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Luke 8:26-39. "When Jesus Comes For You" · Clifford Baptist

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  Speaker A: Welcome to the September 6th sermon from Clifford Baptist Church, 635 Fletcher's Lovell Road. Today's scripture is Luke chapter 8, verses 36 through 39. And the title of the sermon is When Jesus comes for you, delivered today by Pastor Jeffrey Campbell.
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  Speaker B: My prayer is that is your heart that we need the living water. I'm thankful that we gather under God's leading in this place today. Grab your Bibles, go to Luke chapter 8. Luke chapter 8. As we gather together today and we worship, I'm going to start out with a little bit of a story about a man named Adoniram Judson. Maybe you have heard of his name. A missionary to BURMA in the 1800s, Judson grew up in a Christian home, his father a pastor. But just because his father was a pastor, the reality of Judson's heart was this. He had no love for God. 0. He started his college education at 16 years old, brilliant in the eyes of academic standards. And still he did have no. He had no interest in the faith. And one night, after he had finished college and he had started a school, he had no desire to run that school anymore. He decided this. I'm going back home. I'm going back to Boston. And as he makes his way back to Boston, he stopped at an inn to stay overnight. And the room next to his was occupied by a man whose cries and groans not only echoed through the walls, but they echoed through the night. And this man, as he cried and he groaned, Judson knew that he must be dying. This man, tormented in death, crying out. The next morning, Judson goes to find out about the man that stayed in the room that was next to his during the night. This man died. Judson asked what was his name. And his name was Jacob Eames. And the light bulb went off. That this was a dear friend from college, Adoniram Judson realized this in my friend's death. I know that he died without God. And that's what he was witnessing in the cries and the groans. A few months later, Judson would not only surrender to the Lord, but he would give his life to the mission field and the cause of Jesus Christ. All because of the cries from the night. Your story may be very different. It may be lacking details that are similar to Judson's. But tonight or today, I want to ask you this. Is there a time that you truly know that you have met Jesus? Do you remember when you recognized that you were a sinner? That Jesus died for that sin? And he rose on the third day to give you Life and the hope of a future in paradise with him. I want to ask you another question. Have you ever been in a church or a situation and you felt like the preacher was talking to you? Listen, I don't camp out, I don't look at your life, but my salvation story. That revival preacher felt like he was living with me. And here's what I want you to understand. I knew that night that I got saved, that God wanted me. That God showed up in a little country church in Amherst, Virginia, of all places in the world in and he came to save my wretched soul. At 16 years old, I knew Jesus wanted me. It's amazing how our stories are told through life. Maybe today Jesus pursuit of you and your salvation is one that will grow you not only to save you, but continue to change you in your life. My prayer today is this, as we look at this lesson, what happens when Jesus comes for you this morning? I don't want to scare anybody away. This message is for somebody beyond the pastor. This message is to challenge believers. But this message this morning is for somebody to realize, look, Jesus, you are coming for me.
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  Speaker A: Me.
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  Speaker B: And so today what do we do when Jesus comes for you? Luke chapter number eight. Start with verse number 26. Luke chapter eight, verse number 26. And we're going to go to verse number 30. And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, which is over against Galilee. And when he went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man which had devils long time and wear no clothes and neither abode in any house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out, fell down before him and with a loud voice said, what have I to do with thee, Jesus? Thou son of God most high, I beseech thee, torment me not. For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man, for oftentimes it had come caught him and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters and he brake the bands and was driven off of the devil into the wilderness. And Jesus asked him, saying what is thy name? And he said, legion, because many devils were entered into him. Let's pray, Father, today in only the way that you can. God, we pray that you minister to every heart that is represented in this place. Lord. We consider the thought, Lord, that you would come for us. You would come for me, God. As we consider that, Lord, if there's one person that needs your saving touch, oh God, I pray that it happens today, Lord, for Christians in this room and that are watching livestream God I pray Lord that you will minister to our heart, challenge us to take the greatest news transformation in our lives to the world that so desperately needs a Savior. Oh God, meet us today. I pray in this place in Jesus name. Amen. There are three things that you need to realize when Jesus comes for you. Three things that I want to share with you today. The first one is this. When Jesus comes for you, there needs to be a moment, realization. A moment of realization. Now you remember the story well from last time that I preached that Jesus is in the middle of traveling, of teaching these disciples. You remember the storm of the last sermon that they were caught up in and Jesus calmed that storm because the disciples had simply lost their faith in the middle of it. Now remember the closing point of that sermon was this. This was Jesus idea to get on the boat and to sail across the