Jesus and Legion (Luke 8:26-39)

Luke chapter 8, verse 26.

Luke 8:26

Then they, the disciples, sailed to the region of the Garoshenes, which is opposite Galilee.

When he got out onto the land, a demon-possessed man from the town met him.

For a long time he had worn no clothes, and did not stay in a house, but in the tombs.

When he saw Jesus, he cried out, fell down before him, and said in a loud voice, What do you have 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.

Many times it had seized him, and though he was guarded, bound by chains and shackles, he would snap the restrains and be driven out by the demon into deserted places.

What is your name?

Jesus asked.

Legion, he said, because many demons had entered him, and they begged him not to banish them into the abyss.

A large herd of pigs was there feeding on the hillside.

The demons begged him to permit them to enter the pigs, and he, Jesus, gave them permission.

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 men who tended them saw what had happened, they ran off and reported it to the town in the countryside.

Then people went out to see what had happened.

They came to Jesus and found the man the demons had departed from sitting at Jesus' feet, dressed and in his right mind.

And they were afraid.

Meanwhile, the eyewitnesses reported to them how the demon-possessed man was delivered.

Then all the people of the Garrison region asked him to leave because they were gripped by great fear.

So, getting into the boat, he, Jesus, returned.

The man from whom the demons had departed begged him earnestly to be with him.

But he sent them away and said, Go back to your home and tell all that God has done for you.

And off he went, proclaiming throughout the town how much Jesus had done for him.

Would you join me in prayer?

Father God, we thank you so much for today.

We thank you for the people that you've brought here today, Father.

Would you teach us all by your word, God?

Help me to step out of the way, Lord, and help your word to teach us, Lord.

Amen.

Awesome.

Okay, so I want to give you just one kind of quick reminder, one kind of quick heads up.

I am a teacher by trade.

We also are graced with the presence of our students here this morning.

So today's gonna be slightly more interactive than it normally is, but simply to account for the fact that we have some students that are in with us and not in children's church today.

So, in Normally in church, uh thankfully we kind of end up going through the entirety of the New Testament if you haven't quite put that together.

Um, and so we give you context if you keep showing up.

Um, however, I'm pulling some verses out of context.

So we'll do a little bit of time to talk through some context, what's kind of going on, what's happening, um, and then we'll jump into kind of discussing this passage.

Um, so God has a tendency, again, this is the beginning of the New Testament, let's talk old.

God has a tendency, strangely enough, um, that he partners with people, with human beings, to bring about salvation, both physical and spiritual.

God does not need our help.

God can do it all by himself, but God in his mercy, he tags in people to be along and help them out with those things.

So I told you this was gonna be interactive.

Um, and do me a favor if you're an adult in this place, um, if you would participate with us, uh, but we'll try to get some students in.

Um, students, can you remember a name of somebody?

Ooh, can you remember a name of somebody that God partnered with in the Old Testament to bring about salvation?

Let's give it a raise our hand.

What we got right here?

Moses is a correct answer, 100%.

Jack in the back.

Peter, 100% definitely nailed it.

Anybody else?

What's that?

Job?

Ooh, yes.

Carrie in the back.

Joseph, 100%.

Daniel.

I, Daniel, I would say that's cheating, but my name is Luke, and I'm pulling from the book of Luke, so we're just gonna move on from that.

What else we got?

Yes.

Abraham.

Abraham, another one.

Again, people that were not perfect, but God partners with to bring about salvation.

So we've seen this kind of habit happen throughout the Old Testament.

So I want you to have that in your brains because that's gonna happen again in this passage right here.

Um, we are jumping into the book of Luke.

As you know, the book of Luke is one of four different books called the Gospels, that all tell the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

They're four awesome, amazing sources.

They're scripture, they're God's word.

Me as a history nerd with a history degree, I went there for four years.

Um, I could tell you those are primary source accounts.

Well, except for Luke, which ends up being a secondary source as he puts those things together.

And they're all kind of telling the same story of Jesus, but each one has kind of their own themes, their own things that the authors like to point out to the reader and say, hey, just so you know, um, to settle all confusion, let me tell you a little bit more about Jesus.

