Shepherd of the Black Sheep

Female: Hey, Porch. Join me as we read God's Word together from the gospel of Luke, chapter 8, verses 26-39.

"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 he 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."

Now our fifth message in our series called Disciple.

Kylen Perry: Porch, how are we doing? Are we doing okay tonight? Hey, it's great to see you. Thanks so much for making time to be back with us this evening. Special shout-out to all of our Porch.Live locations. I love what God is doing around the nation. I don't know if those of you who are here in Dallas know it, but God is doing something really unique in the lives of young adults in different spots all over the nation. So we want to give a special shout-out to a few live locations. Special shout-out to Porch.Live Springfield, Midland, and Boise, Idaho. Love it.

Hey, I don't know if you heard, but on March 20 of this year history was made as Chris Brown (not C. Breezy), a modern explorer from Yorkshire, England, journeyed to one of the most remote places in the entire world. He made his way to Point Nemo. Point Nemo is infamously known as the loneliest location on the planet, because Point Nemo is farther away from any single land mass than any other spot on the entire globe. It's located in the middle of the South Pacific.

It is known as the oceanic point of inaccessibility. Nobody is supposed to get there. It's incredibly difficult to reach, and the closest humans nearby to Point Nemo are not, in fact, on planet earth; they are on the International Space Station as it floats in orbit above the location. Point Nemo is also known as an intergalactic dumping zone. It's where nations will discard spacecraft, because it is so wildly remote to the rest of civilization.

Yet Chris Brown decided to do the impossible, to go where no man had gone before. So, after five years worth of planning, 21 days of journeying, and 1,600 miles from the nearest shoreline, he found himself not just in a boat but swimming at Point Nemo. When asked, "Why did you do it?" Chris very simply said, "I'm an adventurer at heart. I go places no one else will."

Why do I tell you that? Because Jesus Christ and Chris Brown, the explorer, have a lot in common, except for the fact that Jesus doesn't go places nowhere else will; he moves toward people no one else will. Jesus moves toward the loneliest in life. He journeys to reach the most inaccessible in our world. He wants to reach the most isolated of all. We're going to see exactly what kind of person he seeks tonight.

If you have a Bible, you can turn with me to Luke, chapter 8. Just to catch you up, we have been in a series called Disciple where we've been asking the question…What does it mean to really follow Jesus? Which feels like a pretty obvious question to answer. Many of us would assume we know what the right answer to that is.

If we really got underneath what we believe it means to follow Jesus, we'd probably find some things like, "It means being a good person, going to church, reading your Bible, serving the poor, giving when the collection plate comes around, and making sure you're involved in community and are confessing your sin." We would list off a bunch of behaviors. What that would tell me is, for many of us, we know a lot about Jesus, but we don't know the real Jesus, because these things, while they're part of the Christian experience, are not at the heart of what it means to be a Christian.

At the heart of being a Christian is the opportunity to become like Christ, to have an intimate relationship with God himself, to live a life that is connected to something bigger than you yourself, to journey to the end of your time and feel like, "Man, I lived for a lasting impact," and to find with other people a sort of friendship that becomes family because you have such a deep connection to them that the world knows nothing of. This is what it means to be a disciple. It's to become like Jesus.

The beauty of it is when Jesus is inviting us to be his disciple, he's inviting us into something we already want. We all want this. That's the beauty of following Christ. He wants to do in your life what you and I want done in our lives. We want to grow into something greater. We want to be shaped into something significant. We want to be molded into something meaningful.

What's amazing about Jesus is he's going to do that if and when you follow him, but he doesn't just do it for your gain; he does it to the glory of God and for the good of all people. That's an identity and an activity I can get behind, that I want to be connected to. That's the sort of life Jesus is promising us if we would choose to walk with him, if we would associate with him as his disciples.

