Sermon Transcript:All right, you guys are in for a real treat. Today we have a guest pastor with us. It is David Hogg. He is the president of Phoenix seminary right here in the southwest. And he has come to be with us and give us a word. And so I want to get you guys to give a big live church. Welcome to David Hogg.Well, thank you very much, Brent. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. As I begin, let me just clear one thing up. I've discovered I need to do this wherever I go. As you continue to hear me speak, you may begin to wonder and even be distracted. Where is this guy from? Because occasionally, oohed and aboot make their way out of my mouth. And I was raised in Toronto in Canada. I then lived in the southeast. So occasionally, you'll hear a little bit of a drawl. And then now I live in Phoenix and Arizona with my family. And we very much enjoy that. So let's dispel the where in the world is that guy from, we now know, he's from nowhere and everywhere. So if that helps you, I hope so it is a privilege to be here this morning. I love the opportunity, whenever I have it to share God's Word with God's people. And so it's wonderful to be able to do that here with you this morning. However, you have a Bible, you can either follow along here on the screen, the text will be there for you. But if you have a phone or a tablet, or if you're as old as I am, and you still have this thing with pages in it, feel free to use it. But we'll be in Mark's gospel, chapter five, Mark chapter five, this is a part of the story in the life of Jesus. And as we'll see here in this story, this is a part in which Jesus comes to a man who has been demon possessed, and he frees him of that demon. So follow along with me, as I read for you from Mark chapter five, beginning at verse one.They came to the other side of the sea to the country of the gara scenes. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately, there met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit.He lived among the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs, and on the mountains. He was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him, and crying out loud with a loud voice. He said, What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God, I adjure you by God do not torment me. For Jesus was saying to him come out of the man who unclean spirits. And Jesus asked him, What is your name? And he replied, My name is Legion, for we are many. And he begged Him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. And they begged him saying, send us to the pigs, let us enter them. So he gave them permission, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs and the herd, numbering about 2000 rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and drowned in the sea.The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. And they came to Jesus and saw the demon possessed man, the one who had had the Legion, sitting there, clothed, and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon possessed man and to the pigs. And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him, that he might be with him. And he did not permit him but said to him, go to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you. That he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.Gracious Heavenly Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you for its power. I thank you that we have sung already of the powerful name of Jesus, the name of Jesus, that is able to dispel sin that is able to forgive us of the debt to the depths of our hearts. Lord, we give you thanks for this Gospel we give you thanks for the one who was not only born as a baby, as we just finished celebrating Christmas time, but were the one who went to the cross. For us, who died taking upon himself all of the punishment, do my sin, do our sin, because we have rebelled against you and disobeyed. But you have not left us as orphans. You have drawn us to yourself. You have gathered us to yourself and you have called us sons and daughters. For that we give you thatI pray this morning Father, I pray that you would enlighten the hearts and minds of all of us here that you would teach us that you would guide us that you would lead us. The Lord, we do not need the words of a man for that will leave us empty. We need the word of God, delivered by the Holy Spirit centered on the person and work of Jesus Christ, for that alone will change us and make us evernew. We ask all of this in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.Well, I want to begin by saying that as we look at Mark chapter five, I want to initially affirm very clearly that the events that we have here in Mark five are real events, they are true events. This is not here, because somebody made this up. It's not here, because the mark thought this would be a nice little story to add into things. Now this actually happened in the life of Jesus. Now, I mentioned that this actually happened in the life of Jesus. Because I also want to make it clear why Mark included this story. The story is not included in all the Gospels, but it is included here in Mark chapter five. And I think part of the reason that Mark included this is because he wanted to show us very clearly and very starkly that what it means for humanity to be under the bondage of sin, and to know the