And so Matthew has a tendency to write towards the Jewish audience.

One of the themes that scholars have argued is that he puts Jesus as that Messiah.

He says, you know, all the Old Testament, we're tying that back in.

Um, Mark has a tendency to argue that Jesus is the suffering servant of Isaiah.

John, famously with seven I am statements, likes to beat over your head the idea that Jesus is actually Yahweh, God of the Old Testament in human form.

And again, all these different books, they all corroborate, they all say the same thing, but they're different themes that sometimes come out.

The theme that I've heard said about Luke is that Luke is the book of the upside down kingdom.

That Jesus is king, he is calling the shots, but his kingdom is drastically different than every other kingdom you've heard about.

And we will see how that is so different in this passage.

And if you go through the entirety of the book of Luke, you can go through each chapter, it'll start to kind of do that.

Um, when I taught Bible at North County Christian, I took students through the book of Luke with that theme.

And it was crazy to see how many different times that theme got to pop up.

So we'll be talking that stuff today.

So let me break down this kind of weird passage and talk about again how we can apply this to our lives.

So uh verse 26, I want to bring that back to you real quick.

Then they, that is Jesus and the disciples, sailed to the region of the Garrishenes, which is opposite of Galilee.

Okay, so the Garrishenes is not Jewish territory, not Jewish territory at all.

Most of Jesus' ministry is spent in Israel because he is the Jewish Messiah.

He is going back and trying to bring about, um, trying to reform his people and trying to bring about the good news to his people first, allowing his people then to move out and to spread the good news later on.

Uh, and then that's Paul and a lot of other people.

So he spends a lot of his time actually in Israel, um, and we are gonna spend this chunk of uh verses is kind of weird because he steps out of Israel, he does some really cool stuff we're gonna talk about, and then once he's done in this verse, he comes straight back.

And so this is kind of a weird situation.

Another one's upside down kingdoms.

Right now, Jesus is going back, he is getting flack from the Pharisees and the scribes and pushing back against them.

Um, right now, Israel's in a little bit of a crazy space, um, and he is leaving Israel just for a hot minute.

Which again, sometimes in our in our human minds, um, we get angry when our political leaders, things are kind of gnarly and our political leaders leave.

We get kind of frustrated.

Why?

Why are you doing this?

And we'll talk about that in just a second.

Uh, so this is a one-off.

Um, it's weird, again, you maybe we're gonna argue that he's like wasting time, but we can clearly see he's not wasting time.

He's actually doing something beautiful.

And so we'll talk about that a little bit more.

Jump over to verse 27 with me.

We're gonna keep reading through.

When he, that is Jesus, got out onto the land, a demon-possessed man from the town met him.

For a long time, he, that demon-possessed man, not Jesus, had worn no clothes, and did not stay in a house, but in the tombs.

When he saw Jesus, he cried out, fell down before him, and said with a loud voice, What do you have to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?

I beg you do not torment me, for he had commanded the unclean spirits to come out of the man.

Many times it had seized him, and though he was guarded, bound by chains and shackles, he would snap the restrains and be driven out by the demon at the deserted places.

What is your name?

Jesus asked.

Legion, he said, because many demons had entered him, and they begged him not to banish them into the abyss.

Okay, so I want to.

I was an English teacher for a little bit too, so I want to kind of break this down like an English teacher would, uh, and talking about these two different characters that are popping up.

Real people, but let's talk about those characters.

And we'll talk about some surrounding people doing the same stuff.

So let's let's first start with Jesus.

Um, Jesus is called by this demon uh the son of God, which again, if you've been in church long enough, you've heard this stuff thrown around.

But there's it's a complicated title that has lots of different tie-ins.

I want to focus on two big ones here today.

Number one, um, Jesus as the son of God is actually gonna hearken back to, and this is your fun vocab for today, uh, the Davidic covenant.

You can go impress the people in your house or the people in your community and say, I know about the Davidic covenant.

So that's the covenant that God set up with David, the agreement that God set up with past Israelite kings.

