Trusting His Authority / Mark 5:1-43
As you sit down, go ahead and pick up your Bibles and turn to Mark chapter 5. We are cruising, and last week, we left off with the disciples fairly miserably, if you remember that. We talked about the four soils, and Jesus had given them a lecture. He gave them this teaching, and then he basically said, “Now it’s pop quiz time.” They go across the lake, and the disciples prove that they are rocky soil. There are a lot of rocks; they are very shallow. They just don’t understand.
Rocky soil has something in common across the board: it’s a misconception of Jesus. You can see it in the very last verse of chapter 4. When Jesus calms the storm, look at what they do. In verse 41, it says they became very much afraid and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”
Mark 4:41 (NASB)
They became very much afraid and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?’
They didn’t know. They had a misconception of Jesus. They just didn’t get it.
So after the lecture and the pop quiz, Jesus takes them to lab. You ever been in a lab class? That’s the place where the teacher says, “Now let me show you how this actually works.” That is what chapter 5 is all about. Jesus takes them to three lab classes—three different situations that teach them something profound.
I see three main lessons here. First, He continues to show them what He showed them from the very beginning when He called them to be fishers of men: what it looks like to be available and serve people at any time, in any place, with anyone. We are in this to serve and help people who are completely helpless and hopeless without Him.
Second, He addresses the specific problem that they don’t really understand His power and authority delegated by the Father. He shows them that whatever limits they think exist on His power and authority need to be thrown out. There are no limits. Nothing gets in the way of what Jesus plans to do, whether outwardly in the world or inwardly in us.
Third, He shows them three ordinary, very different people from different places in society who trust Him with the exact kind of trust He wants the disciples to have.
Three Pictures of Faith
If you read through the chapter, you’ll see a woman who had been suffering from a disease for twelve years. She was constantly bleeding. She had gone to every doctor, spent everything she had, and nobody could help her. Yet she understood something about Jesus that the disciples didn’t: she actually believed Jesus could do something no other man could do. Long story short, Jesus turns around and says to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.” I can’t help but think He said it to her and then looked right at His disciples, as if to ask, “Did you guys catch that? Do you see that she recognizes the power and authority that you’re missing?”
Then you have a man on the complete opposite end of the social ladder. Because of her bleeding, that woman was an outcast—unclean and unwelcome. But on the other side of the spectrum, you have Jairus, a leader in the synagogue, someone highly respected and accepted in society. His twelve-year-old daughter is sick and dying. He comes to Jesus and asks Him to heal her before she dies.
Even this man had an invisible line drawn in his mind. He believed Jesus had great power, but surely He couldn’t bring someone back from the dead. That’s what everyone thought, and probably what the disciples thought, too. As Jesus is walking with him, a delegation comes from Jairus’s house and says, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” Jesus looks at the man—and I think He’s speaking to the disciples, too—and says, “Do not be afraid; only keep on believing.”
That sounds a lot like the boat when Jesus asked them, “Why are you afraid? Where is your faith?” Jairus decides to keep believing. He doesn’t send Jesus away. He takes Jesus to his house, Jesus raises the little girl from the dead, and once again demonstrates: erase any limits you’ve drawn around My authority. Nothing can stop My word from being fulfilled.
The Man in the Tombs
The third encounter—which is actually the first one in chapter 5—is where I want us to camp out today. For me personally, this is the story I relate to the most. This man was a complete nobody. We don’t even know his name. But he reminds me so much of myself, and the way he responds to Jesus’s word at the end simply blows me away.
Let’s jump into verse 1:
Mark 5:1-5 (NASB)
They came to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gerasenes. When He got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met Him, and he had his dwelling among the tombs. And no one was able to bind him anymore, even with a chain; because he had often been bound with shackles and chains, and the chains had been torn apart by him and the shackles broken in pieces, and no one was strong enough to subdue him. Constantly, night and day, he was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains, and gashing himself with stones.
They come to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gerasenes, right after Jesus calmed the storm. Immediately, a man with an unclean spirit comes out of the tombs to meet Him. He lived in the cemetery. No one could bind him, not even with chains. He had torn shackles apart and broken chains to pieces. Night and day, he was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains, gashing himself with sharp stones.
This man is in horrific shape. Put yourself in the shoes of the townspeople living nearby. In those days, people were buried in caves carved into the hillsides off the Sea of Galilee. This man made those caves his home.
Imagine walking into this town thinking, This looks like a nice place to live; maybe the housing prices are good. And while you’re talking with a local resident about property, all you hear echoing in the distance is constant screaming: “Aaaargh!”
You ask, “What in the world is that?”
“Oh, that’s just Crazy Larry.” (I don’t know his real name, but let’s call him Larry.)
“What’s wrong with him? Is he screaming like that all the time?”
“Yeah, day and night. He’s cutting himself with sharp rocks because he’s possessed by demons.”