glorious freedom of salvation. This man was under the bondage of sin in a way that most of us would never even could never even imagine. He was demon possessed. That is the bondage that he experienced under sin to an extreme degree, but you and I experienced the bondage of sin, and have experienced that in other ways. The point is that we need not remain in that bondage. But this is a wonderful story in which we see that the person and work of Jesus Christ is able to free us from the bondage of our own sin. And as we look at this together, I want to notice three things with you, I want to first of all look at Satan's plan, because we're showing a little bit of it here. Second, I want to look at Jesus power. And then very briefly, at the end, I want to consider our peace, Satan's plan, Jesus power and our peace.Well, when you think about Satan's plan, what is his plan to try and and dissuade us from following Jesus? What is his plan in terms of dealing with humanity? Well, I think we see it here. In the experience of this man, you say, Well, I don't know how to enter into the experience of this man, I don't know this is something foreign to me. Maybe for others of you. It's not but for most of us, this is something foreign to us. I don't really know if I can connect.But let me ask you a few questions, and they might help you connect a bit more with this man. First of all, have you ever in your life felt lonely?Just a moment ago, Brent was saying that as we stood up and gathered around, you've got the introverts like me, who run to the corner and hope nobody notices. Then you have the extroverts, like some of you who run to the corner to say hello.We have introverts, we have extroverts. The funny thing about introverts and extroverts as an introvert has the incredible ability to feel lonely, even in a crowd.Maybe that's been your experience, I don't know, maybe you felt lonely as an extrovert, because you're at home, and nobody else is there and you need people.Or maybe you've known profound loneliness in other ways. If you found loneliness, if you've know that experience, and if you're human, which I think most of you are, then you've known loneliness at some point in your life. And therefore, you can connect to some degree with a man who had no friends, no family, no one and lived in a cemetery.This is part of his experience. I wonder if you've ever felt helpless?Maybe you think well, I don't know if I felt helpless.Well, have you ever been to the bedside of someone that you love? And you know that they're dying? And there's nothing that can be done?That's a moment of helplessness, isn't it? So moment when you're sitting there, I remember when I was pastoring. In North Carolina, I went to the bedside of a six month old.There was nothing that could be done. And I stood there with the parents and I knew there's I mean, I can, I can try and encourage them in some way I can stand with them. And the only encouragement I could offer were no words, I had no words to say in that moment, but to just be with them. And we all felt helpless. There are these moments when we get are not powerful enough in ourselves to do anything. And if you've ever felt helplessness in any way, then you can enter a little bit into the experience of this demon possessed man. We see here that he he roamed amongst the tombs in a cemetery, and he cried out,towho knows, but he felt helpless. He wanted freedom from the possession of those demons. Have you ever felt afraid?Maybe when you were younger, maybe now I don't know. Maybe being afraid of the dark is a thing. You just don't like it. You're not sure you're uncertain. There may be other fears that you have. I don't know if I have a fear of scorpions, but I've been introduced to them.And it's interesting just the way that we can respond when we feel fear. That seems almost silly compared to this man. But again, this man would have known fornear the sum total of Legion of demonic activity within his being.And finally, have you ever felt inexplicably angry or agitated?Maybe it's because you're going through a period of stress, maybe your job, maybe your family, maybe your life circumstances are suddenly shutter stage where you're just there's a lot of anxiousness, a lot of anxiety, a lot of agitation that sometimes boils over to anger, and all the wrong times, if you've ever had an experience like that. And again, if you're human, I think you have in some form or fashion, then you can enter into this man's experience. He was a man in whom there was anger and fear and helplessness and loneliness.And you see, Satan, in a larger than life way had done that to this man.The Satan's Derrik call the minions his demonic horde had entered into this man's life however that happens. And you see what Satan's goal there was in dehumanizing him is to rob that man. And what sin does to you and me is it robs us of the purpose for which you were created.And you say, Well, what was the purpose for which I was created? You were created to know life.You were created, to have joy. You were created to be in relationships, in fellowship in front have friendships and community you were created for happiness. You were created for freedom and goodness and gentleness and kindness, and all the things that make life worth living. And Satan as we see here, and sin in your life and mine robs us of