We've been talking over the course of this series about what it means to be a disciple. Week one: to be a disciple means you answer his call, that you drop your nets. You leave everything. You follow after him, not just because he's going to cost you so much but because he's going to offer you so much. Week two: to be his disciple, we learned that we need to hear his heart, that we need to know the weary and heavy-laden can come to Jesus because he is gentle and lowly at heart.

Week three: to be his disciple, we learned what it means to obey his words, that all the Law and all the Prophets can be summed up in the two greatest commandments, to love God and to love his people. Tonight, we're going to see that to be his disciples we should seek his people. We should, not like the great adventurer Chris but like the great Savior Jesus, pursue the loneliest in life. We should move toward those inaccessible to the world and isolated most of all. We should pursue people, like what we find in Luke, chapter 8, starting in verse 26.

"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 he 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.)"

To set the scene, Jesus and his disciples have just journeyed across the Sea of Galilee to a land known as the Decapolis. What we didn't read is that they encountered a little bit of trouble along the way. There was a storm that arose, yet with but a word Jesus silenced the storm. What we see from Jesus in that story is he has authority over the natural world. As we come to this moment, as they step into the land of the Gerasenes, we find that he not only has authority over the natural world but he has authority over the supernatural world.

They come to a land known as the Decapolis. Without going into too much detail, the Decapolis was Gentile country. It wouldn't have been native to Jesus and his disciples. It was a pagan land, which meant there were no Jewish festivals, no Torah study, no observance of the Law. In fact, it was odd that Jesus and his disciples would even go to this place to begin with. It wasn't widely seen as appropriate for Jews to go to the Decapolis. It was frowned upon even.

Yet Jesus, being Jesus, takes his disciples, and they come ashore and step out onto the bank. As his disciples look at him, wondering, "What are we doing here?" Jesus makes clear that he will go to the darkest of places for the darkest of people. That's what we learn. Jesus goes to the darkest places for the darkest people. If we, as his disciples, as people who are going to walk with him… If we're going to see the kinds of people he sees and seek the sort of people he seeks, we need to know he's going to go to some dark places to find some dark people.

The way Luke writes it, he tees the story up like a contest between two really great challengers. It says, "When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons." It sounds like the main card from a pay-per-view title fight. Like, "In this corner, out of Nazareth, wearing the white trunks, Jesus, the Son of God. And in this corner, out of the Decapolis, wearing no trunks at all, the crazy man." That's the way it sets this thing up.

What you find as you keep reading is before the first punch is even thrown, the demon-possessed man just hits the mat. He's laid out. There's good reason for it, but before we can unpack why that is the case, before we can look at the state of this demon, we have to look at the state of the man. So, what do we learn about the condition of this man? Just how dark is his situation?

Well, we get some descriptors for him. It says he had no clothes, that he didn't live amongst society. He had no home. If you go and read the same account in the gospel of Mark, you find that night and day he would cry out and cut himself with stones. In both accounts, you see he was living amongst the dead. He dwelt within the tombs.

Why does any of that matter? Because it shows us the evil this man had indulged had dehumanized him. It made him less human. That's what's important for us to know. Just cards on the table here at the beginning of the night. It is imperative that we deal with our evil, reckon with our sin, and take action on the sort of things God gives conviction to, lest we be dehumanized like this man.

How is he dehumanized? He's dehumanized in three ways. He has no dignity. He no longer wore clothes. That's pretty undignified. He has no community. He no longer lived amongst the general population. Instead, he lived in total isolation. And he has no security. He doesn't have a home to speak of, but he sleeps amongst the dead in the tombs.

Now, to be clear, we don't know why the demons had entered this man originally. We don't know what actions he took. We don't know what sort of evil he was entertaining, what sins he had committed. All we see are the effects of it. That's what it means when it says he was left unclean. That word unclean is translated as defiled or violated.

I don't know about you, but when you read this story and hear about a demon-possessed man, it feels pretty unrelatable. Like, "Okay. I've done some things, but I'm not quite at this spot. This guy seems to have a different level of trauma. There's some sort of condition he's facing that I'm not facing myself."