And so I'm gonna read just a chunk of that from um coming in 2 Samuel verse 7.

When your time comes and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up for you, David, a descendant who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.

He, your descendant, is the one who will build a house for my name, and I will establish his kingdom forever.

And this is the kicker, verse 14.

I will be his father, and he will be my son.

So, this is a promise way back to King David, saying, Hey David, you're doing an awesome job.

I love you very much.

You're not a perfect dude by any stretch of the means, but I will work with you and I promise that I'll actually keep your lineage going.

And so, some will argue that maybe Solomon, his son, kind of fulfills this, but at the end of the day, truly, as Christians, we know this really truly gets fulfilled with Jesus Christ.

And there's that key term that he says, he will be my son and I will be his father.

So if you were a Jewish person in the first century, someone calls somebody the son of God, that is one of those ideas that's rolling in the back of your brain.

Oh my gosh, wait, this is the Messiah.

This is the guy that's fulfilling the Davidic covenant.

And so, what that means is this is the guy that is supposed to be in charge of Israel.

He is the one calling the shots.

He is the rightful ruler of Israel.

Yes, they're occupied by Rome.

Yes, we have scribes and Pharisees who fight back against him, but he is in fact rightful owner, rightful king of Israel.

So that's on one side.

The other side, and this is like my little nerdy historian gets out here, um, this was actually a common word, common phrase, used to describe Caesars, was the son of God.

They were trying to argue that they were had a lineage melded in with God, and thus gave them the right to rule the Roman Empire, essentially gave them the right to rule the world.

And at different times that gets used.

So this is kind of a gnarly thing to say about Jesus.

This would be, again, like all the different cute nicknames we have about Chris Fanoli, this would be like if we showed up to church and started calling Chris Fenoli Mr.

President.

That'd be a little sketchy.

That'd be a little bit weird.

Because again, at the end of the day, it's saying, bro, we're putting him on that same level of or above that president.

I'm not saying you should do that, that's not a good thing.

But I want to kind of put that in context.

The fact that anyone is calling Jesus the Son of God is putting him at level with the Caesars or above those Caesars, i.e., saying that actually he has the authority over the entirety of the world.

Which again is really important because what's, and what I find funny, um, not ha ha, funny, but sarcastic, bad funny, um, is that earlier in this book, the question will come up again and again and again, who is Jesus?

By what authority is he doing these things?

Where is he coming from?

What's going on with this guy?

We can see way back um in, if you wanted to at some point, um, chapter four, Nazareth.

He goes back to his hometown of Nazareth, um, and Nazareth asks the question, well, who is this guy?

He's Joseph's son, right?

Who is this bozo?

Spiritual leaders, um, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes uh in ver in chapter five, um, ask who is he?

How by what authority does he have?

John the Baptist in chapter seven goes back and says, Are you sure you're the Messiah?

Are we on the same page here?

Because this doesn't feel like you're the maybe the Messiah.

Uh, and then last, right before this passage, um, the disciples actually ask the question, who is this guy that the wind and the waves obey?

And so this question comes up of who actually is this guy?

Um and we, as people on earth, sometimes we can get that question muddied.

If you've been to like a secular school or with me in a secular college, you go through and people say, Well, yes, Jesus was this nice itinerant preacher, he was poor, he said some good things, but is he really this other spiritual entity?

And Luke goes through and says, No, 100%.

Although people might be confused at Jesus' identity, at the end of the day, the spiritual world is not confused at Jesus' identity.

He is God in the flesh, he reigns and rules over Israel, over the entirety of the world.

And so that is our Jesus walking through.

He's showing off some power in this past, we'll get to that in just a second.

And then we have that's our first character, the awesome character, and then we kind of have our bad guy.

We got Legion.

Uh, and so before I jumped in this, I wanted to give you a C.

S.

Lewis quote.

Um, just as we jump into this, uh, C.

S.

Lewis was quoted as saying, there are two equal and opposite errors in which people can fall about demons.

One is to disbelieve their existence, the other is to believe and to feel excessive and unhealthy interest in them.

