October 2 Sermon: Declare How Much God Has Done
Contemplate these questions as you listen to this week’s message from Luke 8:26-39:
1. Why do you think Jesus' ministry is depicted as so ordinary, even after performing profound miracles like calming the storm?
2. What significance do you see in the demon-possessed man identifying Jesus as the "Son of the Most High God"? How does this contribute to the story's message?
3. How do you interpret the reaction of the people from the surrounding country of the Gerasenes, who asked Jesus to depart after witnessing the miraculous healing of the demon-possessed man? What lessons can we learn from their response?
Transcript:
Do you have any Bible stories that stand out to you and come across as out of place in scripture? I can think of several of them and a lot of them we have journeyed through together while we were in the book of Genesis. We had the awkward story of the sons of Jacob slaughtering the people of Shechem after they had been circumcised. That whole story is rather different from top to bottom but yet we find there is a reason that Moses put it into holy scripture. There are others that we could bring up. Everything from Judah impregnating his daughter-in-law when he didn’t realize it was her and thought she was a prostitute to Sarah banishing Hagar and Ishmael from their community. And this is just three quick ones that I remember off the top of my head. You probably have a few more, like the bears mauling the children when they mock the prophet Ishmael or when the wife of Moses performs the circumcision of their sons. We’ll come into contact with that one sometime in the future because after we finish up with a few more chapters in Luke, we’ll be moving to the book of Exodus for a while. I don’t know if we’ll get to that one in our first series in Exodus, but we’ll end up there eventually, and let me tell you, I’m super excited to work through that one.
Now, I say that jokingly but, in truth, I really do like processing through those types of passages because I learn a lot from it and I have had a lot of positive responses from those passages because, like me, many of you have wondered why passages like that are in our Bibles.
Today, we come upon an interesting story as we come back to the book of Luke after the two weeks I was gone. While this one isn’t quite as spicy as many stories that we come across in the Bible, it is interesting, especially after we just saw Jesus calm a storm. We go from arguably one of the most amazing miracles of Jesus to one of the most random. Jesus sends the demons possessing a man into a herd of pigs. What’s the deal with that? Well, today, as we work our way through this passage, we will answer that question. We will do that while breaking our text for today down into three points.
First, we will see that Jesus comes into contact with a demon-possessed man, and while this is interesting in and of itself, it becomes even more interesting when the possessed man identifies Jesus. It isn’t just that he knows his name but he refers to him as the Son of the Most High God. An important title and a significant statement coming from demons. And so right away, with the first point, we get a clue as to the purpose of Luke sharing this story with us.
Secondly, we see the power of Jesus displayed in freeing the man from demon possession. And we get another glimpse as to why the inclusion of this story in the book of Luke because this isn’t just any ordinary demon possession story. The many is possessed by many demons, and yet, Jesus has power over them.
Finally, the man is freed from the possession that has plagued him for a long time, and his response is one of joy and gratitude. As we look at this narrative, we see that the man who is freed from this terrible affliction understands how he has been made free, and he naturally desires to follow Jesus everywhere, but Jesus sends him back to his home and tells him to proclaim to those there what has been done for him.
As we come to the beginning of our passage this morning, there is something I wanted to draw out that I find extremely interesting about this story.
Luke 8:26
ESV
Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee.
The reason I think this is interesting is because of where we left off a few weeks ago in verse 25. Jesus had just calmed the storm. He had, in a very real way, shown that he was God in human flesh because he had power over nature itself. And, you will recall the response of the disciples. Who is this who commands even winds and water, and they obey him? That was a profound story and a profound statement. If you and I were making up a story and we got to that point the next narrative we would place after that event would be some sort of getting out of the boat and overtaking the powers that be around us and making them suffer for the wrongs they have imposed on others. Jesus would reign over all the foes that opposed him and the disciples. That’s the natural story that would come if human intentions were guiding the narrative.
Instead, what do we have here in the text of Luke 8 is something extremely ordinary, and it reminds us just how ordinary the ministry of Jesus was. Even after the most profound of miracles, there isn’t fanfare or anything. It’s just business as usual. I often point this out, but what we know of the ministry of Jesus is pretty limited. Four gospels with a lot of the same stories and not as much teaching as you would expect. This clues us into just how ordinary his ministry was. Yet he did extraordinary things but it isn’t flashy or fancy. It shows us his humanity, and while the point of his miracles show us his divinity, we come to understand that his mission was not to do exciting signs and wonders to show off or anything but to show that he was the one who would come and bring salvation to his people and he would do this by living life in our flesh and dying on a Roman cross to bear the wrath of God for our sin.
And so, even after the astounding activity we read about in the first part of Luke 8, we still see they are just out here doing everyday things. Traveling and doing his ordinary teaching ministry.
Luke 8:27–28
ESV
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.”
