Jesus Confronts Demons, Restores A Life, And Sends A Messenger ("Threads" Day 2)

Demons begging for mercy. Suicidal Pigs. A life forever changed and charged with sharing the good news. It was no ordinary day when Jesus and his disciples sail to Gerasenes. In this episode Rachael and Matt examine a dramatic story of demon possession, deliverance, and testimony through the lens of the Gospel. 

Click Here for week four homework sheet

BEFORE this episode: Complete day TWO homework (Luke 8:26-39)

AFTER this episode: Complete day THREE homework (Luke 10:1-16)

Click Here to learn more about Gospel Threads as an evangelism method

Transcript

Longing For A Fruitful Life

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Do you ever feel like your life just isn't as productive or effective as it should be? As followers of Jesus, we want our short time on earth to have eternal impact, but often we feel like we're falling short. The good news is that Scripture gives us a promise, a life that's never ineffective or unproductive in knowing Jesus Christ. In 2 Peter 1, we're told to build on our faith, adding goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love. As these qualities grow, they keep us fruitful and effective for God's kingdom.

Meet The Hosts And Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:45

I'm Matt Morrow, and my wife Rachel and I have spent nearly 20 years teaching God's word and walking with people in every stage of faith. Our passion is to see lives permanently and radically transformed by Scripture applied. Adding to your faith is here to help you understand biblical truth, practice it daily, and grow to look more like Jesus. We're glad you're here. Let's walk this journey together.

Gospel Threads Method Explained

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Welcome, I'm Rachel, and I'm here with Matt, and we are on day two of the homework of the method of studying the Bible called Gospel Threads. And today we are in Luke 8, verses 26 through 39. And gospel threads is just a way that we look for the threads of the gospel, those kind of eternal truths, those eternal pieces that make up the gospel of Christ that are evident from Genesis to Revelation. And so we are reading Luke 8 verses 26 through 39 today. If you have not spent some time in Luke 8, verses 26 and 39 on your own, please, please push pause now. This is designed to be a working podcast, not a listening podcast. So we really want you to spend time with the Holy Spirit and with his word, asking him to change your heart, your mind, to show him yourself. And then from there, if you want to come and join us in a discussion, then you're prepared to do that. But please do the work yourself first. That is our desire and goal because that's where transformation happens. So if you have, if you have done that, then welcome. We're going to kind of work through Luke 8 right now with kind of using the gospel threads method.

Opening Prayer For Study

SPEAKER_01 2:38

But before we dive in and do that, Matt, would you please just open us in a word of prayer and just beseech the Lord to help us as we do this today?

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Yes, let's pray. Lord, thank you so much for your word. Thank you for the opportunity to come together today in it and uh for this tremendous story of the sufficiency of Christ, Lord, that is just that is just pouring out here in Luke 8. Father, I pray that you will give us minds and hearts that are attuned to your word, that we are that we are readily able to recognize the voice and movement of your spirit through it, and that by your spirit, Lord, we'll be able to understand what you have for us in it. We know, Father, that this is perfect, inerrant, infallible truth. But we also know that we are imperfect, quite fallible, errant human beings, and we are not capable of wrapping our heads around this truth but with but for uh the help of your spirit. And so I pray, Lord, for you to send your spirit over those who are studying, and that your spirit will just will just illuminate the truths of your word in every possible way. Lord, we love you, and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Reading Luke 8:26–39

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Amen. So we're in Luke 8 today, and I I'll read it here in just a minute. It's Luke 8, 26 to 39, and and I will say I'm real I I struggle a little bit with this text in my own homework here, in identifying really noticeable you know, all five of the threads. Uh I think there's a to me, the sufficiency of Christ is the overriding gospel thread that comes through here. And there are others that I was able to pick up on a little bit, but I but I'm gonna be honest, I struggle a little bit with that, and I think this is one of the areas where we just want to want to wrestle with those things together with you along the way. So let me read the text, and then we'll we'll come through. And again, not every text is gonna have every gospel thread, and some will have more one emphasize or two emphasize more than others. So let's just read the text and and uh listen for those gospel threads. Then they sailed to the country of Garasines, 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. 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 were 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 whom 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 Garasines 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. So that's the text today.