They themselves are equally pleased by both errors, inhale a materialist and a magician the same.

So at the end of the day, we want to talk a little bit about this guy.

This guy does have some demons, we're gonna talk about that a little bit.

Again, what we are hoping to do is find that balance, not to get overwhelmed and to spend our entire time talking about demons, um, but also not to just pretend like they don't exist.

So, um, fortunately or unfortunately, um, he has three titles.

I wanna kind of break down those three titles.

Number one is he is the demon-possessed guy.

You can see that in your scripture.

The demon-possessed man.

And so, again, thankfully or unthankfully, our culture has jumped on that bandwagon as far as like horror movies are concerned.

I feel like every other one I feel like I end up hearing about has some sort of tie-in.

And maybe our culture is a little bit more on the obsessive part with that.

So that's that's something that I think we know in our culture.

Number two, he's called the man with the unclean spirit.

And so unclean is a term going all the way back to the Old Testament.

That was more of a ritualistic term.

So you had to make sure that you were clean before you entered the sanctuary, before you got anywhere close to that temple.

It's not necessarily about being evil or being good, although we'll talk about some nuances, but it's simply a it's simply a uh ritual status.

And so things we you can go through and you can read through Leviticus.

There's some animals that are considered unclean, some animals that are considered clean.

Human beings jumped back and forth.

You would, throughout your life, become unclean at some point and then become clean and go back and forth.

Uh and there's three big reasons I went through and did some research, three big reasons that most people are gonna argue why something is regarded to be clean or unclean.

Number one has been mentioned at this church before, which is sanitary conditions.

There are certain things that God says that's unclean for you, just because if you do that thing, that might end up being um detrimental to your health.

So again, uh different ways.

Number two ends up being a polemic, right?

So um we regard things that are, again, people use to worship other gods as unclean.

You need to be different in the way that you worship God.

So that's number two.

Uh, and number three ends up being uh associations with death.

God is the God of life, and that's awesome and amazing.

There are some things in the culture during um ancient Israel that were considered and tied in with the ideas of death, and some of those things end up being regarded as unclean.

So, again, I told you we're gonna break sometimes to to do some stuff for the kids.

Um, would you be willing to do me a favor and pull up um we're gonna play a quick game.

It's called clean or unclean.

I know, it's so exciting.

You've seen this on you've seen this before Jeopardy.

We're gonna play this game through.

So I'm gonna put up either a thing or a status or condition stuff stuff, and what you are gonna do uh is much like the Romans, you're gonna give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down.

The thumbs up means that thing is clean or that action is clean or that situation is clean.

You give me a thumbs down, that means unclean.

So, you guys ready for this?

And adults help me out to get sounds good.

Adults help me out so we can get some kids on board.

Oh, I have this guy real quick right here.

Uh, and if you get these wrong, I think you're okay.

It's in Leviticus, it's a lot of a lot of precision.

So feel bad, don't feel bad about this.

So, plain clean or unclean.

Number one, a goat.

Give me a thumbs up, give me a thumbs down.

And Alana, a goat is?

You sit in the middle.

That's clean.

You're good.

You can eat your goats, you can enjoy your uh yeah, you got that one.

If you got that one, dude, do give yourself a pat on the back.

You did a good job.

Awesome.

That's clean.

Uh Campbell.

Clean or unclean.

And that is unclean.

There we are.

It makes me so bummed out, but yeah, there we are.

Next, locus.

Those wonderful little bugs.

Clean or unclean.

And those are clean.

What did you say?

Yeah, 100%.

John the Baptist ate those guys.

This is not recommending that you consume these after church today, um, but they're regarded ritualistically as clean.

Next, an owl.

Unclean.

Unclean.

They kill so many things.

It's like crazy.

Um, let's go vulture.

Oh, good job on that one.

Good job on that one.

All right, now we're getting crazy.

Uh, woman after childbirth.

Directly after childbirth.

Yes, give women after childbirth lots, lots of time to recover.

Um and I just like to remind you, this is not necessarily trying to dig on women.

Um, I think there's a practical application of giving women some space after childbirth.

Also, my wife agrees.