“Why don’t you do something about it?”
“We tried. The whole town tried to chain him down, but he has superhuman strength and nobody can subdue him. Oh, and by the way… he doesn’t wear any clothes.”
That is terrifying. A man running around the hill country completely naked, screaming day and night, bleeding, possessed, and impossible to restrain. No human being could bind him—until Jesus arrived.
When I told you earlier that this guy reminds me of myself, you might have wondered, What kind of crazy life did PJ live? But the truth is, all of us can relate to him far more than we realize.
At the bottom line, this man was being controlled by something he had zero power over. It was totally dominating him, slowly draining the life out of him, and destroying him. We might say, “Well, that’s not me.” Yes, it was. That was every single one of us before Jesus Christ. We were controlled by something we were powerless against, a power we were enslaved to, slowly destroying us: sin.
In fact, Larry might have had one advantage over us: at least he knew he was completely out of control. Many people today are slaves to sin without even realizing it. They are slowly dying spiritually and have no idea. Without Jesus, we are in the exact same condition.
The Authority of the Son of God
Then Jesus steps onto the scene.
Mark 5:6-8 (NASB)
Seeing Jesus from a distance, he ran up and bowed down before Him; and shouting with a loud voice, he said, ‘What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God, do not torment me!’ For He had been saying to him, ‘Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!’
Seeing Jesus from a distance, the man runs up and falls to his knees before Him. Shouting at the top of his lungs, the demon within him screams, “What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God, do not torment me!”
Right here in lab class number one, the disciples get the answer to their question from the storm. Who is this? The demon screams it out: You are the Son of the Most High God!
Notice the demon’s posture. This is a legion of spirits that an entire city could not overpower, yet the moment Jesus steps out of the boat, they are terrified. They fall down and beg Him—the word “implore” means the deepest kind of pleading—“Please don’t torment us!”
Jesus asks him, “What is your name?” And the demon replies, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”
Mark was writing to a Roman audience, and Romans knew exactly what a legion was: a military unit consisting of thousands of soldiers. As we read on, we discover there were roughly two thousand demons inside this man. No wonder he was cutting himself. No wonder he was out of his mind and possessed supernatural strength. Yet standing before Jesus, two thousand demons are begging for mercy.
Mark 5:9-13 (NASB)
And He was asking him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said to Him, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many.’ And he [began] to implore Him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now there was a large herd of swine feeding nearby on the mountain. [The demons] implored Him, saying, ‘Send us into the swine so that we may enter them.’ Jesus gave them permission. And coming out, the unclean spirits entered the swine; and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, about two thousand [of them]; and they were drowned in the sea.
The demons beg Him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Nearby on the hillside, a large herd of pigs is feeding. The demons plead, “Send us into the swine so that we may enter them.” Jesus gives them permission. The unclean spirits come out, enter the pigs, and the herd of about two thousand rushes down the steep bank into the sea and drowns.
Did you notice that? The demons couldn’t do a single thing without Jesus’s permission. His authority is absolute.
Imagine this from the perspective of the pig herders. It’s just a normal, ordinary day watching the pigs. Suddenly, they see a boat landing near the cemetery. They watch a man step out, and out of the caves comes Crazy Larry, sprinting full speed at Him. The herders are probably thinking, Get back in the boat! But Larry hits his knees. Then Jesus speaks, gestures toward the hill, and suddenly two thousand pigs lose their minds, stampede down the cliff, and drown in the water.
Clothed and in His Right Mind
Mark 5:14-15 (NASB)
Their herdsmen ran away and reported it in the city and in the country. And [the people] came to see what it was that had happened. They came to Jesus and observed the man who had been demon-possessed sitting down, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the ‘legion’; and they became frightened.
The herdsmen run into the city and the countryside, telling everyone what happened. The townspeople rush out to see it for themselves. When they arrive, they see the man who had been possessed by the legion sitting down, clothed, and in his right mind.
For the first time in years, the hillside is quiet. No screaming. No chains rattling. No blood. The man is sitting peacefully, fully dressed, thinking clearly.
Isn’t that our story? Before Jesus, we didn’t truly understand life. We were spiritually naked and out of our minds in our sin. Then Jesus came to us, broke the power of sin, clothed us in His righteousness, and gave us clarity. Do you remember when that light bulb turned on for you, and you finally thought, So this is what life with God is supposed to be?
You would expect the townspeople to celebrate. You’d think they would throw a party and say, “Jesus, thank you! We don’t need earplugs at night anymore. Thank you for fixing this impossible problem!”
Look at how verse 15 ends: “And they became frightened.”
Mark 5:16-17 (NASB)
Those who had seen it described to them how it had happened to the demon-possessed man, and [all] about the swine. And they began to implore Him to leave their region.
