SPEAKER_00: Alright, I'll invite you to open your Bible, please, to Luke chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: Today we're looking at verses 26 through 39.
SPEAKER_00: And as you turn there, I will ask you a question, as I often do.
SPEAKER_00: Are you afraid of God?
SPEAKER_00: Should you be afraid of God?
SPEAKER_00: For the first two decades of my life, my faith was very much informed by fear.
SPEAKER_00: I often thought that God was out to get me in some way, that he was going to make me pay for all of the ways in which I had failed him, for all of the rules I'd broken, for all of the sins I'd committed in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And it was only when I embraced the gospel for the first time in my twenties that I learned the difference between fearing God and being afraid of God.
SPEAKER_00: See, to be afraid of God is to cower before him as though he were the master and you were the slave.
SPEAKER_00: But to fear God is to love him and to respect him as a son fears his father.
SPEAKER_00: Today we're gonna see those two different kinds of fear dramatized for us in one of the craziest power encounters in all of Luke.
SPEAKER_00: You've already gotten a preview of it in the children's story.
SPEAKER_00: And my hope this morning, as we as we unpack it in Scripture, is that some of us will be set free to quit being afraid of God and to start fearing him with all of the love, all of the joy, all the peace, all of the hope, all of the freedom that that brings.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so if you're an animal lover, this trigger warning's a little late, but here it is again.
SPEAKER_00: In this story, uh, we will there will be quite a few piggies who will not get to go wee wee wee all the way home.
SPEAKER_00: I just want you to prepare your hearts for that.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, with that said, please I'll invite you to rise as I read the passage.
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is Luke 8, 26 through 39.
SPEAKER_00: Then they sailed to the country of the Garrison, which is opposite Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons.
SPEAKER_00: For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs.
SPEAKER_00: 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?
SPEAKER_00: I beg you, do not torment me.
SPEAKER_00: For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man.
SPEAKER_00: For many a time it had seized him.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus then asked him, What is your name?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Legion, for many demons had entered him.
SPEAKER_00: And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss.
SPEAKER_00: Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these.
SPEAKER_00: So he gave them permission.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed man had been healed.
SPEAKER_00: And all the people of the surrounding country of the Garrisons asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear.
SPEAKER_00: So he got into the boat and returned.
SPEAKER_00: The man, from whom the demons had gone, begged that he might be with him.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus sent him away, saying, Return to your home and declare how much God has done for you.
SPEAKER_00: And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.
SPEAKER_00: The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you for your word.
SPEAKER_00: Please send your Holy Spirit now to help us to understand it rightly and to apply it in a way that brings you glory and brings us joy in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's in his name that we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You may be seated.
SPEAKER_00: So last week in the passage right before this one, it's the well-known story of Jesus sleeping in the boat, and the great storm comes, and the disciples are taken on water, they're afraid they're gonna die, and they wake up Jesus, Master, we're perishing.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, he rebukes the wind and the waves, tells the storm to settle down, and immediately he does.
SPEAKER_00: It's an incredible display of Jesus' power.
SPEAKER_00: And today we have another display of Jesus' power.
SPEAKER_00: We have another conflict between Jesus and human and powers that are beyond all human reckoning.
SPEAKER_00: But this time, the forces, they're not the forces of nature.
SPEAKER_00: They're the forces of supernature.
SPEAKER_00: And what this story will teach us is how we ought to respond to the frightening power of Jesus over nature and supernature, over all things.
SPEAKER_00: Three headings that we should keep track of as we work through this story.
SPEAKER_00: The man's frightful condition, the demon's terror in the presence of Jesus, and two ways to fear the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's the outline for today.
SPEAKER_00: The man's frightful condition, the demon's terror in the presence of Jesus, and two ways to fear the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So we begin by looking at the man's frightful condition.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 26, Jesus and his disciples land their boat in the country of the Garrisons, which Luke tells us was opposite of Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: When it says that, when it says that this was opposite of Galilee, there's one sense in which that's just a geographical fact, right?
SPEAKER_00: This country is literally located across the lake from the region named Galilee, where Jesus had been preaching in all of the synagogues.
SPEAKER_00: But this note here, it actually tells us a little bit more than just geography.