that in one way or another. It diminishes that in one way or another. You see, we have all been as it were dehumanized by sin.So if you're here this morning, and you are not a follower of Jesus Christ, yet you have not come to the place of repenting of your sin, turning to Jesus, the one who died on the cross and rose again, left the tomb, empty on your behalf. That I'm telling you this morning, you do not know what it is to fulfill God's purpose for your life, because you are still bound by sin.You may not be demon possessed as this man was, but your situation is no better. Because sin still has dominion over your heart and mind and your life. And if you're a believer, let me ask you this question. Are there times when you return to those old those old ways?When you fall to temptation, when there's that moment where you want to make sure people understand your right bit of self righteousness gets in there, a bit of of condescension gets in there. Perhaps you struggle with other sins, whatever it may be, why would you return to the old ways, instead of returning as we've sung this morning, and we've read here of the possibility, turning to the mercy that Jesus offers in freeing us from sin. So Satan's plan is to dehumanize you to fall to sin, to live under the bondage of sin is to be dehumanized. Second, Satan's plan is to mimic God's word, or God's work to mimic God's work. He said, What does that mean? I don't know if you've read through the Bible or not. But if you read through the Bible, it's kind of interesting when you get to the Gospels, because something starts happening with tremendous frequency, by comparison to everywhere else in Scripture. And what starts happening with with higher frequency noticeably so in the Gospels is that people are possessed by demons.You really don't read much or anything at all of this in the Old Testament, you read through the whole Old Testament and okay, there seems to be that there are comments about those who should not engage in the occult, and those who should not try and do those sorts of things and all the rest of it, then you get to the Gospels, and Jesus is casting out demons, it seems like every fourth page, and then after Jesus ascends again, you'll be continued with the book of Acts, and you're reading through the rest of the New Testament, like, for the most part, all of that, with a few exceptions, it all disappears again. Why?seems kind of odd. Why have all of this activity right here, and I think some of the reason for that is the timing. You see what happens at the beginning of the Gospels? What happens at the beginning of Matthew and Mark and Luke and John, is what we just celebrated a few weeks ago, Christmas. It is the coming of the Son of God taking on human flesh, a completely unique act in history, that the second person of the Triune God, the Son of God, took on put on human flesh became human, while still reigning, still remaining fully God, the most amazing thing in history, fully God and fully human, bound together in the person of Jesus Christ. Well, you know that Satan's not going to like this. Every time Satan sees God moving forward, he seeds with rage, because he hates God.And so what is it that Satan does Satan doesn't have the power to in flesh himself. Satan doesn't have the power to do that. But what Satan upApparently can do is he can send his demonic hordes for those who are not believers to enter into under obviously bizarre and strange circumstances to enter into people. So it gives the impression that he too is as it were in fleshed.So as deity takes on humanity, so the demonic dwells in human. And Why would Satan do that? Because he's mimicking the incarnation.And he's doing it to try and convince people, convinced the people of his day convince you convinced convinced me that demonic forces are as or more powerful than gold.Because if he can do that, then he has you in the grip of fear. And he's got you where he wants you.As I thought about this, I was reminded of a friend of my mother's my mother still lives in Toronto. And she goes on walks with a lady that we grew up with a number of families in the community, and she still goes on walks from time to time with this other lady in the community, they're about the same age. And they for some time, when they started doing this, they would walk down this one street, and eventually my mom thought, Well, why don't we turn right and go down this street, because it's one of the old streets in Toronto that has these enormous oak trees and pine trees. It's just gorgeous, walking through all this and the wind blowing through the leaves, and she had to be beautiful. Let's let's walk through there. She began to turn down that street. And the woman stopped and said,Do you want to walk down that street?My mother was a bit surprised. She said, Yes. Yeah. Is that okay? She said, Well, I prefer not to.It's a perfectly safe Street. There's no reason to think that anything bad would happen. And so my mother asked her, Oh, I'm sorry. Is there something is there, something I should know. And the woman said, You see, what you don't understand is that demons live in the trees are so she believed.And she was in such fear of the demonic powers that she believed dwelled in trees that could then attach themselves to you that she would go nowhere near certain kinds of trees.My