Why were they afraid? The eyewitnesses told them everything that happened to the demon-possessed man and the pigs. The townspeople realized: We couldn’t control Larry. This man subdued him in seconds. That means this Jesus has unbelievable power—and He just wiped out two thousand of our pigs.
They started thinking, What else will He disrupt if He stays? All they wanted was normal. They just wanted peace and quiet, and they knew that having Jesus around meant normal was gone forever. When Jesus enters your life, “normal” goes out the window.
The townspeople saw His raw power, but they didn’t bother to stay and discover His love and wisdom. When people only catch a glimpse of Jesus’s authority—the idea that He has the right to take charge of their lives—it frightens them. So, verse 17 says they began to implore Jesus to leave their region.
The Hardest “No”
Jesus doesn’t force Himself on them. He turns around and gets back into the boat.
Mark 5:18 (NASB)
As He was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed was imploring Him that he might accompany Him.
As Jesus is getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begins imploring Him that he might accompany Him.
Picture the scene: the townspeople are practically holding up protest signs telling Jesus to leave. Jesus is stepping into the boat. The healed man stands on the shore, looks back at the crowd, and thinks, I don’t belong with these people anymore. I want to be with Jesus. So he drops to his knees and begs, “Lord, please let me come with You.”
If you were reading this for the first time, you would assume Jesus would say yes. Jesus calls people to follow Him all the time. Furthermore, this man had just demonstrated incredible faith, while the disciples had just failed their test during the storm. You’d think Jesus would say, “Judas, get out; Larry, get in—you’re starting today.”
Mark 5:19 (NASB)
And He did not let him, but He said to him, ‘Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and [how] He had mercy on you.’
Look at the first words of verse 19: “And He did not let him.”
Jesus said no. He granted the request of the demons. He granted the request of the frightened crowd. But to the man who loved Him and simply wanted to be near Him, He said no.
If I were that man, my mind would be spinning: Did I misunderstand You? Do You not care about me? Am I not good enough to be in Your inner circle? Is it because of my past? Is it because of the scars?
Then Jesus explains why: “Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had mercy on you.”
Jesus was telling him, “I’m not rejecting you; I am sending you. I deeply care about you, and you are the exact person I need for this mission. I care about the people standing behind you who just kicked Me out. They won’t listen to Me, and they’re sending Me away—but they won’t send you away. You are My witness here.”
Think of all the objections this man could have raised—the very same objections we use when we hesitate to share Christ with our neighbors, coworkers, and families:
“Jesus, these people are completely hostile toward You.” “I know. Will you trust Me?”
“Jesus, I have no credibility. Everyone knows my past. They think I’m crazy.” “I know. Will you trust Me?”
“Jesus, I’ve only been a believer for one hour! I haven’t taken evangelism training. I don’t know what to say.” “I know. Just tell them your story. Tell them what I did for you.”
“Jesus, I’ll be completely alone. Can’t You leave at least one disciple with me?” “I have other plans for them. It has to be you. Will you trust Me?”
“Jesus, my entire life I’ve been an outcast. I just wanted to be normal. If I start preaching about You, they’ll think I’m crazy all over again.” “I know. Will you trust Me?”
Something clicked in the man’s heart. He realized that following Jesus isn’t just about what Jesus does for me; it’s about what Jesus wants to do through me in the world. It’s about being His representative right where He has placed us.
The Power of a Changed Life
He stopped begging. He stood up, watched the boat sail away until it disappeared over the horizon, turned around, and walked back into his community.
Mark 5:20 (NASB)
And he went away and began to proclaim in Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.
He didn’t just go back to his own household. He went away and began to proclaim throughout the Decapolis—the region of the “Ten Cities”—what great things Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.
Here was one man, covered in scars, walking through ten cities, telling anyone who would listen: “Let me tell you who I was, and let me tell you what Jesus did for me.” When people asked, “What happened to your arms? What’s the story behind those scars?” he had an open door: “I used to be enslaved, cutting myself in the tombs. But then Jesus had mercy on me.”
The text doesn’t tell us how many people were immediately converted. The results were in God’s hands. The point is his faithfulness. He trusted Jesus’s authority, embraced his calling, and amazed an entire region with the testimony of God’s grace.
What if we did the same thing? What if, instead of visiting ten cities, you wrote down a list of ten people in your sphere of influence—family members, neighbors, coworkers, friends? What if you started praying for opportunities to simply tell them your story—how Jesus rescued you from the power of sin and gave you real life?
If one hundred of us took that step of trust, one thousand people in our community would hear of the mercy of God. Let’s step out, trust His authority, and point people to the Savior.
Let’s pray.
Lord, thank You for this powerful account. Thank You for showing us what it truly means to trust Your authority. Forgive us for the times we make excuses and let fear keep us silent. Give us the courage of this man to go back to our homes, our workplaces, and our neighborhoods to declare what great things You have done for us. We trust You with the results. Use our lives to amaze those around us with Your incredible grace. In Jesus’ name, Amen.