Doug Batchelor - An Exciting Way to Get Involved (Sabbath School Study Hour)

[Music] good morning friends we'd like to welcome all of you to cyber school study hour here at the amazing facts offices in sacramento california and uh pastor doug and myself we're gonna be studying our lesson together and this is lesson number 10 in the series that we'd be we have been studying entitled making friends for god lesson number 10 is an exciting way to get involved and so we hope that this will help inspire you to get involved in outreach and evangelism and witnessing we do have a free offer we'd like to tell you about it's a book entitled is it easier to be saved or to be lost and this is our free offer for today if you'd like to receive a copy of the book the number to call is 866-788-3966 and ask for offer number 124 again that number is 866-788-3900 and just ask for offer number 124 and we'll be happy to get that in the mail and send it to you if you're outside of north america you can get a digital download of the book and you can read it all you have to do is text the code sh039 to the number 40544 again that's sh039 to the number 40544 you don't have to be outside north america to get that digital download just text that code wherever you are in the world and you'll be able to read the book is it easier to be saved or to be lost well before we get to our study this morning we've got a special musical item that we'd like to share with you at this time [Music] suffering [Music] best foreign [Music] is [Music] an exchange [Music] has a wondrous attraction for me for the deep lamb of god [Applause] [Music] so [Music] i laid [Music] and exchange [Music] i [Music] then he'll call me someday to my home far away where is glory forever [Music] till my trunk at last [Music] i will [Music] and exchanges and exchange [Music] welcome back friends thank you emma and nathan for bringing us that beautiful encouraging song the old rugged cross one of a favorite of many people well before we get to our lesson as we always do let's start with the word of prayer dear father we thank you that we're able to open up your word and even though we are separated through distance we can still study together we know the holy spirit is not limited to a particular place but he is everywhere speaking to our hearts here as well as those who are joining us and father we pray that as we study a way in which we can be involved more involved in witnessing and sharing that you would bless our time together for we ask us in jesus name amen amen well pastor doug as we mentioned our lesson today is entitled an exciting way to get involved and one of the important things when it comes to evangelism or witnessing is getting the church members involved we're all part of the body of christ and each part of the body has a work to do so that's going to be our study today and we'd like to let our friends know those who are joining us on facebook we're happy to take your questions if you have a bible related question or a question related to witnessing or small groups or how do you share your faith this is a wonderful opportunity you can actually make a post on doug batchelor facebook page and they'll be emailing those questions to me and we haven't seen the questions obviously beforehand but we're going to try and tackle as many questions as we can we're going to sprinkle it throughout our our lesson as we study together so with that pasta dough lesson number 10 an exciting way to get involved we always like to start with the memory verse greetings friends and this is a great study talking about the title of it is an exciting way to get involved and it's really the theme of the lesson is the value and the importance of small groups and we have a memory verse memory verse i think most people know already matthew chapter 9 verse 37 and 38 and he said unto his disciples the harvest is truly plentiful but the laborers are few therefore pray the lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest you know there's no shortage of people out there that want to and need to hear the gospel we always think i'm afraid to witness nobody's really interested that's not true there's a lot more people out there interested than you think the devil wants us to think that nobody wants to hear the gospel but jesus said the harvest is great the problem is we have few laborers and and one of the key ingredients then that we're we're dealing with in this lesson is we're more powerful when we work together even when jesus sent his disciples out witnessing he sent them out in groups of two or sometimes three you can think of when paul and barnabas and mark went together as a group of three because the bible says in the mouth of two or three witnesses let everything be established there's more credibility there if you've got a team that works together and god created human beings for fellowship and the bible says it's not good for man to be alone of course that was talking about wasn't good for adam to not have his eve but it's really a principle of life that man or woman that we are designed to be social creatures we are made by a social god who is comprised of three persons in the trinity and so that plays out being made in god's image that we operate and we flourish in small groups and of course we've got small groups that make up our lives in all different ways most of us have a family that is a small group we participate perhaps at work with a certain group of people we're interacting with them and of course with the church now some churches are smaller they might be a small group in themselves the bible says with two or three are gathered together in god's name that's where he is some churches most churches though are comprised of you know anywhere from 50 to 60 to 100 to even five six hundred people a thousand uh and it's so important especially when the church starts getting bigger that we have small groups within the larger church and we're going to look at some of the reasons why in our study today we need to be connected with people and encourage one another in our witnessing endeavor you know pastor dog is kind of strange that here we talking about the importance of being in a group and belonging and being connected but at the same time we're going through a pandemic and we're being told time and time again you've got a social distance you've got to be separate you've got to keep space now we're grateful that this does not this is not the permanent norm at least we hope not because throughout the bible we do find a theme of connecting with people especially fellow believers if we're going to be effective in evangelism