SPEAKER_00: It's also about ideology.
SPEAKER_00: Because this country is different.
SPEAKER_00: Not just in the sense that it's on the other side of the lake, but because it's the first place that Jesus goes to that is not primarily, or at least heavily, Jewish.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is in Gentile country now.
SPEAKER_00: He's left the South, he's made his way up to New England.
SPEAKER_00: And I can say that because I'm from New England.
SPEAKER_00: It's allowed, it's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be offended.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm not just being tongue-in-cheek.
SPEAKER_00: The evangelical subculture that we take for granted down here in the South, it doesn't exist up there in New England.
SPEAKER_00: Same kind of vibe for Jesus and his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: There's no Jewish subculture.
SPEAKER_00: This is Gentile country.
SPEAKER_00: So they are very much fish out of water.
SPEAKER_00: They're the away team.
SPEAKER_00: They're in foreign country.
SPEAKER_00: And so, and as soon as Jesus steps off the boat, he's met by this man from the city who had demons.
SPEAKER_00: So everything is immediately weird.
SPEAKER_00: For a long time, Luke tells us, the man had worn no clothes.
SPEAKER_00: And instead of living in a house, he lived among the tombs.
SPEAKER_00: This area would have been less like the kind of graveyard that we'd find on the side of the road, and more like a series of carve-outs that have been made in a rocky hillside where the people of the city would bury their dead.
SPEAKER_00: This adds to the spookiness of the scene.
SPEAKER_00: It adds to the darkness of the man's character.
SPEAKER_00: Creatures like this man are the reason why none of us goes for a walk in a graveyard at night.
SPEAKER_00: Or if we do, we're kind of weird.
SPEAKER_00: If we look ahead at verse 29, we see why this man was living in such a dreadful place.
SPEAKER_00: Many times, Luke tells us the unclean spirit would take control and he would whip this man into some kind of a frenzy.
SPEAKER_00: The people of the city, they would try to restrain him.
SPEAKER_00: They'd put chains and shackles on his hands and feet, but he'd break the bonds and he'd fly off into the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: There was no controlling this guy.
SPEAKER_00: You just couldn't keep him under wraps.
SPEAKER_00: And so he had to live in a state of perpetual humiliation.
SPEAKER_00: The demon had literally stripped him of his dignity, his nakedness would have been a source of profound shame.
SPEAKER_00: He had to live in a state of isolation.
SPEAKER_00: He was shamed and he was dangerous.
SPEAKER_00: He was a terror to the people around him.
SPEAKER_00: He could not continue to live in community with God's people.
SPEAKER_00: He had to live in a state of constant subjugation.
SPEAKER_00: The demons controlled everything about him.
SPEAKER_00: They took over his life entirely.
SPEAKER_00: He was humiliated.
SPEAKER_00: He was alone.
SPEAKER_00: He was enslaved.
SPEAKER_00: This man lived among the dead as a frightful shell of a human being.
SPEAKER_00: Notice how he doesn't even have a name.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the demons get a name, but this man doesn't have a name.
SPEAKER_00: So this right here is a picture of spiritual slavery at its absolute peak.
SPEAKER_00: This is about as bad as it can get for any human being created in the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: All of his agency is gone, all of his dignity is gone, all of his power, all of his control.
SPEAKER_00: He's just a shell.
SPEAKER_00: It's so bad that, I mean, it's kind of hard to relate to him, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've had some pretty ugly seasons in my life, but nothing like this.
SPEAKER_00: And I suspect you might have some trouble relating to this frightful man living among the tombs.
SPEAKER_00: But therein lies the encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: Because if Jesus can deliver this man from his spiritual bondage, he can deliver you from whatever you're facing right now.
SPEAKER_00: And he can deliver me.
SPEAKER_00: I've met plenty of people in my life who are afraid to get too close to Jesus because they think they're far gone.
SPEAKER_00: They think they're too far gone.
SPEAKER_00: They look at Jesus and they don't see a deliverer.
SPEAKER_00: They see an enslaver.
SPEAKER_00: They don't see freedom.
SPEAKER_00: They see a reminder of just how far they've fallen, and so they stay away.
SPEAKER_00: And I suspect maybe some of you might find yourself in the same boat.
