Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
An archive of Jacob Nannie's Sermons & Teachings
This sermon is titled "Jesus Liberates," and it's on Mark chapter 5, verses 1 through 20.
It's in the series "Who Do You Say That I Am?
The Son of God and the Gospel of Mark."
It's my 11th sermon as a part of the residency program at Christ Community Shawnee, and it
was on March 2nd, 2025.
Leading up to this week, we were at, as residents and our spouses, we're at a conference called
Made to Flourish, and so it was a strange week.
I had a lot of spiritual attack during this week, spiritually, mentally, physically, a
lot of time constrictions because of going to this three-day conference, but needing
to have a sermon ready by Sunday morning, and I don't think that was a coincidence.
The sermon was on Jesus casting out demons, and there are things that tend to happen when
you preach a sermon on how Jesus has extreme authority over the demonic realm, and so everything
was fine.
Nothing major happened, but there were some things where it's like, "Huh, that is super
weird, super crazy," and I think it's because I'm preaching a sermon on this topic.
First service was the only time that during a sermon I had back-to-back heart palpitations.
That's what it felt like the whole time.
I usually get some heart palpitations before a sermon, but this time I had it the entire
time, to the point where I wasn't even sure I knew what I was saying because I was so
focused on them.
First time after a sermon, I went to the office and sat down and told myself, "I really don't
want to preach a second time," so it was an interesting sermon, interesting events that
happened around the sermon, but the sermon was well received and it was what people needed
to hear.
I had a couple people come to me in tears because of the message that was preached,
because of the power and authority that Jesus has over all people, has authority to crush
our enemies, but also to raise us up in tenderness.
So special sermon, hope you enjoy.
Our scripture passage this morning is from Mark 5, verses 1-10, "They came to the other
side of the sea, to the region of the Gerasenes.
As soon as he got out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came out of the tombs and
met him.
He lived in the tombs, and no one was able to restrain him anymore, not even with a chain,
because he often had been bound with shackles and chains, but had torn the chains apart
and smashed the shackles.
No one was strong enough to subdue him.
Night and day, among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out and cutting
himself with stones.
When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and knelt down before him, and he cried out
with a loud voice, "What do you have to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?
I beg you before God, don't torment me!"
For he had told him, "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit."
"What is your name?" he asked him.
"My name is Legion," he answered him, "because we are many."
And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the region.
This is the word of the Lord.
You may be seated.
It's kind of weird the mic starts acting up as soon as Paul is reading what the demon
says.
We'll address that in a second.
Back in October of 2011, there was a woman named Jessica Buchanan, who was kidnapped
by Somali pirates.
She was in Hagesia, which is the capital of Somalia, working as a regional educator, teaching
children on the normal things, such as how to avoid war munitions and landmines.
Journalist Anna Moore writes that in her first moments of her kidnapping, Jessica Buchanan's
brain seized up and her mind went blank.
Her body knew.
Her experience of terror was physical.
She struggled to breathe, and she somehow turned icy cold while at the same time she
felt roasted alive.
What she didn't know was this was the start of a brutal 93 days.
After her kidnapping, she was isolated geographically, 480 miles from her place of work and some
7,630 miles from her actual home.
She was isolated socially.
She wasn't able to talk to her fellow prisoners.
She was tormented physically by not having proper and basic hygiene, and this led to
a severe and life-threatening illness.
She was also tormented emotionally, often going to the recesses of her own mind to be
back at home, baking, cooking, and being with her husband.
But after 93 days, 24 US Navy SEALs came to Jessica's rescue.
In one article, Jessica recalls how four words of one of these SEALs she'll never forget,
"You are safe now."
Jessica was a victim held captive by hostile forces.
She was held in brutal conditions, and a team broke into an impossible situation and rescued
her and liberated her into safety.
In stories like Jessica's that stir something deep within us, even if we never experience
this kind of dramatic rescue that Jessica experienced, her story resonates because we
all understand the need for that type of rescue in some form.
At some point, we all face situations that are beyond our control, circumstances that
leave us trapped, powerless, or desperate for help.
Jessica's story reminds us that we need someone to step in and intervene when we cannot ourselves.
And this morning's text represents that same need on an even deeper and more spiritual
level.
See, this demon-possessed man in our passage, he was also a victim held captive by hostile
forces and he kept in brutal conditions, but he was rescued by a savior who broke into
an impossible situation and was liberated to a new life in Christ.