Yet, when you realize that uncleanness means defilement or violation or to be stained or tarnished or corrupted, it begins to creep into your reality a little bit, because those are words we can relate to. I know I can, and maybe you can as well. We know what it's like to feel defiled and what it feels like to feel corrupted.

Many of us got into something we thought was going to give us life and bring us freedom at some point, yet somewhere along the way, whatever that thing is, it actually got hold of us and started to separate us from our family and our friends. It started to isolate us from the rest of our community. It started to lead us to a place we never thought we would actually be. It has defiled us.

Maybe, for some of you, it's something you can't believe you've done. There's a shadow of shame that hangs over you because of some action you took or some place you went or something you said that has left you feeling like, "Man, this is unforgivable. This is unspeakable. I will never tell anybody what I've done. This thing I did, that place I went, that action I did…that is something I'm going to take to the grave. I refuse to tell anybody about that." Yet you're defiled because you're carrying so much shame for something you never should have to carry.

Maybe it's not that. Maybe it's an addiction you have, some unhealthy habit you adopted at some point. It was small and manageable, and it actually felt nice to begin with, but it has grown to a place where you really can't corral it. You truly can't control it. What it has now done is it has grown to a spot where it's jeopardizing your family, your friends, your finances, and your future.

Maybe it's not an addiction. Maybe it's the shame you feel for an abortion. You found yourself in a situation you never thought you'd be in. You never intended to put yourself in a spot that felt so overwhelming, yet when those feelings began to grow so great and the anxiety began to cripple so strongly, you were forced to make a decision the likes of which you've only felt regret for since that time.

Maybe it's not that. Maybe it's some deep-seated anger you have toward somebody. Maybe it's habitual impurity you have with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Maybe, instead, it's shame from lying at your job and cutting corners or despair from cutting or self-harming yourself. Maybe it's not something you've done; maybe it's something that has been done to you. Maybe the defilement you feel in your story, the uncleanness you have in your life is the product of what someone has done to you.

Maybe it's the fact that someone physically hurt you, sexually exploited you, or emotionally manipulated you. They did something to you they should never have done, and you've been left to pick up the pieces and make amends on your own. I don't know what it is for you. What I do know is whatever darkness hangs over you, whatever leaves you feeling unclean, whatever sin you hide, and whatever hate you harbor and try to keep out of the public eye… Whatever it is that leaves you feeling so dirty, Jesus looks at it and says, "I want you anyway."

You see, Jesus is not afraid of the defiled parts of us. We know that because Jesus journeyed across the sea for this one man. By the end of the story, we find that he has to leave. He made the journey as an all-sovereign, all-knowing God to reach this one guy, totally undignified, totally defiled, totally despondent. Jesus goes that distance, because there's nothing about this man's condition that worries our Christ's compassion.

He would go the greatest distance to get to him, because Jesus is not a shepherd of spotless sheep; he's a shepherd to black sheep. He's a shepherd to people like you and me. Mark 2:17 says, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." Jesus welcomes the unacceptable. He embraces the unlovable. He redeems the unforgivable.

That thing in your life, the part of yourself that feels so dirty, the portion of your story that's too devastating, the piece of your existence that feels so dark… Jesus looks at it, he looks past it, and he says, "I will take you anyway. I want you as you are. Not some future version of you. Not some cleaned-up version of you. I want you exactly as you are. Yes, will we work this out? For sure. Will I lead you to someplace better? Of course. Yet I don't need you to lead yourself there. I will lead you there myself." This is what Jesus is offering for you.

He doesn't look at the worst parts of you and think, "I've got to work around this thing." No. He wants everything about you. He wants you to come to him, because he will fix the worst parts of you, and he will love every part of you. This is what Jesus does. He goes to the darkest places for the darkest people. He doesn't retreat from the ugly parts of who we are; he advances toward them. That's the heart of your King. As we keep reading, we see before Jesus can help this man, he needs to deal with the source of the evil in this man's life. So he asks him in verse 30, "What's your name?"

