I want to extend my welcome to what has already been offered
this morning. My name is Justin Sytsma and I
serve as one of the pastors here at Court Rights.
And for those who are new or newer, we are working through
the book of Luke a little bit by little bit.
And it's been just really cool each week to look back and see
where our understanding has been enlarged and grown from one
passage to another. We see themes that Lucas drawing
out and it's just been a lot of fun.
And so we're only on week like 30 ish.
So it's not too late to catch up.
We only got like a year and a half to go.
So also I wanted to mention I've been away in the past few weeks.
We've had a fantastic opportunity to be on holiday, my
family and I, and we were specifically decided on going to
a wonderful little pilgrimage. I went to the John Knox House,
which is like the birth place of Presbyterianism.
I didn't go in, but we, we, we were, we were hungry and went to
a pub down the road instead. But this is where it all began
apparently. So I, I didn't read the history
so I don't know. Anyway, it was a lot of fun.
Our Clerk of session, Alex Monsour, he warned me that our
nine year old might not be very enthused by it.
And Lindsey, my wife, said the same.
So anyway, so last week, last week, we saw Jesus and the
disciples and they were in a boat.
I don't want to go there yet. They were in a boat on the Sea
of Galilee as a storm comes in, it rolls in and they're
terrified and they wake Jesus, who is napping.
And Jesus rebukes the winds and the waves.
And we talked about this as the same sort of language that is
used when an evil spirit, a demon, is rebuked.
So this PC, which is often a symbol of darkness and chaos, is
rebuked. And today we'll see a Jesus who
is no, not only powerful to rebuke chaotic waters like last
week, but a Jesus who is powerful enough to rebuke an
entire army of evil spirits. This passage has the potential
to feel kind of heavy in some ways.
It deals with spiritual warfare in a way that many of us only
have kind of a tangential understanding of.
But I believe that God has something for us to hear in this
passage this morning. So let me pray as we read and
begin. God, would you surprise us by
your Holy Word this morning? Would you silence our agendas?
Would you banish our assumptions?
Would you cast out our casual detachment?
God? Would you confound our
expectations when you give us ears to hear and eyes to see
what You are saying in and through this passage?
Would you reach the deepest recesses of our hearts this
morning? We know that you can.
We pray that you will, and we wait and hope with expectation
and anticipation. Amen.
So whether you are in on your phone with the Bible app or you
have a physical Bible or you can follow along here as well.
This is Luke chapter 8 starting at verse 26.
So they sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across
from the Lake of Galilee. When Jesus stepped ashore, he
was met by a demon possessed man from the town.
Nice greeting committee. For a long time this man has not
worn clothes or lived in a house, but has but had lived in
the tombs. But he saw Jesus.
He cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his
voice. What do you want with me, Jesus,
son of the Most High God, I beg you, don't torture me.
For Jesus had commanded the impure spirit to come out of the
man. Many times it had seized him,
and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard,
he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demons into
solitary places. Jesus asked him, What is your
name, Legion? He replied, because many demons
had gone into him, and they begged Jesus repeatedly not to
order them to go into the abyss. A large herd of pigs was feeding
on the hillside, and the demons begged Jesus to let them go into
the pigs, and he gave them permission.
When the demons came out of the man they went into the pigs, and
the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was
drowned. When those tending the pigs saw
what had happened, they ran off and reported this in the town
and countryside, and the people went out to see what happened.
When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the
demons had gone out sitting at Jesus's feet, dressed and in his
right mind, and they were afraid.
Those who had seen it told the people how the demon possessed
man had been cured. Then all the people of the
region of the garrisons asked Jesus to leave, because they
were overcome with fear. So he got into the boats and
left. The man from whom the demons had
gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying,
Return home and tell how much God has done for you.
So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had
done for him. This is the word of the Lord.
Think speed to God. So if you're anything like me,
sometimes passages like this can be challenging because they deal
with the supernatural in a way that doesn't necessarily land in
our modern Western culture. So I want to start here for a
moment because I don't want this man's affliction to be a
stumbling block to us getting to the heart of this passage.
Here's the problem as I see and understand it.
Modern Western Christians tend. I use that word carefully.
They tend to unto struggle with concepts like demon possession.