And what this passage shows us is that Jesus has the authority to set you free.
Jesus has the authority to set you free by prevailing over the chaos in your life.
And Jesus' authority is able to set you free because it's not far off.
It draws near to you in brokenness.
And his authority is far superior than anything that might hold you captive.
And the liberating experience of this authority provokes you and us to respond in ways that
propel our witness that he is the Messiah.
This morning we're continuing our series in the Gospel of Mark and the crucial question
in this series serves as our series title, "Who do you say that I am?"
And as we journey through this gospel and journey with Jesus in our lives, this question
becomes increasingly clear, that Jesus is the Messiah and what he's doing is leading
his people on a new exodus out from under the oppression of our true enemies, which
are sin, death, and the devil.
Jesus liberates.
And he has the power to do so.
We saw this last week in Pastor Paul's message where Jesus has authority and control
over even the forces of nature.
At the end of chapter 4, Jesus and his disciples encounter a chaotic storm that threatens to
capsize their boat.
And some scholars that tie the end of chapter 4 really closely to the beginning of chapter
5 would argue that this storm that Jesus and his disciples face was almost a demonic storm
that was keeping him from entering the region he was going into to do ministry.
Jesus is on his way to liberate and just like in the Exodus story, the waters of chaos threaten
to stop this liberation.
But Jesus and his authority prevail over this attempt and over the forces of nature and
in a word, a storm is calmed.
It's quite interesting to me that the Bible ties water and chaos really closely together.
In the beginning, Yahweh brings order to chaos by subduing the chaos waters in creation and
Moses in the Exodus re-enacts God's reign over chaos and over the forces of nature when
he parts the Red Sea and in chapter 4, Jesus is re-enacting that re-enactment by having
authority, the same authority that God has, authority to subdue forces of nature and authority
over chaos and evil that is attempting him, attempting to keep him from his ministry.
Now I know we're currently in the Midwest so a lot of us aren't familiar with large,
large bodies of water and how scary that can be, like the ocean and the sea, but we do
experience chaos in our lives, we do experience storms in our lives.
At times, our lives seem like an unstoppable, uncontrollable, and unpredictable storm, don't
they?
Maybe your storm isn't literal waves in the ocean or in a lake, maybe it's waves of anxiety,
maybe it's waves of financial stress that you experience over your life, maybe it's
waves of broken relationships.
Jesus' authority over chaos isn't merely a story from scripture that you get to read
about, it's a promise for the storms you face today.
Jesus has authority that prevails over that chaos.
You know, once in my adulthood, I had an interesting conversation with my parents.
The Lord gifted my parents with young children in their final high school years and they
worked extremely hard to make ends meet, often working back-to-back 12-hour shifts to do
so.
And when I didn't know growing up, what they maybe kept from me was that for some amount
of time, we were pretty poor.
And hearing that news, I asked my mom like, "Were we actually poor or did we just have
less money than we wanted?"
And she goes, "You don't remember that we had Earth Day like once every other month.
In Prompt II Earth Day, we didn't have enough money to pay for electric bills."
I'm like, "Okay, well, that's, yeah, it's pretty dire."
And so for some time, my family lived in a chaotic storm of three young children and
very, very little income.
And early on in my family's history, my dad was a new convert, and because of his new
conversion, he was a little hesitant to adopt the practice of tithing.
But he came to a point where he said, "You know what, God?
Your word says to test you in giving," and so he did it.
And that very week, they got refunds and money from agencies that covered the exact amount
of the bills that they needed to cover.
My dad stepped out of fear and into faith and trusted that Jesus had authority over
whatever little finances we had.
And in that, he experienced and we experienced the liberating authority of Jesus over chaos.
We can trust Jesus' authority to liberate us from the chaos in our lives.
There's many stories that illustrate that.
Like my family, some of them are less radical and less miraculous.
Some of them are far more radical and far more miraculous.
But all of them illustrate that Jesus has authority over the chaos, and it's hearing
these stories that we ask the question, "What chaos are you trying to control or subdue
that only Jesus can?"
It can be really hard, but letting go of the chaos in our life and surrendering it to the
power and authority of Jesus is liberating, because only the power and authority of Jesus
can prevail over all the chaos you face in this life.
And friends, Jesus is both willing and able to liberate you from that chaos.