"And [the demon-possessed man] 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."

Okay. What's going on here? Well, this is the only time in any gospel that we see Jesus actually engage in a dialogue with a demon, that he actually has a conversation. We see Jesus say one thing, the demon say something back, and Jesus respond accordingly. This is the only example we have of a dialogue between Jesus and a demon.

Scholars present a variety of different reasons for why this may be. Some scholars suggest Jesus is presenting the ancient Near Eastern or Jewish methodology for exorcism, that first you must establish contact, next you must have them share their name, and thirdly you must cast them out. Some people think this dialogue is an evidence of the formidability of the evil in this man, that Jesus can't just cast him out, that instead this demon has something he wants to say to Jesus, and he has the strength to back it up.

Here's what I would say to those things. I think it's so much simpler than that. I think what we see, as Jesus asks this demon's name, is just how powerful Jesus is. Let me set it up like this. How does College GameDay decide where they're going to broadcast every single weekend? They pick the best matchup for the weekend. They pick the two top teams. They don't pick two no-names. They pick two nameworthy opponents, and they decide, "That's where we're going to go. We're going to highlight this specific matchup."

Now, what happens when one of those teams spanks the other one? The strength of the team that wins is magnified, because they overcame not a no-name opponent but a nameworthy opponent. They're proven to be powerful. That's what Jesus is doing. He's saying, "Hey, you actually have a name we need to hear because it says something significant about who you are, yet it's going to say something really significant about who I am."

So, what does the name Legion represent? Well, a legion is actually a unit within the Roman army that contained anywhere from 5,000 to 6,000 men. Meaning, there's not a square inch of this demon-possessed man's life that is not disturbed by this supernatural evil. That's not all it means. The name Legion, because it is representative of the Roman army, also demonstrates the harshness, the brutality of Roman occupation.

So, there's not a square inch of this man's existence that isn't disturbed, and there is not a square inch of this man's experience that is not horrible. That's what the name Legion represents for this guy. Jesus, in the face of one who is both great in number and great in strength, who is powerful by all accounts, makes him do something you would not expect.

How do these demons, the great legion, respond when they come to Jesus? They run, they cry, and they fall down. That's it. They behave like spoiled little children that don't get their way. They get eerily upset because Jesus is so much more dominant, so much more powerful than they are. The reason we need to know it is because whatever intimidates you cowers before your King. Whatever intimidates you in life cowers before your King.

It doesn't matter how big, it doesn't matter how bad, it doesn't matter how significant it may feel in strength. It has no chance against Jesus Christ. Think about it. This guy is possessed by a group of highly militarized demons, a lethal fighting force by all accounts, and all they can manage to do when they face Jesus is grovel and beg. That's pretty pathetic. That's how powerful Christ is.

This man has been subdued under their authority for years, yet in a moment, they are subdued by Jesus' authority for all time. In verse 27, it says they called Jesus Son of the Most High God, which is really interesting. If you read through the gospel of Luke (and I think this is true in the gospel of Matthew too), you find that Jesus is only called the Son of God four times. Three of those times happen in the life and ministry of Jesus.

What's fascinating is that in the life and ministry of Jesus, when he's called the Son of God, he is never called that by any single human. He's called the Son of God by the angel Gabriel when Mary conceives a son, he is called the Son of God by Satan when he comes to tempt Jesus in the wilderness, and he is called the Son of God in this story right here. That leaves one other example when Jesus is called the Son of God.

Do you know what happens? It's not in the life and ministry of Jesus; it's at the arrest, death, and crucifixion of Christ. It's in that moment, at the point of his mockery and not his ministry, that mankind speaks up and calls him the Son of God. It's not in reverence; it's in ridicule. Yet, what we know is while we may have a hard time acknowledging the deity of Jesus, angels and demons do not. They have no problem acknowledging that he is King.