Not everyone you know. Our charismatic and Pentecostal
brothers and sisters don't necessarily struggle with this
in the same way. They seem to have a better
handle on this. But there is a tendency within
modern Western Christianity to simply explain away demon
possession as a mental disorder like schizophrenia or
dissociative personality disorder.
There's a concept that was coined by a Christian
anthropologist. His name was Paul Hebert, and
it's called the excluded middle. The excluded middle.
And here's the simplest way for us to think about it.
In our modern Western world, we tend to think through the world
through a empirical scientific lens.
Whatever we can observe and empirically prove, like the
scientific method that we will state that as truth.
This is even true in our faith at times.
This is why the the sphere of apologetics in the Christian
world has ballooned over the past number of decades, because
we want to be able to empirically prove things that
are difficult to empirically prove, like the resurrection,
like the the total historicity of Scripture and things like
that are modern and scientific minds compel us to try to find
concrete answers for things like this.
Meanwhile, for millennia and still today across many parts of
the world and cultures, there is an automatic assumption of a
spiritual realm. So you see the supernatural
realm up here and the natural realm down there.
This excluded middle is the area that says.
Actually, we have neglected to realize that these both
intersect with one another for a whole host of people across time
and space and culture today. It is baked into their
worldview. So the flaw of neglecting the
excluded middle is that we tend to see these two realms as
realms that do not mix, rather than seeing them as integrated
and interconnected, That the spiritual world and the physical
world are not disconnected, but rather intrinsically connected.
So here's what I want us to know.
Modern Western Christians, ones who would generally say that we
believe in something like a literal resurrection, can tend
to undermine the spiritual and the supernatural when it comes
to things like this, such as evil and the demonic, as we see
in today's passage. And I believe we do this to our
detriment. There are cultures across our
world today and across centuries and millennia of history who
have a very real understanding of evil that goes beyond simply
human evil. You go to many parts of the
majority world outside of the West, and you'll find that they
have a much greater understanding and experience of
spirits and of good and evil. And so to deny and reject this
is to deny the experience of literally billions of people,
Christian or otherwise, across time and culture.
It can tend toward us having a little air of intellectual
snobbery. And I want us to go into this
story this morning with the assumption that this man did not
simply have a mental illness. Maybe he did as well.
We don't know but that there is something more happening here.
Let's not let that aspect of this story be a distraction or a
stumbling block for us this morning.
So let's you know, even if you're struggling with that, you
like, I would encourage you take a take a little moment here to
suspend disbelief. We can the safe space to do that
where we can sort of set that aside for a moment and let's get
to the heart of the story, wherever you land on that.
So let's enter this man's world. So the village that Jesus and
his disciples happened upon was a largely Gentile region, so
mostly non Jews. That means, and this is
interestingly Luke's only story in the whole Gospel of Luke
where Jesus goes out of his way to visit a region like this.
Now, little pop quiz, what is the easiest way to tell that
this was a Gentile region? Pigs.
Yeah, they were hurting swine, which is totally forbidden by
Jewish law. It wasn't just the eating.
It was, you know, the, the, the proximity to as well.
In fact, this whole scenario just screams unclean.
You've got the pigs, you have this possessed man, which
literally translates to unclean spirits.
And then you have this man living outside the village
amongst the tombs that would have also been considered
unclean. So this demon possessed man has
been terrorizing the region, quite literally.
He's running around without clothing.
He's living in an act. He hasn't lived in an actual
house for many years. And they're forced the villagers
to have to like, have people, you know, guard this man and
he's breaking the chains on his hands and feet.
He's got like this superhuman strength.
They are economically invested in keeping this possessed man at
Bay. Like they have put in resources
to keep this guy from hurting people and then Jesus shows up
and the demons aren't happy about it.
So Jesus commands the demons to come out and the man's body
collapses before Jesus and the spirits cry out to Jesus.
They say, what do you want with me?
Jesus, son of the most high God, I beg of you, don't torture me,
He says. Now how can we identify the
speaker here? This is interesting.
How can we identify the speaker as the demons and not the man?
You take a look. What does he say?
He says Jesus. We don't know that Jesus has
introduced himself. Maybe he did.
But then is this next part That's the real giveaway.