In fact, this is what Jesus does.
He moves towards chaotic situations, not away from them.
He moves towards brokenness, not away from it.
And one way he does that is by heading into this area, right?
This area that Jesus is headed into in our text is the epitome of what the Jewish people
will consider unclean.
He's headed to a Gentile territory known as the Gerasenes.
He moves near a man living in tombs, which in Old Testament law are considered incredibly
unclean.
And also this region is filled with herds of pigs, which are equally as unclean in the
Jewish eye.
And not only that, but these people are probably supplying the Roman legions with food from
these unclean animals, like quadrupling down on the unclean situation.
And so many Jews of Jesus's day would not go near that situation, but Jesus's power
and authority move toward it, not away.
Often we expect the holiness, the purity, the power, and the authority of Jesus to distance
him from what is impure, unholy, and powerless.
However, this is not true for Jesus.
And in the Gospels, he frequently does the opposite of our expectations.
And so if you feel that today your state is one that can be declared unclean or untouchable,
the encouragement is that Jesus is willing and ready and models a posture of moving towards
that.
Take great hope and expectation that Jesus the Messiah is willing and able to move toward
you.
He comes willing and able to liberate you from oppression.
And he's not only pursue impurity of the situation, of the geography of the land, but also the
brokenness of the demon-possessed man.
See, Mark emphasizes how broken this man was and the way he writes about the man with the
unclean spirit.
Let's read verses two through five again.
"As soon as he got out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came out of the tombs
and met him.
He lived in the tombs and no one was able to restrain him anymore, not even with a chain,
because he often had been bound with shackles and chains, but had torn the chains apart
and smashed the shackles.
No one was strong enough to subdue him.
Night and day, among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out and cutting
himself with stones.
This man lived in tombs.
No one could restrain him.
He was bound with shackles and chains.
Shackles and chains he broke.
No one could restrain him.
He lived in tombs."
Incredibly broken situation and incredibly broken man.
Day and night, he was screaming and cutting himself.
Could you imagine day and night hearing someone screaming in a graveyard and cutting themselves?
What would you do about it?
What could you do about that?
This is a broken situation.
Mark is telling us that slowly, day by day, night by agonizing night, the unclean spirits
are attempting to distort and destroy the divine image in this man.
The demonic always seek to destroy the image of God in humanity.
Sin, death, and the devil consistently strive to distort and annihilate God's image bearers.
This is a shocking and disturbing scene, right?
And it might make you ask the question like, "Okay, come on.
Is demonic possession actually real?"
Right?
Is demonic possession in general real?
Is it real like this?
And that's a perfectly understandable wonder for our text, as unbelievable as this one.
I get it.
Right?
It can be hard and not easy to understand how this could happen even today.
But three things lead me to affirm that yes, demonic possession is genuinely a real occurrence
even in the modern era.
First, it's clear in scripture that Jesus believes that demonic possession is real.
It's not as though Jesus is acting along with people who think they have demons.
He's not confronting people who are acting like they have demons.
He truly interacts with and casts out demons during his earthly ministry.
And not only this, but his disciples do the same thing.
In a few weeks, we'll see in Mark chapter six that they went out and preached that people
should repent, and they, the disciples, drove out many demons.
Demonic possession was a real thing for Jesus and his disciples, a thing they really encountered
and really dealt with by the power of God.
Second, what leads me to believe that demonic possession is real is that we have a unique
privilege here in the West of not being acquainted with the demonic.
It's a minority experience.
It's not in our face like it is in the rest of the world.
If you were to ask, "Is demonic possession real in the global South," for example, people
would laugh.
They might not laugh at you, but they would laugh at the question.
Because most of the world in human history does not question the fact that demonic possession
is real.
But kind of third, third point is, don't you sort of suspect it, right?
Or maybe it's just me, but don't you feel like there's something more to this world
than the black and white perspective of naturalism?
Human people who reject God often have moments where they sense a darkness that's beyond
human evil.
Back in October 31st, actually, the Forum.Life podcast released an episode with Dr. Cutter
Calloway called "Horror and Christian Faith."
In that episode, Dr. Calloway notes that there is a reason horror movies dealing with the
supernatural, like The Exorcist, remain so compelling.
They tap into a reality we can't quite explain, yet feel is true.
In fact, many in the church have lost sight of what most of the world understands.