it's connecting with others and working together as a team yeah and i think people have become especially sensitive to that during this pandemic where so many people are feeling isolated they're realizing that yeah there might be physical benefits in avoiding people that might have a contagious virus but there are definitely their detriments to our health because as social creatures and god designed us that way some people are struggling with depression and they say that even during the pandemic they're seeing a terrible spike in suicides some of that may be because some have lost their jobs and some of it just people feeling isolated and it's affecting their depression you know being together is part of god's original plan you can see here in genesis chapter one verse one and two in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth and the earth without form without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep and the spirit of god was hovering over the face of the waters and god said let us make man in our image according to our likeness let them have dominion over the fish of the sea over the birds of the air over the cattle over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth even god enjoys association even god wants to socialize and god the father son and spirit are seen to be there in the creation and all the way to the last book in the bible where it specifically mentions god the father and god the son and some of the closing words in the bible it says and the spirit says whosoever will let him take the water of life freely and so you have the the person the assembly of god those three witnesses that are seen right from the beginning to the end of the bible and then god made us where we you know how do we communicate intelligence how do we communicate thought you need people who are listeners and we grow as iron sharpens iron so he made us to be social creatures you know god made us to be social creatures even at a high risk a risk to himself and of course we know about sin we have a free will but despite the risk god felt it necessary to create beings that could love him that could choose to serve him we could interact with god god can show his love and his goodness to us so that sort of places the importance of being connected a very high level god values friendship he values interaction communication of course these are all aspects that we find when it comes to evangelism and especially connecting in a small group these are some of the benefits of being connected in a group yeah and now pastor doug we've got a question that's coming and i want to thank those of you who are sending in your questions again if you'd like to send a question related to small groups or witnessing uh you can do so past the doug's facebook page we have a question that's come in it says my question is is there a right time and is there a wrong time to share the word of god yeah i'd say that of course whenever you have an opening and as you walk with god and you walk in the spirit and you practice the skills of witnessing you know you're going to represent or you're going to recognize when there are those prime times with farming there's a good time to put seed in the ground and there's a bad time to put seed in the ground and so there's seasons and every day and even in people's lives you're going to see there are seasons where a person is open and sometimes you might do a little test and talk to a person about spiritual things so you can see they're kind of closing up to it might be the right time some spiritual inquiry asking them you know where they're at spiritually or find out what their interest is and you'd be surprised some people are more open than we might think so you might just you know do a little test every now and then and see if you can make progress you know one of the things that we teach in our afco class after is the amazing center of evangelism we teach witnessing and we ask people if they meet someone and they start engaging with them and they want to try and move the conversation to spiritual things one of the questions they can ask of the person is um did you grow up in a religious environment did you grow up going to church and usually we find people are more willing to talk about something that maybe happened uh in the past maybe something happened in their childhood and you can kind of get a sense or a feel as to where they are do they still currently go to church do they have interest in spiritual things so the way that we pose the question can kind of open up the door for some further discussion so um that's a good thing to keep in mind ask the person did you grow up going to church did you grow up in a religious family and usually people are willing to share about their background or about their family yeah you're asking them about them and uh sometimes people there even if they didn't have a good experience growing up with a religious background they're happy for an opportunity to vent and to tell you and then it teaches you a lot about where they're at and what their perspective is that's very important you know something else you can see right here in the beginning now we're still under the section small groups are god's first idea in the beginning families were the catalysts for the small groups abraham offered sacrifice for his family and he had a pretty large household and uh same thing with jacob and with isaac and they would worship god in their families they didn't have churches quite like we have today or several places of worship they had altars that were scattered around the country as they wandered but one of the dangers you see is when sin entered the world it damaged relationships everything from eve and adam blaming each other for sin cain killing abel uh you can see that there was some tension some separation and um one of the reasons we need small groups people say well i don't like going to small groups because i have trouble getting along with people that's why you need small groups is because it helps us grow it makes us accountable and it's just part of god's plan to redeem us to learn how to love each other the plan of uh salvation planet redemption actually started in a small group we find in hebrews chapter 1 verse 2 it says speaking of christ has in these last days spoken to us by his son so god the father is communicated by his son whom he has appointed heir of all things and through whom also he made the worlds so the plan of salvation involves the father the son and the holy spirit all three play an important part in our salvation in the plan of redemption and that's an example for us that