in what happens supernaturally that transforms these people spiritually. But see, the truth is, no matter how enlightened our culture is, no matter how open and tolerant our culture is, if your transformation has anything to do with Jesus, it’s flat out rejected. They don’t want it. They could take anything else. All other paths of spiritual transformation is acceptable. Anything else gets a pass, but they want nothing to do with your spiritual transformation

The Community

if your spiritual transformation has anything to do with Jesus. The country of the Gerasenes might as well be Portland, Oregon. The people behave in the same way. We’d like for you, Jesus, and everyone who came with you to get in a boat and go somewhere else. You’re not welcome here because we prefer the darkness. And you see, the very reason they prefer the darkness is because the light of Jesus exposes their evil deeds in the same way it exposed our evil deeds. People don’t like being exposed. See, they think they’re free. They think they’re free because they’re in the darkness. They don’t see the evil deeds. But in their deep bondage to the darkness, they’re completely enslaved. Mark tells us that Jesus and his disciples do get back in the boat and prepare to leave. And that’s where we see here this commission in verse 18.

The Commission

As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. And 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 Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him and everyone marveled. This man who just experienced the most profound sense of dignity from Jesus, this man whose life was radically transformed in an instant, who was just liberated from his spiritual shackles, sees Jesus and his disciples preparing to leave, and this man throws himself at the feet of Jesus and begins to beg Jesus, take me with you. I want to follow you. And this is the genuine response of someone who has an encounter with the saving grace

of Jesus. I want to follow you. You offer life and freedom and where you are is where I want to be. And brothers and sisters, we can’t help but feel this overwhelming sense of connection with this man’s request because where Jesus is, is where we want to be. In fact, this is our greatest hope for heaven, that we will finally be where Jesus is. The people beg Jesus to leave. This man begs Jesus, take me with you. What an incredible contrast. The people want nothing to do with Jesus. They want the darkness. This man wants everything to do with Jesus. He wants to walk in the light and move with the light of the world. I wonder what your response is this morning. Are you running from Jesus? Do you not want Jesus? Or do you want to be near to Jesus? This man wants to go with Jesus.

He wants to follow Jesus. He wants to travel with Jesus and the other disciples, but Jesus says no. And this would probably have sounded like a big heartbreak for this man. This would have broken our hearts, but listen, it’s not without reason. Jesus just exercised incredible compassion to this man by restoring his dignity. Jesus is not shunning this man. Jesus is commissioning this man. Jesus instructs this man to go and be my witness of my great mercy to all the people in your world. Jesus saves this man from bondage, and then he commissions this man to freely go and tell everyone he knows what Jesus has done for him. And I’m so glad that this verse is here because this is typically what happens to us. This happens to so many Christians. When the Lord saves us from our sin, when he saves us from the darkness, when he frees

us, the first thing we’re inclined to do when we experience this freedom is to run as far as we can from those dark places that we were saved from. A lot of Christians do this. They get saved, and then they completely isolate themselves from the world of darkness. But God calls us to stay in the world, to be light in the dark places, not to run from the people who are in bondage, not to run from the people who walk around in darkness, the ones who look like how we used to look and act like how we used to act, but to be witnesses to those people of God’s mercy and grace, to say to those people, look at what God has done for me, and if he’s done it for me, then he can for sure do it for you. There is this man who is possessed by thousands of demons, no dignity, no self-worth, completely

enslaved to the darkness, walking among dead people, harming himself, living but wanting to die, hopeless, helpless. But then he encounters Jesus, and Jesus shows him mercy and compassion and dignity and frees him from the shackles of his sins. Jesus radically saves this man. This is precisely what Jesus has done for us. We might not have been possessed by thousands of demons, but we were just as enslaved to the darkness as he was. In fact, we were dead in the darkness. Ephesians 2 says, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the curse of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and of the mind.

And we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind, but God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages, he might show his immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. This was us. Jesus has saved us. He has set us free from the darkness and made us alive in Christ. We were dead, but he made us alive and he has called us with new hearts, not to run from this world, but to be light in this dark world that others might hear and marvel at the mercy of God and have eternal life with Jesus.

That’s precisely what this man did. He went and he proclaimed what God has done for him and people marveled. Are you going and proclaiming what God has done for you? Are you walking into these dark places, telling these people that you once identified with what God has done for you and how he’s brought you out of the darkness into his marvelous light? The Lord has commissioned all of his Christians to be his witnesses. That means to testify about all the things that God has done for you. That’s what a witness means. That’s what a witness does. He testifies. Are you going and telling everyone around you about what Christ has done for you so that they might marvel at his mercy and be saved by his grace? Listen, I don’t know if you’re here this morning, whether or not you’re a follower of Jesus, but I can tell you this.

If you are not following Jesus, then you are walking in the darkness. You are in deep bondage to your sin. Your sin is crushing you. Your sin is harming you more than you know, and your sin is separating you from this righteous and holy God. The only way for you to escape the judgment of God that sits above you is to trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. If you would simply submit your life to Jesus to recognize your need from him, repent of your sins and embrace him by faith, then Jesus can make you clean in an instant. Just like he did to this demon possessed man, a man possessed by thousands of demons who was overwhelmed by the darkness, Jesus can set you free. He can liberate you from the bondage of your sin and bring you into a relationship with

God. He is your only hope. He is your only source of salvation. He is the only one who can forgive you for your sins, and he is the only one who can reconcile your relationship with the God who created you. Trust him, embrace him by faith, repent of your sins and take him by faith and let him do the work of recreating you in the way that you were made to be. You can do that right where you are this morning. Ask him to help you and he will do it. And if that’s what you want this morning, please don’t leave without coming and talking to one of the pastors up here. We would love to talk to you about what it means to follow Jesus, to be near to Jesus. So please don’t leave without getting your questions answered. Let’s pray. Our father and our God, when we look at this scene, we can’t help but see how merciful

you’ve been to us. We can’t help but see your compassion to see your power that does away with all of our sin. And so we pray, oh Lord and God, that we would be confronted with your truth, your compassion and your power, and that we would be motivated to go and to tell others, to be witnesses to all of those people in these dark spaces that we were well acquainted with about what you have done for us so that they might see you for who you are. Find hope and forgiveness in your glorious gospel and be a great recipient of your great mercy. And I do pray for those this morning who are lost in the darkness. I pray, oh Lord and God, that your word would be a light in their darkness, that they would see you as their only hope, that they would cling to you this morning, their only hope

to be changed, to be forgiven and to be reconciled. Do the supernatural and powerful work of instantaneously saving people in this place this morning. We pray in Jesus’ name.