Don't Fear the Power of Christ

But let me start with the statement this morning that fear is a powerful motivator. Fear is a powerful motivator. Fear of a heart attack can get you to wake up at the crack of dawn, slip into cold sneakers, and that fear of a heart attack can send you off on a jog while it's still dark. Fear of humiliation might motivate you to practice your lines in a mirror when asking or preparing to ask someone special on a date. Fear of a demotion or a bad grade might cause you to work long hours to get a project done on time.

Fear is a powerful motivator, and many of us are ruled by it. But do you know that fear is only as powerful as the consequence it bears? In fact, fear is far more terrifying usually than the consequence that it fears. Fear is more terrifying than the consequence that it fears. You could look at the epidemic of anxiety today in Australia and understand that it is an issue of overthinking and an overthinking of the types of things which are, in all probability, very unlikely to happen.

I know anxious people that are terrified of dying in that moment where they're sitting safely on the couch. What if your fear, however, could be undone by knowing that something even more powerful than fear was on your side? This morning, we're going to look at a story that has the aspect or the theme of fear all throughout it. It's a story of a fearful man, a beast of a man, possessed by many demons, and the story of a village absolutely terrified about what happened to him. Let's have a look at Luke 8:26-39.

Jesus heals a man with a demon. Luke 8:26. Then they, this is Jesus and His disciples, sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met Him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time, he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs.

When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before Him and said with a loud voice, what have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the most high God? I beg you, do not torment me, for He had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For many a time, it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert. Just then Jesus asked him, what is your name?

And he said, Legion, for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.

When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it told them how the demon possessed man had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned.

The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with Him. But Jesus sent him away saying, return to your home and declare how much God has done for you. And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him. We see this aspect of fear all throughout this story. But firstly, we come to the setup that Luke gives us of a fearful duel, so to speak, between two impressive names.

In the culture of Jesus' day, there was a superstitious attachment to names. Rabbis and even pagan priests in the first century taught that you could wield power over evil spirits by knowing their names and invoking those names to do your bidding, especially in the exorcism of demons. With that bit of cultural understanding, it's interesting to notice this dynamic between the two different names happening in our passage. There is a focus on this for Luke. To a certain extent, the confrontation between Jesus and the demon possessed man is a confrontation of names.

On the one hand, there is Jesus whom the demon calls the Son of the most high God, and He is against Legion, the multi-possessed prisoner of Satan. One contender is Legion, and Legion was a legend. We find that he lived among the tombs. He didn't live in a home. Now before we imagine a foggy graveyard with gravestones and a spooky full moon and some sort of Halloween depiction, the tombs of those times were caves.

So it was probably for far more practical reason than some sinister, death-obsessed idea that the man was living in the tombs. They were caves to live in when he had been thrown out of the village. But he is certainly described in beastly terms. We are told that he wore no clothes. He lived in no house, and it is obvious that he had been shunned from decent society.

When he would turn up, people would drive him away. And at certain times, we are told when these demons would seize him, he would, people would attempt to tie him down, we're told, with chains and shackles. And despite this, he was able to have an incredible strength that would make it possible to break those shackles, and it made it impossible for the townspeople to keep this man away. Now opposing Legion stands Jesus, and it's still fairly early in His ministry, but he too is becoming increasingly well known. We've sort of seen over the past few weeks that up until this point, he has healed paralytics.

He's healed blind people. He's healed lepers. He's even, to this point, raised a widow's son from the dead. In fact, just before he gets to the Gerasenes here and crossing the lake to get there, he has stopped a storm in its tracks. The disciples ask, who is this man that the winds and the waves would listen to him?

And with that question in mind, we come to this moment. Perhaps also importantly for us to know is that Jesus had also earlier cast out an evil spirit from a man in the Jewish synagogue. But here we find two contenders, Jesus in the one corner, Legion in the other. And Luke is setting us up with a little bit of wording that here is a test of Jesus' true power. Here is a test of His authority, one man against the confirmed power of a man possessed of many demons, a well known character in the area.