Um, also, I did not know this until my wife gave birth.

Uh, to give birth is to knock on death's door.

That's really, really close.

It gets kind of sketchy.

So uh there we are.

Second to last time, if you have a wall with a yellow spot, the yellow spot shows up.

I'm a jerk.

That actually ends up being clean.

Greenish or reddish, that's your problem.

But if any spot shows up, just as a PSA from the church, uh, any spot shows up on your wall, please contact something.

Yeah.

Ritualistically clean, maybe as far as practice is concerned, you should go clean that wall.

Um, I forgot what it is.

Um if a man has a bald head, clean or unclean.

Man with bald head is in fact clean.

Thank you guys very much.

I appreciate that.

They're one of our favorite verses over there.

So, uh, thank you for that tangent.

I appreciate that.

Um, so there are things that are regarded in the Old Testament as clean or unclean.

They are not necessarily a bad thing or a good thing.

We have just this ritualistic situation, um, all that sort of fun stuff.

Eventually we'll go through Leviticus as a church, uh, and you'll have all your questions answered at that juncture.

Um, however, with this, I want to point out, and why I'm kind of going through this, is that this unclean spirit, I really think the spirit's associated with death.

This spirit drives this poor man out into deserted places.

I.e., he's bringing out into the desert where there's no food, there's no water, it's very, very hot.

Um when these demons go out of the sky, what do the pigs immediately do?

But go run into the water.

So I bring this up because when we talk these ones through, actually, sorry, I bring this up for two reasons.

Number one, as much as I don't like to think about this, as much as maybe we don't like to think about this, before Jesus, we were legion.

Before Jesus, we were separated from God and we were under that spirit of death and destruction.

We, by God's grace, were saved into that, but we were the same.

Hopefully you weren't running around naked, but at the end of the day, we are on the same level.

Ephesians 2, verses 1 through 3 shows us this beautifully.

Ephesians 2:1–3

And you, saying, but from Paul, you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the rulers of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient.

And so Paul is arguing that we were, before Jesus, we were just like this guy, and that we desperately needed Jesus to come through and to free us from this bondage.

Sorry, I lost my place.

Okay, so and just a good a good reminder.

Um, and then our last one is that actually um he is called Legion.

And so, Legion, as previously addressed, um, Legion is the largest military unit.

Um, they were big and scary, they were part of the Roman Empire.

And so there is a numbers component to being called Legion.

There's a lot of demons in this guy.

I don't know how that happened.

This is like a trippy, kind of sketchy moment.

However, I also want to push one step farther.

Because if you were a Jew in the first century, if you were a Christian in the first century, and someone said the word legion, yes, you would think about numbers, but you also think about the big scary fighting force that's been going through and dominating the entirety of the world.

And pop quiz.

If a legion is outside of your city, what is happening to your city?

It's being taken over, it's being occupied, it's a bad situation.

So we have this legion, not of Rome, but of spiritual forces of darkness outside the city.

Not a good situation, not a good moment.

So those are our two big characters we want to talk about and want to address.

I also want to call it the elephant in the room, which is you have disciples hanging back.

They're not gonna talk, but they're there, maybe eating popcorn, maybe just being scared to death.

I don't know what they're doing.

But they're sitting there, much like us, watching.

We also have the city that we're gonna talk about as we keep moving forward and keep talking.

Uh, and then last, I want to talk about this conflict we got going on, which is this Jesus versus Legion.

Stuff going through.

So, what is happening?

What's going on?

Well, it looks like, right, we mentioned that Jesus is the Messiah, he is the rightful king, both of Israel and the world.

And now he's going toe-to-toe with the Legion outside of a city.

And so what Jesus is truly doing right here is being a liberator.

He is going through, as far as the spiritual realm is concerned, Jesus is going through and liberating the city.

And so that's kind of maybe the more militaristic terms.

But that's what's, that's uh seems to be what's happening in this area.

Just as we all know, Jesus' liberation of someplace, or Jesus conquering someplace, looks drastically different than what it looks like in our modern world.

It is not with guns, it's not with swords, but with freedom and with God's spirit.