sea. He knew that they would encounter the storm, but he had a purpose to get to the other side. That's where we left off the last sermon. Well, now we see Jesus plan. And that plan involves a man that we would label in our day a. A crazy man. Anybody ever met anybody crazy? Well, look, you're looking at one right now. I'm crazy, right? What do we do when we encounter crazy people? We go the other way, don't we? We keep our distance. Well, listen, it's not like many people in Jesus day. This man was banished to the tombs, banished to the Gadarene place. Everybody knew him as the maniac of Gadara. He was crazy. And when we understand that this maniac was banished into a life of isolation and loneliness, we understand Jesus desire to go after this one man. We are told some interesting things about this man. His life is, to put it nicely, is out of control. He literally has no control of his life. He's been infested by demons for a long time. He didn't wear clothes, he didn't have a home. He lived in a graveyard. Chains and shackles had been used to try to control him, but he broke those and the demons drove him to isolation and loneliness. And in a place that the Bible calls Gadara, in the middle of the night, you could probably hear the cries of the crazy man that lived in the graveyard, desiring someone to come and give him some type of relief. His life was one of torment and bondage and isolation. But here's the reality. He has no control. So what does Jesus do? Jesus sets sail to a place where most people would say, don't dare go there. Jesus goes there and he's going there. For one man, one purpose, one job, and that's to encounter this man. Because he is tormented by the demons at the sight of Jesus. The demons realize and recognize, and the Bible says that they fall down. Look at verse number 28. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, what have I to do with thee, Jesus? Thou Son of God most High, I beseech thee, torment me not. This man recognizes who Jesus is. But the demons inside this man recognize and identify Jesus is the son of the Most High. They recognize him as God. And they realize at this moment they are in trouble and they bow down. Certainly we think of demonic control of actions and communications, but can I be honest with you? Do we regularly see this in our community? Maybe not. But do we see people that are not in control of their lives in our community? Absolutely we do. There are people whose lives are controlled by alcohol in our community. There are people in our community whose lives are controlled by drugs. We see people not only in our community, but I'm going to go there. There are people in our church whose lives are controlled by pornography. When you recognize who Jesus is, everything must fall at his feet. And so I want to encourage you today, there are people, maybe even in this church, in our community, that simply need what this church has, and his name is Jesus. Because they don't have control. You may say, today, no demon leads my life. Pastor Jeffrey, I'm okay. But here's what I want you to understand. Satan's devices and his deception and his design still occupy people's hearts and mind. So we're introduced to this crazy man who is possessed, homeless, naked, isolated, violent, bound, and he's defined as a maniac. When we meet Jesus, we must have a moment of realization. And that moment of realization is a confrontation with our true condition. And that true condition of every heart in the world is it needs Jesus in that moment of realization. When we meet Jesus, it exposes us to what needs to change in our life. And Jesus has the authority to change it. As those devils cause this man to bow down, they realize God has shown up. And then today we need God to show up in our homes and in our families, in our communities, in our problems and our issues. We need God. When Jesus shows up, there must be a realization. Oh, God, I need you. I need you to touch my life. Look at verses 31 through 35. They besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep. There was a herd of many swine feeding on the mountain. They besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them, and he suffered them. Then went the devils out of the man and entered into the swine. And the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake and were choked. When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled and went and told it in the city and in the country. Then they went out to see what was done and came to Jesus and found the man out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. When you meet Jesus, not only does there need to be a realization, there must be a moment of transformation. A moment of transformation. How many of you drive vehicles in here? I've got to ask that question because my 91 year old grandmother never drove. Well, let me take that back legally. Never drove. She drove the truck around the farm. I'll just stop right there. She drove the truck around the farm. In our cars, we are blessed in this day to have warning lights. When something is going on wrong with the car, there's a warning light that flashes and you realize either your tire's low or the engine needs to be changed or the oil's low. We have warning lights. I got a little Jesus that rides on my dashboard. He doesn't stay in place very long, but when he jumps from side to side, sometimes he covers that low, low pressure, the tire pressure light that comes on sometimes when it gets cold, right? Jesus can cover that light. But listen, there are times where we think that, okay, if we just cover it up or we ignore it, it will go away. Listen, that warning light is there for a reason. And we must realize that when that warning light flashes, something is going wrong. Well, that warning light is going off. Gadara. Something is going on and Jesus shows up. This maniac has spent his life defined by what kept him bound. You may know someone like that. Do you know someone who has been defined by something that binds them? How many of you this morning knows an alcoholic? Just nod your head. You don't want to raise your hand. Anybody in here