First Impressions And Themes

SPEAKER_00 6:25

It's a it's a riveting story. I mean, it's a dramatic story of what's of what happened in this case, where a man was possessed by multiple demons, and obviously was terrifying to everyone, I'm sure, who encountered him in so many ways. And Jesus exercises authority over these demons. They recognize that he has authority, and ultimately they beg for his mercy, and he gives them mercy, but he delivers the man. And so ultimately these pigs then are lost because they they run into the sea. The herdsmen, the people who are there uh caring for the pigs or who whose livelihood are coming from those pigs obviously have their own concerns. Lots of stuff going on here, dramatic time, but ultimately this man who had been hopelessly possessed by demons was delivered and wanted nothing more than just to be at the feet of Jesus from that point forward, and then carried that good news of what Jesus had done for him to others. So that's the story. And Rachel described yesterday how she likes to take the text and read through it five different times, and each time looking at a different gospel thread, looking for a different gospel thread to emerge. And so I would be interested, Rachel, to kind of get your take on on a couple of these. Again, I said to me this text screams the sufficiency of Christ for sure. And there are there are other, in some cases, implied gospel threads or even even overt ones. There's stuff here about the sinfulness of man. There's there's some uh interesting, I think, allusions here to the necessity of faith. But but what about the character of God?

God’s Character In The Text

SPEAKER_00 7:56

When you look through this text, is there something that jumps out to you about the character of God?

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yes, I think some of that is, you know, when you when you read a passage and say, if this is happening, then what has to be true about God is where you really start to see his character.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Okay, I think I want you to repeat that because that's a really good help, I think. I say what you do here again.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Well, as you read the passage to say what does it like explicitly say about God, what does God say about himself, or or what does it say about who God is, or what based on what you're reading, what has to be true about God?

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Okay, okay Does that make sense? Yep, it does. It does. So it doesn't it doesn't necessarily have to explicitly say the thing about God's character, but if what it is saying means that something has to be true about God's character, then we can we can take hold of that.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Okay. All right. So what did you what did you notice?

SPEAKER_01 8:56

So I mean, uh one of the things that you notice immediately is that God has power over demons. Like for this story to be true, God has complete power over the demons. So he controls and rules their comings and goings. They have to ask his permission before they can act or move. They also worship and obey him. The demons know who he is and they call him by name. So you see those things that are true in a spiritual sense, that there is there is real spiritual warfare, and demons are real, and God has authority over them. And so I think that is one of the things that is extremely clear as you as you read through the the first part of this passage. Well, all the way through the passage. Yeah, you also see God's compassion, right? You see his compassion first on the possessed man, you see Jesus having compassion on him, you see the demons appealing to God's compassion, which is interesting, I think. Yeah, that they know God is a compassionate

Sin’s Nature And Consequences

SPEAKER_01 10:06

God, and so they're asking him for something, even though they are his enemy.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Yeah, they're asking for mercy.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Yeah, and so I think that's an interesting thing that is true about God is that he is merciful and compassionate, like that is who he is. It's not just what he does. You also see that he brings order to chaos. So this man is in a life that is in complete disarray in always, you know. And I mean, he's naked, he's homeless, he's living in the tombs, he, you know, he's out of his mind. And you see that that God brings order to that chaos. You also see that God clothes the naked, that this man is naked and before his encounter with Christ, and then after his encounter, he's clothed. And so God is the one who clothes the naked. You see his worth, that he is worthy to be proclaimed. And the right response from from this man when Jesus healed him was to proclaim what God had done for him. And Jesus says, Go and say, like, go and tell people how much I have done for you. And so you see the completeness of the healing and restoration that God has done in this man's life. And so you see a lot, I think, of God's character and nature, that he is Jesus, the son of the most high God.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

I think there's a toward the end of this, there's an important, I mean, we know we know this is true, but I think it's important to point it out when it happens in Scripture that that Jesus is fully God, that this is that this is not, he's not something, a lesser God or something or not, or you know, just a good man or whatever else. This text at the end, Jesus says, return to your home and declare how much God has done for you. And then it the next sentence is he went away proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