James 2:19 says, "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder." You see, these demons make no mistake when they see Jesus. They know who he is, and they respond in the only appropriate way when they come into the presence of royalty. They fall down. They bow low in the presence of his royalty, his divinity.

They do what I knew a lot of college students did when I worked in college ministry. They would realize their academic future hung in the balance between whether a teacher was going to give them a good grade or a bad grade, so they would grovel and beg before their professors. "Please, would you just have mercy?" And they would hope to God their professor would give them the kind of grade they needed.

They would beg. They would bow. They did what these demons themselves do. The possessors of this man's life shudder at the sight of Jesus. So, whatever possesses you, whatever has taken hold of your life, whatever appetites you feel within your sinful nature… Those things shudder at the sight of Christ as well.

Now, I get that some of you hear that and think to yourself, "But you don't know what I've done. You don't understand how long I've been entertaining this thing or how deep down the rabbit hole I've gone, how dark the stain actually is. I've been at this thing for a long time. You don't know how far gone I feel. I understand this may be true for other people when it comes to Jesus, but it's not true for me."

Here's the thing I would tell you. Regardless of what your addiction is, regardless of whatever your vice or your lust may be, you're not the exception to this rule. Some of you think you are the exception to this, but you're not. Think about this man. Jesus is not negotiating the terms of this man's release from these demons. "Hey, guys, listen. I know he has done some bad things. I will let you go into those pigs if you let me have him back."

He's not negotiating the terms of this man's release. He is negotiating the terms of their surrender. That's who Jesus is. That's how strong he is. They know, "We don't stand a chance. Jesus may be outnumbered, but we're the ones who are outmatched." So, it doesn't matter how long you feel like you've been trapped in sin or how perverse it has grown or how often you frequent it or how hopeless you feel. Jesus is stronger. He's matchless. He's uncontested. He cannot be overcome. He is indomitable. That's your Jesus.

Here's my fear. I fear that some of you won't see your defilement as deep enough to do something about it tonight, like your sin is still concealable, like you can hide whatever it was you looked at because it was private browsing or incognito mode. You can delete the history. Nobody will know. Or you justify, like, "It's just sexting. It's just foreplay. We're not going all the way." Or you rationalize the gossip you indulge in with friends because "This is what they do. I don't want to be a part of it, but they're my friends, so I have to engage with it so I'm not left out or seem awkward."

Maybe you defend something on the grounds of "Well, everybody has a little too much to drink" or "Everybody bends the truth every now and then." You make small concessions that will lead to great compromise. Here's what I would tell you. You may not seem as outwardly defiled as this man, but you are inwardly defiled all the same. Hear me on this. The end of defilement is always death. That's what the pigs are about.

I don't know if you've been wondering. It's kind of a weird swerve in the story, a strange development that we have these pigs that these demons want to go into. What's the whole purpose? Why does Jesus allow it? There's a lot of different speculation as to why it may be, but here is the simple and short of it: he shows us what the ultimate ambition of evil is. The ultimate ambition of evil is the destruction of life. That's its ambition. That's its aim.

It does not want you to succeed. It wants you to fail. It wants you to fall. That's what the Enemy is trying to do, and that's why I am pleading with you to do something about it tonight, to come to Jesus with it tonight. I can't want it for you any more than I do right now. The reason I want it so badly for you is I know what the results are. That's what we see as we keep reading on.

We see in verses 34-35, "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 guess what they found. Was it a naked man? Was it a crazy man? Was it a man who still lived within the tombs who was bleeding and frothing at the mouth? No. "…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." Now they're the ones who are afraid.

Just think about the before and after shots of this guy. Before, this man had many demons; after, no demons whatsoever. Before, he had no clothes; after, praise God, he got clothed somehow. Before, he fell down before Jesus and shouted; now, after, he is sitting at the feet of Jesus, and he is in his right mind. He's listening.