And so that's just a good thing to put in your brain.

Okay, uh, let's jump back over to that passage in I'm starting in verse 34.

So jump over with me, 34.

When the men who tended oh, sorry.

Jump back over, my apologies.

32.

A large herd of pigs was there feeding on the hillside.

The demon begged him to permit them to enter the pigs, and he, Jesus, gave them permission.

The demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.

So let's talk through that conflict or the resolution of that conflict.

Um, I had a pastor a while back, I'm not trying to criticize this pastor, but when he got to this passage, he like gave the demon like a really creepy voice.

And I was like this close to doing that to you guys.

Um but I really don't think that's honest with the passage.

Because what's actually happening here is the demons are begging Jesus for mercy.

They are asking him not to completely destroy them right now.

Um, this is not a big, scary, menacing moment.

This is not the horror movies of the modern day.

Um, this is the spiritual forces realizing who's actually on top and who's on bottom and begging for mercy.

And sometimes, I had a pastor one time um talk to us and share with out.

Sometimes when we talk about Jesus being all-loving, we can forget that he's all powerful.

And so, as much as Jesus is all loving, and you can clearly see it in this passage, so loving, he's also so ridiculously powerful.

And so sometimes the issue that we can have is we think about Jesus is so loving, but then we don't bring our requests to him.

We don't actually go to him in prayer and say, Jesus, there's this issue I have, can you please step in?

And the entire rest of the world kind of treats Jesus like junk.

And that's not because he is not powerful, that's because he's being merciful in these situations.

However, the spiritual realm has zero qualm, zero um deception about this.

They know that this is Yahweh, they know that this is the God who rules over everything, who spoke the world into existence, and who, by just releasing, could destroy it.

And so they get what's happening, they know what's going on, right?

As you go through these different gospels, everybody's confused about Jesus.

Um spiritual world definitely is not.

Okay, um, let's talk about our resolution here.

So jump back with me, sorry, um, over to now to verse 34.

So when the men who tended them saw what had happened, they ran off and reported it to the town and in the countryside.

Then people who went out to see what happened, they came to Jesus and found the man the demons had departed from sitting at Jesus' feet, dressed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.

Meanwhile, the eyewitnesses reported to them how the demon-possessed man was delivered.

Then all the people of the Garrison regions asked him to leave, because they were gripped by a great fear.

So he, Jesus, got into the boat and he returned.

We talked about this being a little bit more the upside-down kingdom.

So Jesus comes through, he defeats this entire legion, he frees this town, and what do they do?

They politely ask him to leave.

This merciful, amazing God came through and just solved the major issue practically of a crazy guy outside your walls.

He solved the spiritual problem, there's spiritual dark oppression, and still this city says, No, thank you.

You go somewhere else.

And remember, if this is Rome, people would be crucified.

People would get killed.

They would come through and they would establish their dominance.

But Jesus is a gentleman.

Jesus is merciful and says, Okay, I get that.

I won't do this.

And he actually steps away.

So again, more ways that we can kind of see that this is an upside-down kingdom.

It's so much different than what we can see and we can take for this.

Um, I always get heartbroken, um, and not to get too tangential on this.

Again, I told you I am a teacher at public school system.

Um, and whenever I hear this passage of God bringing deliverance, and then they like push back against them, I always have to think about the public school system.

Because you get it was started way back in the colonies as ways to equip students to read the Bible and to understand the Bible.

And we've gone so, so drastically far away from that.

And we've quietly and very quietly asked Jesus to leave.

And he is honoring that with a twist.

With a twist.

I want to tell you that twist.

So, do me a favor, jump back in your Bibles to verse 38.

The man from whom the demons had departed begged him, Jesus, earnestly to go back with them.

But he sent him away, saying, Go back to your home and tell all that God has done for you.

And off he went, proclaiming throughout the town how much Jesus has done for him.

So God honors their request, but he honors it with a twist.

And I just, ah, I love it.

He honors it with a twist.

He says, Yeah, I'll leave.

But and I'm being kind of mean and call Legion for the remainder of this sermon.