The battle between good and evil is real, and it's not just psychological or metaphorical.
It is spiritual.
And so if we as Christians truly believe in Jesus' authority, we cannot ignore what
he himself confronted, nor should we dismiss those who continue to face these spiritual
realities today.
Demonic possession is real.
It is not my intent to nail down here exactly how all this works out, but to demonstrate
that though we do know, don't know the exact details of the supernatural, we do know that
the unholy trinity of sin, death, and the devil is real, and sometimes they really oppress
and seek to break us as they do with the man in our passage.
But this brokenness is exactly what Jesus does not avoid.
We don't see Jesus being confronted by this man and fleeing the scene.
No, this is Jesus, the Messiah, leading a new exodus, liberating his people from oppressions
of things just like this.
He does not run from this.
He has authority and power over it.
Jesus has authority and power over your brokenness.
And if you feel broken and beaten down or oppressed, no matter the cause, Jesus is near,
and he pursues this brokenness in a way that liberates those who trust in him.
Sin, death, and the devil may be trying to break you down, but friends, Jesus came to
rescue you from such brokenness.
And he also came to save others from brokenness.
And today our challenge is to continue his work by moving toward, not away from, those
who are unclean and broken.
You know, when I lived in California, by the way, today is one year and four days since
I found Christ Community, and I'll show you that this weekend.
Thank you.
I'm so happy to be here.
But when I was there, one of the earliest and most important lessons that a pastor of
mine taught me was the basics of being a good pastor and really just a good Christian.
A good pastor, day by day, grows closer to Jesus.
Check.
In doing so, he will emulate the ways of Jesus and move towards pain.
And as he moves toward pain, he becomes a safe friend who will guide others to abundant
life in Christ.
Now those who grew up in the church, they understand, yes, you get closer to Jesus.
That's our call.
That's easy.
However, the second principle isn't really as readily applicable.
Move toward pain.
Move toward people, right?
Most of us, if we're honest, or many of us, we want to hesitate to move towards people
in general.
If we don't have the adjective of hurting people, our hesitation doubles down.
However, moving towards pain is Jesus' way.
And if we're called to discipleship, to be with Jesus, to become like him and to do what
he did, then this includes moving toward brokenness that people are experiencing.
So my challenge to you this week and forever is to move toward pain.
Move toward brokenness, particularly the brokenness that you would naturally and typically avoid.
Why pursue this?
It's not just to be around painful people, but it's because it's what Jesus did.
And those who have the Spirit of God with them, those who have experienced Jesus' authority,
have the same responsibility of bringing healing and restoration that Jesus offers to those
who are broken and in need.
When we move toward chaos and brokenness, we don't have to be afraid because Jesus' authority
cannot be overcome.
Overcoming that authority is what the demons in this passage try to do.
Become to Jesus in Mark 5, 6-7.
And when they saw him from a distance, they ran and knelt down before him and cried out
with a loud voice, "What do you have to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?
I beg you before God, do not torment me."
The demon-possessed man rushes to Jesus and tries to bind Jesus by saying, "I beg you
before God."
Other translations say, "I adjure you before God," revealing that the demon-possessed man
was speaking a common phrase used by exorcists to cast out demons in Jesus' day.
And these demons would know, right?
It's used on them often.
And so they try to bind Jesus, but his authority proves supreme.
Jesus' authority proves supreme.
The demonic cannot overtake the authority of Jesus.
No formulaic expression, no combination of words, no amount of power, physical or spiritual,
can overcome Jesus' authority.
It is supreme.
What they intrinsically know, though they try to bind him, they intrinsically know that
Jesus is superior.
They kneel before him.
They assume that he's hostile to them.
And they call him the Son of the Most High God.
And knowing his authority is supreme, they begged him earnestly not to send them out
of the region.
Now, if this story wasn't already unbelievable, it gets even crazier in verse 11.
"A large herd of pigs was there, feeding on the hillside.
The demons begged him, 'Send us to the pigs so that we may enter them.'
And so he gave them permission, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs.
The herd of about two thousand, two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and
drowned there."
And come on, Jesus, what do the pigs do, right?
When we read this, we kind of feel that way.
We feel sorry for the pigs, because they're just almost innocent bystanders, and we also
feel sorry for the farmers.
It's a great loss of income.
But keep in mind a few things.