know a workaholic that defines who they are? How about, listen, let's be careful. How about a liar? What about a criminal? Anybody know a gambler? Not Kenny Rogers, but the other kind. You see, this defines a person. And listen, Jesus asked, what is your name? What Jesus wanted this man to tell him is what defines you. His name was Legion. That was not his name. That was the devil's talking. That was the devil's confessing that there's a legion of demons in this man. These demons defined who this man was, and that's why Jesus sailed across the sea. Jesus does an awesome miracle here. He commands the legion of demons. Now, you can write this down. A legion as a military term, it is used to define an order of soldiers. A legion of soldiers in Jesus's time would be about 6,000 soldiers. And so what this man is saying, there's so many demons inside of me that are controlling me. They're defining who I am. And so Jesus tells those demons to leave this man and they enter the pigs that are nearby. And you know the story. You have heard it well. The pigs then run down into the lake and drown themselves. And the people who raised the pigs are now furious. They go tell everybody in town what's going on. I don't know if I would like to have been present for that miracle, because the reality is this. This man was tormented by so much. In verse number 36, you see, they begin to tell people in the city, and I'm going to get there in just a second. But before they go and tell everybody what happened to my pigs, Jesus was there and he commanded this spirit to come out. The pigs ran down the cliff and they went into the lake and. And they died. There's been a crazy man to come deal with the crazy man. So what does everybody do? They're just like me and you. Let's go check this out. And they come to town and they see and they find this man in verse number 35, of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus. Jesus clothed and in his right mind. And they were, what's the word? Afraid. What a picture. A crazy man now is in his right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus in the place that he needs to be in order to change what defines your life. Listen to me, Church. In order to change that, you just don't have to raise your hand and say, okay, I need help. That's the beginning. You need to be transformed. That which defines you needs to be removed from your life. And there's only one person that that can transform your life and my life. And his name is Jesus. He doesn't want to make you a better sinner. That's not Jesus purpose. He doesn't want you to pray this prayer and go back to your life. Go back to your sin, not be changed. If that is the case, you are not saved. What Jesus wants to do is transform you. And as this man sits at the feet of Jesus, he is completely and totally different than what everybody has known him to be. When Jesus comes for you, he's coming to transform your life and make you totally different than you were before. That transformation should bring you closer to Jesus. That transformation should get rid of the things that defeat you before you met Jesus. Maybe you're sitting here today like me and say, I wasn't a bad person. I grew up in church. I lived in church. I knew the Bible. But at 15 years old, when that man came and preached revival, Jesus came to save my soul. That night, Jesus came for me. And I didn't experience everything that the world offered. But here's what I want you to know. I knew I needed Jesus to fix my broken heart. Our sinful lives don't need to just be touched by Jesus. Our sinful lives need to be transformed by Jesus. Back to our car. The warning lights are going off. You ignored them, hoping it would go away. And guess what? The car stopped. What do you do? It becomes what I define as a clunker. And no matter what you do, if that engine light comes on and you don't address it and it dies, you have a clunker. And how do you fix up a clunker? Well, some of you say, just take it to the junkyard, right? Aren't you glad Jesus doesn't just take us to the junkyard. There's a sermon there. No. You can. You can put a new coat of paint on it. You can put new wheels and tires on it. You can put a nice lift and exhaust on it. Young people, you could fix this thing. But listen, if you don't go and address the inside, the motor, that which causes it to run, you will always have a clunker. Transformation takes the clunker to the mechanic and says this. Fix the engine and start with the inside. Today, in this room, somebody needs to be transformed. We do a great job of covering it up. But until Jesus gets to the inside and to the root of the problem and transforms your life, you will never, ever, ever lose the definition or the thing that defines you as a sinner standing before a holy God. When Jesus gets to work on the inside, the Bible tells us he takes that sin and he casts it as far as the east is from the west. That's transformation. When you recognize that, yes, I am a sinner and I need Jesus forgiveness in my life, I accept him as my Savior. I will live my life to proclaim that truth. And I'm thankful, Jesus, for what you did. That's transformation. Listen, when you meet Jesus, there must be Transformation. The fruit has to come. There's one more point. Today, look at verses 36 through 39. They also which saw it told them by what means he that was possessed of the devil was healed. And the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes round about besought him to depart from them, for they were taken with great fear. And he went up into the ship and returned back again. Now the man out of whom the devils were departed besought him that he might be with him. But. But Jesus sent him away, saying, return to thy own house and show how great things God has done unto thee. And he went his way and published throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him. When Jesus comes for you, there needs to be a realization, a moment of transformation. And the third thing is a moment of proclamation. A moment of proclamation. The people of Gadara and fear, what do they do? They drive Jesus out of the city. They come