Um, but Legion stays.

This guy that I saved, he stays.

And I just, ah, I love that.

Because me, when I was going to college, I thought what a good Christian was is one that went and did like missions work.

And so there was like a year where I was like, hey, where do I gotta go?

I wanna be a good Christian, I wanna do what God tells me to do.

Do we need to go to China?

Do I need to go to like South America?

What's going on?

And God actually brought me to this passage and said, no, you need to go where you're planted.

You need to go where you're located.

Because yes, we need missionaries out in China.

Yes, we need missionaries out in South America, yes, we need missionaries in Africa.

We also need missionaries in a Tascadero.

We desperately need missionaries in a Tascadero.

Sometimes we can pretend that other countries and other areas are dark places.

They're deep and they're dark, they have spiritual oppression.

And I agree, they do.

But we also have our own.

And we need to be looking at our world around us with that lens.

Um, and I want to tie this in and talk this one through just about some application points that I have come, that I'm currently wrestling with, um, and that I would love for you guys to wrestle with me with this.

So, um, point number one I want to make is all Jesus did, again, all Jesus does in the Garriscenes is save one guy.

He saves one guy.

Sometimes our what we look at as success is different than what God calls success.

God says, nailed it, I can get back in the boat, I'm good.

Sometimes we maybe want to do more or do less.

Um, and so that requires that we continue to go back to the Lord in prayer and ask him for his eyes in the situations that we're a part of.

Number two, God uses Legion as an evangelist.

Here's the deal Legion is the worst evangelist you could possibly choose for this area.

I would never in a million years choose this guy out of my own, like my own wisdom to choose this guy to be the one to start the church, Calvary Chapel uh garrisons.

But that's not that's my vision.

That's not God's.

God chose this guy who had a lot of baggage, a lot of problems.

He was naked outside the city.

But he says, okay, yeah, put some shorts on, and now you're gonna go back in and you're gonna do what I asked you to do.

And I think that's amazing, I think that's awesome because in my world, I am not the ideal evangelist, I'm not the ideal leader in a hundred thousand ways.

I mess up all the time, I have so many problems.

I am not really the one that I would think, oh, go do that.

But there are a lot of situations that God puts me in where God's saying, Yo, I know, but I'm still sending you in that way.

And I want to put this over to you.

You are not the ideal evangelist.

You are not the ideal missionary, you aren't, but God is still calling you in those areas.

It's not about you.

When we are, when we are seen as weak, he's seen as powerful.

By God's power, he can do that through you.

Uh, number three, God told him to go back home.

Uh here's the deal.

I get so overwhelmed by this world, I get so overwhelmed by the darkness and by issues.

I have a tendency, probably like once a week, I just want to go be a monk.

Like I want to leave this place, go in the mountains, go make my little, like my little huts and get my food and my Bible and then be done with it.

But that is not what God is calling for us.

God is calling us to lean into the places that we're found.

In the place that are our home, the place that God has placed us, to consider those places to be where He is sending us.

And last, God is telling us to share with the world around him the good things that God has done.

Yes, it is good for you to understand some apologetics as to why you believe what you believe.

It's good for you to understand maybe a succinct version of the gospel, but truly, what God's asking you to do is to step out in the world less with an argumentative spirit, but more about telling them, hey, this is what God's done for me.

Dude, God saved me.

I was this Legion guy, and by his power, he saved me.

And that is what it looks like to step out into evangelism.

Not necessarily this guy who has all the right answers, a girl who has all the right answers, but to step out in those places and just say, hey, this is what God's done.

I know he's done these things, and he can do those things for you.

I want to thank you guys for your time.

Take a minute, bow your heads with me.

Uh, I want to pray.

Father God, we thank you so much for today.

We thank you for your word.

We thank you for weird passages that you um can truly still teach us so much about yourself through.

God, would you cover and would you bless these people here?

Lord, would you give us your eyes for the world that is around us?

Would you help to encourage us to step into the places that we're supposed to step into, God?

Um, give us the right words to say at the right times.

And would you lead us, Father?

You name you pray.

Amen.