We're going to continue today to make our way through the gospel of Luke. We've been in Luke now for some time. We're now to chapter 8. Scripture lesson today will be a little longer than has been over the past few weeks, but we're going to read verses 26 through 39. An account here of Jesus healing a man with a demon and said to be a legion of demons, plural. Jesus has been teaching, of course. He has performed miracles. He has offended the Pharisees. He has just now calmed a storm, his disciples in amazement and in awe and what he did on the Sea of Galilee and he reaches the other side of that journey and And that's where we pick up in verse 26 of Luke chapter 8. Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes and had not lived in a house but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, What have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me. For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles. But he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert. Jesus then asked him, What is your name? And he said, Legion, for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned. When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed man had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him. But Jesus sent him away saying, return to your home and declare how much God has done for you. And he went away proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him. I would like to share with you today about this man whom Christ healed on this day of the many demons, Legion, as he even referred to himself. It is a strikingly different scene that we leave with than we began with relation to this man. And I am also struck this morning by the fact that this is certainly not something that you and I have observed, I don't believe. Perhaps some have. I do believe demon possession still happens. I do believe it's still certainly possible, but certainly this account is something that is marvelous to us. It's something that would no doubt have a great impact on us were we to see such a thing. But I'm struck this morning about what some might say as, well, this is an account that I simply can't believe this kind of thing doesn't happen. I'm struck by the fact that we don't have, as I have shared before, a similar thought I've had in the past, there's no collection of writings where the herdsmen on this day, when Luke penned this, and he wrote it some decades later, yet no doubt there would have been men alive who would have said, that didn't happen that way. We don't have people who would stand and proclaim and have written and have said, all of these things that the Bible says are true didn't happen. We don't have people who said, no, I saw the disciples take Jesus' body from the tomb. I saw them overcome the soldiers at the entrance of the tomb with the stone rolled there. I saw them, and this is all one big hoax. We don't have that. We have the written account of four men and others, Paul certainly being primary among them, writing about the life of Christ. And here, on this occasion, Jesus casts out a legion of demons from a man. And for us, sometimes that might be difficult for us to identify with. But I think that we need to bridge that gap as I begin today. And I think that gap is bridged when we come to the confirmation or the understanding that the Bible tells us, and I think our own experience confirms for us, that though you may not be demon possessed by a thousand demons, we yet still struggle, all of us do, with sin. The Bible is clear to us, teaches it plainly again and again. the reality of sin and our separation from God apart from Jesus Christ. You see, that's what Jesus did when he came into the world. He came to bleed and die and pay the penalty of sin. That's why he came. But as I studied this and I thought about the many things that that the Lord might have me to say. The first struggle that I had and I wrestled with with the Lord is, how can we bridge this gap between us saying, well, I'm not one who's been demon possessed. I don't have a thousand demons inside of me that Jesus needs to cast out. I think the bridge is, again, how that though that may be true, there is in us A sinful separation from God outside of Jesus Christ. This man lived among the tombs, ran around naked and unclothed and in shame. seized repeatedly, we're told, and controlled by these demons. Couldn't be constrained by the community. They tried to put him in chains and control him, and he would break out of them. And so, certainly there are some supernatural things going on here. and even as Jesus meets him and and there's some there's some interesting back and forth as I tried to map in my mind what is going on here as Jesus steps on to land it said he met a man who was possessed of many demons And he confronts this man, and yet it seems to be that it's the demon who's doing the talking, or at least one of them speaking on behalf of all the others. It seems like that's who's doing the talking. And I thought, how do we map this to us today? Because certainly I do believe, as I've said, that there are moments and there are places that I think that we, as human beings, have the ability to I can't think to flirt with sin or to invite it or to entertain it in our lives to such a degree that it gives the enemy of our souls a foothold in our life. And yet, how do we bring this back to us? How can we see us in this? What is being said that we ought and need to take away from this? And I thought of the many scriptures that tell us of the reality that while we might not be overtly possessed and controlled like this man was, that we might not be outwardly in as bad a place as it appeared that he is, inwardly, inwardly, sin is still that controls until Christ sets free. Ephesians tells us, you were dead, Paul