Son of the Most High God. How would this random dude in a
gentile village know that this is the son of the most high God?
They would have no way to know that this happened earlier in in
Luke chapter 4 where you see this this other possessed man
say to Jesus and refer to him as the Holy One of God.
So this is not just a a man's speaking.
These are the demons speaking. They know who Jesus is.
I mean, Jesus generally tries to keep his identity under wraps.
He says the time isn't right for this.
And so you know, he often tells the demons to be quiet.
Stop talking about my identity. He then asks for their name.
He says what is your name, Legion?
They reply. The implication here is that
this is not a small amount of spirits, but hundreds or even
thousands. A Roman legion had anywhere from
4 to 6000 army members in it. How did this even happen to the
man? You know, this is like a little
question you can ask yourself during, during drinks after the
service, but like, you know, just a little light
conversation. You know, how did this man
invite like thousands of demons inside him?
I, I don't know. It's an absolutely bizarre thing
to consider, but Legion begs Jesus to not be thrown into the
abyss, but rather to be permitted to enter the pigs on
the hillside. Now it's fascinating to me that
the demons, they beg, they begged Jesus not to go into the
abyss. The Abyss is sort of this land,
this spiritual realm where demons and other evil spirits
would have been banished to. That's what it was known as or
considered. It would have been like an
imprisonment for them. The Abyss is also understood as
the chaotic waters. It's the same language.
The reason ancient cultures were afraid, generally afraid of the
sea, is that it was also known as the Abyss.
You don't want to go there. And the demons were no
exception. They don't want to be banished.
And yet, in A twist of irony, by their request, that is exactly
where they end up. They enter the herd of pigs.
The pigs go mad down the hillside, into the water, into
the abyss. Now, we don't know the ultimate
fate of these demons, but we know that the man has been made
well again. We also know that the townsfolk
are very, very unhappy with him. This poor guy has been afflicted
for years and they can't even like take a moment to be happy
for the guy. Now, some scholars and writers
actually wonder if that was a part of the ploy of Legion.
That in their request to enter the pigs, they knew their fate
was sealed regardless, right? That it would distract from the
miracle of this man's healing? That by causing chaos alongside
their demise, that they would gain just a small victory in
attempting to undermine Jesus's work.
But let's take a moment to look at the outcome for this man.
So this man has been healed. It says that he is now in his
right mind. He's dressed, so he went from
being naked to being clothed. He went from being out of his
mind to being in his right mind. And the other fascinating thing
is that he's sitting at the feet of Jesus.
What does that remind you of? That's the place of a disciple
who is learning from their teacher.
This man has been truly changed, but not only has this man been
healed, salvation has come to this man.
His entire life has been turned upside down.
Jesus came to this town and he disrupted it, and this town and
this man will never be the same. And he wants to do something
about it. He wants to follow Jesus quite
literally here. So you'll notice the demons,
they begged Jesus to not go into the abyss.
And then this man, once he is healed, what does this say?
The man begged to go with him. Same word, same language, used
in very different ways. So the man begs Jesus to let him
go with him and the other disciples.
And Jesus, you know, I think he respected the man's zeal and the
the man's passion. But he encourages him and he
sort of encouraged him to go in a different route, different
path, and encourages that there's work to be done in their
hometown. He says return home and see how
much God, and I want to point this out, how much God has done
for you. So the man went away and told
over, all over town how much Jesus had done for the man.
I think it's just important to note that you know that Jesus,
again, he is showcasing who he is, his power.
And this man realizes quite intuitively, this man is more
than just a man. I'm going to tell my village who
Jesus is. Jesus wants this man to share
the story of his salvation, to share what God, what Jesus has
done across this region. He wants him to share with
anyone who will listen, anyone who would have known him as this
possessed man. He wants him to go and share the
story of what Jesus has done in his life.
Now the only thing we haven't quite dealt with yet is the
villagers, townspeople. In my mind, they present the
most interesting twist on this narrative, even beyond the fact
that we're dealing with a demon possessed man.
You would think that Jesus healing this man would be a
moment, as I said earlier, to celebrate that this man's life
was restored. But what is their response?
What is their response? They were afraid, Fear.
