Thanksgiving Part 3 Outside Comfort Zome Mark 5:1-20 11-16-08

Sermon 11-16-08 Mark 5:1-20 Thanksgiving Part 3 Outside Comfort Zome

Thanksgiving series...Past, future, present...opps
Where this sermon came from

Do you see yourself in this story?
Who would you like to be?
Jesus, disciples, townsfold
Pigs? I think I am a Demoniac?

Why am I the demoniac? I think all Christians are. We were possessed by selfishness, pride, worry and arrogance. We were lost and Jesus delivered us.
We are not perfect, but we are on a new path

Some people are uset about losing their pigs
People look at the wrong thing.
The pigs were my livelihood [my stock market] now. We have lost money
Could have ben hanking God for a life that was changed

Demoniac wanted to go with Jesus
When we sign on with Jesus, things aren't always going to go the way we want.
Jesus I will follow you, just don't ask me to do anything hard.
He had some comfortable ideas in his head.
Don't let me be sick, and don't let my pigs die.
Jesus said, no. You go tell what has happened to you

I was readng something a few months ago.....
Jesus didn't ask fo volunteers

I am thankful that God asks us to live a life outside of myself

We too have some comfortable ideas about what the church should be like.
It should feel just the way I like to feel.
It should be like the church I grew up......

The church will never be the church we grew up in
We cannot wish our society back to God
We live today in a post Christian world, it will never be what we grew up with
We must be willing to accept and welcome everyone
More than that, we must learn to want everyone to be here
We must learn to give up our comfort and preference for the sake of the kingdom

The demoniac is asked to win people? Should we keep trying too?
I used to believe that we were growing fast enough.
I didn't want to have so many people here that we could not serve them
We have dome little or no advertising
I was sitting on the bench this summer waiting for church to start
Convicted of how wrong that is.
Can't be about your comfort, must be about thoses who are unreached.
[Sermon was on the AHA moments of life]

This church meeds to grow because there is something unique about this church
We have a special message
Kris Bartman and WCC

1. Broken eople are made at ease and nnot here solely to be heled, but here to be used in active ministry
2. The invitation to be a part of God's work here is not manipulated, or coerced but rather the offer is made to "taste and see" what God is doing
3. The truth of God is descovered when we actively pursue the grace of God and administer it to othersActive ministry is expected in the lives of our people - living out the faith is where the learning begins
4. Humility reigns - a servant's hert is at the root of our people

We hold out the message in a way that does not guilt people or scare them. I believer that we point past the church to a loving relationship with God.

I read an awsome story about a month ago

Ghosts and medals

A monther could not get her little son to come home from is games before dark. So she grightened him; she told him that the ath leading to their house was haunted by ghosts who cam out as soon as the sun went down. After that, she had not trouble making him come home before dark each evening. But when the boy grew up he was so afraid of the dark and the ghsts that he refused to go our of the house at nght. Occassionally she would need something from the store and want him to go get it. So she gave him a medal to wear and convinced him that as he wore his medal the ghosts would not not power to harm him. So now he vntures forth into the dark clutching his medal.

Bad religion gives us medals. Good religion helps up to see that there are not ghosts.

We need to invite others

How can we do this?
8:00 am service...challenge to invite others

you can talk to them, but if there is not room, whill they feel welcome?
Park further away
Sit up front, sit in the middle
Simple things that make a welcome

Looking for those what you don't know
Skip the coffee with thoses you know

Take their hands and look them in the eye
Jeff didn't shake my hand
Whoses hand are you shaking?
Say it with me - "whose hand and I shaking?"

Got in trouble with a sermon like this a year ago.
All you ever do is talk about winning people
When is it enough?
When every person in our community is in church, then it is enough
When no one is left out of God's grace, then it is enough
When no one is left out of God's grace, then it is enough

1010 in the gym
in a few months we plan to open overflow video streamed in
Clay, live music, sermon video streamed in
casual, bring your coffee and donut
come late on one will notice
push your chair back
let your kinds sit on the floor

Remember, when we prepare to launch this, I am going to be looking for 200 people to make a shift to the gym. Don't be upset that I am asking this.
Consider it a special effort that you can make room for others

God asks us to live outside our comfort zone

This is the time of the year to invite
Use this paper

Patch Adams
Doctor who was full of life
Lived life from the soul
He changed the people around him

Jesus invitd the demoniac to go
Not with a starchy "here is this paper" or come sit in the pew with me
Or even believe this or learn this

But with a warmth and a joy and relevance
Something has happened to me
Jesus changed my life

When was the last time you took stock of what Jesus has done for you?
Remember your story today.....
Get out of the pew, someone is waiting

I am thankful that God asks us to live outside of outselves