How much God has done for you. How much Jesus has done for me. It's the same. Right. It's the same.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

That God is Jesus. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

That's right. So, well, you you pulled a whole lot of character of God out of that text. That's that's really helpful. So the sinfulness of man to me seems a little bit more apparent in here, or did at least in my first swing. So I think you know, the the presence and the activity of these demons to me demonstrates that there is that there is a a an e an eternal and and cosmic characteristic to my sin. That my sin is not just private, it's not just me doing what I want to do. It is it is a part of a big spiritual war. That there are there are evil spiritual forces that are opposed to God and that I yield to when I sin. That there's a that there's a there's a surrendering of myself. When I surrender to sin, I'm not just surrendering to sin, I'm also surrendering to these these evil, demonic, anti-God forces, right? That this is that's that's part of why the sinfulness of man is such a big deal. What do you see on sinfulness of man here, Rachel?

SPEAKER_01 13:17

I I too

The Sufficiency Of Christ

SPEAKER_01 13:18

thought that there are some really great uh pictures of of the nature of sin. You know, the the man is naked, he has no covering, and that is that is a nature of of sin in our state. He's unhomed, he has nowhere that he belongs, and so that is is a consequence or a result of sin. He was alive in the tombs, like he lived in the tombs, which is where the dead reside, which is where the dead reside, right? And I mean, we even read last week that we were we are dead in our transgressions, and you see this man who is alive, but he's living in the tombs, and that is a picture of every human being apart from Christ, that we're naked, we're unhomed, and we're dead, and we're dead. We're we're living in the tombs, if we know it or not, you know. So I think you see those pictures, and he's alone, right? He's living in solitude. So God has clearly created us to live in community, you know, in relationship with him and in relationship with others. And sin, you know, we we know from scriptures, sin comes to steal and kill and destroy. And so it isolates and it separates. And so this man also lives alone. So you see a really clear picture of just consequences of sin and how this man is living and what his existence looks like, that it's almost like God gives us this physical picture of what our spiritual reality looks like apart from him. And so you you see those consequences. There at the end of the story, the other thing that I think you see in the sinfulness of man is the townspeople's response to that. So they see God's power, they see him restoring this man back to life.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

This glorious thing they've just witnessed.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

But they're afraid.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Right? The power of God makes them fearful and they don't want anything to do with it. And I think that you also see that as part of the nature of sin, that if we don't want to come under the authority of Christ, if we don't want to submit to God, then God's power, if we really see it, or if we allow ourselves to really see God's power, we don't want anything to do with it. Scares us.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Right? God is not a tame God. He doesn't fit in our boxes and do what we think he should do when we think we should do it.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

And a lot of us don't like that. Yeah. We want a God that we can.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

And we especially don't like that when we're in our sin.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Like when we're in our most sinful states, we we really don't like that a lot.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Right. We we like a God that we can control.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

So the sufficiency of Christ, I mentioned it seems to be

Faith, Fear, And The Abyss

SPEAKER_00 16:06

the thing to me that's on full display here.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Yeah, so what did you notice there?

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Well, I noticed that I noticed that the sufficiency of Christ begins with who he is, his identity. And so the one of the first things that we see in the text, this is in in verse 28, I think, is that when the the demons cry out to him, What have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God? So it starts with he is sufficient because of who he is, right? So he is the son of the most high God. We mentioned later, he he tells the man who was delivered to go tell what God has done for you, and he shares as the exact same thing what Jesus has done for him. So, so the authority that Jesus has, his sufficiency in some in many ways comes because of who he is, and then also what he what he does and what he is able to do. And so he he commanded unclean spirits to come out of the man. He he told them he told them when to come out, he told them where to go, and he told them what to happen, what would happen next. He had complete authority over all of it. So to me, the the overriding gospel thread in this whole text is the sufficiency of Christ, that Christ alone can deliver us and is able to deliver us from the from the hopeless state that we are in when we are apart from him. And so that to me was a thing that just really emerged in this and and was was just crystal clear from the whole text.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

I think the thing that I saw in that is that the restoration of this man came through Jesus alone.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

