There is never a reason to be afraid of what Jesus has for us

So, I want you to imagine you are a villager in a region called Gerasenes and you are alive during Jesus ministry. And - in the main - you have a pretty ordinary, quiet life disturbed only by the shouting and wailing of the man who lives among the dead.

He has been there as long as you can remember. Naked, shouting, cutting himself with the sharpened edges of stones that lay about the tombs. His cries can be heard night and day. He is stronger than any man you’ve ever known. People have tried to tie him up in the past, but he breaks every chain. Except, of course, the chain that has affected his mind and broken his spirit. Something powerful and evil has imprisoned him, and he is tormented.

As a village, you’ve come to an uneasy truce with him. He’s allowed to roam free. As long as he does it in the cemetery and the hills. As long as he doesn’t have anything to do with you. But the crying and wailing. That’s the constant backdrop to your daily life.

Until one day it stops. It takes you a little while to realise - you’ve been so used to the endless noise that you’ve learned to block it out - but now it isn’t there anymore and you want to know why. So you head to the tombs. And there you see a man called Jesus. And then you see him. You see the man who used to wail and shout and cry, the man who used to cut himself, the man who lived among the dead. But now he is dressed and in his right mind.

Your neighbours tell you what they witnessed. The man had been full of evil spirits - it was the spirits that had tortured him - and Jesus had told the evil spirits to go. The spirits that had caused the man so much pain and anguish, that had bound him up and led to him to try to destroy his own body for so long, had been told to go away by Jesus. And they had gone. The man is completely healed and completely free, and it is Jesus who did that.

What do you think your response would be? Would you be amazed? Excited? Want to know more?

They were afraidWell, what I’ve asked you to imagine is that you’re part of a story we read in Mark chapter 5. And Mark tells us the villagers see the man dressed and in his right mind, but they’re not amazed, or excited, and they certainly don’t want to know more. In Mark 5:15 it says, “they were afraid.” They see Jesus, they see the outcome of a miraculous healing, and they are afraid. So afraid they beg Jesus to leave – not just their village, the whole region.
And, this morning I want to look very quickly at how this story tells us that the villagers were wrong to be afraid. Because when it comes to moving into everything Jesus has for us, there is never a reason to be afraid. And, if you know me at all you’ll know I like a bit of evidence to support the statements I make. And the good news is… there are four pointers in this story, four pieces of evidence that help us to see why we don’t have to be afraid of what Jesus has for us. And the first bit of evidence is:

Jesus goes out of his way to include usJesus goes out of his way to include us. When Jesus sets out to cross the Lake of Galilee he deliberately chooses to take himself to an area no-one really expected him to go to. Jesus was a Jew and Gerasenes was not a Jewish region; it was a gentile region. At that point in his ministry many of Jesus’ followers believed he had come only to save the Jews. But Jesus goes to great lengths to show them the nature of the Kingdom he wants to bring in. It is a Kingdom for everyone. No-one is excluded from it.

And he presses the point further by dealing face-to-face with the man possessed by the evil spirits. Meeting him would have made Jesus - according to Jewish custom - ritually unclean. But Jesus doesn’t hesitate to meet the man where he needs to be met.

You know, sometimes our experiences or the things that people have said about us can bind us up in so much fear that we miss the fact that Jesus wants us in his Kingdom. We exclude ourselves from receiving what Jesus has for us by thinking we have the wrong background, live in the wrong house, have the wrong job, look the wrong way, went to the wrong school...
But Jesus doesn’t exclude us. He meets us where we need to be met. Jesus doesn’t differentiate between Jew Gentile, male female... It is not that he doesn’t know who we are or see us as we are. It is simply that there is an equality in his Kingdom that transcends anything we will experience anywhere else. Jesus is always closing gaps. Primarily between us and God but also between each other.

We don’t need to be afraid of what Jesus has for us because he goes out of his way to include us. Don’t let fear stop you from being included by Jesus this morning. He wants you!
The second piece of evidence that helps us to see why we don’t have to be afraid of what Jesus has for us is in the way that he deals with the possessed man.

Jesus wants us to be freeJesus heals the man possessed by demons because he loves him and wants to set him free.
The man isn’t an object lesson. He is a loved child of God and Jesus wants to see him liberated so he can know that truth.
And the whole point of the gospel is that it emancipates us because we know we are loved by God. It frees us to be the people God always intended us to be. It stops up from comparing ourselves to others. It tells us we are neither superior nor inferior. It instructs us to live in submission, not in a hierarchy. It empowers us to be servants. It elevates us all to the status of co-heirs with Christ.
Some of us need to let Jesus liberate us from the things that bind us and the only way we are going to do that is to understand our identity is in him and nothing else. You don’t need the validation of other people. You don’t need their permission to be you. Jesus wants you to be free to be everything God intended you to be.
We don’t need to be afraid of what Jesus has for us because what he has for us is freedom. Don’t let fear stop you from being freed loved and by Jesus this morning. Love and liberty are your birthright.

The third bit of evidence is – well, let’s just say it’s oblique but it’s there. And it’s around the villagers’ response to change.

If Jesus asks us to change it’s because he has more for usThere’s no question there would have been other people who needed healing in that village. Jesus could have done so much more in that place, but the villagers wouldn’t let him. And, I think that was about change. Jesus’ presence threatened to change everything, the thought of change caused fear, and the fear limited Jesus by not allowing him to change anything else.
And we can do that, too. We can limit what Jesus wants to do with us because we are afraid of what the change is going to mean. But life with Jesus is never about settling - it’s certainly never about settling for less than he has for us. And, yes, change is challenging but we live in the promise that God works all things together for our good.
A few weeks ago we heard a number of prophetic words and there was a lot of challenge to change in them. Be holy, be reconciled, put things down, don’t have other gods, draw closer... The Holy Spirit is asking us to change. And there is no need to be afraid because any change Jesus initiates is going to be for our good. He has more for us. Don’t let fear prevent you from letting Jesus change you this morning. You’ll love what he does with you after he’s done it!
The final evidence that we don’t have to be afraid of what Jesus has for us comes at the end of the story.
The response of the man who is healed is to want to travel around with Jesus. And who can blame him? But, Jesus says ‘no’ and then tells him what he should do instead. In verse 19 he says, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” And Mark tells us the man does exactly that and the people in the ten Greek cities in the region are amazed to hear what Jesus has done for him.

Jesus helps us find our place, our people, and our purpose.The man gets to go HOME. Can you imagine what that must have felt like for him? All the years of isolation and the first thing he gets to do is go home to his people. Jesus is always concerned with helping us find our place. And he knows that if we find our place we invariably find our purpose.
At Jesus’ instruction the healed man finds his purpose as he shares his extraordinary testimony.
We don’t need to be afraid of anything Jesus has for us because he helps us find our place, our people and our purpose. Don’t let fear stop you from finding your place, people and purpose in Jesus this morning.

One last thingOne last thing - and this is important – it is possible for us to tell Jesus to leave us alone as emphatically as the villagers did. And if we do that, he won’t press the point. He will still be Jesus. He will still love you and long for you to experience everything he has for you. But he won’t outstay his welcome. He won’t force you to let him stay around. Just like the villagers, you get to choose how much of Jesus you want in your life.
The villager’s fears were unfounded. Don’t let your fear prevent Jesus from including you, freeing you, changing you, and finding your place and purpose.