SPEAKER_00: Somewhere deep down, you want to be good.
SPEAKER_00: You want to do the right things.
SPEAKER_00: You want to quit being such a jerk to the people who love you.
SPEAKER_00: You want to stop making the same mistakes.
SPEAKER_00: You want to become a better version of yourself, but you're often overcome by something that you just can't explain.
SPEAKER_00: You find yourself enslaved by impulses and behaviors that you wish you could leave behind you, but you just can't.
SPEAKER_00: They keep cropping up, they keep happening, they keep enslaving you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that means that you have a demon, but what I am saying is that if Jesus can deliver this man, then Jesus can deliver you.
SPEAKER_00: And more importantly, he wants to deliver you.
SPEAKER_00: See, this is good news.
SPEAKER_00: This is good news for anyone who finds themselves in any sort of bondage.
SPEAKER_00: But it's also good news for those of us who find ourselves afflicted, not by our own bondage, but by the bondage of someone else.
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's someone who who it's whether it's because they're they're nasty to us or because they're held faster by some dark impulse or influence that we just can't seem to understand or penetrate.
SPEAKER_00: Too many of us, too many of us can tell sad stories about someone we love, someone that we were once close to, maybe someone we're trying to be close to, who's just completely gone off the rails.
SPEAKER_00: They're so filled with darkness that they've made life painful for themselves and they've made life painful for everyone around them.
SPEAKER_00: It's a frightful thing, it's a dreadful thing when you have someone like that in your life.
SPEAKER_00: But this story right here gives us a heavy dose of hope because if Jesus can deliver this person, he can deliver that person.
SPEAKER_00: And even if his deliverance does not come as clearly or as quickly as we would like it to come, we can still trust that he has as much power over the dark spiritual forces in that person's life or in the world around us.
SPEAKER_00: He has as much power over that as he had over the storm when he rebuked it and told it to settle down.
SPEAKER_00: That leads us to our second heading: the demon's terror in the presence of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Back in 2007, I spent a little time in Kuwait in Iraq.
SPEAKER_00: This was after I served in the military.
SPEAKER_00: I was there to play music, to entertain the troops.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember in Iraq specifically, specifically in the in the town of Mosul, or near the city, I just felt this sense of heavy spiritual darkness.
SPEAKER_00: And I was a baby Christian at the time, fairly new to the faith and all of that.
SPEAKER_00: And I just didn't really have words to express it or to conceptualize it, but I felt a dark and heavy weight on my soul.
SPEAKER_00: And I've talked to many of you who've had similar experiences either on the mission field or visiting different parts of the country.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a thing.
SPEAKER_00: And like I said before, this is the vibe that Jesus is encountering on the other side of Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: They are in a similarly dark place.
SPEAKER_00: One evidence of that?
SPEAKER_00: Pigs.
SPEAKER_00: Herds of pigs feeding on the hillside.
SPEAKER_00: And that might not seem like all that big a deal to us, but to Jews, pigs were among the unclean animals that the law of Moses said you could not eat.
SPEAKER_00: And so pigs were associated with physical filth, they were associated with spiritual filth.
SPEAKER_00: You just, you didn't have pigs around and you didn't go near pigs.
SPEAKER_00: And herds of pigs hanging out on the hillside around where Jesus and his disciples were would have reminded them that they were in a place where nobody gave a rip about Yahweh or his laws.
SPEAKER_00: We might compare it to going for a stroll down the strip in Las Vegas.
SPEAKER_00: So again, Jesus and his disciples, they're the away team.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not enough for them to lack the home field advantage.
SPEAKER_00: We learn in verse 30 that the opponent's team is stacked against them.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus asks the unclean spirit its name, it responds, Legion.
SPEAKER_00: For as Luke says, there's not one demon in the man, but many demons in him.
SPEAKER_00: How many demons?
SPEAKER_00: Well, a Roman legion was typically made up of more than 5,000 soldiers.
SPEAKER_00: So even if the demon is exaggerating, there are a lot of demons in this man.
SPEAKER_00: A whole lot more of them than there was Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The demonic side is stacked.
SPEAKER_00: This man is as spiritually oppressed as a person can be, and the demonic opposition is as formidable as anyone could imagine.
