Message Information
- Key Scriptures: Luke 8:26-39, NASB
- Series: Luke (2025-2027), no. 23
- Date: Sunday, July 6, 2025 (Morning)
- Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
- Speaker: Jared Byrns
- Audio File: Open/Download
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The Hero the Jokes Could Never Describe
If you are of a certain age—those of us who, as my children say, were alive back in the 1900s—you probably remember Chuck Norris. Any of you remember Chuck Norris? Okay, for those of you who weren’t old enough to remember Chuck Norris, he was kind of the action hero of the 90s.
I am not sure exactly what he was famous for beyond roundhouse-kicking people in the face, but he had an entire television show about it. My mother still watches it. A few years ago, a group of jokes called “Chuck Norris facts” became popular online.
They were invented, exaggerated claims about how tough Chuck Norris was, and I always enjoyed them. They always made me laugh. And this week, I was looking at some that I could share this morning, and keep in mind, they’re supposed to be exaggerated about his abilities, but one of the Chuck Norris facts from the internet was Chuck Norris once roundhouse kicked a coal mine and turned it into a diamond mine.
I especially like this one: We have at least three science teachers in the room. Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table because he only recognizes the element of surprise.
Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird. I like that one. When Chuck Norris has surgery, the anesthesia is applied to the doctors.
There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live, okay? And when the boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of them online.
They make me laugh because we know they are exaggerated. No one is that tough, capable, fierce, or terrifying to his enemies.
But they also reveal something in us: we look for heroes like that. We want to believe there is somebody that can just roundhouse kick evil in the face and fix everything. If you watch the show, you want to believe there’s somebody who can fix everything in 60 minutes minus commercial breaks.
The reality is that Chuck Norris himself would probably acknowledge that he is not the all-powerful figure those jokes portray. He is not the all-powerful being that the Chuck Norris facts have presented him to be, but there is somebody who is. Chuck Norris may not make the boogeyman tremble, but Luke records a story in which Jesus made the powers of darkness tremble. Even Satan and every force of darkness must bow in acknowledgment before Jesus Christ. If you’re new with us this morning, we’ve been studying through the book of Luke for quite some time, going piece by piece through the book of Luke, and we’re in the latter part of chapter 8 this morning. Not the very end of chapter 8, but the latter part, and we’re going to start in verse 26.
Luke 8:26–39 records: Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite of Galilee. And when a man came out onto the land, he was met by a man from the city who was possessed with demons and who had not put on any clothing for a long time and was not living in a house but in the tombs.
Seeing Jesus, he cried out and fell before him and said in a loud voice, What business do we have with each other, 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 it had seized him many times and he was bound with chains and shackles and kept under guard and yet he would break his bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert and Jesus asked him what is your name and he said legion for many demons had entered him they were imploring him not to command them to go away into the abyss now there was a herd of many swine feeding there on the mountain and the demons implored him to permit them to enter the swine and he gave them permission And the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they ran away and reported it in the city and out in the country.
The people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man with whom the demons had gone out, or from whom the demons had gone out, sitting down at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they became frightened. Those who had seen it reported to them how the man who was demon-possessed had been made well. And all the people of the country of the Gerasenes and the surrounding district asked him to leave them, for they were gripped with great fear.
And he got into a boat and returned. But the man from whom the demons had gone out was begging him that he might accompany him. But he sent him away, saying, Return to your house and describe what great things God has done for you.
More Than a Prophet
So he went away proclaiming throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him. There is something I might not have noticed without our conversation last Sunday evening about Jesus calming the storm.
We discussed why the disciples were so surprised by what Jesus did. If they went and asked Jesus to calm the storm or to do something about the predicament they were in, why were they so surprised? Jonathan made an insightful observation that I wish I had made.
He pointed out that in the preceding chapters, many people regarded Jesus as a prophet. And he’s doing all these things that prophets do. Because my question was, if they had seen him heal people, and they had seen him raise somebody from the dead, why would they be so shocked?
If he can raise the dead, why would they be shocked that he could calm a storm? And what he pointed out was, up to this point, they think he’s a prophet, because the prophets have healed people. The prophets have spoken with authority.
The prophets, some of them have even raised the dead, Elijah and Elisha both. But when he stepped out and calmed that storm, He’s doing something no prophet had ever done. That explains why they were afraid.
And that’s why that section of the text ends with the question, what kind of man is this? Who is this really? Because they realize they’re following somebody who’s been sent by God, but up to this point, a lot of them probably think still that he’s just a prophet.
Well, now they’re seeing him do things that no prophet has ever done. And like I said, they ended that text with, who really is this? They continued their journey across the lake and received an even clearer picture of who Jesus really is. When all the powers, all the forces of darkness have to yield to his will and to his word. And I think the disciples are getting, just as we go on, a clearer and clearer glimpse.