says, in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. Following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, and listen what he says, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. In Romans, Paul lays out for all of us, Jew, religious, pious, a good person outwardly or not, whatever your heritage, whatever your skin color, whoever you are, Paul says we are all sinners. Tells us all that we are. And though we might not be like this man possessed by these legion of demons, we are. We are apart from Christ. We are, in some degree, controlled by that nature of sin. I ask you today, is it hard to sin? Or do you find it rather natural? Do you find it rather easy, we might say? It's just, do you find going with the flow sends you down a path of righteousness or sends you down a path of sin and rebellion and rejection against God? And now listen, I don't want to be like so many others have been, where we take a baseball bat with the word of God and we beat people over the head with it and say, you're nothing but a sinner. Because listen, The opportunity we have, the potential that we have as human beings created in the likeness of God, is more amazing than we could ever imagine. I look forward to one day being done with sin. Right now, though, it continues to vex me. As Paul said, it would. And though I have not, at least as I have experienced it, been controlled by demons, I certainly have been controlled by sin in my life. And it rings true with what the scriptures say. But not only Ephesians, we could read scripture after scripture after scripture that tells us this is the problem. Our problem isn't that we don't have enough money. Our problem isn't that we're not good enough looking. Our problem isn't that we're not smart enough. Our problem isn't that we don't have this or that. Our problem is anything that would separate us from the God who created us. But with him and in him, then all the other things in life will be sorted out. But John 8, 34, Jesus says it this way, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin, listen to what he said, is a slave to sin. First John 5, 19, we know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. Not demon possessed, but sin yet still vexes us all. And this man, certainly we can see him as an extreme example of this. And though, again, we might not match that extreme example, there's some similarities here that I think are worth noting. This man was alive spiritually, or physically, but certainly dead spiritually. Outwardly, it seemed like life. Inwardly, There was none. Inclined to evil, again, the wrong things just seem to come so naturally and without effort on our part. The restraints that we place on ourselves, like the people of the community tried to restrain this man, the restraints we place on ourselves, or, again, those that others place upon us to control our sin, are so easily broken. You ever tried to Why this comes to mind, it's a silly thought. I walk our dogs frequently and the newest one, Henry, to us is a big dog. He's not a big dog. He's a very small dog. Yet, when he decides he wants to go somewhere, he's a bit of a He's a bit of a little guy to control. Sarah doesn't like to walk him at all anymore when he's like that. It's more for her to control. Have you ever tried to control an animal that wanted to do something that you didn't want it to do? It's almost like that's a little bit how sin is. You ever tried to control it? You can't. You can't. I bet you've tried. I'm not gonna get angry like I always get angry. I'm not gonna submit to that. Passion of mine. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do that. I ask you out apart from Christ How is that working? For you not demon-possessed but many of us at times where the work where it's controlled It seems by those sinful passions that we can't seem to overcome repeating patterns known to be wrong yet seemingly powerless to stop them This man, unable to free himself, seemingly, by all evidence, didn't have the ability to free himself. And sometimes, though we sense that bondage of sin within us, though we sense it and we acknowledge it and we're aware of it and we think, boy, I don't want to go down this path, but it seems like I don't have an ability to avoid it. It seems like I can't control it. It seems almost like I'm possessed. They sense the bondage, but they cannot break free of it on their own. No matter how many times, and no matter how sincerely we may try, this man living among the tombs rather than a house, and naked instead of clothed, and like him, sometimes we can live lives in shame as a result of these things. Lives lived in isolation and loneliness. This man provides us, I believe, with an intensified sharp color, full HD, as they would say, picture of what everyone looks like apart from Christ and why we need his forgiveness and his redemption. This man is somehow alive and yet dead at the same time until he meets Jesus, until he's confronted by Christ until his sin meets Christ. The demonic voice that we hear in response as Jesus asked who his name is and he said It's Legion, and I won't take much time. I'm sure maybe something of an elephant in the room that might grab your attention, and I don't want your attention to be on this, so I'll address it so that we can move on. You know, why the pigs? What was this all about? Why did he cast them there? What was the point? Why did the demons want to be cast there instead of into the abyss? And that word abyss, it might unlock a little bit of the understanding to realize that that is the same Greek word that is translated bottomless pit time and time again in the book of Revelation. I believe the demons are simply saying to Christ, who acknowledged him by the way? Did you notice that? They named him. What do you have? What are you doing with us? Jesus thou son of the most high God. They knew him because they'd