when it comes to evangelism and soul winning there are different roles different parts that different people play in reaching out to those in the community now there's one more part in there that you talked about that i think you missed not only the father the son the spirit and us it says the worlds yes so you know part of the plan of salvation is redemption of this planet because we've been basically quarantined from the unfallen angels and other worlds that god may have out there and we want to be restored to communion with god and all of his creatures and so being in small groups and learning to love is part of that school you know there's an interesting statement that you find in the book fundamentals of christian education this is page 186 it says the plan of salvation had its place in the councils of the infinite from all eternity pastor doug someone might be wondering well what is this council that's been referred to here what is the council of of um infinite or who is this group yeah well when it says god said let us there must have been some sort of forum where the father son and spirit i don't know if they used holy spirit telepathy when they communicate with each other i doubt they sat down in a board room with a powerpoint but they consulted together and there was an agreement and so even the world was brought into existence you might say in the catalyst of a small group god all right well let me ask a question i think this one came from the philippines uh the question is how do we share the word with someone who is a devout catholic so of course you have different denominations in the world different religions how do you share in particular this is asking with someone who's a devout catholic you know this is probably a good time i've just remembered friends alert now hear this amazing facts is doing an evangelistic meeting that will go around the world including the philippines in october of this year we've just done the release this this a week the website has just become active the meetings are called revelation now and it's talking about uh unfolding or decoding the bible secrets of prophecy and i think the subtitle is things are never going to be the same and so revelation now matter of fact we have a website called revelationnow.com you can go take a look there right now and you can join us in being part of that in the philippines because if you've got a catholic friend and they watch that series where we've had a lot of people from the catholic church that have said wow where have i been and they've accepted the truth so one thing is get them involved in bible studies you might take them through an evangelistic program and you know there's different subjects that you can study gently with your catholic friends i find depending on the background i would begin with a charismatic a little different than i would maybe with a baptist or and then again differently with a catholic uh knowing their background one of the things i found is if you take the catholics into a bible study a prophecy they never get that just take them through daniel chapter two they're inspired with the inspiration of the bible then you can begin to show them some of the other things i find they always respond well to the study on the lake of fire because they're so happy to hear that god is a god of love and they don't have to worry about everlasting burning and so you know there's some just a couple of ideas there what do you think absolutely yeah start by reaffirming and i think this principle is true no matter who you're studying with start by reaffirming the authority of the bible and i think prophecy is one of the best ways to do that many of these different religious groups or denominations we might assume that the people might study the bible or know the bible and they are there are denominations that do study the bible but many of these different groups they just sort of follow the tradition they might get the information from a pastor or a priest but they haven't actually sat down and studied for themselves and so it's a it's an exciting experience for people who might be a devout christian to actually get into the word and especially as pastor doug says a prophecy start with daniel and work your way into some of the prophecies of revelation these are things that most denominations shy away from they stay away from revelation in daniel so we have a great opportunity to share with people from those books well the next section that we have in our lesson and probably need to move along here is small groups in scripture and of course we looked at small groups at the beginning we can see god himself the father son and holy spirit a small group right there but in the bible we also have small groups both in the old testament and the new testament yes sir like when moses was going through the wilderness his father jethro came to visit him he saw moses was sitting from dawn till dusk judging the people he said you're going to surely wear away this is too great for you he said you need to organize your people into smaller groups and you can find in exodus 18 21. he said exodus 18 21-22 moreover you shall select from all the people able men such as fear god small groups need to have leaders so that's another subject how to be a small group leader um able men such as fear god men of truth hating covetousness and place such over them to be rulers of thousands rulers of hundreds rulers of fifties rulers of tens i was just looking this morning online the smallest unit in an army is a squad that will have somewhere between 17 7 to 14 soldiers so that would be like group of 10 would be that category but the army found that that's their smallest group and they needed a leader usually a sergeant and they were very effective you'd send a squad on a mission and it says that uh the smallest group was ten and let them judge the people at all times and then it will be that every great matter they'll bring to you moses was the supreme court but every smaller matter they will judge themselves so it will be easier for you and they will bear the burden for you you know if pastors would all get the the vision of small groups they wouldn't have to be wearing themselves out especially when you get a church of two or three hundred members the key is build up your leaders men and women who can lead in small groups and you can have different groups you can have a small group for the collegiate you can have a small group for the young mothers you can have a small group for a retired man or just anything where they can connect together and then keep it with a biblical bible study focus and an