Bible Verse: James 5:13
Full Sermon Transcript
WELCOME
Pastor Chris Paavola:
Thank you so much, Miss Ashley. Hey everybody. Good morning once again. Good to be with you guys. I want to do a little lightning round game to kind of illustrate what we’re talking about today.
LIGHTNING ROUND
Who would you like to have dinner with? Pick one. Here we go. Who would you like to have dinner with? Pick one. All right. Turn to your neighbor and tell them your answer on the count of three. 1, 2, 3. I’m totally any woody. I would be Woody. Yeah, a hundred percent Woody. Here we go. Another one. Here we go. Who would you like to have dinner with? Pick one. That’s more my generation. Turn to your neighbor in the count of three. 1, 2, 3.
Okay. Nobody picked Ross, I guarantee you in the entire room. Nobody picked Ross. All right, next one. Here we go. Who would you like to have dinner with? Pick one. Men. Don’t tell your wife. Heidi Klum. Okay. All right, last one, last one. Here we go. Who would you like to have dinner with? Pick one. All the Lions fans. Who would you like to have dinner with? Pick one. None of them must not be a Lions fan. All right, so now watch how the question changes and how it’s a little bit easier when you change it from pick one to check all that apply. Well then, you’d be like, well, I want all of them to come over. Right? Okay. That’s a little bit of what we’re talking about in this series that we’re in called check all That Apply because sometimes it’s nice if one thing can have multiple benefits instead of just one benefit. And in this series we’re going to be talking about different things that we want for you. Every week. We’re going to be looking at this. Go ahead. Next, knowing God’s power, making new friends, helping others, knowing God better. All of those are available for us when we are a part of small groups.
SMALL GROUPS
And there are things that you can experience obviously, and we’re going to talk about how you can experience it on your own, but really you can experience all of those things when you’re a part of a small group.
I know that. And today we’re talking specifically about how you can know God’s power in a small group. And I know when I say a small group, some of you guys, especially if you’ve never been a part of a small group before, if you’re newer to St. Mark, you’re like, what do you mean a small group? We turn in a huddle and we start talking to each other. How is that different than my fantasy football league? What do you mean a small group? A small group is this commitment, a group of people who are committed to each other, gathering around God’s word and talking about and trying to do this Christian life, trying to follow Jesus together. And I don’t know if you knew this, and it’s not something that we think about on the regular, but small groups are actually the earliest and earliest and truest form of this thing called Christianity, this thing that we do called church.
This building, this idea of a building, and we all come on a Sunday morning. You didn’t do this for the first 250 years of Christianity. There was no church building. What people did is they gathered in homes. So okay, what year was Jesus born? This is not a trick question. What year was Jesus born? Well, one, he was born a year. There is no zero, but he was born in one ad, right? It’s the year of the Lord. So one. And then, okay, he lived for 30 years and then he starts his ministry and he’s crucified and rises from the grave in year 33 ad give or take a few. We think that’s a pretty good idea of when it happens. The first church building like this wasn’t built until 300 ad. That means for the first 250 years of Christianity, when Christianity had its lease and when it grew, its most, they just met in homes all across the Mediterranean.
They just gathered in homes. That means you are alive closer to the construction of the Statue of Liberty than the apostle Paul was to the construction of the first church building. But for the first 250 years of Christianity, when it grew its most, when it had its least they met in homes. And that’s not to say what we’re doing here is not important. It’s not a good thing. It’s not to say that at all. There’s a lot of good things that happen on a Sunday morning, but this shouldn’t come at the expense of that meeting in a large group shouldn’t come at the expense of meeting in a small group. In fact, I’ll even go so far to say is there are things that can only happen in a small group that no matter how hard we try, we cannot replicate what happens in here where you sit in rows and face forward and listen to a professional, give a monologue.
And sometimes it’s okay and sometimes it’s not okay. But for the most part, that’s what Sunday morning is. And this cannot be the only expression of our faith if we’re going to continue to grow in the faith. And that’s why one of our vision statements as a church is that we will be a church that grows smaller as we grow larger, we will be a church with small groups. And all through the series, we’re going to be talking about small groups. And today specifically, we’re talking about how you can experience God’s power in a small group. And I know you’re going, wait, why do I need to be a part of a small group to experience God’s power? This morning was powerful. We watched a powerful baptism. We sang songs. It was a powerful, the music was powerful, and hopefully the message will be somewhere close to powerful.
But yes, it is powerful, but there’s a different experience with God’s power in a small group.
