Fellowship Hebrews 10:24 & 25

Fellowship Hebrews 10:24 & 25

The final spoke of the wheel is FELLOWSHIP. We blanket under this word everything from two people chit chatting over coffee to congregational dinners and picnics. There is so much more to fellowship than that. One of the things that growing churches have is a healthy fellowship.

1.      Consider how to

a.      Think about it

b.      Plan it

2.      Stir up one another to love and good works

a.      Churches are good at getting all stirred up, just not to love and good works.

b.      Stir = wiped, wound.

c.       The football team that comes out doing their warrior dance.

d.      Home team takes the field

e.      Cheerleaders getting crowd going.

f.        Cheerleaders for the church

g.      Urging each other to victory in our lives.

h.      Praise music – whip the team up to go and win this week

3.      Meeting together

a.      For your benefit

b.      For the benefit of others.

c.       Romans 12:3-8

d.      Eph 4:4-16

e.      Does anyone know what is going on with ___________?

f.        A test.

4.      Encourage one another

a.      This is personal

b.      This is close

c.       You can do this, you can beat this, I stand with you.

d.      Finishers go back and run with those struggling to make it.

e.      You did a good job, I like this. I’m proud of you.

5.      As the day draws near.

a.      Your day

b.      Their day

c.       Our churches day

This is what growing churches have going for them, real fellowship. We need to regain that sense of connectedness. Being a true Christian, a disciple of Jesus, is not a me thing it’s a we thing.

Will you get excited about doing God’s work?

Can you do more to encourage other people in the church?

Can we stir-up the church, be each other’s cheerleaders?

Do we believe God can use this church to change the world?

Will you join in the harvest?

Witnessing 1 Peter 3:15

Witnessing  1 Peter 3:15

There is that awkward moment when the opening to talk about your faith comes. It could be with a friend or it could be with someone you just met. Your heart says share and your head tells you wait or keep quite.

Excuses flow out like water. Who am I to tell someone about God? I don’t know how? I don’t know what to say? They might get offended? I might hurt their feelings? Or worse what if they want to listen?

In that awkward and strange moment you make a decision that might affect eternity.

 

God’s command

1 Peter 3:15

Matthew 10:32&33

Mathew 28:19&20

John 7:38 streams of living water not swimming pools or water towers.

John 4:14 a spring of living water

The time is now

Matthew 9:37&38

John 4:34-38

1 Peter 3:15 “in season and out”

What to share

1 Peter 3:15 “the reason for your hope.”

Why do you believe?

What has Jesus done for you?

Make a list and get to know it

 

When that weird and awkward moment come, will you be ready? Will you dare to step out in faith say something? Or will you let it go by? Will you confess your faith in Jesus? Will you give a reason for the hope you have in Jesus? Someone’s eternity may hang in the balance of what you choose in that moment. We need, we must, be ready to make the right choice.

Ephesians 3:20 “Dream Big”

Ephesians 3:20 “Dream Big”

In the first Star Wars movie Leia tells Hans that he would be rewarded with more wealth than he can imagine. Hans replies “I can imagine a lot”.

Our passage describes God as one “who can do far more abundantly than we ask and think”

This passage got me to thinking and it raised a question. Are our prayers to small? Do we dare to pray big? I mean bigger than ourselves? Will we dare to pray the impossible and keep on praying the impossible for however long it takes? One thing we need to learn and need to teach is that we need to pray big.

I have mentioned Dawson Trotman, the man who founded the Navigators and developed the follow-up ministry for Billy Graham. As a young man he and a friend started praying for their city, then the state, then our country and finally the world. They prayed that God would help them reach the world! God answered their prayers. Through Billy Graham and the Navigators Dawson Trotman reached the world. He still reaches the world, in fact he wrote the discipleship books we use for conformation class.

I wonder if God gets frustrated with the smallness of our prayers. He is able to do more than we can ask, yet with all that power we only ask for the possible not the impossible. While living in California, every once and a while I would get to see a real sports car. Jaguars, Porsches, Ferraris, and other cars like them, all capable of going 160 – 200 miles an hour. There they would be in a lane next to me crawling along the highway in stop and go traffic. All that power going to waste.

Consider some prayers of the Bible. Isaac prayed for his wife to have children, Gen 25:21. Moses prayed that pharaoh would let the people go, Exodus 10. Moses prayed and God parted the red sea, Elisha prayed and Fire came down and consumed the sacrifice. Gideon prayed and God sent most of the army home and they still won the battle.

