What does it mean to truly meet Jesus in our everyday lives? Are we willing to confront the darkness within and around us, or do we settle for comfort instead of His presence? Discover the transformative power of Jesus as we explore Matthew 8:28-34. Let's dive in together!
Prayer Prompts
Use these prompts to guide your prayer time as we prepare our hearts for Sunday.
We acknowledge, Lord, that You are the Son of God, possessing all power and holiness, capable of commanding the forces of nature and the spiritual realm. As we reflect on Your authority over darkness, we ask for the strength to trust in Your power during our own struggles and to worship You for the ways You have shown Your love and goodness in our lives.
Jesus, let us meet You in the everyday moments of our lives, whether in our quiet times, amidst our stress, or in our busy routines. Help us to recognize Your presence and not to substitute the comfort of our familiar distractions for the transformative experience of being with You. May we seek You earnestly in our brokenness and allow You to guide us on the right path.
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>> Hey CrossRidge family, and welcome to
the Sunday setup. This is our time each
week where we gather together to prepare
our hearts for this weekend, where we
will be gathering together as a church
to [music] preach through, to pray
through, to praise through a piece of
scripture so we can practice it next
week.
But today we continue on in our series
we started last week looking at miracles
of Jesus. We're looking at this through
the book of Matthew, and these miracles
are all the synoptic gospel miracles
that we're going to look at eight of
them that we see in Matthew, Mark, and
Luke.
And today we read from Matthew's
account. We're going to be in Matthew
chapter 8 starting in verse 28.
Last week we saw how Jesus calmed a
storm. And today as we continue on, we
pick up in verse 28 right after this
other story we saw last Sunday. When he
had come to the other side, to the
region of Gadarenes, two demon-possessed
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men met him as they came out of the
tombs. They were so violent that no one
could pass that way.
Suddenly, they, being the
demon-possessed men, shouted, "What do
you have to do with us, son of God?
Have you come here to torment us before
the time?"
A long way off from them a large herd of
pigs was feeding. "If you drive us out,"
the demon begged him, "send us into the
herd of pigs." "Go," he told them. So
when they had come out, they entered the
pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the
steep bank into the sea and perished in
the water.
Then the men who tended them fled. They
went into the city and reported
everything, especially what had happened
to those who were demon-possessed. At
that, the whole town went out to meet
Jesus. When they saw him, they begged
him to leave their region.
Man, there's a great amount of
information in this story, and you I
encourage you can read the gospel
accounts in Mark and Luke, which are
even a little longer that shed more
details into the situation.
But as we begin to pray for through it,
I first want to call our attention to
verse 29. And the demons identify who
Jesus is, and they identify him with a
title. They say, "Son of God."
And and in [music] this there's a lot of
acknowledgement here that we'll be
breaking down this weekend.
But as we talk about this in our prayer
prompt, they acknowledge who Jesus is.
And in here they acknowledge some of the
power that [music] Jesus has.
But as our first prompt, and just think
of this as a prompt of acknowledgement
and a prompt of worship of who is
Christ.
And I just want this simple and and this
easy prayer prompt here
is you are the son of God in
and and think about it this way that you
are the son of God in
all power and and holiness, [music] that
you are the son of God in the fact that
you can command waves and oceans as we
saw last Sunday, that you are the son of
God in that you choose to love us and
pursue us, that you are the son of God
and and name the ways that Jesus shows
how he is God, how he is all powerful,
how he is worthy of our worship.
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>> Jesus, you were the son son of God in
eternity past [music]
and eternity future, that you always
have been
the son of God. He has always been with
God, that he have created our entire
universe. But Lord, as we see this week
that you have the power
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>> over all spiritual forces.
And no matter how dark things get, no
matter how chaotic things feel, no
matter how hard pressure and forces come
against us, that you are the son of God.
And it displays your power,
your might, your holiness, your
goodness, and your glory.
But Lord, you don't stop here. And not
only do we see the authority you have,
see the name that you have, see that you
are the son of God, but then as the
story continues,
we see this miracle performed where
Jesus cast out demons, where we see how
it disrupts the world around them. But
in this last verse, it says, "At that,
the whole town went out to meet Jesus."
Now we're going to see how not all of
them had the proper response.
There's a different responses when the
demons met Jesus,
when the townspeople met Jesus, and when
the oppressed and the demon-possessed
met Jesus.
And for us, here's our prayer prompt is
just as we think of this personally, how
we begin to prepare our hearts, how we
begin to pray through this is Jesus, let
me meet you in.
Jesus, let me meet you in.
Do we go out to meet Jesus? Do we meet
him in our quiet time in the morning? Do
we meet him in our stress in the middle
of the day? Do we meet him in our
families when we're busy and running
from thing to thing? Is Jesus, let me
meet you in.
Where do we need to meet Jesus? In in
what way do we need to meet Jesus? Pray
those prayers [music] to our God.
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>> Jesus, let me meet you
in the anxiety and the stress and the
frustration of the daily rhythms in our
week.
God, as we talk about our church, let us
meet you
God, in the regular rhythms of our life.
That not in just the miraculous where
all of the sudden we're confronted with
you, but in the ordinary, in the
everyday. And Lord, when we do meet with
you, let us not be like the townspeople
and be inconvenienced. Let us not
substitute pigs for your presence.
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But God, let us meet you
God, wherever we're at in our
brokenness. [music]
Let us accept the fact that we need you
to take us next to the next place. Let's
depend on you.
Let's meet you, and Lord, just allow us
to follow you. God, as we absorb this
miracle this weekend, as we just see how
you have the authority over demons and
over the darknesses and over all
spiritual forces, Lord, that it can
align our lives to ask the hard
questions of maybe where are we falling
victim to, where we falling off the
wrong path, where we letting bad
influences seep into our life. But Lord,
ultimately how we can meet you in the
right places and we can let you guide
[music] our life. God, we thank you for
this time. We ask that you prepare our
hearts for Sunday. We ask that we can
pray for those around us, invite the
lost that are far from you, and invite
those to expose the demons in our world,
and instead see you as the truth.
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And Lord, we just thank you and lift all
this up in Jesus' name. Amen.
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>> Thank you for joining us this week.
We'll see you Sunday.
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>> Oh.
