Proclaim What Jesus Did For You! - Luke 7-8

 Luke 8:34-39 (ESV)

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.

The above verses are at the end of a story where Jesus cast demons out of a man who had legions of them in him.   He was often chained so that he didn’t just run naked and cause destruction.   When Jesus arrived in his town the legion of demons in him begged Jesus not to cast them into the abyss, but rather allow them to leave the man and go into a heard of pigs.    When they get into the pigs the animals run violently over a cliff and into the sea.    This of course causes great loss of capital to the herdsmen specifically and to the town in general.  When the town hears of this they are “fearful” and ask Jesus to leave.   Note the difference of this town vs the town of Capernaum that also saw a demon cast out:

Luke 4:35-37 (ESV)

But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” And reports about him went out into every place in the surrounding region.

The people in this town feared and asked Jesus to leave.   That town stood in awe and wanted more.    The man that was healed so that he was going to be shamed and blamed for the loss of the pigs and begged Jesus to take him with him.  But, instead, Jesus tells him to go and tell the town of the excellencies done to him.  That is our role in this world, as well:

1 Peter 2:9-10 (ESV)

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.