This man was not merely a teacher or even merely a prophet.
He’s the Son of God. The demons recognized that. The demons had a deeper understanding of who Jesus was than his disciples did at this point.
Satan Is More Powerful Than We Are
But we start out by looking at the text and what was going on with this man, and we can’t help but notice that Satan is far more powerful than we are. This man was under demonic power and utterly helpless. I don’t think, even if he was messing around with spirits and things like that, I don’t think this man wanted to be the guy that lived out in the tombs and ran around the desert and cut himself with stones.
No one chooses such a life. I have mentioned before that I used to fall asleep watching the Travel Channel. One program might feature unusual food in Biloxi, and the next would take place in a supposedly haunted house. I did not want to watch that.
One night I woke up to a program in which men were walking through what they believed was a haunted place and daring spirits to reveal themselves. And I watched it for just a few minutes, and by the end of it, these guys are terrified, and not just TV terrified. I think they were legitimately terrified, had scratches on them.
You do not play with darkness. You cannot dabble in darkness and assume that you will remain in control.
I can let it into my life this much. Satan gets in. He takes everything.
And this man, we don’t know his story. We don’t know exactly how he started. At some point, this man came under demonic control, and it devastated his life.
Sin can work similarly—not by making every sinner demon-possessed, but by gaining more influence than we ever intended to give it. We tell ourselves, “I can take just a little of this. I know it is not what God wants, but I can accommodate it.” Then its power grows until we find ourselves somewhere we never intended to be. This man at some point, the door in his life had become open for this, and it devastated his life. We see that from the description.
Verse 27 tells us that he was possessed by demons. That word there, possessed, it means to be owned and controlled by. They weren’t just living inside him.
These demonic spirits were in control. It says in verse 27, he had not put on any clothing for a long time. This would have been a shameful condition in that culture.
That’s why it’s noted here, that he had not put on any clothes. He was living like an animal. Verse 27 also tells us he was not living in a home, but in the tombs. I had always pictured him wandering through cemeteries as we know them.
But that was not how the dead were buried in that place and time. They had tombs that were hewn out of the rock, basically caves. And so he’s wandering around the caves, spending all of his time with the bodies of the dead, and it was a, I think it was a picture of his spiritual condition.
This man was spiritually dead, as much as anybody in those tombs was physically dead. Verse 29 says that the demonic force within him had seized him many times. These demons caused a violent physical reaction within this man whenever they asserted control.
It wasn’t just a switch was flipped and suddenly the demons are in control. It was a violent seizure that he experienced. And he was bound with chains and shackles and kept under guard, and yet he would break his bonds.
Breaking the chains did not mean that he was free. They recognized, I think one of the other gospels tells us that he was so violent, nobody could pass down the road near him. And so they would try to restrain him with shackles, with bonds.
He was able to break free of them. And we might look at that and say, well, yeah, he was free. No, he was still enslaved to this force that enabled him to break the bonds, but also drove him out into the desert.
When it says desert, it means a wilderness place, a place where there’s no food, there’s no water, there’s no habitation, there’s no community. He’s just on his own with these dark forces where nobody would try to interfere. And this is what Satan does.
Jesus talks about the enemy coming to steal and kill and to destroy. And you and I are powerless to stop him. Now, if you’re a Christian, that probably sounds strange to you, if you’re already a believer in Christ, because we know that greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.
But I’m not talking about He who is in us. I’m not talking about Jesus at the moment. I’m saying if it’s just you or just me versus Satan, there is no question about who is more powerful.
People often dabble in darkness and think, well, I can dabble, I can control it, “I can set the limit and go no farther.” But Satan’s track record is undefeated. If given an inch, he will take a mile.
He’s far more powerful than we are. And this is what he does. He did not come to make our lives fun.
Jesus Is More Powerful Than Satan
He did not come to set us free from God’s rules. He came to enslave and to destroy us. But the good news is that Jesus is far more powerful than Satan.
When we get around verse 28, we start to see Jesus’ presence, and it’s enough that these demons take notice, and they come to meet him when he gets off the boat, or they lead the man to come and meet him when he gets off the boat. And in Jesus’ presence, these demons could only fall in fear and submission. They had to recognize his authority.
Verse 28, seeing Jesus, he cried out. It was the man’s voice, but another power controlled his words, and fell before him and said in a loud voice, what business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? This phrase that’s translated, what business do we have with each other?
If we translated it literally word for word from the Greek, it means what of you and me, which does not communicate much to modern readers, but it was an expression that they would use, meaning what kind of business do we have together. When it’s asked in a context like this, it could be seen as a request. “Please leave us alone. Please go away.”
It’s not time for this. You start comparing the other gospels and their accounts. The demons are saying, we know that there’s a time you’re coming to torment us, but “We did not think the appointed time had come yet.”