They find the man sitting at Jesus's feet and it is written
in his right mind and rather than marvelling, no, they were
afraid and not in like the good kind of fear.
And then they find out everything that went down with
the pigs and they asked Jesus to leave.
Why? Because they were overcome with
fear. They were overcome with fear.
A great talked about fear last week.
The disciples were afraid of the storm, rightfully so, And once
the storm was quelled, that fear shifted toward Jesus in a way of
like man, this man has power over the winds and the waves.
This is amazing and kind of terrifying in the best of ways.
This fear seems different. It seems misplaced, like
certainly they were fearful of Jesus's power, there's no
question there. But should they not have been
more afraid of Legion, who's now gone?
Fred Craddock says this. He says even when it is for
good, power that can neither be calculated nor managed is
frightening. Makes sense.
The devil you know, quite literally here, is better than
the savior you don't know. There was a predictability in
their life, and Jesus messed with that.
The townspeople had seemingly learned to cope and coexist with
the evil among them, the possessed man in their presence.
They had guards keeping watch over him.
Maybe that was a paid position, I don't know.
He resided amongst the tombs and he was off in his little corner
of the world, and they just let him do his thing.
They learned to tolerate the evil in their midst, but their
fears seem to go deeper into their insecurities and even
their livelihoods. I mean, think about the
livestock that they lost. We don't like to think about
that. Like, I don't know how many pigs
were in this herd. And all of a sudden, like, could
you imagine? Like, OK, don't imagine.
Never mind. Never mind.
We won't do that. That's gross, but like the truly
tragic loss, I get it. They are so blinded, though, by
what they have lost that they cannot be excited for this man
who has this new lease on life. They can't see beyond their
current situation. The man is healed, the demons
are gone, and the townspeople continue to be angry and afraid.
Jesus showed up at this seemingly random Gentile village
and had a major impact, but it is not without its controversies
or contentions. And this is the nature of Jesus
when he comes to town. When Jesus comes to town, people
are healed. We've seen this time and time
again already in Luke. Wherever he goes around,
remarkable things happen. When he comes around, people are
brought from brokenness into wholeness.
People's stations are uplifted. The outcast are rejected and
embraced and accepted. And this man is no different.
This man personifies so much of what Jesus is healing ministry
was about. He had been possessed for so
long. He was living on the outskirts
of town in these tombs, like the pariah that he was.
He was naked and unhoused. And Jesus heals him, draws him
back into community, back to wearing clothing again, which
I'm sure the the mums and dads of little ones were quite
grateful for so that they could go on their evening walk without
having to shield their kids eyes.
The man returns to a degree of normalcy while recognizing that
his life will never be normal again.
He has been forever changed. As imitators of Christ, we are
called to do the same. It's why we pray and fast when
there are friends among us that need healing.
Our Calling is also that we would bring healing and
restoration to the broken places in our church, in our city, in
our nation and our world. That we'd uplift the station of
those whom society has rejected. That we would restore people to
community. That is Our Calling as well.
When Jesus comes to town. People aren't just healed
though. People are saved just like this
man. In this short turn of events,
this man goes from being a possessed man to being healed.
From being healed to sitting at the feet of Jesus in the
position of a disciple. He was a follower of Jesus just
like that. He didn't just thank Jesus and
move on with his life. His life had been indelibly
changed and he knew it. He owed his life to this man.
This was a moment of conversion for him as the boat was leaving.
This man begs Jesus to let him go with them because he wanted
to dedicate his entire life to this man who saved it.
As imitators of Christ, this is Our Calling as well.
Now we know that it's God that does the saving, but it is for
us to foster a church culture and environment where people can
be transformed by Jesus and follow Jesus.
Where we'd provoke curiosity about Jesus and have meaningful,
transformative conversations with friends, with colleagues,
with neighbors. However, when Jesus comes to
town, it can be disruptive to the local economy, to the
people's way of life. While this one man's life was
changed, the town was obviously very divided over what had
happened. They were fearful they had lost
their main source of income and they ultimately asked Jesus to
leave again. Fred Craddock, smart guy, he
says these words. The Garrison people are not
praising God that a man is healed.
They are counting the cost and finding it too much.