And the question is, well, Jesus has previously exorcised evil spirits, but never has he been brought to this position of casting out multiple demons from one man. Even though, at the start of Luke 8, we are told that Mary Magdalene had, I think it was, seven demons cast out from her. Yes, verse 2 there. But Legion, as you may know, refers to the Roman army that could have held up to 6,000 men in a legion in the Roman army.

This is the first time that Jesus is also outside the traditional boundaries of Israel. He's crossed the Sea of Galilee, the lake, and he is now in pagan country, the Gentile country of the Gerasenes or the Decapolis. Jesus had worked great wonders in the territory of God's people, but could Jesus do the same in the territory of the unbelieving Gentile? Now Luke very quickly moves on from Jesus' arrival. It's as though they put their foot onto the dry land, and this man storms down from the tombs to meet them.

And I can just imagine a naked man raving and crazy running towards you, screaming things. Those disciples would have been gripped with fear. Perhaps putting one foot back onto the boat, they're confronted by this beast man. But Jesus isn't afraid. From the beginning, it's very clear that this duel is no contest at all.

In fact, it's a one-sided affair. His name might be Legion, and he may well be possessed with even 50,000 demons, and the results are going to be the same. His name is Legion, but he is no match for Jesus. A former minister in the CRCA by the name of Alan Quack, in a sermon he wrote, beautifully sums up that moment where he says, when Jesus faces him, just like the raging seas he had just calmed, Jesus is about to calm a raging soul. So we see a fearful duel of power, but then we see a Legion that is afraid.

Instead of Jesus being afraid of this raving lunatic, we see the beast man named Legion afraid of Jesus. Verse 29 tells us, when he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before Him and said with a loud voice, what have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the most high God? I beg you, do not torment me. Spirits who had dominated this poor man now cower before Jesus. Again, it's worth pointing out here that some commentators, even some reformed thinkers, believe that this man was simply experiencing something that psychologists today might label as multiple personality disorder.

In other words, this story is not really about evil spirits, but just a primitive culture that wasn't able to discern psychological conditions. So because they are a primitive culture, they explain things away by associating evil spirits to them. In other words, what Jesus experiences here is not so much a moment of satanic power, but it simply is the healing of a mind. There are, however, a few problems with that conclusion. Firstly, it doesn't explain the apparently supernatural knowledge that this man had of Jesus.

Remember, they are not in Nazareth anymore. They are not in the region of Galilee. They are on the opposite side of the lake in Gentile country. We're told that the man rushes out to Jesus. Jesus has no chance to introduce himself to that man.

But more importantly, this man gives Jesus the title, Son of the most high God, before anyone understood what that meant and how that referred to Jesus. In fact, very interestingly, the only other time that this sort of title is given to Jesus in this part of His ministry is in Luke 4 at the healing, or the exorcism of another demon possessed man. With that man in a Jewish synagogue called out, I know who you are, the holy one of God. Secondly, it's obvious that the breaking of the shackles and the bindings was somehow remarkable. It was something that Luke recorded because no ordinary madman, no person with simply multiple personality disorder could do something like this.

So, no, it's not as simple as a mental health disorder. This great terrifying man, Legion, is afraid of Jesus. But what exactly is he afraid of? Well, verse 31 tells us, they, these multiple demons, begged Jesus not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now that is most probably a reference to hell, the place of eternal torment.

John Noland, in his commentary, explains that they are probably fearing the end time judgment proceedings that they believe are happening before time, before it's due. It's also interesting to note that this fear is provoked, verse 29 tells us, because Jesus had simply commanded that the spirits leave. And so, you know, sometimes we sort of see Jesus speaking and the spirits depart. Here is an instance where the spirits begin to negotiate at that command. I don't know if that indicates any sort of inherent power or something, but they don't immediately leave.

They begin negotiating terms. Please don't cast us into hell. Let's work something out. It is a sobering thought, however, if you pause to think about it because in that moment, we find this incredible detail that Satan, or perhaps more specifically, Satan's fallen angels, won't experience the impending reality of hell as a domain where they rule and have fun. They will be, as much as anyone else.

They're prisoners who grieve their existence there. Legion is as fearful as anyone else will be at that moment before the judgment seat of Christ when they realize they have been sent away from the goodness of God. So here, trembling before Jesus, Legion, who had gripped the whole region with fear, is now begging for freedom with fear. At every point, the Lord Jesus is shown to be completely in control. The demons can't do anything without His permission.