But this doesn’t mean that astounding and extraordinary things didn’t happen in the course of that ministry because they most certainly do and we see here. He gets out of the boat, and he is met by a man who had demons. And Luke paints a vivid picture for us here. Initially, we imagine we might imagine a regular Joe walking up to Jesus, but soon the mental picture lets us know how dire the situation is. The possession has affected him dramatically. We read that he has lost the normal decency to wear clothes. He is not well, and as we imagine someone who is described as naked and lives among the tombs, you probably conjure up an image in your mind of someone who is absolutely filthy and incapable of caring for himself in any capacity. And, before we consider the interaction that he has with Jesus I want us to think about the human element here. This man is possessed, and everything has been taken from him. It isn’t that he just doesn’t live in a house and that he’s dirty and naked. This has likely caused separation from his family, and he is separated from the community as a whole. And this is brought out for us by the fact that he lives among the tombs. And I think it is important that we stop and consider just how much we have in common with this man. Now, I’m not suggesting that we are demon-possessed, naked, or dirty but let’s think about the state this man is in before he comes to Jesus. In our sin, we are naked before God in our guilt. We are unclean and dead in our sins we are separated from him. Apart from Christ we are walking among the dead. This man is a picture of you and I apart from Jesus, isn’t he? And so, let’s see what happens when he comes into contact with the Lord.
We find that he comes up to Jesus, and we see that the demon that has possessed him is able to identify what you and I know about Jesus from our reading about him in the book of Luke. We’ve got inside knowledge because we’ve followed the story from the announcement of his coming, and we’ve seen all the teaching and miracles, but what we have learned about Jesus so far is confirmed by the ones that possess this poor man. Notice the demon-possessed man knows the identity of Jesus. He knows not only his name but knows that great messianic title. He identifies Jesus as the Son of the most high God. Even the demons know who Jesus is. They are fallen angels who have rebelled against God, most high, but even in their rebellion, they know their place. The pleading here by the demon is interesting. Even as the demons are tormenting this man, they don’t want to be tormented. They know they are in subjection to the one who is approaching them.
What this tells us about Jesus is extremely important, and it’s a huge part of the story that Luke is telling us. This man has been like this for a long time and no one else is able to do anything for him, obviously. Suddenly, this one who commands the winds and water steps off the boat and now business is about to pick up. On sight, the demons know that they are in the presence of the messiah, the Son of the Most High God, and what we see here is that Jesus is divine. While the story feels like a bit of let down from the events on the boat, it’s the same idea being conveyed to us here. Jesus is divine. He not only has power over nature but also evil spirits. As we have seen so many times this is the point Luke is making to us, and it seems as though if you aren’t going to get that point, he is going to keep sharpening it, and he’s going to keep poking you with it until you get the point.
And as we move to our second point, we see the power that Jesus has over the evil spirits.
Luke 8:29–33
ESV
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.) Jesus then 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.
And we see here in verse 29 that Jesus had commanded the spirit to come come out of him, and we get some further detail on the sad state of the possessed man. He had been possessed for quite a while, and he would be bound with chains and shackles, but the demons gave him a superhuman strength because we read that he would break the shackles, and then the demons would lead him into the wilderness. Again, just a terrible picture of what has happened to this poor man.
As Luke continues the story, we read that Jesus asks the evil spirit to identify itself. In the name and Luke’s explanation, we get a deeper glimpse into the significance of this. The reply to Jesus’ request for information is Legion and this lets us know that this man is littered with demons. A Roman legion had thousands of soldiers and so we can infer that this man was possessed by thousands of demons. But we don’t just dwell here on how bad this situation is for the man. This shows us that even a high number of evil spirits is in subjection to Jesus. They can’t gang up on him and overpower him. Even a legion of demons are in subjection to the power of the Messiah.
And we see the scope of that power in the request of these evil spirits. They beg Jesus not to relegate them to the abyss. They understand that the one in front of them can send them to the place where evil spirits are confined. This is the point where the story turns into one of those strange stories right? It wasn’t exactly normal up to this point with a naked guy possessed by demons, but it becomes even stranger as the evil spirits beg to be cast into the pigs. As we consider this part of the story, we have to remind ourselves of the cultural and religious elements at work here. This herd of pigs was ceremonially unclean. We see them as ordinary animals and have thoughts of wonderful things such as pork chops and bacon cross our minds. It was not Kosher for Jews to even raise hogs, even if they were going to sell them to the Gentiles who didn’t care for such things. This was against the law of Moses. Now, we aren’t told if the pigs were owned by a Jewish person or not, but regardless their presence among these people would have been looked down upon, and if you were a Hebrew person, your mindset probably would have been that the demons going into the pigs was an appropriate destination because the unclean were going into that which was unclean and no longer could these unclean spirits torment the public at large. So, while this is a bit bizarre to you and I, in their first-century Jewish minds, this makes quite a bit of sense.
And so we see that Jesus fulfills the request of this legion of evil spirits. The divine power of the messiah is vividly on display as he gives the demons permission to go into the herd of pigs on the hillside. The pigs then proceed to race down the hill and are drowned in the lake. Just bizarre, right? It shows the fixation of the demons on destroying those that they enter. It is also would have been seen as a fitting end to both the unclean spirits and the unclean animals.