First, the original readers of this would have felt little sympathy for the pigs or
the farmers.
Pigs were despised, and they had no business being in or even around Israel.
It's like if Jesus had cursed two thousand rats, you probably would be thanking him.
But what about the farmers?
Well here's the thing.
If they're farming pigs, it's to feed the Roman legions.
They're oppressors.
And so this is more like when the government seizes the assets of terrorists.
No one here is saying, "Oh, those poor terrorists and their assets."
No.
No one in the first century would have questioned Jesus on this.
But still, we're not in the first century, so it's really, really weird, right?
Why did Jesus do it?
Well, the chief reason that he did do it was because Jesus is always teaching and showing
us something.
And when Jesus sends legion to the pigs, he is demonstrating the intentions the demonic
had for the man that they had possessed.
What they intended to do with this man was to throw him off a cliff and drown him in
the sea.
And what sin, death, and the devil intend to do with you is to destroy the image of
God and to destroy you.
Sin, death, and the devil come only to steal, kill, and destroy.
But Jesus came that we may have life and life abundantly.
Thus what we see in Jesus' work is not the loss of two thousand pigs or extreme amounts
of income but the gain of abundant life.
He says in Matthew 12, 12, "How much more is a man worth than a sheep?"
We see Jesus leading a new exodus, freeing the oppressed.
And we see that Jesus has the authority to set us free from anything that seeks to destroy
us.
And so friends, my encouragement to you this morning is to proclaim that authority over
your life and the lives of others.
And one powerful way to do this is in community.
Our tactic of the world, the flesh, and the devil is to isolate us.
I felt that during this week's preparation of this sermon.
There was times where I had gaps in my day and I felt isolated.
And that's when sin, death, and the devil try to come in to destroy my day, my person,
my walk with Christ.
But we are not a people who are alone.
So my encouragement to you is to gather in community and proclaim the authority of Jesus
over all that oppresses us, over all that seeks to destroy us, and watch God work in
wonderful ways.
Because I am sure of this.
When we gather as a community to proclaim Jesus' authority and power, wonderful things
will happen for our good and God's glory.
And witnessing God's mighty acts in this way demands us to respond.
Curtis touched on this this morning in talking about God's free gift.
It is so aggressively glorious that we have to respond to it.
The crowd in the text, in our text, does not have the response that we might expect.
Jesus performs his exorcism and radically restores this man to his right mind, and they ask him
to leave.
Begone Jesus.
I love what one scholar, James Edwards, says about this.
Most people, if they're asked, would probably say that they would like to see a manifestation
of God.
But this story is a cold shower for such religious pipe dreams.
When God manifests himself in Jesus, most people ask him to leave.
If someone here today was demon-possessed and came up and God manifests himself in the
exorcism of that thing, you might want to leave.
The presence of God and the authority and power he brings are a scary sight to behold.
It reminds me of a story in Leviticus where God accepts the sacrifice of Israel and fire
shoots out of a temple to consume it.
That's terrifying.
Have you guys seen fire shoot out of anywhere?
Or even in chapter 4, when the storm is raging, what are disciples doing?
They're afraid.
And when Jesus calms the storm, he says, "Don't be afraid," and they're terrified.
Acts of God are scary.
Maybe we're trained to be scared because usually such displays of power threaten to
destroy us, but the power and authority of Jesus does not seek to destroy us.
Rather, in this new exodus, it seeks to liberate us to abundant life.
Seeing Jesus's power and authority on display provokes a response, and it begs the question,
who is Jesus?
And it's events like these that bring the title of our series into a sharp focus.
Who do you say that I am?
The wondrous works of Jesus provoke a response.
What is yours?
For the crowd, the disciples, in chapter 4, it's fear, but what is your response?
When you see the wondrous works of God, is your response fear?
Is it faith?
And as we reflect on that question, another equally important question is how or where
am I seeing Jesus's authority on display in my life and in the lives of others in my community?
Because when we name those things, we ought to respond like the man who has been delivered
responds.
The man who has been delivered does not respond in fear, nor does he run from Jesus or ask
him to leave.
He sits at his feet in his right mind.
And when Jesus grants the request of the crowd and actually does leave, this man begs to
be with Jesus.
When he was even possessed, he begged to be away from Jesus, but now that he's been delivered,
he begs to be with Jesus.
But Jesus has a different mission for him.