Please don't torment us, they say. Please don't send us into the abyss. Please let us go into the pigs. This beast who snapped chains and ropes, who lived in caves, who survived in deserts, is now reduced to a grovelling, snivelling weakling. Jesus, in response, doesn't prescribe any sedatives or mind-altering chemicals.

He gives no medicine. He simply takes control of a madman. He accepts the title that the demons give him, Son of the most high God. He accepts, even surprisingly to some, especially in a day and age of animal rights, the request for these demons to be sent into a herd of pigs.

And in the blink of an eye, Jesus delivers this beast of a man, and in an instant, turns this man into a disciple in the cemetery. When the townspeople later come to investigate all the commotion of a herd of pigs having run off a cliff and drowning, they find this madman sitting quietly at the feet of Jesus, fully clothed, listening contentedly. Now it might be tempting for us to look back at the details of this story and to become so fixated on the otherworldly aspects and the dynamics that we lose sight of what is actually happening here. And the point of Luke's account is actually a fairly mundane one. Luke portrays the end result as essentially being exactly the same as the leper we looked at two weeks ago or the sinful prostitute of last week.

It's someone who has found Jesus Christ. It's someone who's been converted to believe that He is the Lord and Saviour. There is essentially no difference between this situation and the wonder attached to every true conversion to Christ. Every moment of belief, whether it was a leper cleansed or a notorious sinner forgiven, every moment of belief is a miracle of rebirth. The before picture can have a few different details.

The result is always the same. Every person, every one of us here, to one extent or another, has gone through that exact same process of being born again. The reality being that once we were partners with Satan and until Jesus stepped in and brought us into the arms of God. Again, Alan Quack sums it up poignantly when he says, we are never in our right mind until we are converted. We are never in the right place until we are found sitting at the feet of Jesus.

And we are never rightly clothed until we have put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now it would be fitting to end the story at this point, but we know from our text that the story doesn't end there. Firstly, we've seen a fearful situation. We've seen this potential duel, which really isn't a duel, of great powers and great names. But secondly, we see that Legion, an entire Legion, is afraid of one man, Jesus.

But then we see a third group of people who were also afraid, but afraid perhaps in a different way. Twice in Luke's account, we're told that the villages, upon hearing and seeing what had happened with the man, were filled with fear. In fact, verse 37 says that they were seized with great fear. This fear causes them to ask Jesus to leave. Now what do you suppose they were afraid of?

Was it the sight of all those dead pigs floating in the water? Was it the sight that this beast of a man was now clothed and in his right mind? Was it that they never realised just how possessed this man was, that a Legion of demons was inside of him? It's for none of those reasons that they are afraid. We're led to understand by the Bible that the source of their fear was essentially the presence and the power of God.

Now to many of us, it might seem crazy to think that the cleansing power of Jesus would be something that could cause people to drive him away. But if we pause and we reflect, you and I will realise just how common that sort of response actually is. You see, the thing about having the one true God in your midst is the dawning sense of unease that the incident with a hundred pigs washed away into the sea, or the instance of a man turned into a beast man turned into a gentle lamb, that display of power may only be the tip of the iceberg. Who knows what this man Jesus, Son of the most high God, could do if this is the type of stuff he was able to do? It is an unnerving thing to be confronted by the person of Jesus.

That's really what the village's response is telling us. It's unsettling to meet Jesus. It is unsettling to see His power. For the leper, for the prostitute, for the demon possessed man, His power is liberation and delight. But for others, His power causes fear and repulsion.

Now for many people, perhaps even for you listening to this message this morning, meeting Jesus and putting your faith in Him is a terrifying thought or at least unsettling. Your life may be hard, you may be facing all sorts of difficult situations, and yet you may think it's easier to stay the same. Even if that the same is quite difficult to try and manage. For the people of the Gerasenes, think about it, life with a demon possessed crazy man was no picnic. He terrified the neighbourhoods.

He would have been the cause of fear for parents with young children. He was a public nuisance. But as they say, better the devil you know than the devil you don't. Or in this case, better the devil you know than the God you don't. Because when you meet the one who has such power, you have to listen to what He has to say.