SPEAKER_00: In an invisible, spiritual way, the threat here is even more imposing than the wind and the waves that the disciples experienced on the lake.
SPEAKER_00: It's that drastic, it's that dire, it's that dark.
SPEAKER_00: But just as that storm was no match for Jesus, the Legion does not stand a chance.
SPEAKER_00: Like I read in the kid's story, it wasn't a fair fight, not even close.
SPEAKER_00: There could be a million demons sitting on that man's soul, and they would still have nothing on Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why the unclean spirit fell down before him in verse 28 and cried, What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High?
SPEAKER_00: I beg you, do not torment me.
SPEAKER_00: We've heard this kind of thing before, haven't we?
SPEAKER_00: Back in Luke 4, when Jesus was in the synagogue in Capernaum, and another man with an unclean spirit threw himself before him and begged him not to judge him or destroy him before the time.
SPEAKER_00: The demons recognize Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The demons know who Jesus is, they know what he's up to, and they also know that they've got nothing on him, even when they show up in numbers.
SPEAKER_00: And so they beg for mercy.
SPEAKER_00: They beg for mercy three times.
SPEAKER_00: First, they beg him not to torment them, not to treat them the same way that they had been treating this man.
SPEAKER_00: They beg him not to send them into the abyss, which was the transcendent pit of spiritual hostility.
SPEAKER_00: If you're into Minecraft, it's the nether, right?
SPEAKER_00: So they beg him not to send them there.
SPEAKER_00: Third, they beg Jesus to send them into the pigs instead of the abyss.
SPEAKER_00: They beg and they beg and they beg.
SPEAKER_00: They beg because they know they're at Jesus' mercy.
SPEAKER_00: They've got nothing on him.
SPEAKER_00: He is as terrifying to them as the demon-possessed man was terrifying to his neighbors.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's really important that we remember that as we think about the spiritual battle that rages all around every one of us.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 6.12 says that in our striving to live the Christian life in a dark and fallen world, quote, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_00: If the Christian life seems hard to live, it's because we're at war.
SPEAKER_00: And even though the enemy cannot snatch us out of the Father's hand, greater is he who is in us than he is in the world, right?
SPEAKER_00: Even though he cannot ultimately snatch us out of God's hand, he is hell-bent on doing whatever he can possibly do to make our lives as miserable as they can possibly be.
SPEAKER_00: So whenever a law is passed that makes it more difficult for you to walk in line with your Christian convictions, whenever your boss comes down on you for sharing your faith at work, whenever your classmates tune you out and run you down for being weirdly Christian, whenever your family members make fun of your faith, whenever you're insulted, whenever you're terrorized by someone who hates God, these are all acts of spiritual aggression that ultimately come from the evil one.
SPEAKER_00: And when they come, when they come, Scripture tells us how to fight back.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 6 goes on to say, therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be with able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand firm, stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.
SPEAKER_00: In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.
SPEAKER_00: Put on the armor of God, stand your ground, fight back using all the spiritual weapons that God has deposited into your arsenal.
SPEAKER_00: Those weapons might sound weak, right?
SPEAKER_00: Words.
SPEAKER_00: Words out loud to people, words in our heads up to God.
SPEAKER_00: They might sound weak, like God is sending us in to fight a tank division with only sticks and stones.
SPEAKER_00: But the thing this story shows us is that it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: It does not matter what the demons bring to the fight.
SPEAKER_00: They could bring a nuke for all we care.
SPEAKER_00: They've got nothing on Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And if we're in him, if we've been united to him by grace through faith, and the spirit has clothed us with his armor, then the demons have nothing on us.
SPEAKER_00: When we go before the throne of grace to ask for God's help, and he sends us into the battle with his word and spirit, the spiritual forces of this present darkness have no choice but to beg for mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Not from us, but from the one who send us.
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what happens in this story.
SPEAKER_00: They have no choice but to beg for mercy.
SPEAKER_00: And we see that mercy.
SPEAKER_00: And we see his power under our third heading.
SPEAKER_00: Two ways to fear the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Verses 32 through 33, Jesus grants the demons request to enter into the herd of pigs.
SPEAKER_00: And as soon as they do, the pigs go rushing down into the lake where they drown immediately.