mother, of course, had in that moment, the opportunity to speak to her about the power of Jesus. That because she is filled by the Holy Spirit, by the wonderful grace of God and the mercy of Jesus Christ, and all that's done, she would never be filled with demonic powers, nor could they attach themselves to her because she has the presence of the Holy Spirit, not because she's special, not because she's wonderful, but because she has repented and believed in Jesus Christ.There are people who still wrestle even as in Mark's day as he's writing the story, even as in the days when Jesus walked on this earth, there are still people today who live in the fear of the demonic and they need not to they need to hear the wonderful, merciful, gracious and almighty powerful gospel of Jesus Christ.So you see, Satan's plan is to dehumanize Satan's pant plan is to mimic God's work in order to instill fear. But what is Jesus power? Let's get to the good stuff.What is Jesus power want to know two things here as well about Jesus power. First of all, Jesus power is real.Jesus power is real.You can consider the extraordinary power of these demons.You can either look at it now or I would encourage you to read the story again when you get home later today. But in verse four of chapter five, we read that he this man had been often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart.Now, I'm not I mean, I'm no expert, but I'm guessing taking metal chains, and just pulling them apart is a little bit different than abnormal.It's unbelievable this for this for this man. Because of the power that was in he was able to wrench those chains apart. We read in the second part of verse four that no one had the strength to subdue him. Some English translation said no one had the strength to tame him. The idea the picture here is that this man is like a wild beast. Now since coming to the southeast, I've enjoyed something we call rodeos. This is very exciting for me. And I remember watching the first one we went to and watching these crazy people get on these bulls and horses and just be tossed around like a I don't know whatthe next day at church after that my first rodeo I was talking to a guy in front of me said, oh, yeah, he said, I grew up in Oklahoma. He said, My whole family's in rodeos. I said, but you're not. He said, No, there came a point when I was about 17 that it dawned on me this isn't a smart move.You get really hurt there. So here's this picture. Imagine if you will, an untamed bull.And in fact, in my mind right now, I'm actually thinking of this first rodeo I went to and it was amazing because these guys are trying to tame this bull. Literally, these enormous men are being dragged around three or four of them dragged around on a rope as they're trying to pull the ball back in and the bull just shakes its head the all three of them get flogged. go flying.That's thisGod,no one.No one contained this man, not even Jack Reacher, such as no hope.Then verse nine, Jesus said to him, What is your name? And he replied, My name is Legion, for we are many. Well, in the Roman period back in Roman times, the Roman Empire and so forth, a legion was 6000 soldiers.If this demons name at this time in history is Legion, it stands to reason his name is Legion, because that's the term that was used to describe a group of 6000.You may say, how can 6000 Demons possess one guy? Well, their spirit, they're not for that flesh. So they, you know, the whole business of physics doesn't matter to them, I suppose. I don't know how this happens. But you'll also notice that that when they're cast out, they asked to be cast into the pigs and 2000 of the pigs are possessed. So there's at least 2000 of them.That's extraordinary.Now, if this were turned into a TV show, or a movie,I suspect it would go something like this. Here's this man who's tearing apart chains who nobody can tame, and they figured how to film all that stuff. Then Jesus shows up and you can see it, there'll be lights from behind him with a smoke machine.And there's a sort of a shadow and Jesus is there, and he's getting ready to deal with me that will get the stamp your feet shoulder width apart, you know, getting down getting ready. And here comes the guy and he's getting ready to take on Jesus and all the rest. And it would be very tense, the music would play, we'd all be drawn into this. But that's exactly not how it happens in Mark five. I love the way it happens in Mark five.Because what happens in what in verse 13? Here, these the demons are pleading with Jesus.He says, What is your name? And the answer, my name is Legion. Then verse 13, I love these these words, they'd asked to go into the pigs and Jesus gives permission6000 demons,they need permission to do anything. 