In his book, The Road Less Travelled, Scott Peck opens the book by saying that across his many years of practice as a psychologist, the number one obstacle he encountered in helping people get better had nothing to do with stubborn chemical imbalances in the brain. Rather, the number one obstacle when it came to people's inability to progress was their unwillingness to do the hard things, he suggested. It's not that Doctor Peck could not come up with good programs that would make people's life better, but getting people to follow through on those programs. As Johnny Carson, the comedian would say, you can lead a horse to the water, but getting them to do a backstroke is tough. Jesus sails away at the request of the people.

He goes back to the Jews, and the people of the Gerasenes go home unchanged. In other words, they could have put up with the lunatic in their midst just fine. They'll keep the lunatic. They'll send Jesus away. There is just one man, however, left on the shore waving furiously in gratitude to the man who has saved him.

He wants to come along, but the time of the Gentiles is not yet at hand. Jesus tells him, go back to your home and tell them what God has done for you. And did you pick up how Luke ends that account? It says that he went back and told them what Jesus had done for him. In other words, what Jesus did, God did.

What God had done, Jesus had done. Now in God's plan of salvation, the time, like I said, for the Gentiles wasn't yet at hand. It would take a few more years and it would take the ministry of the likes of Philip the evangelist and Paul and Barnabas. But here's the point. You may see the incredible power of God at work in Jesus.

You may all around you see lives transformed by Jesus Christ. And you, yourself, may drive him away because of the fear of what that might do for your life, what it might mean for Jesus to have that much power. The Bible tells us, don't be those people. Don't love the comfort of the things you know, even the comfort of keeping to the bad habits, keeping to those bad situations you currently know, don't love the comfort of the things you know more than the opportunity to receive the power of Christ.

I think Luke records this as a sad moment. His power could have saved them. His power could have healed them. And yet, in God's sovereign plan, Jesus is sent back. Friends, I wanna tell you that you want to be on that side of the Lake of Galilee. You want to be on that side seeing Jesus and His power and then receiving that power.

You don't want to be on that bank when Jesus has gone to the other side again. Because there is one day, even as the demons confessed, that Jesus will have crossed over completely and fully, and you won't have your second chance. There will be a day where, as the demons confessed, Jesus will judge the wicked and the evil and he will send into the abyss all those who have chosen to love darkness and shun the light. And so this morning, today, go to Him while He is still on this side of the Lake of Galilee. Go to Him before you miss your chance.

And if you have, finally, for those who have tasted His grace, we hear the instructions of the Lord Jesus. Go and declare what God has done for you. Bear witness to your friends, to your family of what Jesus has done. With clarity, with right mindedness now, clothed in Christ, like lambs at the sheep at the feet of a shepherd, we declare to a watching world just how much Jesus has done for us. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for this incredible, visceral, memorable account of the unstoppable power of Jesus Christ. There is nothing and no one that opposes Him. Whatever He does is right. And we thank you, Lord, that we may see the incredible grace that you would send your Son across a massive lake. You will send those poor disciples through a storm to dock on the other side amongst tombs to save just one man.

How far, Lord, will you not go to rescue those on whom you've set your heart? Lord, for those of us who this morning realise that we live in fear, fear of what it might mean to truly be called a Christian, fear of a life and what it might look like to confess and believe and organise our lives in such a way that we will say we are Christians born again, living under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. For those of us who fear the scorn or the reprisals or the humiliation or the embarrassment of peers who may think us weird or strange, who may feel sorry for us, for being Christians. Lord, in light of all those fears, we say, we trust you. We see your power.

We acknowledge it. We know it. And, Lord, the same power that saved this man is the power at work in our hearts. The same power that is at work in our hearts is the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. That same power is the power that will preserve our faith in you.

Please, Lord, help us to orient our hearts, our minds again towards you to receive you fully and finally as our Lord. Help us not to miss this chance. And, if we know this and we are grateful for it and we rejoice in it this morning, help us also, Lord, to bear witness to your grace, to be messengers of that grace, to point others to you and say, go to Him and find what I have found in Him. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.