Regardless, the one thing that persistently comes through in the text of Luke is the authority that Jesus has over all things. Nature, unclean spirits, along with sickness and disease.
And as we move on to our final point we see the varying reactions.
Luke 8:34–39
ESV
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.
As I was processing through this passage I put myself in the shoes of the herdsmen. I couldn’t help but laugh. They most likely had no idea who this guy was getting off the boat. Maybe they didn’t even see anything going on. They were probably just sitting around doing their job and minding their own business. Suddenly all the pigs are running into the lake and drowning. That’s a story to tell your wife when you get home. Goodness.
And you see their reaction, they run away and tell folks around what happened and so, those people do what people do, they go to the scene of the incident and gawk, right? Some things never change, do they? But this desire they have to see the incident causes them to see what Jesus has done in the life of the man who was possessed. I’m guessing people were aware of this guy, and when they saw him with clothes on and being in his right mind, they were afraid. You have to kind of chuckle at that statement by Luke. They were afraid that this guy wasn’t naked and out of his mind. They were so used to his condition that they had fear at him being normal. People knew that something was up. This guy wasn’t normally like this. Something amazing must have happened, and the story was relayed to them that Jesus sent the evil spirits out of him and so they ask him to leave. What an interesting turn of events. Jesus clearly displays the power of God, and instead of being excited, they ask him to depart. They aren’t comfortable with what he is doing. This might be confusing to us but let’s think about this. This is a remarkable display of divine power. You can understand why they might not want to be around it. Who knows what comes next? Today the economic loss of a herd of pigs, what will tomorrow hold?
And Jesus gets into the boat and goes back to where he came from. He grants their wishes. If they do not want him around, he won’t remain, but that isn’t where Luke ends the story for us, is it? We have seen the reaction of the people who have seen the results of this marvelous event, but what about the one who has been blessed by the presence of Jesus? We’ve seen that he was sitting at the feet of Jesus, but now there are even more details for us.
The man who was healed begs Jesus to allow him to follow him. Notice the same language being used as we saw further up in the passage. The demons begged to get away from Jesus. The man who was freed of the evil spirits begs to be near him. Notice the contrast. Those who were unclean want nothing to do with Jesus. The one who has been made clean by Jesus wants to be near him.
He knows that he has been remarkably rescued by the hand of the chosen one of God. Because of this, he wants to be around him. He wants to follow him.
But Jesus sends him away. What? This is almost as strange as the pigs being possessed and running into the lake. This is Jesus who tells people to follow him. But that isn’t what he does here. Instead, he gives this man who desires to get on the boat with him a task to complete. He is told to return to his home and declare how much God has done for him. God has rescued him and so he is to herald to the people around him what has happened. And we, already know that this announcement will get the attention of people. He’s already drawn attention just by sitting at the feet of Jesus with clothes on. As he returns to his home and is now able to coherently tell people of how he has been rescued, imagine the response. People will see the miracle, and they will want to know more about this Jesus who was able to free this man from his demon possession.
And notice what he does, he does exactly as Jesus has commanded him to do. He is obedient to the one who has saved him. An important application for us, but before we take a look at that, I want to draw something out quickly. Notice the words that Luke uses here at the end of this passage. Jesus tells him to go and declare how much God has done, and then when Luke tells us that he did was asked of him, we are told that he proclaimed what Jesus had done for him throughout the whole city. To you see what Luke did there. Once again, we have confirmation that Jesus is divine. This is the message being driven home to us through the book of Luke. We have seen it from the beginning of this gospel and it continues here through chapter 8 as we have seen Jesus showing he has authority not over the wind and the water but that he also has authority over a legion of evil spirits. Jesus is God, and this is being displayed for us over and over throughout the book of Luke. It shows us that he has the power to save, and as we close up today, we are reminded that he has saved us. As I pointed out, while we are not possessed and naked roaming around the tombs, we have been saved from the nakedness of our sin, and we are no longer dead in our trespasses and sins.
Our understanding of that great truth is why we are here today. When we know what Jesus has done to rescue us, we desire to sit at his feet and praise him for what he has done. Just as the man was saved, we too have been saved, and the command for us is the same as it was for him. Declare how much God has done for you. The gratitude that we have for the salvation we have received in Christ leads us to share that message with those around us. And so we come to hear the word of the Lord proclaimed to us that we might step away from here with the knowledge of what God has done for us so that we might declare it to the world. This seems like an insurmountable task, but it begins with our families and with our friends, and from there, we continue to grow in boldness to proclaim the salvation that God has blessed us with in Christ.
And we are blessed today to come to the table. The Apostle Paul tells us that when we come to the Lord’s table, we proclaim his death until he comes. We come then to the table knowing that it is a public declaration of faith and we trust that through the word that we have heard and the elements that we receive that God is at work in us. And so may we depart from here nourished with the word and with the sacrament that we might declare what Jesus has done to a lost and dying world. Amen.
