Spiritual Superiority

The Orchard Church - Pastor Nathan J Norman
delivered on April 15, 2012

Mark 4:35-5:20
Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)

Wind and Wave Obey the Master
35 On that day, when evening had come, He told them, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the sea.”
36 So they left the crowd and took Him along since He was already in the boat. And other boats were with Him.
37 A fierce windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking over the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.
38 But He was in the stern, sleeping on the cushion. So they woke Him up and said to Him, “Teacher! Don’t You care that we’re going to die?”
39 He got up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Silence! Be still!” The wind ceased, and there was a great calm.
40 Then He said to them, “Why are you fearful? Do you still have no faith?”
41 And they were terrified and asked one another, “Who then is this? Even the wind and the sea obey Him!”

Mark 5
Demons Driven Out by the Master
1 Then they came to the other side of the sea, to the region of the Gerasenes.
2 As soon as He got out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came out of the tombs and met Him.
3 He lived in the tombs. No one was able to restrain him anymore—even with chains—
4 because he often had been bound with shackles and chains, but had snapped off the chains and smashed the shackles. No one was strong enough to subdue him.
5 And always, night and day, he was crying out among the tombs and in the mountains and cutting himself with stones.
6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and knelt down before Him.
7 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!”
8 For He had told him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”
9 “What is your name?” He asked him.
“My name is Legion,” he answered Him, “because we are many.”
10 And he kept begging Him not to send them out of the region.
11 Now a large herd of pigs was there, feeding on the hillside.
12 The demons begged Him, “Send us to the pigs, so we may enter them.”
13 And He gave them permission. Then the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs, and the herd of about 2,000 rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned there.
14 The men who tended them ran off and reported it in the town and the countryside, and people went to see what had happened.
15 They came to Jesus and saw the man who had been demon-possessed by the legion, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.
16 The eyewitnesses described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and told about the pigs.
17 Then they began to beg Him to leave their region.
18 As He was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed kept begging Him to be with Him.
19 But He would not let him; instead, He told him, “Go back home to your own people, and report to them how much the Lord has done for you and how He has had mercy on you.”
20 So he went out and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and they were all amazed.