outreach focus you know pastor doug you're so right especially you know our own church just to share with our folks who are joining us um we're in the process of building and we hope that our facility will be available and we'll be able to meet but granite bay has a membership of over 600 and uh one of the challenges we have is keeping people connected very excited the pastoral staff of the granite bay church we've spent some time looking at how we can connect people especially when the new church facility begins one of the areas that we're thinking about which is a great idea is to connect people who are going through similar life experiences for example young families they have a little child they go to sabbath school together they're going through similar life experiences the youth they're going through different challenges different things that they face so pull them together you even got those who have retired and are have a little more time on their hands connect them together and they can start planning and doing some kind of outreach so there's different stages that a person goes through in life and you can cluster organize these small groups based upon where people are in their experience in their walk we found this to be a lot more effective in pulling people together they have something in common yep amen you know along with what happened there with moses dividing the people up into various group sizes jesus did this when they distributed the bread now the bread for us of course is the word of god and so as churches get together for bread distribution that's study in the bible how did he do it well it says here that there are about 5000 men not counting women and children that were fed when he multiplied the bread and he said make them sit down in groups of 50. but you look in mark 6 39 it says he commanded them to all sit down in groups on the green grass so they sat down in ranks of hundreds and fifties now 50 would be a pretty pretty big small group but you know i i don't agree with everything they do but i think it's in the jehovah witness church i agree that they go out two by two that's a biblical it's a good method i don't agree with the message good method something else they do when they get a church and they reach about i think it's 300 they then swarm and they say it's time to start another group you almost don't want a church to get too big now we're doing something that's a little bit of an exception here with the granite bay church because we are a church that is training churches so we needed a bigger facility for convocations but uh we just planted uh or we actually said we're in the process of planting another church granite bay is a church plant of um sacramento central and sacramento central planted several churches and they all started with small groups well we had about 12 when we started growing right started in somebody's living room with about 12 13 people and grew from there yeah so the principal definitely works um the next section that we have maybe i'll ask a question you pastor doug that somebody sent in it might be a good time to ask very important question so it's not directly related to small groups but a question i think all of us have it says pasadena what would you recommend for somebody to do who is trying to have a personal revival in their life personal revival well i i think that the three keys to revival are found in the holy place of the sanctuary they are the secret weapons for revival and uh for the disciplines of a successful christian there were three things in that room you had the um altar of incense which represents prayer according to revelation you had the bread which is a symbol for the word of god and then you had a light which is a symbol for witnessing letting your light shine and so if a christian is involved in daily prayer seeking after god praying not just in regular times but through the day walking with christ reading the word and getting an adequate bible study and that could be part of being part of a bible study group and then doing something with their faith don't just sit on it but share your faith somehow reach out and minister to others and i found if people do these things it's the best formula for growth well you know pastor it's interesting you mentioned the light could represent sharing our faith and it wasn't just one lamp in the holy place it said seven branch candlesticks so they were tied together effective witnessing is connecting with others be involved in a small group playing together organize together and start reaching out to those in the community around you well then that brings us to our next section which is organizing for service so the purpose of a small group isn't just for us to interact and strengthen ourselves spiritually but we're to be evangelistic the great commission that jesus gave us is to go make disciples preach the gospel and so that needs to be a central theme of every small group not only in reach but we also need to have an emphasis on outreach and that's the next section we see an illustration that paul gives us in first corinthians about how the church and these different small groups are to work together you want to go why don't you read first corinthians what 12 through 1st 26 yes first corinthians 12 beginning in verse 12 it says uh for as the body is one and as many members but all the members of that one body being many are one body so also is christ for by one spirit we were all baptized into one body whether jews or greeks where the slaves are free and all have been made to drink into that one spirit for in fact the body is not one member but many members if the foot should say because i'm not the hand i am not part of the body uh is there therefore not is it therefore not of the body and if the ear should say because i'm not an eye i'm not of the body is it therefore not of the body if the whole body were an eye where would the hearing be if the hole were hearing where would the smelling be but now god has set the members each one of them in the body just as he is pleased that there should be no schism in the body but the members should have the same care for one another and if one member suffers all members suffer with it or if one member is on it then all rejoice with it so we can see there's different responsibilities different gifts that god has given and as we work together in small groups now seems to note different groups might have a different form or a different emphasis in evangelism the hand would do something different than the foot it's all connected to the same body so you could have different groups focusing on outreach in