SPEAKER_00: I have so many questions.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you have so many questions?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, why?
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Why did the demons feel the need to possess something?
SPEAKER_00: How can demons possess animals?
SPEAKER_00: Does that mean the little chihuahua in my neighborhood that terrorizes us when we're on walks?
SPEAKER_00: Is he demon possessed?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, that is what that means.
SPEAKER_00: Why did the pigs rush down the slope?
SPEAKER_00: What happened to the demons when the pigs drowned?
SPEAKER_00: Did they end up in the abyss anyway?
SPEAKER_00: So many questions.
SPEAKER_00: But Luke isn't interested in.
SPEAKER_00: Answering any of them.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm not going to answer them either.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we could say some things.
SPEAKER_00: We could say some things about the symbolism and how unclean animals are a fitting dwelling place for unclean spirits.
SPEAKER_00: We could talk about what this loss of animals might have done to the local economy.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've heard sermons on this before and they made a lot of hay out of that.
SPEAKER_00: We could talk about Jesus cleansing the land.
SPEAKER_00: There might be some truth in those things, but Luke doesn't mention any of them.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, what he does is he keeps our focus, or he turns our focus toward the herdsmen, the people who watched it all happen, and through them, the people of the city and the country who learned about it.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 35, they they come out to find out what all of this ruckus about the pigs is about.
SPEAKER_00: And what do they find?
SPEAKER_00: They find their formerly possessed neighbors sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Luke paints a beautiful picture of this man's transformation.
SPEAKER_00: He once had a legion of demons afflicting him, but now he has none.
SPEAKER_00: He was once naked, but now he's clothed.
SPEAKER_00: He had been homeless, but now he's ready to go back to his home in the city.
SPEAKER_00: He was falling and shouting in the presence of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now he's sitting at his feet and listening respectfully.
SPEAKER_00: He had been completely out of control, but now he's in his right mind.
SPEAKER_00: It is as plain as day that this man who had once been an obvious terror to everyone in his life, he is now a new man.
SPEAKER_00: People can see it with their own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: And what does Luke tell us about their response?
SPEAKER_00: They were afraid.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't upset about the pigs.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't concerned with their livelihood or the local economy.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't offended by these Jews and their presence and their weird religion.
SPEAKER_00: They were frightened by this man who could apparently command the demons.
SPEAKER_00: And when the witnesses who were there to see it all go down tell them the story, they get even more afraid.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Luke says that they were seized by a great fear, just like the man had been seized by the demons.
SPEAKER_00: So get this, their response to the man's deliverance is to hold out their hands and to be shackled by their own fear.
SPEAKER_00: You see what's happening here.
SPEAKER_00: Just like the disciples who'd watch Jesus rebuke the storm, these people are dumbfounded.
SPEAKER_00: They don't know how to process what Jesus has just done.
SPEAKER_00: In the case of the disciples, that fear, that confusion drew them closer to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But the Garrisons, their fear drove him away.
SPEAKER_00: Literally, they asked him to get into his boat and to go back where he came from.
SPEAKER_00: In these two groups of people, we catch a glimpse of the two very different ways to fear the Lord that I mentioned at the beginning of the sermon.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, fearing the Lord is something the Bible says that we should definitely do.
SPEAKER_00: Several passages in Proverbs describe the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom and of knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 103.11 speaks of how great God's steadfast love is toward those who fear him.
SPEAKER_00: At the very end of Ecclesiastes, the preacher says, the end of the matter, all has been heard.
SPEAKER_00: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't go away when the new covenant rolls around.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says in 2 Corinthians 7 1, Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's pretty clear from Scripture, God wants us to fear Him.
SPEAKER_00: God is worthy of our fear, we could even say.
SPEAKER_00: But the question is, what kind of fear?
SPEAKER_00: The kind of fear that leaves us like the Garrison, quaking in our boots, begging God to leave us alone?
SPEAKER_00: Or the kind of fear that stands awestruck in the presence of God's power.
SPEAKER_00: The kind of fear that says, God, I cannot wrap my mind around you.
SPEAKER_00: I have no idea why you have not yet vaporized me.
SPEAKER_00: But I know you love me.