Do we pray to small? Do we pray for things we see as possible? If we do pray for something big do we pray thinking it is a waste of time? James 1:5-8 says that we are to pray with confidence that God will answer.

We need to be people who pray kingdom size prayers. Pray for the salvation of our neighbors, our town, and our area. We need to pray for the growth of our church and be willing to follow God to the answer to that prayer.

James 4:2&3 says we do not have because we do not ask.

Notice what we will do. Kill, covet, quarrel and fight. Anything except ask and believe.

Notice the motive of prayer. Wrong motives, selfish motives hinder prayer. You can pray for good things for the wrong reason. “Lord make my neighbor a Christian so they will stop wakening me up with their drunken parties on Saturday night.” O Lord help our church to go so I will not have to donate so much to keep the church going and I will not have to give as much of my time to its work.”

Jesus wants His disciples to pray kingdom size prayers, with kingdom motives.

What questions does the college graduate in philosophy ask? “Do you want fries with that or should I supersize it?”  God wants us to go for the fries, the shake and the dessert as well. God wants us to supersize our prayers. Expand your vision and faith to kingdom sized prayers for kingdom size motives. Perhaps like Dawson Trotman God will give you the world!

The South Carolina shooting

Ephesians 1:3-10 “keeping Score”

Vince Lombardi said “if winning is not important then why do they keep score?” one of the important things to do in learning or teaching how to pray is to keep score. God has blessed us with many answers to our prayers and with many blessings as our passage reminds us. James 1:17 reminds us that all good things are a gift from God.

Yet we are not quick to give God the credit He is due. If we keep score on our prayer life we find that God does answer prayer, prayer is important and prayer changes things.

While I was going to expand that idea for us something else came up.

The South Carolina shooting has been heavy on my heart and mind. It is only the latest of many mass shooting and violent killings in our country. How do we make sense of these events and our countries falling away from God? As I prayed about these things my spirit settled on Matthew 24:9-14. Jesus was asked by the disciples when the end would come. Jesus gives His answer in Matthew 24:9-14.

Jesus’ chilling response sounds like the reading of our daily news. We need to understand that Jesus told us these kind things would happen. Nations will rise and nations will fall, lawlessness will be increased, and the love of many grow cold. This is all part of the judgement of the world and the precursor to Jesus’ return.

Can God use these horrible events to do good things? Yes.  January 8^th 1956 Jim Elliot was murdered along with 4 others while on the mission field in Ecuador. God used this tragedy to spark a revival in missions. Hundreds of new missionaries joined the effort to reach the lost people of the world. The tribe of people who killed Jim Elliot where won to Christ by his widow and three children who went to live with the tribe. The man who murdered Jim that day also came to trust Jesus as savior.

Could God use the South Carolina shooting and other killings in our country in the same way? Yes. If we grasp that these things show us the desperate condition of our society, and we choose to respond.

April 15^th 1912 the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank, the real tragedy of that day was not a sinking ship, it was the half empty life boat that did not go back to rescue those left in the water. They feared they would be swamped by people so they stayed away. Fear of the violence of our decaying world and nation could lead us to pull away and hide. We could choose to play it safe like so many of the Titanic’s life boats.

Jim Elliot knew about the violent nature of the tribe he was going to as a missionary. When asked about why he would risk his life to reach these people for Christ? He said “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

Read Ephesians 1:3-10

We have been blessed with forgiveness and grace in the midst of Gods plan for the fullness of time. We have been blessed to be in the only life boat in the tribulation that is the end of time. Jesus is the only cure for the lawlessness and hopelessness of the world. God has made these things know to us that we might save as many as we can from the now cold and frigid waters of life.

We know where this world is headed and we know the ship is going down. We have the only life boat available in a sea of drowning and freezing people, our task is to save as many as we can.

Read Matthew 24:9-14

We know where this world is headed and we know the ship is going down. We have the only life boat available in a sea of drowning and freezing people, our task is to save as many as we can.

James 5:13:-18 “Part of Life together”

James 5:13:-18 “Part of Life together”

Last week we learned about the need for consistent prayer. Today our scripture tells us of the need for prayer together.

Being a pastor for so many years I have heard many people claim they do not need a church. Most of the time I find they avoid church because of some sin they refuse to leave. Or some hurt they refuse to forgive, which also is a sin. But this passage tells us that we really do need each other.  One of the most important part of life together is prayer. Every Disciple, every Jesus follower, every Christian needs to know that part of their responsibility is to pray with and for others.