He does not grant his wish to be with Jesus, but tells him to go home to your own people
and report to them how much the Lord has done for you and how he's had mercy on you.
And the demon-possessed man who's now been liberated does just that.
But notice the wording that Mark uses here in verse 19.
Again, go home to your own people and report to them how much the Lord has done for you
and how much he has had mercy on you.
So he, the liberated man, went out and began to proclaim the Decapolis how much Jesus had
done for him.
And they were all amazed.
This liberated man rightly equates the works of Jesus with the works of God.
A couple weeks ago in chapter 3, the teachers of the law accused Jesus of casting out demons
by the power of Satan.
But here a man free from the power of Satan accuses Jesus of casting out demons by the
power of God.
The authority of Jesus propels the witness of this liberated man to go and tell what
God has done for him.
And he goes out to proclaim all that Jesus has done for him.
He goes out to proclaim the authority of Jesus over the oppressive forces of sin, death,
and the devil.
Is it you responding with this obedience?
Often my answer to this question is no, because I don't believe my salvation is as radical
as this.
What a lie!
If Jesus has saved you, your salvation is radical.
Before Jesus delivered us from sin, no matter what that sin was, it isolated us geographically
and socially, just like this demon-possessed man.
No matter what that sin was, it made us feel unclean and broken and unworthy, just like
this demon-possessed man.
But Jesus the Messiah, the divine warrior who is leading a new exodus, has saved us
from the oppressive power of sin, death, and the devil.
And friends, that is radical.
It doesn't matter if our salvation or experience of Jesus looks like what we read in this passage.
We should respond like the liberated man and tell everyone what Jesus has done for us.
And I'm aware that there are some sitting here today who have yet to experience this
liberating authority that Jesus can offer.
I'm aware that there are some sitting here today, who will be here today, who are struggling
with shame, maybe over something from your past, maybe something no one else knows about.
There's some sitting today that maybe feel like we're too far gone.
There's no way Jesus would come near us.
But friends, that's exactly who Jesus moves toward.
And that's you yet to experience the salvation Christ has to offer.
I want you to know that only Jesus can liberate you from your oppression, and he is willing
to do so.
All the way back in the first chapter of Mark, a leper came and said, "If you're willing,
you can make me clean."
And Jesus said, "I am willing."
And he's willing to make you clean today.
And the call is for us to repent of our sin by turning our eyes and gaze upon Jesus and
believing that he is the Messiah.
And whether you were saved decades ago, or you're going to experience salvation this
morning, there is a call for us to share that testimony, to find ways even this week to
share how much Jesus has done for you and how he's had mercy on you.
Find time this week to share your testimony with others, because testimonies of Jesus's
liberation are compelling, and they propel our witness to his wondrous works.
Jesus has authority to set you free.
He's authority that prevails over chaos, it pursues our brokenness, it proves supreme
and provokes a response.
And one way we respond to his work is through the practice of communion.
Now as we transition into our communion time, there are two things I want us to think about
and do during this morning's communion.
First, as we come to the table, I want us to come with hearts and minds of extreme celebration.
I want you to come with joy, with laughter, and with celebration.
There's a reason that when I serve communion, I tend to break the tension.
You can laugh, you can mess up the elements, and it's okay.
It's a time for us to gather together and talk about, laugh about, have joy over what
Jesus has done.
So come proclaiming that Jesus is victorious over evil and is coming back again.
But second, during this time, I want to make you acutely aware that you can receive prayer.
We have a wonderful prayer team that meets in the back by the nursing room that's ready
and willing to pray for you, and specifically, I want to invite you to be prayed over if
you need deliverance.
Maybe you need deliverance from demonic oppression and possession today.
That is offered to you in the back.
Maybe you need deliverance from the oppression of addiction.
There are people here to pray with you.
Maybe you need deliverance from relationships or finances or injustices.
If you need deliverance, I want you to know that you can receive prayer for that during
this time, that Jesus' authority and power is not limited to stories in Scripture but
can be experienced here even this morning.
And I don't want us to limit that prayer to our prayer team.
Take the time and opportunity to pray with those around you as well.
And for those of us who might not need deliverance today, pursue brokenness during this communion
time.
Gather with people who might be feeling pain, move towards that, and proclaim and demonstrate
the authority of Jesus over them and their situation.
Share about the wondrous works of Jesus and His liberating authority.