seen him long before this day had happened. They knew him the day that they had been cast out following Lucifer from heaven. And so they knew him, and they called upon him, and they said, don't cast us into the abyss, the bottomless pit. Don't cast us where we know you can. Let us go into this herd of pigs. Well, why the herd of pigs? All kinds of speculation. The text doesn't tell us, so it's all speculation. but maybe they wanted to do even more damage, and what ended up being the case? They went into the pigs, the pigs went into the lake, they all drowned, and the people of the city said, would you please leave? This is not very economically advantageous for us. And that's all worth thinking about. That's not what I want us to see, what I feel like we need to see today. But listen, when our sin, as this man was in his being confronted with Christ, as these demons were confronted by Christ, When we're confronted, our sin is confronted with Christ, there's power to overcome what we ourselves never could. There's power to escape the shame and the separation and the loneliness of sin. We can break out of that pattern that has been running our life to this point. When Jesus is present, there is power available to absolutely change our lives in an indescribably advantageous way. the enemy of our souls who hates everything, by the way. I think God has a sense of humor. I think he loves joy. I think he loves to see his children joyful. I think the enemy of our souls has nothing but hatred. If we knew the hatred that burns in him, I think we would be far more concerned about what he wants to do to us and in us. But he wants us to believe that there is no hope. This is who we are. will never be changed. We're always going to be this way. But listen, this is the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He has the power to overcome sin. When I was 11 years old and God convicted me of my sin, moments before that, I would have said to you, I'm not demon-possessed. I'm a pretty good kid. I don't get into a lot of trouble. but then the preaching of the word and John 3 16 is where the preacher was that day and he and I'd heard that I had heard that again and again and again by the time I was 11 years old but that day all of a sudden by the working of the Holy Spirit in my heart and he and I all of a sudden I could see oh Jesus died for me and he died for me because I'm I'm a sinner I've lied, I've stolen, I've cheated, all of these things. I've had horrible thoughts go through my mind. I am not righteous on my own. He died because I'm a sinner. That's what he did. And so do you see how we remove the joy of the Christian life when we don't begin with the reality of sin? Look, if none of us are sinners, then what in the world was Jesus doing on the cross? He was taking the penalty of our sin on that day. But Jesus confronts this man, and when I was 11 years old, and God convicted me of my sin, and I knew that I was lost, and it came with a burden and a brokenness, and I don't want to overstate it, because I don't want you to seek merely an experience. I want you to seek Christ, and He's gonna give you the experience. Seek Him. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus has the power to overcome what we cannot. When I was 11 years old, I'd already gone down to the front of the church and said, yes, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Interestingly enough, these demons already knew that. I knew no more than they did. But when I was convicted and I called out to God in repentance for sin and faith in Christ, He gave me peace and the sin that though yet this fleshly tabernacle still houses sin and I still struggle with it, there's that within me that God has made righteous and holy and not my righteousness, but the righteousness of Christ. I have nothing with which to boast except this, Jesus' blood has saved my soul. Romans 5.20, the law came in to increase the trespass. Paul is just saying, look, the law, all it does is show you your sin. You know, people have said, Sermon on the Mount, we should do what Jesus said there. We shouldn't hate people, you know, because that's the same as murder. We shouldn't lust after people because that's the same as adultery. Sure, but what Jesus was telling us there, you can't keep. this law. You haven't, and you won't. But I did. The law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. You know, some have the idea that Satan is the opposite of God. I've spoken about this in the past as well. You have God, and then his opposite, Satan. In some ways, that might hold, but this can imply, incorrectly, that Satan possesses the same power as God, and he does not. It's like two college teams, and this happens over years, you know, where there used to be this great rivalry, because one team would win, the next year the other team would win, all the games would be close, and it was like there was this equality of capability, and that's what made them rivals. People can see God and Satan that way. No. Satan's power's far greater than our own, by the way. He's been observing human nature for thousands of years. He doesn't have to read my mind. He's seen people just like me. He's seen people react in certain situations. He doesn't have to. His power is far greater than mine, but certainly it's a candle next to the sun with regard to God and His power. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus can overcome this. He can fix this, and He can fix us. He can fix you. I want you to see this good news today. I hope God, by His Holy Spirit, will show you the good news of the gospel. I don't care how long you've been controlled by sin. Jesus can free you. I don't care how long you've lived in the nakedness and shame of sin. Jesus can restore your dignity and clothe you in the righteousness of His Son. I don't care how powerless to change your heart you have been. Jesus can give you a new one. He wants to. I don't care how many demons you've been fighting, with the word Jesus can cast them all away. And that is what he does. Not only can Jesus do this, he will. He did here. Listen to these scriptures. This is good, Paul says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 2, 3, and 4. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 2 Peter 3.9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish. that all should reach repentance. Not only can He, but He will. He says it's His will to do so. That He desires to do so. And not only can He and will He, He has many times in the past. Countless. John, as he was being given the revelation on the Isle of Patmos by the Lord, he said that he beheld a multitude in white robes which were just numberless. Hebrews chapter 11 lists 16 different names of those who through great trial believed and had faith in Christ. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, and Samuel. And Paul goes on then to say others, countless others, and we're surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses. We're not making this up. This is real. This happens. God changes our hearts. He makes us new. He draws us to Him, and He separates us from our sin, and He gives us peace, and He makes us one of his children and bound and ready for an eternity in heaven where we can only begin to imagine what that life is going to be like. I don't believe it's merely going to be one eternal church service. I think it's going to be life the way that life was intended to be. And we can only begin to imagine it. And there's just countless men and women who will tell you today, God did that for me. Don't ever discount your individual testimony. It is Powerful. He did that for me. He changed me. He's not only can He, not only will He, He has. He has for many who are stuck in sinful lifestyles, stuck in the bondage of sin. He has for those who openly opposed Him, even Paul the Apostle as an example. You may be opposing him today. You may be in obstinate rebellion against the Holy Spirit as he is dealing with your heart. You may be saying, no, as Jesus says, you're a sinner and I came to save you from that sin. You may be in obstinate rejection against him, and I pray that you, like Paul, will one day have that defense broken through. and see that the only path forward for you is one of two, the path that leads to destruction and sin and your own choice and your own sinful desires, or the path that leads to righteousness and peace and liberty. Only can he, not only will he, he has, and not only that, he will for you if you call on him. I love these passages in Jeremiah 29, verse 13. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. And I'll tell you, that all your heart, that's the trick. Not haphazardly, not, Lord, I'll give you an hour and a half on a Sunday. I'll go to church. You know what you don't find here, by the way? When Jesus shows up on the scene, do you see these demons negotiating? You do. But this is not a negotiation from position of equal power. They're begging. When we come to Christ, it's not seek Him with some of us, but even those dark corners of our heart that we don't want anybody to see, we don't even want to look at ourselves. Ever had something in your life that you just didn't want to look at it? because you knew you needed to deal with it. I have. We all have. Even that part. Seek Him with all your heart. You'll find Him. We might then say, if we don't seek Him with all our heart, we don't have that promise. It's all or nothing. You see, Jesus did not give part of Himself when He came into the world and bled on the cross and died. He gave all of Himself for you, and He calls in return for all of you to depend upon Him. Isaiah 55 repeating and reinforcing this idea. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the upright man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. We want to work towards closing of our remarks today. I ask that the Lord would help us as we do. Verse 35 says that then people went out to see what had happened and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. I believe this is an important thing for us as we look at this passage. This man, once possessed by legion, is now sitting at the feet Christ I believe that there is in this I pray that it is not me inserting upon scripture What is not there, but I believe that there is demonstration here of this man's Volition and his will and his obedience To come to Christ. It's one thing for Jesus to have cast the demons out and and you know, that's what what it would have been an incredible and for Jesus to have done that. He had just done that. He just cast out the demons, but the man clearly here has chosen to sit at the feet of Christ. And nowhere in scripture, nowhere in scripture, in my opinion, does Christ compel and obligate and control anyone against their own will. He casts the demons out, and now this man can at least begin to see. He opens his eyes enough for him to be able to see. Jesus had cast out the demons, but the man had chosen to sit at Jesus' feet. We must not miss that. No one forced him to do so. One wonders, by the way, how he got into this predicament. And again, the scriptures are silent, but at times we think, well, I'm not controlled by a demon like that. And again, I would say to you, perhaps that's true, and likely it is, but what sin are we are we playing with in our life that is a foothold for the cause of Satan in our hearts to distance us from life and from God. But once that sin, once those demons have been cast away, now the man chooses to sit at Jesus' feet. Jesus, listen, he opens our eyes, but we must choose to see. This wasn't about just getting rid of the demons for this man. It was about gaining Christ. It's not