GOD’S POWER
So, when we talk about God’s power, it’s kind of a premise of Christianity. God’s power is experienced every day. If you think about it, it’s called the natural order. God’s power, we would say made the stars, the earth and everything in it. So, Orion’s Belt, every time you look up at it, that’s you’re experiencing God’s power. When we watch the seasons change and the leaves turn and snow, we’re experiencing the power of God. You’re put together the cells of your body are the power of God on full display. You took a breath this morning, you experienced the power of God, and that’s the natural power of God. But then there is the supernatural power of God. And we just heard about in the reading that Ashley read from the book of James, Elijah prayed it would not rain for three years and it didn’t rain.
17 Elijah prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.
James 5
YOU EXPERIENCE THE POWER OF GOD
WHEN YOU PRAY
That was the supernatural power of God. We see this in scripture, walls falling and blind men being healed every time, well, not every time, but most often when there are miracles, supernatural power of God on display, it’s preceded by this thing called prayer. And prayer is how we tap into that supernatural power of God. That’s why you pray when you’re going on a trip. That’s why you pray when you’re sick. That’s why you pray when you having an estranged relationship, because nothing and the natural is going to change what’s happening. We need the supernatural intervention of God, a miracle, the power of God to change our circumstances. That’s why we pray. And so you experience the power of God when you pray. And there is a unique experience with God’s power.
YOU EXPERIENCE THE POWER OF GOD
WHEN YOU PRAY
WITH A SMALL GROUP
SMALL GROUP IN PRAYER
When you pray with a small group, when you pray in a small group, you experience God’s power differently.
I was hearing a story about this small group that was getting together at the house at a house of a lady named Mary, and they were getting together and they were doing life. They were talking about what’s hard and talking about their jobs, trying to figure out how to follow Jesus and follow him better and help other people know Jesus. And they were meeting together as a small group. Things were going well. And then one day they found out that one of their small group members was arrested and thrown in jail and the small group was like, wait, what happened? And they were worried about their friends. And so they decided they were going to get together at Mary’s house and pray for their friends. You can read about it in chapter 12. If you have a Bible, you can turn there. Acts chapter 12.
5 So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.
Acts 12
It’s a small group in prayer for their friend named Peter. Take a look, start in Acts chapter 12 verse four. After arresting him, king Herod put Peter in prison handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. He was imprisoned for the horrible crime of refusing to stop talking about Jesus. He couldn’t stop talking about how he rose from the dead and they told him to stop talking about him. Stop talking about this resurrection. He’s like, I can’t. The guy rose from the dead. I saw it. And they said, we’re going to arrest you. And he says, I got to keep talking about it. And finally they arrested him. And while Peter was kept in prison, the church was earnestly praying to God for him. And then the miraculous happened the night before. Herod was to bring him to trial. Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains and centuries stood guard at the entrance. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared in a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up quick, get up, he said. And the chains fell off Peter’s wrists. The doors fling, open Peter leaves.
12…..Peter went to the house of Mary….where many people had gathered and were praying for him.
Acts 12
And then we read in verse 12, Peter went, look at that to Mary’s house where many people had gathered and we’re praying. It’s a small group, you guys. It’s a small group of people gathering in a living room doing this thing called church.
YOU EPERIENCE THE POWER OF GOD
WHEN YOU PRAY
WITH A SMALL GROUP
And I’ll say it again. There is a unique experience with the power of God. When you pray with a small group, think about this, they could have said, well, justice will take its course and we’ll just have to trust the legal system. But they didn’t. Peter could have said, well, I don’t want to bother anyone with my problems. I don’t want to bring my prayers request to, I don’t want their pity. I’m okay. I’ll just do this on my own. I, me and God, he’s got me. I’ll pray on my own. But he didn’t. And they could have said, well, Peter, he can pray for himself. But they didn’t. They followed the command. We just heard in James five verse 16, “Pray for one another. “
Pray for one another
James 5:16
And they did. They prayed for one another. And because they prayed for one another, they experienced the power of God. They didn’t just pray, God be with Peter in prison. They pray God free Peter for prison and they experienced the miraculous y’all.
FOCUS OF OUR PRAYER
And when we pray, if I listened into your prayers, I have a hunch most of them would be about you. That’s okay. It is probably you pray about your needs, your fears, your job, your finances, your health, your loved ones.