There's no other actor. It is Jesus stepping into this situation and restoring it.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

He didn't even need the pigs.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

No.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

The pigs were handy.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

And it was accomplished by his word. Like he spoke. And it was done. And it was done. And so those were two of the things that I noted in the story that just pointed to the sufficiency of Christ.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

How about necessity of faith and urgency of eternity? What'd you have on necessity for? I mean, the man the man responded to what had been done for him by faithfully following Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

That was something that really Yeah, and that's what I noted, that he begged to stay with Jesus because he knew all that Jesus had done with him, and that is evidence of his faith. And then he recognized that this was all a work of Christ, and now he owes Christ his life.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

And and when he asked to stay with him, and Jesus instead had an assignment for him, he faithfully executed that assignment, right? So the the man's the man responded in faith by just throwing himself at the feet of Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Yeah, right. That's where you find him. And he wanted to stay there.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

He wanted to stay there. And when Jesus left, he wanted to go with him. And Jesus said, Actually, I have something else for you. I want you to go and tell people what God has done for you. And so this man accepted what Jesus had had given him, even though it was not his first choice. His first choice was to stay with him. But he accepted it, and then he

Timeless Truths And Practice

SPEAKER_00 19:07

did it. He faithfully did what Jesus told him to do, which is acting on faith. So the his faith is clear.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

It is, and it's juxtaposed to the townspeople who saw the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

They did.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Right? They they experienced what what this man experienced. He exe he experienced it personally. They watched it, but they did not respond in faith. They responded in fear and separation, right? Yeah. You need to get out of here. Like we we do not want you in our town anymore, Jesus. And so you see the faith of the man juxtaposed with the lack of faith of the townspeople.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

So there's a strong undercurrent, I would say, in the text of the urgency of eternity. There's not a there's not an express statement about eternal heaven or eternal hell.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Well, except that the demons are scared to death, they're gonna be ordered to the abyss.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Oh, right. Okay. So talk about that. I didn't think about that. They didn't want to be put into the abyss. Why? Because that's eternal, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:12

It's eternal. Yeah. And they were extremely fearful of it. I mean, they don't tell us why, but they are pleading with Jesus to do anything with them except send them to the abyss.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Put put us in a bunch of suicidal pigs if you have to. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

And they know that he can send them there by his word.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Like he says the word and they're done. Like he he they know that. Um, and I also think you see that kind of spiritual reality that when they went into the pigs, the pigs ran to their death. Right? The wages of sin is death.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

And so you see that on display that as soon as the demons enter the pigs, the pigs run to their death. And so that is a hint. I think that's more of a hint at the urgency of eternity, where you see it a little more expressed in the reaction of the demons to Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

So if you're looking for timeless truths and personal application here, there are there are many. I wrote down a timeless truth that just is that Jesus has authority over every wicked and demonic force in this world. Everyone. That's a timeless truth, right? That it wasn't just true for this story. He still has authority over every wicked and demonic force in this world. And then for me at least, if I want to respond to that truth, I want to avoid the temptation. So that truth in particular can lead to a temptation to say, my application is that the Lord should, you know, I should ask the Lord to exercise that authority over the wicked and demonic in this world and and eliminate it and make it, make it, make things right, which we do want to pray that, but that's not personal application. Application is what do I how do I respond to this truth? And so if Jesus has authority over every wicked and demonic. demonic force in this world, then I need to I need to practice leaning into the sufficiency

Community And Discernment

SPEAKER_00 22:05

of Christ for victory over my own demons, over my own, over my own sin, over my own continued battles with the flesh. That there's nothing in me that Jesus doesn't have complete and total authority over. And so if I'm struggling with a persistent sin, if I have a if I have sin that I that I continue to battle or fall back into, to just lean into the sufficiency of Christ for that. Because he has authority over all of it. What timeless truths or or application did you see, Rachel? Pick pick one maybe for us.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

One of the timeless truths is that Jesus desires for us to declare and proclaim how much he's done for us. Like he wants us to to tell others and to and to draw them in in into his kingdom. Like he he desires that for us.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

He he doesn't he did not want his good work for this man to stop at that man.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

He wanted it to flow through him to others.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