just about being a better person. It's not that he says, boy, I'm glad that those demons are no longer bothering me and that that particular sin, maybe I'll have some advantage over it now. But that's not what it was. It's not just about being better people. It's about shaping our lives at the feet of Christ, the one who has delivered us from the sin that we could not deliver ourselves from. The instruction to salvation found in Scripture is this. It's twofold. It is simple. It is not complicated. It does not require a degree in theology. It does not require a great amount of understanding of Scripture. It's twofold. It's this. You're a sinner. And so the requirement for salvation is repentance and faith. That's it. No more, but certainly no less. That's it. It's not to be able to read the Bible in Greek in its original language. It's not to be able to recount everything that happened in Scripture. It's not to read all 66 books and have all, what is it, 1,088 chapters memorized. It's not any of that. It's repentance and faith. And God knows when you do that. Because God and God alone can see into your heart to know when it's happened. And He does open our eyes. When I was 11 years old and God convicted me of sin, and I thank God that I didn't. I don't say that to boast me up because there's... Look, if you knew me well, you'd know very well I have nothing to boast of except for the goodness of Christ in my heart. I'm not a good man apart from Christ. I have no ability to do good things apart from Him. It doesn't matter how many sermons I've tried to preach, how many places I've tried to go, there's nothing about me that's good except for the righteousness of Christ. That's it. But he did that for me when I was 11 years old. He set my feet on a path, on a rock that is steady, and it is held through good times and bad times, through times of great gain and times of terrible loss. But he has done that because he's righteous, and he opened my eyes one day. But when he opened my eyes that day, I had to choose to see. I had to look, and I had to bow, and I had to acknowledge, and I had to say, yes, you're right, I'm a sinner. Tears don't save you. You don't have to cry outwardly to be saved. But there's going to be a brokenness in there somewhere, somehow, someway. As the psalmist said, God is near to them that are broken and a contrite spirit. Your eyes can be opened to it, but you must choose to see. This wasn't just about getting rid of the demons for this man. It was again about gaining Christ. Salvation is not just about escaping hell and its demons. It's about gaining heaven and its Christ. And if you choose one instead of the other, you're going to be disappointed. To attempt—listen, this, I think, is a thought directly from the Lord. He wanted me to give to you exactly as He gave it to me. To attempt to gain Christ apart from repentance is to attempt the impossible. To attempt to escape hell without placing your faith in Christ is to attempt the pointless. There's no point. If all we're trying to do is gain Christ apart from repenting of our sin, we've missed the entire point of it all. Pointless because hell is to be without Christ. That's what hell is. It's to be without Christ. So to try to gain heaven apart from Christ is completely pointless. It's like Jesus said to those in Laodicea, look, you're not hot, you're not cold. I'd rather you be one or the other. What are you doing? Who's playing games? Why are you playing games with me? Why are you trying to make me think something I know isn't true about you? and you know isn't true about you. This man sitting at the feet of Christ, he's clothed, he's no longer living in the shame that he was living in, but his heart had been clothed with the righteousness of Christ and his body now reflected that as well, a man of dignity. with the dignity of what it is to be human. And if there's something that I lament in our day and age, it is that we have lost, largely, as a culture, as a people, populating the world, it seems to me, we have lost the dignity of what it means to be human, created in the very image of God. About no other animal did the scripture say that. We ought to treat animals well. I love our dogs. They're good little dogs. They bring us joy. But they're dogs. I'm sorry, Connie, they're dogs. But God has made humans human. We're marvelously and fearfully made, according to the psalmist. clothed with the dignity of the righteousness of Christ. And it also said he was in his right mind, thinking and seeing clearly for the first time, seeing the world and himself and others correctly for the first time, like a man who never knew his eyes were bad until an optometrist gives him a pair of glasses with his prescription. I remember when I first got glasses, I think I was in eighth grade. I was one of those kids with glasses. But I remember thinking, I don't remember who it was. Obviously, probably a teacher noticed I couldn't see very well. And I remember that first time getting glasses. I'm like, wow, that's pretty cool. I can deal with the four eyes comments. That's pretty cool. You know, sometimes people are afraid to see and come to Christ and let him give them the spiritual glasses they need because they're worried about what other people are going to say. Listen, that's not going to be a big deal based on what you're going to be able to see. sharply and in great clarity the eternity that you you know is there it's like it's there you know it something in the human heart that knows it it's pre-programmed we're more than just the matter that makes us up there's more to this The devil's taking us a long way down the road if we ignore that reality that even our heart speaks of. I didn't tell you that. Your heart did. God did. That there's more to life than these few years that we live here. Sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and