SPEAKER_00: I know you're all I need, and I am willing.
SPEAKER_00: Tell me what you want me to do, tell me where you want me to go, and I will do it, I will go there because where you are is where I want to be.
SPEAKER_00: The Puritans describe these two conflicting kinds of fear as on the one side, servile fear.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, you're the servile fear, folks, and the other side, filial fear.
SPEAKER_00: Servile fear is the fear a slave feels in the presence of his master.
SPEAKER_00: It's the kind of fear that you find at the end of a whip.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're given the chance to run, that servile fear will drive you as far away as you can possibly get.
SPEAKER_00: But filial fear is the kind of fear a son feels in the presence of his father.
SPEAKER_00: It's a profound respect laden with love.
SPEAKER_00: It's an understanding that this person or this divine person has the power to crush us, and yet that power is directed toward our good, even when it hurts.
SPEAKER_00: For the Puritans, the key to having the right kind of fear lies not so much in our heads as it does in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: If our hearts are cold and stony, then the knowledge of our sin, the knowledge of our fallenness, the knowledge of our rebellion will keep us in a state of dread in the presence of the judge of heaven and earth.
SPEAKER_00: We will be too afraid of him to want anything to do with him.
SPEAKER_00: But if God gives us new hearts, if he regenerates us, if he takes the heart of stone and replaces it with the heart of flesh, then the knowledge of our salvation will draw us closer to God.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus sets us free from our bondage to Satan and sin, he transforms our fear by transforming us from slaves into sons.
SPEAKER_00: In Christ, we're no longer like the demons.
SPEAKER_00: We're no longer like the townspeople.
SPEAKER_00: We are no longer terrified in the presence of the one who has the might and the right to make our lives a living hell.
SPEAKER_00: We in Christ become like his disciples, awestruck with fearful wonder and ready to go wherever Jesus tells us to go.
SPEAKER_00: Today's story ends with a beautiful illustration of that reality.
SPEAKER_00: Not in the disciples, but in the man who'd once been possessed.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 38, Luke tells us that before Jesus left to go back across the lake, the man begged Jesus, he begged him to let him become a part of his merry band of disciples.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus said no.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said in verse 39, return to your home and declare how much God has done for you.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes Jesus calls us to go.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes Jesus calls us to stay.
SPEAKER_00: And that's precisely what the man did.
SPEAKER_00: He went back to the city and proclaimed throughout the whole place how much Jesus had done for him.
SPEAKER_00: Which is to say, how much God had done for him in and through Christ, who was God in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the fear of the Lord is supposed to look like.
SPEAKER_00: The man wanted to draw near to Jesus, but he knew that his nearness to Jesus was not about closing distance.
SPEAKER_00: It was about going wherever Jesus sent him.
SPEAKER_00: And in a paradoxical way that only becomes clear in the Great Commission at the end of Matthew, whenever we go where Jesus sends us, Jesus goes with us.
SPEAKER_00: This man who was once a terror to all his neighbors would be nearest to Jesus as he walked the streets in the fear of the Lord, telling everyone about the one who'd set him free.
SPEAKER_00: So as we come to a close, I want to ask you: are you walking in the fear of the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Two ways we could say yes to that question.
SPEAKER_00: One is the way of servile fear.
SPEAKER_00: You're like the demons, you know you're on the wrong side, and that Jesus has every right and all the power to send you crashing down into the abyss.
SPEAKER_00: Or you're like the Garrisones.
SPEAKER_00: God is too big for you.
SPEAKER_00: God is too disruptive.
SPEAKER_00: God asks too much.
SPEAKER_00: And you would rather push him away than let him in to mess with your life.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever it looks like for you, if you find yourself in that category where you're afraid of God, then God wants to transform your fear.
SPEAKER_00: God wants you to stop living like a slave and start living like a son or a daughter.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 8, 14 through 17, all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
SPEAKER_00: For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him, in order that we may also be glorified with him.
SPEAKER_00: How do you receive that?
SPEAKER_00: How do you receive that spirit of adoption?
SPEAKER_00: How do you transition from being afraid of God the judge to loving and fearing God your Father?
SPEAKER_00: It's simple.
SPEAKER_00: It's as simple as receiving Christ by faith.