6000 demons, and dare I say it, I don't want to be. I don't want to make the little anything here. But if Jesus had had pockets, they did not have pockets in that day.pockets or development of the Middle Ages, we can have that lecture later. If Jesus had had pockets, it's almost as though he'd be standing in his pockets on one foot, the other one ahead. So I'm nodding his head, get out.And they scream at him. Don't send us into the abyss.And he says, Well, where do you want to go? Into the pigs?Okay, and they go, and they're goneforevermore.That's power.He doesn't have to try. He doesn't have to hunker down. He doesn't have to get ready. Jesus has real power. And what I love about this, as I said, this is a real story. But it is also a real story that gives us a picture of our lives with sin.You see, when Jesus deals with your sin and mine? It's not as though Jesus has to come at it and hope that you can win and battle it and all the rest of it. No, no, Jesus has power over sin in your life, just like he had power over 6000 demons. And this is a reminder to ourselves that you and I we cannot overcome the power of sin. Much like this man could not overcome the power of these demons. We do not have it in ourselves. You don't I don't nobody does to overcome sin of our own accord. Now, yes, there are times in which you can do things to help yourself not be tempted by sin. Man, if you're here today, and you have struggled with pornography, then one of the things you should be doing is giving your phone to your wife,saying here, I'm not going to be alone for the next four hours, I would like you to have my phone, please do this. There's just some sensible things you can do.But the real power that comes that frees you from sin only comes from Jesus. on that. Notice, again, I teach church history when I have the opportunity to teach. And so if you go back in time to the fourth century, the guy named Jerome, if you if you grew up in the Catholic Church, you'll know the Catholic church for many years, you had to follow the liturgy in Latin till about the mid 20th century and then you're allowed to do it in English and other Latin, Spanish and other languages and so forth. But for a very long time, everything was in Latin and the even the Bible that you heard read was in Latin. Well, that Bible that you heard read, if you grew up in the Catholic Church was the translation that Jerome did way back in the fourth century. So that helps you contextualize that's the Jerome I'm talking about.Well, Jerome struggled with lost.So he thought I know how to defeat this.He, first of all, he took his flip phone and put it away for century. He then decided I'm going to go out and live like a hermit in the middle of the desertand hedid and he ate, he actually tells us in a letter, he tells us I went out there, I had no shelter, I only had the water, I could barely scrape up wherever I could find little bits of water, I ate scorpions, I ate grasshoppers, I ate whatever I could find mean he was and he was punishing himself for his sin. And then he said something interesting in this letter, because he reflecting on it later in life. He said, You know, for everything that I did myself, for everything that I tried to impose upon myself, externally, as it were,I would still fall asleep at night, and he said, quote, I found myself among amongst a bevy of women in Rome.And it's at that moment that he realized I can deny myself everything go out in the desert, leave everything behind. But nothing has the power over sin in my heart like Jesus. And so he had to turn to Christ and ask Christ to deal with them, and Christ did. Why, because Jesus power is real power. Second, not only is Jesus power real, it restores me fully. Jesus power restores you fully.If you read Mark five, from a Jewish perspective, as of course, was the context there, Jesus was wandering around Israel. If you read the story, from a Jewish perspective, it's kind of different. Because there are at least three ways in which this man is unclean. The Old Testament has lots of laws about what is clean and unclean. This man was unclean in at least three ways. First of all, he was possessed by demons, that's sort of a given, he is not considered clean in terms of, of the of the temple. Second, he lived amongst the tombs, and connections with the dead directly, were considered unclean. And then third, it appears from everything that we know about this man that he was a Gentile, he was not a Jew. And they, in that time, they considered God didn't, but they considered the Gentiles to be unclean. So this man is three times unclean.But what I love is that after he's met Jesus,he's no longer a man who's full of demons, he's now completely free and full of Jesus, which means he's clean on one account. He then tells the man go home to your family. Jesus has restored relationships, he's now clean in a second place is no longer in the tombs. He's now with his community. And then third, Jesus accepts him.He actually commissioned him to be an evangelist, when he says there at the end, go home and tell your friends.I love the fact that a man who begins this story unclean three times over what hope is there for him,ends up being clean,tap, absolutely wonderful. And in fact, it's wonderful, even in the bigger picture of what's going on here. I didn't read it. And I'm not going to take the time now. But if you look at the story just before this one, it's a story of the disciples who were in the midst of a storm there on August, when we started reading, as I said, they came to the other side of the sea, they're on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. And on that night, when they were going over on the boat, and enormous storm whips up, and they're all worried they're going to die in the storm and drown in the storm.And Jesus stands up. And he simply says, Peace be still. And immediately.The water is like a mirror.And the winds have died