What could your "before and after" look like? "Before, I was addicted to porn, but after, I'm porn-free. Before, I was insecure. I was codependent on other people to meet my emotional needs. Now I'm totally secure, because I'm connected to Christ. Before, I was afraid that no one would ever remember me. Now, after the fact, I know that God will never forget me. Before, I lived for the acceptance of people. After, I know that Christ died to prove just how much he wanted me."

What could your "before and after" look like? Jesus wants to do it, and he wants to do it tonight. I really believe it. This is how he works. He doesn't just remove the chaos from your life; he introduces order to your life. That's the nature of peace. Peace is not just the absence of conflict; it is the presence of flourishing.

If this man's life was a garden, Jesus, the gardener, would come in and remove all of the stones and all the debris and pull all of the weeds, but he wouldn't just leave it like that, because he wants to bring peace. He would plant something beautiful in its place. He wouldn't just pull out what was wrong; he would put in what is right. He would plant life. The beauty of it is it takes this man from being defiled to dignified. It's a radical transformation.

It's so radical, in fact, that it leaves the people freaking out. They're the ones who are afraid now. They're the ones who cannot comprehend how, in fact, he went from where he was to where he now is. What if God wants to do something in your life that would freak out the people around you? Like, if he wanted to move you from where you are to where he wants you to be, if he took away the evil in your world and put in its place something so beautiful and right. We know from this story that that is his heart. That's what he wants to do. It says in verse 37:

"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."

Jesus gives dignity and destiny like you wouldn't believe. Jesus did not just rescue this man from unbelievable problems. He rescued him to an unbelievable purpose. He gives it like you wouldn't believe. It would blow your mind to see what he will do in the life of someone, to see what he might do in the life of you if you would just take a chance on him.

What was this man's purpose? Well, this guy can't see it yet, but what we know is that Jesus leaves the Decapolis because these people are afraid of him. They ask him, they beg him to leave, and he concedes. He pulls away. Yet Jesus' purpose for this man is to be the very first missionary Jesus ever sends out, and what we find is that he does it. He steps into an obedient posture, and as Jesus comes back to the Decapolis only one other time in his life, he finds a very different reception waiting for him on shore.

At the end of this story, these people want him to leave, yet when Jesus finally comes back around, he finds 4,000 people who can't wait to learn from him, who can't wait to get near to him. Where did they come from? This one man. They heard the story about a Savior who gives dignity to the undignified, who gives destiny to the damned, and they knew, "I need that too," so they came close.

Paul says it like this in 2 Corinthians: "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." This demon-possessed man was willing to boast in his weakness, and the results were astounding. He embraced the weakness of his story because it expressed the greatness of his God.

Last story. A couple of years ago, Brooke and I were flying to Nashville when a flight attendant hopped on the intercom and made a very common announcement. "Attention, passengers. It seems that we're going to be encountering a little bit of turbulence in a few short moments. If you would, please return to your seats and fasten your seat belts. Thank you very much." Nothing alarming in the slightest. It made total sense.

I'd heard this announcement before. It was commonplace…that is, until the flight attendant came back on the intercom and said, "Attention, passengers. It does look like we will be experiencing some turbulence, and it will be quite a bit of turbulence. We want to encourage our white-knuckle fliers. Do not fear. Though it may grow bad outside, you can rest assured. You're completely safe within the comfort of this plane."

I'm not one who gets anxious on planes, yet in hearing that message, I began to grow somewhat anxious, because I knew we weren't just going to be encountering some trouble; we were going to be encountering quite a bit of trouble. We weren't just going to be flying into the dark; we were going to be flying into quite a bit of darkness, and it left me anxious. I felt nervous.