And so there is this strong reaction from these evil forces that Jesus shows up and they began to panic. Please leave us alone. What business do we have with each other.
The world sometimes imagines God and Satan as evenly matched opponents whose conflict has an uncertain outcome. The reality is nothing like that.
Jesus shows up, and all the demons of hell recoil in panic, and they had to recognize his authority. They called him the Son of God. They recognized him with an authority that even his disciples didn’t fully comprehend yet.
So he shows up, and they were powerless to resist him. They begged Him not to send them into the abyss. Please do not torment us.
There’s this begging. And Jesus tells them to come out, and there’s no argument that they have to come out, because he said it. So they don’t resist him.
They don’t try to disobey him. They can’t. The most they could do was plead about where they would go, because he’s already said, come out of the man.
They had no choice, So they’re going to try to negotiate their exit. They asked in verses 28 and 29 to be allowed to go into. .
. I’m sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. They asked in verses 32 and 33 to be allowed to go into the pigs.
We know we have to come out because you said so. But don’t send us into the abyss. They were begging not to be sent immediately to the place of final judgment.
Please send us into the pigs. Several important things happen here. Jesus commands them to identify themselves, not for his benefit, but for the listeners.
Had Jesus merely commanded the demons to leave, the observers might not have understood what was happening. He asks, who are you? They answered, “Legion.”
The name indicated that many demons possessed the man. They have to identify themselves to Jesus because they’re under his sovereignty. They knew at any moment he could condemn them to the lake of fire, and yet he granted their request to go into the herd of pigs.
This can seem confusing. Why would Jesus grant a request made by demons? That does not seem consistent with what we expect from Jesus. Why did he grant their request?
I believe it served as a sign to everyone watching. It wasn’t a favor to the demons. Jesus knew exactly what was going to happen.
If Jesus had only commanded the demons to leave, the man’s physical reaction might have been the only visible evidence. But when everyone is standing around watching and Jesus says, yeah, go into the pigs, and the man begins to convulse as this comes out of him. And then suddenly what Jesus just said to happen, go into the pigs, they go into the pigs and the pigs react violently and they stampede down the side of the mountain, down the side of the cliff into the Sea of Galilee to drown themselves.
The destruction of the herd made the sign unmistakable. That’s why the herdsmen were so terrified. Jesus granted their request as a sign to those who were watching that he really is dealing with demonic forces.
It was showing that the man really was possessed and Jesus really did order them out. Anyone who witnessed it could no longer deny either the reality of the possession or Jesus’ authority over the demons. Jesus showed up that day and he showed himself to be far more powerful than Satan.
Satan had complete control of this man’s life. This man was completely powerless. And yet, as much as Satan’s power overshadowed the man, Jesus’ power overshadowed Satan.
The Man Jesus Set Free
And because Jesus is more powerful than Satan, Jesus can overcome anything that holds us captive. Just like this man by the Sea of Galilee, Jesus can overcome anything that holds us captive. We see His power clearly in the results for this man.
Look at what happened in his life. We see this in verses 34 and 35. It says, they saw what had happened.
They ran away. They reported it in the city and out in the country. The people went out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man whom the demons had gone out, sitting down at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they became frightened.
At times, the way the Holy Spirit inspired the biblical writers carries an element of irony. I don’t know if this was one of those times that’s intentionally funny, but the contrast is striking. They’ve seen this man breaking free of shackles.
They’ve seen him running around scaring people. They can’t even walk down the roads because they might be attacked by this guy. He lives among the dead.
He cuts himself. He’s running around naked. Everything about this man is terrifying, but They had become so accustomed to darkness that the man’s former condition seemed normal, and here’s what’s funny to me.
They walk in and see him sitting there clothed and in his right mind, acting civilized, and that’s what terrifies them. They’ve been so enveloped by the darkness that things have become normal to them that should never have become normal. I really think it has more to do, though, with kind of like the disciples in the storm. What kind of person has that kind of power to create that kind of change in that man?
Well, somebody who can set us free from anything that holds us captive. This transformation was so noteworthy that the people who saw it ran to go tell everybody, and people came pouring out of the town to see this. They flocked to see this.
They saw that he was sitting there. He was sitting calmly. He was sitting at the feet of Jesus.
What does that mean? What was he doing? You scared to answer?
It’s not a trick question. Learning. He’s sitting there now being taught by Jesus.
You would sit under the teaching of a teacher. They would be your master and you would sit at their feet. This man was under new authority, sitting at Jesus’ feet.
He was clothed and he was in his right mind. and this was a remarkable transformation that took place only because Jesus had set the man free. That is what Jesus does for us.
He sets us free from the bonds of sin. I visited Bonnie’s Sunday school class that morning, where someone made an important observation.