different ways yeah you know i think this is a beauty and the key to understanding the success of small groups is that you're going to have every small group is going to be different and it's going to be made up of people and people are unique and the key for christians is learning to love and grow everybody regardless of what their different temperaments and personalities are and those differences are usually because god made them different and so learning to love people and say all right well this person may not be an ear but maybe they're an eyeball maybe they're a nose maybe they're a foot or a hand and just find out where is their spiritual gift where do they fit into the body and help them to flourish help them to be affirmed in what their role is in the body and when spiritual when small groups get together and they recognize we're going to use everybody's different gifts just a famous quote from history i don't know who said it first but if you want to go fast you go alone but if you want to go far you go together and i've just read several stories i've talked many times about the lewis and clark expedition and when captains lewis and clark were getting their team together about 38 or 40 different guys they deliberately picked very different people they had one guy who was an expert blacksmith they had someone else who was an expert hunter they had someone else that could uh an expert on the water with rowing then they had a carpenter and they had all these things were so different but they worked together as a unit to do something remarkable and what i'll tell you another quick story most people don't know that the reason we have an interstate uh highway system in north america is because there was a young captain who was given the commission i think in the 1920s to travel all the way from washington to california with a group of soldiers there were no roads back then automobiles were still in their infancy and they took these primitive vehicles and they had to build the road as they went uh forging deserts and crossing creeks well the captain was dwight d eisenhower and then when he went to europe and during world war ii and he saw the autobahns he came back he became president he said we need to fix our roads but the only way he made it across the country is he had people all different gifts some of them were on primitive motorcycles he had mechanics a lot of mechanics he had welders and blacksmiths and engineers but using the different gifts they were able to build roads and get all the way across the country with no roads and so you go far together you can go fast alone but you go a lot farther if you can work together and and that's the way it is a group you support each other and use our different gifts absolutely and i think we have spent some time in our study talking about different gifts that god has given different people and how we can utilize our gifts um now pastor doug we have a question that's come in and it's it's not exactly on our topic but it's a i don't think we've ever seen this question before so we want to ask it it's kind of an interesting not a hard question but it's an interesting one it says uh dear pastors um this isn't on the bible uh topic but it's on tithe and here's the question if you're saving tithe during time or during this time a large sum of tithe and somebody steals that are you still to come up with the tithe again so you've been setting aside your tithe but somebody stole the tithe before you're able to turn it in do you have to come up with that tithe again well i would say that if you have a debt that you owe if someone steals the money you are going to use to pay that debt does the debt go away so i know that that's a difficult answer i would just say god's going to show you mercy so it's not god is not going to be looking saying you know folding his arms and tapping his foot and say where's my money but i would say all right lord maybe maybe it was stolen because i i was responsible and i misplaced it or whatever um i pray you can get it back and uh but in the meantime i'd make a mental note and say you know as time goes by i want to pay some extra tithe absolutely cover what was stolen maybe you won't be able to come up with enough to pay all of it but it would be nice if you could at least try to do as much as you can to contribute to that and of course i think you've learned from that experience you won't be leaving the money out for somebody else to take it um another question that we have is what is the best way to discover your spiritual gift that's a good question um one of the things we actually have a spiritual gift survey and some of you might want to email the granite bay church and we'll try to share with that with you if there's a way to do that online but there's spiritual gift surveys you can probably find them online because a lot of churches use the same information to if you don't have to be a seventh day advocate to find out what how do we evaluate spiritual gifts um sometimes it's things that you gravitate towards god puts certain desires in your heart you can counsel with other people the bible tells us in the multitude of counsel there's safety talk to those who know you and say what do you think my spiritual gifts are there's actually a test you can take where you answer these questions and at the end it says based on how you answered these questions you probably have spiritual gifts in a b c it's like an inventory you know when students go to college and they're trying to figure out what am i supposed to do with my life they have these tests they take and they get evaluated by kind of placement counselors and say you know you really have strong gifts in mechanical areas you should do engineering or whatever or you've got real strong spiritual gifts in education and they have some good tests that help you evaluate that they have those online for christians too they'll say your spiritual gifts are really strong in these areas it doesn't mean it's the only place but that's some of the things you can do absolutely it's a good place to start and then also you might want to talk to some of the other believers in the church and say do you recognize a particular gift that i have there might be something that you might not realize that you're really good at it might correspond with your personality or your talents your abilities maybe you're good with music and that might be a talent one of the other areas to discover your spiritual gift is look at the needs of the church you know we've had situations and some of the churches have pastored where there was a particular position that needed