and they heard the stories of how Jesus changed this man's life and about the pigs running off the cliff and going into the water and dying. They see the man sitting at Jesus feet. And when they come, they say, jesus, guess what, buddy? You got to go. You need to go. Instead of celebrating, instead of inviting him to stay and change their lives and change their city. No, Jesus, you have to leave. Initially, in this country, only one person's life was changed. And you know whose that was? That old crazy man. Everybody else in their right mind looked at Jesus and said, get out. Now you tell me who the crazy ones were. Get out. Because of fear, because of so many unanswered things, they just said, jesus, you've got to leave out of fear. Today somebody could possibly be saying to Jesus, jesus, go away. There's so much that I don't know. There's so much that I don't understand. There's so much that I'm not ready for. I seen Jesus. I've seen you change other people's lives. But Jesus, no, no, no, not yet. Jesus, not me. Go away. Here's the sad part about scripture. Sometimes Jesus will honor your wishes. If you ever get the time, read Romans, chapter one. At the end of that chapter, it talks about people that are doing the same thing. And the Bible records this in Romans chapter number one, that the people were given over to their depraved minds, their own ideas, their own wishes. Jesus just backs away. Be careful, be careful about pushing Jesus away. Because one moment, one time, he may just honor that wish. As Jesus is leaving, only one person wants to Go with him. And who is that? The crazy man. I ain't gonna call him crazy anymore because he's at Jesus feet. But crazy people come to Jesus feet, too. You gotta be radical. He says, I wanna go with you. I wanna stay at your feet. And what does Jesus tell this man? No. What do you mean? This man desires to be with Jesus. And Jesus says, no, you cannot come to me. Jesus has transformed this man's life. Why doesn't Jesus just take this man with him, get him off the island and just let the island go you nowhere? Have you ever thought about that? God, just take me out of this and, you know, let everybody else go to hell. God, nobody wants to listen to me. Do what you got to do with them. I'm okay. Why does Jesus leave this man? I think for the exact reason he doesn't want them to all go to hell. As he leaves this transformed life on this island or in this country, he does so wanting this man to proclaim the truth of God, the truth of Jesus. In this region and in this area, Jesus would come back for ministry later on. But this man's life could show the power of Jesus and proclaim the truth of who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. Church, listen to me. If you are saved, if your life has been transformed by Jesus, listen. You cannot grow silent in this mission of proclaiming what Jesus has done. The truth of Jesus calls us to endeavor to tell the great things God has done in our lives. Don't let fear grip that silence, that. That proclamation. Jesus gets on the boat because you know why. He's got somewhere else to be. Come back next week. You'll see where we go from here. You leave your Bibles open. I'm going to close mine. Because I want you to know I'm done. What happens when Jesus comes to you? Maybe this morning you feel like the preacher is talking directly to you. Here's what I want you to know, and I want you to understand this. Today, it's not the preacher. It's the Holy Spirit. God is talking to you. And today, if you're in this room and you are a believer, you're saved. You know, you have met Jesus. You know your life has been transformed. Listen, we have a job, Church, to proclaim the truth of God in our city. That's why he leaves us here and didn't call us home. If it was to wait around for heaven, and heaven was the lone goal, as soon as you would get saved, Jesus would call you there. He doesn't do that, does he? No. As much as I want to be in heaven one day, Jesus leaves me here to proclaim the truth of of God to those around us. Christians, don't grow weary and don't grow silent proclaiming the truth of God. Today, maybe you're in this room and you feel like your relationship with the Lord has been distant. Maybe you've isolated yourself. Here's what I want you to hear. This morning, Jesus is coming to you saying this. You come back to me. You come back. You follow me. You turn from what is distracting you, what is isolating you, what is now chained you. And you come back to me and you be transformed and live your life for me. If you are running from Jesus, Jesus did not transform your life, that you could be on the run from the One who loves you. Today, if you're here, you're like me as a 15 year old boy. You recognize this, that I'm a sinner. You can trade that definition in for something today. That's not saying you'll never sin again. But you can trade that which defines your life into something greater. As you lay your life down at the feet of Jesus, as you allow him to come and transform your life, and as you live for him for the rest of your life, you can be saved. Today, that salvation comes by recognizing that first you are a sinner. And Jesus perfect life on this earth and his death on a cross took your place, paid your debt before a holy God. The third day he rose to give you life and hope and a future. And so today, the worst chain in the world to be bound by is that of sin. Jesus wants to set you free today. If you will just trust Him. He's here for you. Let's pray, Father. As. As we come to a time of invitation, Lord, I pray that your Holy Spirit will move around this room. God, you know every person, you know every situation. It's not by an accident. Anyone is here today. God, thank you. But God, I just pray, Lord, that you will just move in your spirit and power, that you will work in our lives not only to save, but to transform and to allow us to proclaim the truth of who youo are. God, give us purpose today. Give us direction, Lord, today, if there's someone here that needs you, save that person's soul. I pray. Strong name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.