But the statement was made that at some point everybody says when presented with the gospel or just about everybody says or thinks, but you don’t know what I’ve done. You don’t know what sin there is in my life. You don’t know what there is that holds me captive.
and that’s true we we do think that a lot no you don’t know tell me what in your life that holds you captive is stronger than what captivated this man if jesus can set this man free he can set any of us free and when we trust him as our savior he he breaks those bonds of sin that hold us captive it doesn’t mean we never sin again but it means we’ve been set free from the eternal consequences of that sin there may be still consequences here on earth but it sets us free from the eternal consequence. We’re no longer under the judgment and condemnation of God for our sin because Jesus has set us free from that. He also sets us free from sin’s ruling power. Before Christ, sin was simply what we did because it reflected who we were.
We’re sinners. It was part of our fallen nature. That’s all we know to do.
He has broken that and he’s given us his spirit to come and dwell within us and change us and shape us and guide us so now that we have another option. And there are still times that we sin. There are still times we absolutely mess up and blow it, but we can come back to him at any time, and we can have that forgiveness, we can have that restoration, and we can ask him to help us deal with that sin.
And he will, over time, continue to break those shackles until they can no longer hold us. He sets us free from anything that holds us captive. And these people were so used to seeing the man under demonic power that seeing him any other way terrified them.
And it terrified them because they couldn’t help but think of the power of Jesus. Our testimony need not terrify people. That would be unusual.
But the change that Jesus makes in us as believers ought to cause people to take notice. Even though we’ve not become perfect on this side of heaven, who we are in Christ ought to look vastly different from who we were before Christ. Those who trusted Christ as children may not have accumulated a dramatic record of outward sin. Who you are in Christ ought to look incredibly different from who you would have been apart from Christ. Because when he shows up, when we submit to him as our master, the transformation is remarkable.
Two Responses to Jesus’ Authority
And if you’re worried about anything in your past or anything in your present that currently holds you back from Jesus, you make a list of what you think that’s so powerful Jesus can’t deal with it. Make that list, and then cross off every item because Jesus is powerful enough to deal with it. And we see here in the last verses of this passage that Jesus’ authority, the authority and power He demonstrates confront us and call for a response.
When we encounter the power and the authority of Jesus, it can be shocking. They were shocked when they saw Jesus command demons to leave a man and completely transformed his life. When they saw that, they were shocked.
Jesus demands our attention, and some of us have testimonies. Maybe they’re not as dramatic as the Damascus Road experience that Paul experienced, but some of us have testimonies where we can point out ways that God got our attention, that God got our attention in pretty drastic ways, that God has shown up and shown His power to us in drastic ways so that we would recognize what He was calling us to do. When His power and His authority show up, it demands our attention, it calls for a response.
And we see the two responses that we have available to us here in this passage. There are the townspeople who saw his authority and they recoiled in fear. They said, we want nothing to do with this.
They’re telling him in verse 37, get back on the boat. We want you gone. You scare us.
We’re scared of what you might do next. And that’s not an unreasonable fear. We may be afraid of what the Lord might do in us or with us next if we say yes to him.
Yet we have to get over that fear and trust him. But they were scared to death. They recoiled in fear.
That’s one thing we can do. We can look at his power and his authority in our lives and say, no, I don’t want any part of that. Be like the townspeople who came out and saw and said, we want nothing to do with that.
Embracing Jesus and Obeying His Call
Get back on the boat, please. Or we look at the life of the man who had just been demon possessed in verses 38 and 39. The man from whom the demons had gone out was begging him that he might accompany him.
This man who only moments before had been under the power of Satan now is begging Jesus, I want to come with you. He saw what Jesus had done in his life and he wanted nothing more than to go and continue to walk with him. He was begging him, but he sent him away.
Jesus sent the man away. This was neither cold nor harsh. Jesus sending him away, he said, return to your house and describe what great things God has done for you.
One of the other gospels also adds how he has had mercy on you. So he went away proclaiming throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him. So this man wanted to come with Jesus.
That’s part of his response was to embrace Jesus. But embracing Jesus didn’t look exactly like he expected, exactly like he wanted. He wanted to come with him.
Jesus said, I have a job for you to do. Although it was not what the man wanted, he remained metaphorically at the Master’s feet, ready to do what Jesus commanded. And when Jesus said, I want you to go and be a witness of what I’ve done and how my power has worked in your life, the man went and did it.
See, when we’re presented with Jesus’ authority, and I tell you what, every time we open the pages of this book, we are confronted with the authority of Jesus in our lives. Every time we are confronted with that authority, we have a choice to make, whether we recoil from what he’s called us to do or whether we embrace it and submit to Him as Lord. We don’t always think of it in those terms, but I hope next time God calls you to do something, God tells you in His Word to do something, and you’re faced with the choice, do I do this or do I not?
Remember these two responses and consider who walked away knowing Jesus and obeying Him.