down, Jesus demonstrated his power over creation.After this story, there are a couple of other things that take place, there's a woman who has an issue of blood, and she's unhealthy, and she can't do anything about it. And Jesus simply heals her. And then a story after that Jesus meets somebody who says, his daughter has died.And he raises that daughter from the deadis the most remarkable part of Mark's gospel apart from Jesus own the story of Jesus death and resurrection. Because we see that Jesus power is a power that restores it restores chaos and creation to peace. It restores broken fellowship, broken relationships, broken community, so that people now have family again.And it's absolutely wonderful how it restores those who are dead to life.And that's what you and I look forward to eternal life.So in other words, if I could put it this way, when we think about Jesus power restored you fully, I want you to consider that regardless of your situation this morning. Jesus has the power to heal you. Jesus has the power to cleanse Jesus has the power to restore. Jesus has the power to sayI don't know the song but while I was wondering about outside in the hallway there there's music playing and I just happened to catch some of the lyrics I thought it was amazing. One of the lyrics actually said, even if you have I'm not gonna remember because I just heard it but even if you have like 1000 10,000 scars,he can heal you.He can heal you. Doesn't matter what you come to Jesus with. He hasThe power to heal. So you see Satan's plan is to dehumanize you and leave you in fear but Jesus power is real. And he restores you fully. And that leads us to third and finally, our peace.And here I simply want to say that our peace sometimes comes with a struggle.There is some confusion actually in this text.I'm not going to read it all well, I'm gonna tell you what I mean by this. It's kind of interesting the way the text deals with describing this demon possessed man before he's healed by Jesus. He uses the term we use is me he we they let me just tell you what I mean, Here, read this. When he said that's the demon possessed man saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him make sense. And crying out with a loud force. He said, What have you to do with me? Jesus, Son of the Most High God, I drew you by God, don't do not torment me. For Jesus was saying, come out. And Jesus asked him, What is your name? And he said, my name is Legion, for we are many. So now it's getting confusing, is it? Amira, we, and he begged Him earnestly not to send them out into the country. And you go on and on and there's a them there's a we there's a he, there's a they, okay, like what's going on here? What's the confusion here.And the problem is, of course, that we're trying to the mark, as the author is trying to distinguish between and differentiate between the man himself, and then the demons in the man.And that's something that we need to make sure we do as well.We need to understand that sin is both a part of us. But it is not all of who I am.So often, people will say, and I've lived in different parts of the country, and for example, in Alabama, and I discovered in Alabama, apparently, they have a small love affair with football.If you know anything about Alabama, don't be offended. Roll Tide.Lots of stories. Yeah, sorry, for those of you who are Eagle fans, but at any rate, what's amazing to me about that is, is you will ask somebody tell me about yourself. And one of the things they would say in a church setting when they'd say, Well, I'm an Alabama fan, or I'm an Auburn fan.I don't think I ever said it out loud, because I tried to be careful.But I know what they're saying. And I know the conversation that context and all the rest of but there was always a part of me that wanted to say, no.You actually believe that some part of your identity has to do with the thing that you love in sports. What you need to say is, I'm a Christian, I'm a follower of Jesus. I'm one who has been redeemed by the blood of a lamb. However, you want to say that if you are a follower of Jesus, if you are a Christian, that is your identity, period.Other things can follow.But that's always what you should say, first, I am a Christian, I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. Because to get back to the original point that I made early on, this is a man who is bound by sin.If you hear nothing else, and remember nothing else from this morning, and these few minutes that I've been speaking here, remember this, for those who are Christians, for those who are in Christ, for those who are followers of Jesus, you are no longer under the dominion of sin, you are free.Now, you may say, But hold on, I still wrestle with sin.Let's because the presence of sin is still in you until Jesus comes again, or until you die and go to be with him. And so you wrestle with the presence of that sin. But the thing that is so different about you and me is for those of us who are believers in this room, if you're not under the dominion, you have the power to say NO to temptation.You have the powers, we sung to say, the name of Jesus, I love that line till every addiction is overcome.You have that power.You see before you didn't have that power.I remember when I was at seminary sitting in a class, it was a counseling class, and I'm no counselor, but