SPEAKER_00: The one who was and is a son by nature, put on flesh, he lived, he died, he rose, he ascended, so that you and I might become sons and daughters by grace.
SPEAKER_00: When the fullness of time had come, Galatians says, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons and daughters.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to quit being afraid of God, then start trusting in the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: Put your faith in the one who absorbed the fearful wrath of God for sinners.
SPEAKER_00: When he shows up, when he blows your mind, don't push him away.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let your fear try to drive him away from you.
SPEAKER_00: Get in close and watch as the God of the universe flexes his power for his glory and for your good.
SPEAKER_00: Fear the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This is the beginning and the end of the matter.
SPEAKER_00: Fear the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But don't be afraid of him.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for the grace that draws us near.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that it is grace that draws us into your presence.
SPEAKER_00: For apart from that grace, we are like Isaiah, undone in the presence of your holiness, painfully aware of our sin, painfully aware of our rebellion, painfully aware of the fact that you have the might and the right to vaporize us.
SPEAKER_00: But Lord, that's not what you've done.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of visiting your wrath upon our heads, you visited upon your son on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, help us to live in the fear of a good Father who would do that for us.
SPEAKER_00: And for those here who may be afraid of you, who may be running from you, who may not want anything to do with you because they think you want nothing to do with them.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, impress upon their hearts and minds the sweet good news of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus, the only sinless man to live, came for sinners.
SPEAKER_00: He died for the unrighteous.
SPEAKER_00: His love was poured out for the unlovely.
SPEAKER_00: The Son shed his own blood to turn orphans into children of the Most High God.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to know that.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to embrace that.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to be transformed by it so that we might walk rightly in the fear of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name that we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Do we have four?
SPEAKER_00: Richard, we can use your help.
SPEAKER_00: This table is the great gift that Jesus has given his church to remind us that we are his family.
SPEAKER_00: And that when we come to the table together, we can be strengthened to walk.
SPEAKER_00: That we can be strengthened to live the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: This is one more weapon in the arsenal, which seems so silly and insignificant.
SPEAKER_00: A bit of bread, a spot of wine or juice.
SPEAKER_00: But in God's economy, this is the kind of stuff that fits us for battle.
SPEAKER_00: You're going into battle.
SPEAKER_00: And you need to be reminded that as bad as it gets this week, as harassed as you may get and you may feel, your enemy's got nothing on you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has everything you need and then some.
SPEAKER_00: So if your faith is in Christ, if you've been baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, if you have joined yourself to a body of believers where the Bible is opened and preached and taught, where you can know and be known, then Scripture says, come, come to the table.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you quote unquote won the battle this week or you ended up on your face.
SPEAKER_00: Especially if you ended up on your face.
SPEAKER_00: Come to the table.
SPEAKER_00: Get what you need in order to go out and fight again next week.
SPEAKER_00: But if that's not your story, if you've not yet put your faith in Christ, if you're not sure about what we're doing here, Scripture says, hang on a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Don't come to the table, not yet.
SPEAKER_00: Get right with Jesus first, and then come sit at this table.
SPEAKER_00: Go through basic training before you come and get kitted out for war.
SPEAKER_00: And we'd love to talk to you more about what that looks like.
SPEAKER_00: Just come and find any one of us after the service.
SPEAKER_00: But for now, I'm going to pray and I'm going to ask God to bless this time.
SPEAKER_00: And then we'll come receive the elements.
SPEAKER_00: After everybody's been served, we'll partake together.
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you for this meal.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the strength that it gives us to go out and face our enemy, knowing that Jesus, our big brother, our general, our conqueror, our commander, our deliverer, our king, has already faced the enemy and won on our behalf.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, bless these gifts to our bodies, strengthen us for the war that rages.
SPEAKER_00: We pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, sir.
SPEAKER_00: And after he had given thanks, he broke it.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, This is my body which is given for you.
SPEAKER_00: Do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, after the supper, he took the cup and he said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
SPEAKER_00: As often as you drink of it, do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: For as often as you eat the bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
SPEAKER_00: I'll invite you all to rise now as you're able.
SPEAKER_00: The worship team is going to come up and lead us in our song of response.
SPEAKER_00: Christ, the sure and steady.