As we flew forward and I looked out the window… For whatever reason, I'd decided to sit in the window seat this one time. I could see the sky beginning to get dark, the clouds beginning to roll, the rain beginning to fall, and the lightning striking in the distance. As it did, the whole plane began to shake. Everything began to shudder, and I could feel all that anxiety boiling up to a breaking point within me. It left me in a spot where I felt so much terror in light of the trouble.

Then I remembered the words of the flight attendant. "It may grow dark, but rest assured. The plane can handle much more than you think. You're completely safe. You're totally comfortable." I don't know how bumpy life has gotten for you. I don't know how much turbulence you feel like you've encountered. I don't know how dark the sky seems to have grown and what sort of feelings have risen up from within, but what I know is with Jesus you're completely safe.

You're totally safe, because we have a Savior who goes to the darkest places for the darkest people. This is what he did for us. We all at one time were dark in the understanding of our minds. We were enemies of God, yet Jesus raced into the darkness of our existence to get close to us. He came to liberate a dark people to make them sons and daughters, children of light. We know that Jesus is the King our Enemy cowers before.

He proved it in the fact that he came into this life, living the way none of us could, living perfectly on our behalf, and died the death all of us deserved. He hung himself in our place, and he absorbed all the shame, all the scrutiny, and all the punishment we deserved in our sin. As he endured it on our behalf, he proved through the words "It is finished" that we have nothing to be intimidated by. Our Enemy is the one who will cower before our King who is upon his cross.

We know we have a Savior who gives destiny and dignity like you wouldn't believe. It would blow your mind, because he has given you the dignity of belonging to his family, of being a coheir with him in the destiny of living with him forevermore. I don't know what evil you face. I don't know how insidious your sin may be, but what I do know is it doesn't matter how far you've fallen or the darkness that hovers overhead. None are too hopeless. None are too lost. Jesus has given everything to prove that this is true. The question is, like this man, will you run and will you fall before him tonight? Let me pray for us.

God, this moment now is a moment you and I have talked a lot about, so, God, I'm praying for your guidance and your leadership here. Lord, I don't want this to just be some lesson we've learned; I want this to be a lesson we live. I don't just want for us to become more intellectually acquainted with truth; I want us to be more intimately acquainted with you. So help me now, God.

Porch, would you look up at me for a minute? We often see when we look at the Scriptures that Jesus responds to the faith he sees. We see it over and over and over again throughout the Bible. This man's reality was racked by a sort of evil the likes of which he should never have engaged, and everything about him looks like it's controlled, possessed in this moment, yet we know this man does something, likely upon his own volition.

These demons had no reason to run to Jesus, because they knew they were whipped. They had no reason to come to Jesus, because they knew that would be the end of their story. How, then, did this man get to the feet of Jesus? I think in faith, even the most microcosmic of faith he had, he ran. Some of you here tonight need to run to the feet of Jesus, and that's all you have to do. We see this man. He runs and falls at the feet of Jesus, and Jesus takes care of the rest.

Some of you need to let his story be your story, and you need to let it happen tonight, not because I'm wanting to fabricate something here, not because we're trying to create some moment that we can look back on or tell stories of. I think you need to do it because Christ has brought you here for that reason.

So, I don't know what the darkness is in your life. I don't know what the shadow of shame looks like in your story. We're going to respond and sing, but before we do I want to invite those of you who feel like this is your story and you're at a breaking point where you want things to change… I want to invite you to come down here so I can pray over you.

Before you do, there's also a second call to the room. I think there are many of us here who are like, "Jesus has liberated me from that. He has delivered me from my darkness. I live in the light now." Yet we know, as his disciples, as we seek his people, that none are too far gone, none are too hopeless.

So, if you're here and you know of someone you've deemed too far gone, you've found to be hopeless in their story, and you don't know if there is room for God to move, maybe tonight is a night for you to stand in the gap on their behalf, to intercede in their stead, to come down here so we can pray for them and you can be the kind of disciple Jesus himself has shown us to be, that we would go any distance to reach the isolated, to engage the inaccessible, to save the sinner.