This is the reality of Jesus who imposes on what is comfortable
and normal. Because the ethics of the
Kingdom of God will naturally interfere with how we spend our
resources and our time. It will confront and convict.
And yes, sometimes that means it will repel, as we saw here.
And again, as imitators of Christ, this is Our Calling as
well. Not to repel people
intentionally by the way, that's not what I mean.
That's really easy to do. It's easy to be a jerk Christian
who just puts lots of heavy burdens on Christians and non
Christians alike. That's very easy to do.
Now Our Calling is to live a life that is like a little bit
weird. And I mean that like a beautiful
way. And when people ask me to
describe court, right, I've said this before, but I'll say it
again. When people ask me to describe
court, right, I say court writes a little weird, but like, in the
most beautiful way, like in the most like charming and lovely of
ways. Like my affection in my 6 years
here at this church has grown just immensely.
And, but I still describe you as a little weird.
You're like my weird family. It's, it's, it's a lovely thing.
We're called to be that, though. I think we're called to be
weird. The kind of weird where we live
an intentional community with one another, bringing each other
into different parts of our life.
Over dinner, over coffee, whatever.
It's reworking our personal budgets to be increasingly
generous, to make a difference in our community and across the
world. It's growing a a large urban
garden and giving away all the produce.
Like, that stuff is weird. This is beautiful and it's
disruptive to what we would call in Canada a normal way of life.
That's going to draw some people in.
They're going to be provoked to curiosity, but for others, it's
going to force some to drop out. They're gonna say, oh, that's
that's not for me and that's OK. This is the nature of the
gospel, and it's the nature of life inside the Kingdom of God.
Lastly, when Jesus comes to town, ministry and mission
begin. There are very few moments, as I
said earlier, where Jesus intentionally goes to these
Gentile spaces to to do ministry.
This is the only one that's recorded in the Gospel of Luke.
He was laser focused on his ministry to the people of
Israel. But here in Luke 8, Jesus lays a
foundation for mission. He heals this possessed man who
has his miraculous conversion experience and he wants to
dedicate his life, his whole life, the following Jesus.
But Jesus tells him, no, no, stay here, return home, don't go
anywhere because I want you to be a faithful witness, to bear
witness to what God has done in your life here.
These people have had a first hand experience.
They know who this man was before and they see who this man
is now. Eventually, once once they stop
being so angry about the pigs, maybe they'll be curious to hear
this man's story. He has laid down a foundation
that is going to be amplified up to 10 in the book of Acts, and
it continues to this day. The ministry of Jesus to the
nations. Jesus was not permitted to do
any more work in this region as they forced him to leave.
But that, I want to be very clear, does not mean that the
gospel was hindered here. You need to know that because
there was a man who stayed, his life was changed by Jesus and he
would surely go on to share his story with anyone who would
listen. As imitators of Christ, this is
also Our Calling. Most of us in this room will not
be called to international mission work, but we are all
called to mission like this man. Most of us are called to stay.
We're called to share the story of God in our lives.
We're called to share the story of the trials we have been
through, that God in his faithfulness in the midst of
those trials. The stories of healing where God
has been at work in our broken situations and has brought us to
wholeness, where God has restored us back into community
and life. We are living testimonies of God
at work, and our stories may be the gateway for others to
understand the story. The story of Jesus's life, his
death and his resurrection. And as they see Jesus mirrored
in our lives, in my life and in your life, that they may be
provoked into curiosity to grow in a knowledge of who Jesus is.
Let me pray God, would you help us to be like this healed man
who has been through an amazing conversion experience and is
willing to share his story to to have A to have had a a true
encounter with Jesus. God, we are just grateful for
our stories and the things that you have brought us through, the
trials you have brought us through, even through doubts and
fear, through broken situations. God, you have brought us
through. Would you allow us to enter into
those stories in a more deep way that would allow us to Share
your story, the story of your redemptive work in our lives?
Just pray for all of us, no matter where we are, no matter
what we are encountering. Maybe we're in the middle of
that right now. Maybe we're we're in the middle
of these challenging situations. What?
Wherever we find ourselves this morning, God, would you meet us
where we are? Would you bring us to the other
side and would we use these stories for your glory and your
honor? I pray this all in Jesus name,
Amen. Amen.