Turn the Page Week 2 Sermon

Welcome to Worship

Prayers of the People

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Intro - Out of Control

Have you ever had a moment where things just got really out of control?

Car drifting as a teenage

I solely swear I wasn’t doing anything crazy

I felt out of control

In that moment there was not a single thing I felt like I could really do to rescue myself

I didn’t have the right tools

Things were out of control

In a moment I thought I don’t know if I should turn right or turn left or what I should do

The passage leading into this starts with Peter walking on water and Jesus showing that he is in control of even the wind and the waves

We will see that the story transitions from Jesus being in control and having power over something to a man who enters the story who does not have control over his own actions

Mark 5:1–13 NRSV

They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; and he shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” For he had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; and the unclean spirits begged him, “Send us into the swine; let us enter them.” So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea.

Jesus is asking what the name of the demon is

Jesus is no longer talking to the man he is talking to something that is inside him

He is separating the person from this disease or this demon that is within them

Jesus recognizes that the person is not their mistakes

the person is not the demon

What is your (demon’s) name?

Legion

Something like 6,000 soliders

the area was occupied and they would see soliders marching through and that was not a good sign.

It was believed at the time that if a demons name was spoken out loud it lost it’s power

Not just naming the demon’s in our world but naming the demons within myself

Mark 5:14–17 NRSV

The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighborhood.

Jesus has the power to release us

Of the things that we don’t have control over

there are things in our lives that we will never be able to rescue ourselves from

There will be things

The Swine

Why?

This is the plot twist

Think about the people who owned the swine?

It was an outward display of the power that this demon has

Rarely do we see and understand the impact that our habitual patterns have

Rarely do I see fully and completely the pain that my actions have had on others

Sure the animals were killed and that is an atrocity. But it is not seen as the atrocity of the demon that this man lived with

That was something that showed the man just how dangerous the thing that was inside him really was

Mark 5:18–20 NRSV

As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. But Jesus refused, and said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.” And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.

Our life speaks not of the ways we have been faithful to Jesus, but of the ways that Jesus has been faithful to us

We are transformed by God’s Grace

It is God and God alone that has the power to release us from those things that hold us back the demons

New Years Resolutions

This week is often a hard week for me every year because today is the second week of the year

Which I don’t know about you but for me that means that I have probably already given up on my New Years Resolutions

I have probably already given up on the possibility that I will be able to transform myself

When in fact it was never me that was meant to do the transforming

This person returns to the same community and has to deal with the same temptations

Legion was on the outskirts of society himself

He wanted to be taken away from all of this, but Christ tells him to stay

When I when we are transformed I think we feel a similar temptation

Couldn’t I go to follow Jesus to a new land with new people that would be so easy

When Christ tells us no stay where you are

Tell your kids about this great thing

Tell you neighbors about the ways that you have been able to release your demons

Testify to those around you

To tell is about an intimate experience proclaim is to a bigger crowd

It was a community of religious outsiders that the man was called to