And you know I noted too just Jesus's sufficiency over all things that his command and sovereignty over all things which certainly have I think applications for how we live and I also noted that fear can keep us from coming to Jesus and just to to recognize that that that fear the enemy uses fear to keep us from drawing drawing near to the Lord. And so some of the applications that I had from that was one how well am I declaring how much Jesus has done for me? Do I do I contemplate that? Do I think about how I was naked and he clothed me? Do I think about how I was someone who did not belong but he has called me into his eternal family? If I do I think about how I was dead but he has made me alive and then proclaim what he's done for my heart and my life and my soul to those around me do I have enough compassion to to do that on the people around me who who are fearful of God because they they don't know him.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

Good. It's a good word so as we as you consider this text and as you have taken your time going through this text and and really identifying those those gospel threads and you may have seen you may have seen some that we didn't see or we may have seen some that you didn't see that's okay that's part of the reason that we're even doing this this podcast as a as an accompanying piece for those who are working through a study like this is because there's benefit in doing this kind of work in community. If you can be in a group of people where you're able to compare notes after you've been in the text together, you share the same Holy Spirit. And so there is benefit to coming together and seeing how the Spirit is speaking to each of you and and between the community of you is telling a a grander story. That's really beneficial. Iron sharpens iron yeah that's really why we even do this so so I just want to encourage you as you as you work through the text and you hear things or see things a little differently than what we did or whatever else I obviously test it to make sure it's true. Make sure you're not hearing something that's not from the Holy Spirit but generally

Closing Prayer And Sending

SPEAKER_00 25:23

speaking that's not really going to be going to be as big of an issue as just really recognizing that that the Lord is is active in you and in us at the same time with the same text and we need each other. And so I just think that's really kind of a beautiful piece of his community test things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

You know we can have a thought but we test that in community. That's right with kind of this you know the saints of old how how people before us understood this text and then with our community of believers and asking you know what does this text mean and and how how do I rightly divide this word and and as Ephesians says right the church is this more glorious picture of of God when we are together. And so the things that God shows you about himself and the things that he shows me about himself may as long as they are true to who he says then help us to just get a more full picture of his glory and his nature and we do that better in community.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

That's the beauty of going deeper into his word and it's the beauty of going deeper into his word with fellow believers. And so we want to encourage you in that as well. So as you look at this text I hope that you will identify some items in there that are particularly meaningful you to you that you would like to commit to memory or just to meditate on different parts of that text. We want to move from reading to prayer as well so I'm going to ask Rachel to pray for you and to pray for for us based on the text that we that we have been in today and and what's ahead for us as well. So Rachel why don't you go ahead and pray for us and we will uh we will close today.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Our most gracious heavenly father we thank you that we serve the God who is the maker of heaven and earth that you are the one who has power over the demons you have power over everything. And so Father we just praise you that we just see that in your word we see that in your nature that you are the all-powerful God. And so Father we do ask that you help us to see your your heart in this story that we will have compassion for those who are alive in the tombs and we will want to come to them and bring them the life that is found in the gospel of Christ. Father I pray that as we live our lives that you will help us to just remember that you are sovereign over everything, that you are the one who holds the power of life and death in your hand and that instead of struggling and trying to solve things in our own power that we will just come to you and lean into your life and into your authority and to your power to do the things that you have called us to do. Father I pray that you will help us to believe you to believe your word as true that we will rest in your sufficiency that we will rest in your power that we will rest in your compassion on us and Father that we will have urgency to share what you have done with us that that what you have done in our lives the things that you have done for us that we will just declare as you said as you said to this man that you will declare all that God has done for us that we will declare what you have done for us. And so we ask that in your name and so that your name would be lifted up in Jesus' name amen.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Amen so we're going to send you back into the Gospel of Luke for tomorrow's homework just two chapters ahead of where we are today Luke 10 10 to 16 so I hope you'll spend some time there and see what the Lord has for you in terms of gospel threads and truths that you can begin to identify and just see his hand at work throughout his word. So the Lord go with you hope you'll have a great time in his word and we'll see you back here again tomorrow for Luke 10 10 through 16 in gospel threads