So, if you're here tonight and you want to lay the darkness down, leave it here forevermore, and walk out into the light of what God has for you, I want to invite you to come forward. If you're here, and you want to stand in the gap for someone else… You want to hold the ground for someone else. You feel like God has called you to be the friend who leads someone to the cross of Christ or you believe God is going to move in someone's story, but you want to stand as a faithful disciple in their place tonight. I want to ask you to come down too.

This is a bold thing, and I've been on the fence about doing this, but this isn't just about being the weekly entertainment for you. This is about actually doing the real work. So, if that's you, would you be willing to come down here in this moment? Would you be willing to get up and come down to the front so we can pray for you or pray with you for your friend? Would you be willing?

Would you take a step of faith? Would you show Jesus, "I don't just know the right things; I will live the right things. I will do the right things. I will make a move for my Savior and for my King." Some of you are coming down. Please, make your way. None are too far gone. None are too hopeless for this moment.

Some of you may have a friend here tonight who has told you, "Hey, I feel like I'm a lost cause. I feel like a total outcast. I feel like I've been abandoned by God." Maybe you need to be the one to grab them by the hand and say, "We're going to come down here together, and we're going to pray. We're going to ask God to move. We're going to believe that Jesus can do in your life what he has done in so many other people's lives." Y'all come down. Make space.

It's not too late. Some of you are sitting here, and you're thinking, "Man, I don't want to be exposed. I don't want to be outed. I don't want to be seen." Listen. You're in good company tonight. Look at these friends. Look at these brothers and sisters, these people who want to take a stand, who want to make a move, who want to live into the kind of life God has invited us to be a part of. This is a chance to move and to be a part of it.

I'm going to pray, and I would ask, if you're with someone, lay a hand on them, and if you're in the room, would you extend a hand to the front of the stage to where these friends now are? Let me pray.

God, I know my story. I know how dark my days were before you, but I know, Jesus, it was upon meeting you… It was when you found me that everything changed. I know, God, that there are some people here tonight who are kneeling here before you, who are sitting here before you, and they've done so because it's a testament to the fact that they don't want the life they've been living any longer.

They don't want to entertain the addiction any longer. They don't want to sit in the shame any longer. They don't want to feel the shadow of their sin any longer. They don't want to feel the separation from you any longer. They've found themselves in a place they were never supposed to be in, God, yet now they're here and they're saying, "No, God. I don't want this anymore. I want you, God. This is a testament to my faith. This is a demonstration of my belief in Jesus."

You move toward those who move toward you. Your Word says you draw close to those who draw close to you. God, they have come close tonight that you might come close to them. I pray, our Defender, lift the darkness. Remove the veil. Free us, God, from our shame, and let the flood of your forgiveness wash over us in a way that leads us to be eternally different, totally changed. You can do it, God. You move toward the darkest of places for the darkest of people.

Some of us are down here, and we've not come for ourselves; we have come for someone else. We have a friend, a sibling, a parent, a coworker, or a neighbor who is lost in something that we are praying you would deliver them out of. God, we're asking you to hear the cries of your people here, to answer our intercession, and to liberate the lives of our friends and our family who seem too far gone, who seem totally isolated, who seem so very inaccessible.

None are so inaccessible that you can't reach them. Your hand is not too short. Your grace has never run dry. God, we believe that tonight things can change. We really do. I know, God… I feel trepidation in my spirit as I pray. It could change right now. I don't know. Maybe tomorrow is going to be hard. God, that could be the case, yet I know you can do whatever you want.

Addiction can fall. Shame can fall. Sickness can fall. God, anything can be undone by the one who has undone the grave on our behalf. So, God, we're begging you. Come, work, move in this space. We love you, Lord. We're grateful that you're a good Savior and you would reach even the most unreachable of people, people like us. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen.