The Day They Sent God Away

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Excited to share the word this morning with you guys. I will say after last week, I was sitting there when we did our worship and Chris ended and that was a phenomenal service and like the spirit was in the room and it was sort of an intimidating thing to be like. Now I have to follow that up next week. And so I will do my best as an actual former Pentecostal. Maybe it'll come back out.

We'll see what happens. We've been praying.

So Chris gave me a section of Matthew chapter eight. That's a very interesting one. About a couple months ago, he was like, hey, I'm going to give you two verses. Luckily he extended it to four. That was very polite of him.

Originally it was Matthew chapter 8, 32 and 34. And I was like, I have to stretch that into an entire series or a sermon, which if you know, from last time I spoke, I spoke for about 15 minutes and all of the kids class was very upset because they had just finished. Basically at that point they had just gotten settled from snacks and I was wrapping up. So anyway, excited for this chapter, excited to wrap this chapter up. So last week, as I talked about, Chris had this phenomenal message and left us with a very good word, glorifying and testifying that Jesus is the son of God, that the demons themselves profess this and proclaim this.

And we saw another witness. So it is infallible evidence through the witness of three that he is the son of God. But he also left us on a cliffhanger. So we'll recap from that real quick. It's Matthew chapter 8, 28, 29.

It says that when he had come to the other side, to the region of the gardens, Gadarenes. Sorry. Two demon possessed men met him as they came out of the tombs. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. Suddenly they shouted, what do you have to do with us, son of God?

Have you come here to torment us before the time? And that's where we got left off. Jesus steps off the boat and instantly met by two possessed men that are possessed by demons. And they run out of tombs to meet him yet again. Want to pause there to say how creepy that is to just have that happen and.

And let's not pretend like that wouldn't be terrifying. I mean, I've been to some sides of town where I'm like holding my breath. Any of my, like, leave the light on, leave the door cracked. We gotta like turn the light off and run the other way to get out of the room kind of people that grew up. Like, that whole situation is the type of situation that would run through my head as a kid.

It was like, I gotta go to the bathroom and something's behind the shower curtain. This is the situation that I'm thinking is about to unfold in my own bathroom. And. And now Jesus is here experiencing this. Out of the tombs.

Two dudes living in a graveyard, super casual, you know, come full sprint out of the tombs. I kind of want to picture that it was full sprint instead of like the slow, ominous. I'm going to just be like, poof. They're just power running out of the grave.

And yet Jesus walks right into it and starts having a conversation. And that's where the story gets crazier. And this is where we will start up today. Matthew, chapter 8, 30, 32. It says now, a long way from them, a large herd of pigs was feeding.

If you drive us out, the demons begged, send us into the herd of pigs and go, he told them. So they came out of the men and entered the pigs, and suddenly the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and perished in the water. This whole story kind of has like M. Night Shamalamalan kind of stuff written into it. Like, you're just chilling. Two dudes and now pigs are running and they're drowning themselves.

Like, this is a script. And I'm sure he'll make a movie out of it at some point, but it's crazy. Let's zoom in for a moment on the region of the Gadarenes. I really struggle with that word. I want to read like gardens because my dyslexia kicks in.

But the region of the Gadarenes, Ghidorah, the main city where this whole scene went down. This wasn't some tiny, quaint village, like a little farm town or anything. This was an established city. Actually, by that time, by the time of Jesus, this was a very culturally important city. By the third century bc, it was already a part of the Decapolis, which was a group of 10 cities in the Greco Roman period known for art and culture and intellectual.

And so this is this big city. I always pictured some quiet farm village with just a graveyard on the outskirts of it. But no, he's walking into this established main city. And around that time, Gadara was also called one of the best fortified cities in its region. The cliff that was on that the pigs ran off actually gave it a strategic placement for war.

It had a high ground, which, if you watch Star wars, we know a high ground is very important.

But it also overlooked the Sea of Galilee and it overlooked the Valley of the Jordan. So it gave them a very high military outpost to be fortified. Think sort of like Ivy League Fort Knox. So it's got all the culture, all the money, all the influence. But then it's locked tight.

Yet somehow there's this creepy back alley near the graveyards that I guess the two creepy guys were the best defense in that area. It's like, yeah, we got this, we got like an iron door, we got some cool stuff. Military over here, two creepy guys over that way. We're all good. Like nobody's coming in.

It was a city of culture and comfort and progress. They had theaters, baths, temples, potentially paved roads. They had systems, influence and a way of life.

There are some other factors as we look into the story. One of those being the pigs. Obviously that's an indicator that we're not in Jewish territory. Jews were not having a herd of pigs. We are in the gentile lands across on the Jordan side.

But to have a herd of pigs, scholars saying about 2,000 pigs in total indicates the wealth of that city. Actually indicates a lot of the military effect of that city. Because pigs would have been used as food for their military. So that's why this becomes a huge point. We'll look into this because some things that these pigs would have been used for is potentially sacrifices.

Food for the people and importantly food for their military. So this had a huge impact on the society. And it shows us that when we pick up in verse 33, it says that the men who tended them, the pigs fled. They went into the city and reported everything, especially what had happened to those who were demon possessed. So they even focused their story.

They're like, yeah, the pigs ran off the cliff, but these two dudes that live in the grave that we've kind of avoided, they're now clean, they're now normal and they're clothed and they're well behaved. They're undemon possessed. They are pure and have freedom. He focused on that. But yet I believe that the whole city focused more on the pigs in that situation.

Because the whole town, again an established city, this entire city then ran out to meet Jesus where he was like not 12 people, not 10 people. We're talking about a large established city, thousands of people coming to him suddenly to hear or to see the man that had just completely plummeted their entire food supply.

And this is what they did. They begged him to leave their region.

Jesus performs a miracle, he heals two men, restores their minds, frees them from years of torment. And the people's response was, please leave. And Jesus had just come from places where this type of healing would have drawn in the crowds, where they would have started bringing in their sick and their poor and those in need, and would have been laying them down at his feet, begging him to do it again. But the gadarenes were saying, please leave. I don't care about the two men that you've saved.

You've done something to our city. So. So why did they do that? They didn't say thank you. They didn't fall on their faces in awe.

They didn't even ask him to explain what happened. He didn't have the opportunity to say, I just did this for you. You're welcome. They're like, no, no, no, there's the door. Get out.

They begged him to leave the whole city. And why? It's because he messed with their comfort.

When Jesus came in and started casting out demons, he disrupted their system.

They weren't confused, they were offended and scared because he steps in with kingdom of God authority. One man into this huge, fortified, military city of culture and messed with everything that they had going. Not to mention he was able to restore the man that in Mark 5 tells us that every time they locked up, he would break out of the chains. He was so possessed so far into that possession that he harmed himself, threw himself into fire, and broke the chains that they would try to bind him to contain. That they had with all of the resources, no ability to change this person, to make them not be the sketchy dude down the street.

He was that person for them. Yet Christ comes in with kingdom of God authority and makes it happen.

When the demons entered, the pigs and the pigs died. Jesus didn't just free the two men. He flipped their entire economy upside down. 2,000 pigs, a herd of food, just gone. Like, throw us back to Covid when we were, like, trying to get a pack of eggs, and we're like, I can't do that.

Our entire system was thrown over, like, I just want a mango. And all they have are these terrible red delicious apples that I can eat. And we suffered in struggles, not to mention the toilet paper. We won't even go down that route. That whole thing was a little.

I won't say that word. But this entire people lost it in a moment. Resources. They had nothing to see it coming. He didn't mess with their food, though.

He didn't just mess with their food. He touched their wallets. He touched their comfort and he touched their security. Because if you've ever been near the military, a well fed army is one that will protect you. And if their military was not able to be fed, well, then they wouldn't have the energy to protect these people.

So their entire security was also affected in the situation. But they said, we'd rather have pigs and demons than freedom. And Jesus let that sink in. They were fine with having a part of town and two people that they had to avoid. They'd rather have the demons than encounter Jesus and see freedom.

They're like, yeah, it's not ideal, we just kind of avoid that side of town. But that's fine, that can happen there because we have all this going for us and we are like this. Sometimes we have this thing in our lives where we're like, yeah, that's fine, we'll ignore that, we'll push that to the side because I got this good thing going over here.

We live in our own little Gadaras. I will get this word and I will enunciate like this. I'm not going to do that. I put on a wireless mic because usually I don't know what to do with my hands. And now here's where we're at.

Wow, sorry, that was too far. Okay, it was. But we have these own Gadaras, these own civilizations that we've created, collected and made and established within our lives. We've made comfortable, we've well curated these lives, we've had structure to these. We've got systems to manage our stress, we have subscriptions to manage our entertainment and savings to manage our future.

But Jesus shows up and says, I'm not here to fit in your comfort, I'm here to replace it. Everything that they had, they couldn't take care of. The two men that were there, there was something that they couldn't do. No matter how comfortable, no matter how financially successful they were, no matter what entertainment value they had that existed, they were unable to do that. And he could bring a level of comfort and a level of freedom that they would not be able to experience themselves.

Sometimes when we think about this, we panic because we've built our lives up like these cities. Here's my finances. Over here is my entertainment. Over here. That's that thing that we're going to not talk about and hopefully it'll just kind of resolve itself at some point.

Oh, and over here, this is the thing that is the reason why people like me, we brush over the thing that is there that we don't want to talk about.

And when that thing becomes Something that we can't ignore, and it becomes a problem. We ask Jesus to come in and fix it.

But we also are like, well, just, you know, fix this relationship, but don't mess with my finances. Fix this addiction, but don't. Don't touch this thing over here. I'm okay with that. Just handle that thing.

But calling us away from our comfort is something that is shown throughout the scripture. Talking again about the witnesses within scripture that we have. Genesis 12. God says to Abram, leave your country, your people, and your father's household. Exodus, chapter three.

Moses out there enjoying retirement. He's got a wife now. It's pretty chill. And God's like, hey, I want you to go back to Pharaoh. I want you to go back to your trauma and create freedom.

Jonah, this whole story, if he wasn't able. If he was able to give up his comfort, this entire book wouldn't exist. Because God's like, hey, I want you to go to Nineveh, Jonah. Hard path. I'm good.

But through his discomfort, they found forgiveness. Matthew 4. Jesus says, Drop your nets. And through financial uncertainty, they became great.

Luke 9. Take up your cross daily shoulder discomfort, and he will make you stronger and bring you joy.

Mark 10. The rich young ruler walks up to him, what do I have to do to follow you to be better? Give up your stuff? Yeah, I like my things. Can we find an agreement here?

But his real comfort was what he treasured the most. And his comfort became a better God to him than the one that was standing in front of him.

So there's a couple questions that we have to ask ourselves.

What are you protecting?

What's the thing that if Jesus touched it, you might ask him to leave? Is it your sense of control? Is it your image? Is it your lifestyle? Is it your plan?

Is it your comfort?

And also, what are you ignoring? What's the thing that you say, we can just keep that over there? Is it your anger, your addiction, your selfishness, your sin? Or even your demons?

Because he's not here to share space with our idols. He's not going to heal our soul and leave the stronghold standing there.

He's not going to bring you freedom without shaking the environment that got you there in the first place.

But why are we so scared of letting go, of letting things in? There's a research paper that came out in 1988, Harvard released this, has a very fun title of the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty. They spoke on status quo bias. It's a really interesting thing in which 60 to 80% of the people that did this study proved that they would rather stick to the status quo even if there was a better option available for them. They would rather keep to what was standard.

They would rather keep to the thing that they had going on and what they knew than say, I'm going to risk it for this.

And of course, we know from High School Musical you don't mess with the status quo.

That one was for my wife. That's what that joke was for. That's earning me points right there.

There's a quote, though, that says, it is in every man's power to do nothing.

We all have the power to do nothing, and we often choose that power. We'd rather be like I could, but it's far easier. It's far more to my capability, and it's more in line of where I want to be if I just let that be.

And sometimes when we get to that situation, we go far into it and say, but I'm not strong enough to fix the situation, or I keep losing this battle.

Or we end up saying things like, I said this last time was going to be the last time, and we've done that too many times.

But we want to keep the status quo. Here's a crazy picture that I was reading this story over and over, and it never clicked until the 13th time reading it. We all know how that is. You read scripture once, you're like, ah, I got it. Read it 19 more times, you're like, whoa, this is deep.

But the picture of the pigs, we just kind of overlooked the pigs. We're like, okay, demons went in the pigs. Pigs run off cliff. Got it. Interesting part of the story, but the same demons that lived in the men, that threw them into fire, that made them cut themselves and mutilate themselves and kept them bound into them and had the strength to break chains that would bind them, could not kill the men, but the second they entered the pigs, the pigs killed themselves.

Because the pigs are just an animal, they're just a beast. They have no control over what's going to happen to them. But you, being created in the image and likeness of God, have authority and power. And through Christ, we are given that power to expel the demons, to overcome the demons, to send them over where they need to be and find freedom. And God's giving us a chance by saying, hey, those things that immediately killed those other dumb animals, I don't care how smart you think pigs are, dumb animal.

I knew I was going to find some person. It was like, well, actually, the pigs are really, it's an animal. But you, as a person, as a creation of God, as a flesh embodiment of his image, have the ability to have an opportunity to get freedom. They had demons, death. We have a second chance.

We have the ability to fight through it and persevere and empower ourselves and power and overpower the enemy.

What's interesting is In Mark, Chapter 5, it says the same story and we get to see a bit more into the inside of it. Matthew is just like straight to the point. He's like, here's four verses, whole story's over Mark. He's like, here's half of chapter five, super bunch of details. And we can find out a little bit more intricacies of it.

Now there's a debate on one person or two person, and I'll let Brent discuss that. Or you can find Isaac. I couldn't find any resolution on that either. Whether it was one person or two people with thousands of demons in them. Still crazy.

That's all that needs to matter right there. But in Mark, chapter five, it talks about that the demons begged, they said, don't send us from this region, expel us from this region, instead cast us into the pigs. And it's not that Jesus agreed to them. They're just like, fine. Because right then was not their day of judgment.

Right then he was like, I just care that you're not within that person anymore. Go, go.

So those demons still existed in that region after they killed the pigs off. They existed still. And that's what happens is demons and unfortunate things in life and the terrible things still exist around us. But that doesn't mean that they have to exist within us.

And that's part of the Gospel, is that we have the freedom to say, this is what the world is doing and I'm not part of it anymore. Jesus won't fix what's around you until he fixes what's inside of you. He's not trying to fix the situation. First he starts inside and fixes what got you into that situation.

We all know if there's parents in the room, it's like, yeah, I could teach my kid not to like, do something. I could fix the situation for them. But if I don't start resolving the problem, we're going to have this conversation 18 more times. And even if you start working on that, you're still going to have that conversation because there's always that one kid in your family. But you know, it's still like, we want to fix the root of the problem, not Just the problem.

And I know there's far too many people I don't know a single person that doesn't have some sort of past trauma. But trauma cycling shouldn't be your status quo.

There are things that have happened to every single person in this room. And if we live in that, then we're saying, that's where I'm confound. That's where I'm bound. That's where I'm let the enemy win. And Jesus is saying, no, you don't have to live in that anymore.

I want to fix it. Fix what got you there and fix you so you can have freedom.

Here's the truth, though. I'll go ahead and call the band back up. I still ended up going really quick. I have, like seven pages here. I need to start writing in smaller fonts.

Then I'll just have trouble reading.

Desiring comfort isn't wrong, but it is a terrible God to have. Too often we worship routine. We praise convenience.

But if your comfort costs you the presence of God, it's not comfort, it's confinement.

And Jesus is the only comfort that will last.

He is the prince of peace in the storms of your life. He is the calm and the chaos, and he is the rest for our weary souls.

In Mark, we see that the man who was possessed goes up to Jesus afterwards and says, I want to join you on the boat. I want to be your disciple. I want to go with you.

And Jesus says, awesome, but I have a better plan for you. Stay here and speak your testimony. Spread the gospel. Show people that there's proof of a living God, a messiah that came in and affected your life, that got you out of a situation.

We're always too like, once we get out of a bad situation, we're like, I'm never gonna go be around that anymore. But sometimes God wants you to be in and confess with your mouth that he is worthy and he is able. He wants you to help affect the situation of those people. Now, we don't have a testimony of what happened to the Gadarenes, but I think that there was definitely some lives changed, that maybe they were too focused on the pigs at the moment. But the fact that there was a changed man running around their town saying, this is who Jesus is and this is what he did for me, and he can do it for you.

No matter what comfort we have, no matter what things we cling on to, he is able to do far more and abundantly than we could ever imagine or guess or request.

The people of Gadara had Jesus in their town. He was in their town and they sent him away.

I'd like to say that I know that if Jesus were to show up in the doors today that we would all rush to Him. But I think that there's a good portion of us that seeing his presence would be conflicted because he would be highlighting the thing that we need to resolve first.

And as much as we want to embrace the Father and find freedom, we also still struggle with surrendering and giving it to Him.

Not saying that to everybody, but I don't want us to make the mistake and see that he isn't moving in our midst already, that he isn't coming into our lives and speaking when we open up the book, he is right there. When we come into church and we have fellowship with another, when we break bread, when we sing praise, he is there in that moment. And sometimes we need to just listen and allow him to be there. When he's there for you, hold on to it. Allow him to be there working in your midst.

When he speaks to you, hold on to it. Bring it in, don't send it away being like, well, that's going to disrupt the plan I got going on. I'm not a five year plan kind of guy. The more I press into Christ, the more I realize that my plan's dumb. He's got a plan for me, it's written in the book.

And I know that's a little Calvinist, but you know, like also Brent shaking his head a little bit, but like, he has a plan for me, he has a desire for me. And if I start putting up my plans and my walls and build my city and build up the resources that I feel like I need to make that life happen, I start blocking him out from being able to move in, from being able to function in me and remove the thing and spotlights. The things that we say are in the dark will be brought to light. We need to be able to allow that to.

So when he's putting his finger on something in your life, let him stay, let him speak and let him change it in every situation, allow him to bring real comfort into your lives.

Because, yes, it'll be uncomfortable for a moment. There's uncertainty in it. There's freedom and forgiveness, salvation and justice within his presence.

Father, thank you for today. Thank you for sending your son and helping us to look at Matthew chapter 8 and look at the testimony of who he is and what he's done in that time. After the Sermon on the Mount, it became a moment of action.

Father, I pray that as we've closed up this book for now and ended the last story here, that we realize who Jesus is.

That we hold on to every situation and allow ourselves to say, this is who Jesus is in my life. This is who I want Jesus to be, because this is who he said he is. And I'm going to keep speaking that into my life, into every situation, into every relationship.

I will allow Jesus to move and disrupt my comfort, highlighting the things that I want to stay hidden and proving that he has power over every single dominion.

Father, we lift up your name. We give you all honor, glory and praise. It's in Yeshua's name we say amen.