One person told me I don’t need your (the churches) prayers, perhaps, but I wonder if He thought about other people needing his prayers. As I studied for today I wondered how many believers suffer and how many churches fail and how many will enter eternity in hell because we have failed to pray together.

Think about it, the only time the whole church prays together is once a week for 4 to 5 minutes at most.

1.       The command

a.       James 5:16

b.      Mark 14:37-42 Disciples asked to pray

c.       Matthew 9:37-38 pray for workers in the harvest

d.      The prayer multiplier.

2.       Examples

a.       The prayer multiplier at work

b.      Esther 4:16 prayer for favor

c.       Acts 21:15 prayer on the beach

d.      Acts 12:12 Prayer for release

3.       Why

a.       Matthew 18:19&20 Because Jesus is there in a special way

b.      1 Chronicles 7:14-16 The whole group is needed

c.       James 5:13-16 more power.

One of the things we must learn and teach is how to pray together. Pray with your disciple and help them to pray with other people. Prayer is to be part of our life together not just something we do alone. And as we pray together we find a new source of power that we have missed before.

Consistent in Prayer Colossians 4:2-6

Consistent in Prayer Colossians 4:2-6

In the past weeks we have seen that every Jesus Follower, every Disciple, needs a Paul to teach them and a Timothy to teach. We also learned we are to help our disciple, our Timothy, to be a person of the Word. Last week we saw that our disciple needs someone to teach them to pray. Today we look at one aspect of a Disciples prayer life, Consistency.

Two men in a raft… stop I see a ship!

Our scripture today tells us to continue steadfastly in Prayer.

1.       Continue
A. an action started in the past and carried into the future.
B. courageously persistent in prayer
C. Constant in prayer Romans 12:12
D. 1 Thess 5:17 Pray without ceasing
E. Luke 18:1 always pray and not lose heart.

2.       Second important word is steadfastly
A. courageously
B. steadfastly in the face of resistance
C. resistance within ourselves,
D. Resistance from our schedule
E. Resistance from others
F. Daniel 6:5-10
G. Matthew 14:23
H. mark 1:35
I. Luke 5:16

3.       Encouraging consistent prayer
A. Encourage one another to be consistent in prayer
B. Use a Prayer journal
C. practice it in your time together
D. Discuss your prayer time for the week

If we will learn to be consistent in prayer we will find God consistent in His answers. If we will be disciplined and persistent in prayer we will be blessed. And through our continuing steadfast prayer we will find victory and a closeness to God we have thought impossible.

Teach me to pray luke 11:1-4

Lord teach me to pray Luke 11:1-4

Prayer, it’s one of the pat answers to every problem. Yet how many times are people taught how to pray. Jacob has been trying hard in his chemistry class, the big test is tomorrow and he needs to get a good grade. He wants to ask God for help but how? How do you start and when do you stop? Do you say hello God, this is Jacob, then wait for a beep or something? When you’re done do you just hang up on God?

One of the elders in a church I served prayed in King James, another elder prayed and it was like poetry so beautiful and eloquent. I wonder who taught them to pray. I find more people are like Jacob. Does God hear me, or have I really lost it and I am just talking to myself?

1.      Teach us to pray

a.      Found only in Matthew and here in Luke.

b.      Never referred to again

c.       If you start it out congregations will finish it

d.      Start it in a nursing home and people who have forgotten everything else will finish it.

e.      Not meant to be recited, it is meant to be an outline.

f.        Focus on vs 1 “Lord, teach us to pray”

2.      Teaching others how to pray

a.      Take time to explain prayer, what it is and what it’s not.

b.      It is not running down a shopping list

c.       It is like talking to a friend.

d.      There are time to speak and times to listen

e.      Lead them in prayer then let them pray

f.        Do I stand, kneel or sit in a chair?

g.      Do I fold my hand and whisper or raise my hands and shout?

3.      Study the prayers in the Bible

a.      John 17

b.      Psalm 108:1-6

c.       Psalm 109:1-5

d.      Psalm 28:1-9

e.      Psalm 23

f.        1 chr 4:10

g.      Mark 14:32-37

There are no magic words that get God’s attention. There is no format that is needed. Just share your heart and mind with God like you would a close friend and know He hears you.

Teach them to pray.