I don't want to miss what this is, and I will close soon. What was the reaction of the other people? They were afraid. You know, sometimes when we come to Christ, depending on the circumstances of our life, the people that knew us before, they might look at us, and in some sense, though they might not say it this way, they'd be just a little bit afraid. Well, you're different. You look the same outside. You live in the same place. Your voice sounds the same. It's just something different. And the difference can be fear. inspiring in the hearts of others. When God changes our hearts, it is something that impacts not only us, but I do believe that others see, in some sense, and I'm not talking about just being a good person, and now all of a sudden you're going to church. Look, a lot of people go to church. Whole lot of people go to church. It's not bought anybody a centimeter closer to the Lord. The only thing that's done that is the cross of Christ. I want to say this and I'll close. I love verse 39 where we're told, you know, the man, verse 38 and 39, he says, Lord, I want to go with you. Jesus is getting back into the boat. He's leaving. This man who's just now freed him, who's just now opened his eyes, who's just now given him life again and life anew, and he's leaving. And so naturally, the man wants to go with him. Lord, I just want to go with you. I just want to be with you. And anybody who's ever met the Lord and knows the Lord, isn't that what we want? That's really all we want. Lord, I just want to be with you. I remember going on a number of trips to different places, and I won't give the details. It's not important. I just remember going, I don't really want to go, Lord, but you told me to go, and so you must be going, and I want to go because you're going to be there, and I just want to be with you. Lord, I don't want to do this or that in my flesh. It's going to be inconvenient. It's going to be costly. It might be dangerous. I don't know, but Lord, you're going to go, and I just want to go because you're going to be there. And that's what this man, I think, is feeling. Lord, where are you going? I'm going, I'm staying with you. It's a good thing. It's a good intention. It's a good heart. But what does Jesus say? No, no, I have work for you to do here. Go and tell people all that God has done for you. This passage of scripture hits us all one way or the other. It ought to. I just want to be with Jesus, but it's like Paul when he said, I'm in a straight betwixt two. I'm in a quandary. I want to go home and be with the Lord in heaven. And yet it's beneficial because God has kept me here to be of help to you. So I ask you today, where does God want you to be? I know in your heart, if you know the Lord, that you just want to be with him. But where is he sending you? To whom is he sending you? When is he sending you? What are you saying as you leave the tombs to go share your testimony like this man did? That's what we want to know. That's what we want to do. But I sometimes wonder if our desire to be with Christ, and that's a good one. And by the way, Jesus said, I'm going to go away. I'm going to send the Comforter to be with you wherever you go. So we can always be with Christ. So don't misunderstand me, but sometimes I think our idea, I just want to, I want to be in a church service rejoicing with the Lord and, and on, on, on the mountaintop spiritually and revival after revival, and just surf the revivals until I get a spiritual high somehow. And Jesus is telling us, I don't want you there. I want you going into the world in the hard places and the difficult places and telling people what I've done for you. This isn't about you anymore, really never has been. Go and tell people what I have done for you. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. What do you think this political correctness has been all about for these decades? It's to prevent, in large part I believe, and maybe I'm silly, it's to close the lips of the redeemed of the Lord. Jesus saved my soul when I was 11 years old on a hillside in southwest Missouri at a campground there that I'd been to time and again. That day I met the Lord. He gave me peace. He gave me assurance of a hope in heaven. He put within me a new heart. Nothing changed outwardly. Life has been a struggle. It's not been a bed of roses. Despite what Joel Olsteen may say, it's not all good and easy and roses down here. It is hard. It is difficult in the world. Jesus, my Savior, said, You will have tribulation. Be of good cheer, though I have overcome the world. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I weren't, I wouldn't have told you that I am. And so I've got a place prepared for you, and if you'll come and be with me now, you'll be with me then. If you're not afraid to acknowledge me here, I will not be afraid to acknowledge you before my Father in heaven when you stand before us someday, and you will. There is service, there is worship, there is presence with Christ that we are joyful in the midst of and sometimes prefer. But what matters most is what is Jesus' call and will on our lives now that he has set us free from the sin that once shackled us. Paul says it this way, for me to live is Christ, to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me, yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. for me to live as Christ and to die as Cain. What a change in this man. What a work from Christ. How different was the end from the beginning for this man that we've read about. May we all gain from this passage today what God is communicating to us individually. Whether you're in the grasp of sin and shame, I tell you, as I finish, Jesus can set you free. If you're forgiven, redeemed, and already set free by Christ, then I beg you, tell others what God has done for you.