And what happens when we come together in a small group is it elevates the subject matter of our prayer to include other people in our lives. And we start to pray for their needs and they start to pray for ours. And it’s growth by multiplication, not addition. You can only pray for you so much and however much you can pray for you, your small group can pray for you more. It’s just more lines in the water. You catch more fish with 10 lines in the water than one, and you all of a sudden it’s growth by multiplication and you have more people praying for you. And I think if we saw just had a momentary glimpse into the unseen spiritual realm, and I know we don’t think about this on a Monday commute to work. We don’t think about the spiritual realm. But I think if we just glimpsed into the spiritual realm, what happens when we pray and the ripple effect and how angels are marshaled and circumstances change, we would be begging anyone and everyone to pray for us because we would understand there’s power in prayer and like, okay, so these here, excuse me.
I’m going to reach in front of you here for a second. We’ve got these prayer request here, prayer request cards here. We’ve got new here cards. By the way, if you’re new, you should fill one out. We’d just drop it in the offering plate later on. Then in our giving envelopes, and then we have prayer requests and every week people will fill these out and then drop them in the offering plate. And then that gets the staff, we pray for them. And then also it says at the bottom here, check here if you would like to receive the weekly prayer email list. And we have people who get a weekly email. And so whatever you write on here, we make sure that gets emailed to the weekly prayer team. That’s a good thing. We should do this as a staff. I love getting this and I love praying for what’s going on in your life, but I’ll be honest, sometimes I don’t know the names of the people on the prayer email list. And I bet when you get the prayer email, you see it, you pray those prayers for those people. But I bet there’s people on there whose name you don’t know. Who is Mike L? Who is Terry M.
So you pray for a stranger. And here’s the thing about praying for a stranger. You’ll do it once. You’ll do it maybe a couple times, but then next week you get another email. You’re not going to remember to pray for Terry M. You’ll pray for this week’s needs, but not in a small group. See, like in a small group, when you’re sitting there in a small group and you say, Hey, I got a job interview. Can you please pray about it? Your small group will text you the day of your job interview and be like, Hey, praying for you right now. And then after your job interview, your small group will text you and be like, Hey, how’d it go?
When you share a prayer request at your small group and say, Hey, my brother and my dad are arguing and they can’t see eye to eye, can you guys pray for that? Or, Hey, I have a cancer screening. Can you pray for that? The next time your small group gets together and says, are there any prayer requests? They’re going to say, Hey, we’ve been praying about your brother and your dad. How’s that going? Hey, we were praying about your cancer screening. Any word, and your small group will pray for you more than you can pray for you.
Pray for one another.
James 5:16
And when you pray, I believe you’ll experience God’s power because your small group prayed. It’s a unique experience with God’s power. You start to see God answer the prayers of others, and God answer your prayers because so many others prayed. It’s just this beautiful reciprocal relationship because you were in a small group over the last three years, we do small groups.
And over the last three years we’ve seen marriages healed because small groups prayed. We’ve seen physical healings for diseases because a small group prayed. We’ve seen enemies forgiven because a small group prayed. I mean, why else would we pray if not that we are asking God to do something supernatural in our behalf? And I want it so much for you. And that’s why we’re having this series where we are talking about all the benefits of joining a small group.
JOIN A SMALL GROUP
And again, we could talk about these benefits. You could talk about prayer and God’s power on its own, but I want you to experience a small group, and that’s why we’re having this series. And every week we’re going to end it with a chance for you guys to scan the QR code on the screen or scan the QR code in your bulletin. It’ll take you to a simple form for you to just join a small group and you’ll see there’s a form.
It’ll just ask you your name and a list of questions so we can put you in the right groups. What is your age range? Who wants to be in a group with you? Do you have kids? And I want to give you guys a chance to do that right now. I know that even if you have the best intentions to do it later on, life happens. You’ll have laundry, you’ll have kids prescriptions to pick up and back to school shopping to do, and you’ll forget. And so I want to give you guys a chance right now to register for a small group. And while you’re doing that, I’m just going to answer some of the FAQs that are on that small group page. And these are just some basic questions we get about small groups all the time. They’re different in different churches. Here’s how we do them at St.
Mark. First of all, what’s the goal of our small groups goal of our small groups is to help you meet new people at St. Mark so that this is not a room full of strangers and help you build and grow in relationships. Yes, you study God’s word. Yes, you pray for one another, but we want small groups to be a place where you can meet new people and start doing life together. Organic things happen that way. What will you do in a small group? You’ll meet together in someone’s home. You’ll drink coffee, you’ll laugh, you’ll follow open question discussion guide, talking about scripture from a recent sermon. What if I don’t know much about the Bible? Because there’s small groups or discussion based and not fill in the blank questions. You could participate in a small group regardless of how much you do or don’t know about the Bible.