I thought I should at least take a few classes to kind of figure this thing out.And sitting next to me as we started the class was a guy who was a fair bit older than me. And we went around the class at the beginning the first day, and that presser wanted to know why you taking this class.And one of the interesting thing is is this, this guy said, Well, he said I've been a social worker for years.And he said for years and years and years as a social worker before I came to faith in Christ, I was really frustrated because he said I could help kids with a certain in a certain situation. Usually it was some sort of violence. And he said I couldn't get them to pull back on that violence. I could get them to calm down, but he said you wouldn't believe it. Kids of a certain violent nature. I could help them with that. They'd be back within a year or two almost always and they turned into arsonists. Burning everything they could find.And he said I could tell you story after story after story but it dawned on me all I'm doing I don't know if you've ever been to the county fair or something, you know that Whack a Mole game. The moles come up, you take the hammer, you whack them all.The more you act and the more that come up, and he said, I realized that unless there's something more than what I can offer, and what all this world has to offer, when it comes to the sin and comes to the plight of these kids, these high school kids was his specialty. He said, then there's nothing, there's no hope. And it's at that point that he found Christ. And he began to see that the only hope for these kids was Jesus. And as he began to change the way he dealt with those kids, he said, it is absolutely marvelous. I'm no longer playing Whack a Mole. The violent kids who come to me and I work with them, I share with them the gospel, we read through the Scriptures, and the ones who come to faith. They've never yet come back with as arsonists.They don't desire to burn anything. Instead, they burn for Jesus.You see, that's our piece.When whatever your sin may be the the violence subsides, the anger subsides, the loneliness can can dissipate, the helplessness is given help and strength.So yes, this is a picture of the fact that sin can bind. But it's a wonderful picture, fabulous pictureof the mercy of God, in helping us come to that place of peace, and live like it was intended for us to live. You see, God's mercy is relentless.You know, Psalm 23, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.And if you do read it this afternoon, and then if you don't know, but the last verse says, surely, goodness, and mercy will follow me. All the days of my life follow is a is actually a poor translation.It's actually Surely goodness and mercy will pursue meall the days of my life.And that was written by King David, he knew that that pursuit of Jesus after you didn't just begin before you were saved an end when you're saved. That pursuit of his goodness and His mercy. And his kindness is unrelenting until the day you appear before him and see him eyeball to eyeball.He will not let you go the one who has power to do the demonic forces, the one who has power against your sin, to simply say, you're forgiven, be gone, is the one who doesn't leave you nor forsake you.You may say, Well, this man wasn't allowed to be with Jesus. In this case, I suppose you're right, in one sense.But he did something even more. And that's what I want to leave you with this morning. Verse 19, the very towards the very end of this story. Jesus did not permit him to come with him. Instead, he said, Go home, to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how He has mercy on you.This morning, that's exactly the same word to you. Because this is not just a story about this man. This is not just a story that we read and go home and say, Well, that was interesting. It's in the Bible because it is a directive for us. So when you go home this afternoon, when you show up to work tomorrow, when you're with your family on Tuesday night, when you're visiting with friends on Wednesday morning when you're having coffee with someone on Thursday. Remember these words, go to your family and to your friends, and tell them that the mercy of God has come to you.Our gracious heavenly Father, we give you thanks that your mercy has come to us. We give you thanks so Lord, that You are the one who has power over sin, real power.You are not struggling against sin as though it is hard for you.Just as in creation, as we read it in the book of Genesis, you spoke and there was light, you spoke and the earth came to be you spoke andanimals were created. You spokeand Adam and Eve became what they are.You need only speak against sin. You need only speak against Satan.And they have no power. Lord, I pray that You would help us to live in that power in that reality that we might truly know your redemption. And Father, I pray especially for anyone here this morning, who does not know the power of Jesus over sin over Satan over this world, that today might be the day of their salvation, that today might be the day in which they can go home and they can say to their family, I have received mercy and that mercy has come from Jesus. Let me tell you what he has done for me. And we ask all of this in his powerful name. Amen.

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