What will we talk about? Just said that using a discussion guide written by me, each small group will use the previous Sunday sermon as a basis. First discussion to go a little bit deeper into the sermon. How long are groups? Each group lasts about 60 to 90 minutes. How long will I be in a group? Our groups meet from September until May, and then we shuffle up the groups and we form brand new groups because we want you to grow in relationships with people. It’s not very fun to be the new character in season five of a show. It’s not very fun to be the new kid at school in February. We want everybody to be new and to experience. So if you’re brand new, you’re not going to be thrust into a group with a bunch of people who’ve been in a small group for four years.
You’re going to be meeting new people at the same time just like they are. So that’s why we shuffle up our groups. How big are your groups? Our groups are about seven to 10 people, give or take. How do you decide on groups? Our groups meet on age. So you can talk about faith at your life stage, what this looks like. So if you’re a young family, you’ll meet other young families. If you’re a retired couple, you’ll meet other retired couples. If you’re young, single quarter life kind of people, you’ll meet other people at that stage as well. How do we decide on groups? Our groups are age-based. And so you’ll meet, yeah, how frequent do groups meet? Every group decides how frequent they’re going to meet and what night of the week they’re going to meet. Who leads the groups? Each groups are led by one of our hosts who do simply just that they welcome you into their home and host a conversation about Jesus using the discussion guide written by Pastor Chris, what about kids? Because they’re age-based. A lot of times young families get together with young families. Sometimes people get babysitters, sometimes small groups chip in and they figure out a way to have a babysitter meet at the house, and we just kind of work it out. It’s much easier to figure that out with seven people or 12 people than it is with 150. So that’s what small groups look like. Now, I can’t do it for you, but I so desperately want it for you. I know life is busy, but I’ve never walked out of a group.
I have a small group that I’ve been a part of and my family we go to and stuff, I’ve never walked out of a small group going, I wish I wouldn’t have done that. I walk out every time going, man, I am so glad. So glad I did. And again, I can’t do this for you, but I want it so much for you. So please scan that QR code, get you and your family registered to be a part of the small groups, the kickoff on September 8th.
INTERCESSION
Now, one last thing I want to say as we wrap up this conversation about power, supernatural power of God, experiencing power of God and prayer. And in our small groups, as we pray for one another, I don’t know if you’ve ever thought of this, but in the Old Testament, there were priests and you would go to the priests and you would make some type of a sacrifice of a sheep, goat, something like that, a dove, whatever. And then the priest would speak to God in your behalf, and the priest would make what’s called intercession. They would intercede to God for you. And actually, Israel had a high priest who would make intercessions for the nation to God. They would stand between God and the nation and intercede in their behalf.
Jesus. One of the titles given to him in a book called Hebrews, he’s called the great high priest because Jesus is interceding right now. At this moment. He’s whispering in the ear of your heavenly Father. For you, Paul talks about it in Romans chapter eight, verse 34.
Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
Romans 8
Christ Jesus who died more than that, who was raised to life right now at this moment, the moment you read this, the moment you hear my words, the moment whenever you decide to watch this online, Christ Jesus right now is interceding for you at the right hand of God. And he’s saying the same thing he said on the day that he died, father forgive them.
And he’s telling God right now, this moment for the sins that we’ve committed, forgive them. I’ve died their death and their place. I’ve paid the penalty for their sins. Justice has been done. Forgive them. And that is such an unbelievable thought that Jesus at this moment is interceding to God for you. So that means when you pray for one another, when you’re in a small group praying for the people in your life, when you are interceding in behalf of one another, you’re not just doing a good thing, your being like Jesus. And the more you pray for others, the more you are becoming like Jesus, interceding for the people you love.
And so, speaking of intercession, let me pray for you.
PRAYER
Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this morning. Thank you God for just everything you’re doing in this community, in the church. We celebrate this day, the construction process. But Lord, I pray for every person in this room. I pray for every person watching online or who can hear the sound of my voice. God, I pray that you would work in their lives. I pray that you would, as the apostles prayed, stretch out your hand and perform signs and wonders in their behalf. And I pray, God, that you would lay it on their heart to be in a small group where they can be committed to one another, serve one another, love one another, and pray for one another that they might experience together the power of God. And we pray now, Lord, the prayer that your son taught us to pray, saying together, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.