to be filled and the church members all said well that's not my gift that's not my gift and it took somebody to say all right it might not be my perfect gift but i know there's a need i'm going to step in and do my best and sure enough they really enjoyed it and they discovered you know what this is a gift that god has given me in this particular area of service so sometimes if there's a need that might be the lord leading you to step in there and do the best you can and then he can multiply or bless your ass i just talked to somebody this week that has been a christian for years and there was a desperate need in the adventure program and this person's in their 50s and they thought well if no one's going to do it i'll step in and then they said voila this is my gift i love it and now they're just they're just really loving working with the adventures group and they didn't know they had that spiritual gift so let me read a quote pastor ross because this is a good one i don't want to run out of time and it's in your lesson but it's from the seventh volume of the testimonies for the church page 21-22 the formation of small companies as a basis of christian effort has been presented to me by one who cannot air if there is a large number in the church let the members be formed into small companies to work not only for the church members but for unbelievers if one place if in one place there are only two or three who know the truth let them form themselves into a band of workers let them keep their bond even if it's only two or three she said let them keep their bond of union unbroken pressing together in love and unity encouraging one another to advance each gaining courage and strength from the insistence of the or from the assistance of the other and so yeah even in the spirit of prophecy strong advocate of you need to have even in a bigger church small groups that can nurture do home bible studies and be part of a support team well that brings us to our next section in the lesson it's entitled new testament small groups and i think this is where it really comes into sharp focus the importance of small groups the first small group of course we find is jesus picking the 12 disciples not only do they have 12 disciples but you read elsewhere in the gospel there was a group of 70 that jesus sent out preaching and teaching but they were a larger group so he had the 12 disciples and even amongst the 12 disciples he had an inner circle of peter james and john or even a smaller group that got to share some very special experiences with christ so right at the beginning of the christian church established by christ you begin to see the importance of organizing into different smaller teams smaller groups in doing the work of evangelism yeah in the garden of gethsemane jesus he calls peter james john come pray with me and christ felt the need for his support group you might say and uh it's so important that you have people who are close to you that know you uh there should be people that you can be honest with that there's accountability and there's intimacy and we all need friends what does it say a three-fold quarter cannot easily be broken then you look at all through the new testament especially the book of acts it says after these things paul departed from athens and went to corinth and he found a certain jew named aquila born in pontus who had recently come from italy with his wife priscilla because claudius had commanded all the jews to depart from rome and he came to them so it was they were of the same trade he stayed with them and worked now that's something to notice about a small group you got paul priscilla aquila they had some things in common and so while they were so intense they could be giving bible studies and supporting each other and then you also see here you might want to read acts 20 verse one through three another sample of this yes it says and there was an uproar that ceased paul called disciples to himself embraced them departed to macedonia so we find paul calling disciples or leaders together now when they had gone over that region and encouraged them with many words he came to greece and stayed there three months and when the jews plotted against him as he was about to sail to syria he decided to return through macedonia so again we find paul connecting with smaller groups of believers on his missionary endeavors as he traveled throughout asia minor first thing paul would do he'd go into a new community and he would automatically go to the synagogue where there were small groups of jews scattered all through the greek and the roman empires or greek and roman cities and he realized that this is the places where i should go to have a support group and also a good place for evangelism and then you can also notice how luke in the book of acts he often mentions paul's co-workers in acts 12 verse 11 and when peter came to himself he said i know for a certain the lord has sent his angel and has delivered me from the hand of herod and all the expectation of the jewish people so when he considered this he came to the house of mary the mother of john whose surname was mark where many were gathered together praying he knocks at the door a girl named rhoda comes to the door so you got mary john mark rhoda and it says that the church was gathered in this upper room now this is not necessarily the same number you saw at pentecost where there's 120 it may have been only 20. and so he as soon as he was delivered from prison he realized i need a support group first thing he did he said i've got to go find the church i got to find whether gather together praying it wasn't a sabbath morning necessarily they just went to uh where they were gathered in god's name and you know there's three things that we find almost in every small group that we discover in the new testament especially three things they did they pray together they study together and they ate together which is kind of interesting you got that social element it talks about how they broke bread from house to house and rejoiced and prayed and studied and did evangelism so we don't want to neglect that social aspect of a group of people connecting um the most effective evangelists are evangelists that are working together they are friends they love one another they are connected they have the same call they know each other they know their strengths they know their weaknesses and so when it comes to a small group in the church to be effective it requires us spending some time getting to know people praying with them fellowshipping with them and that makes the most effective team yeah you know probably the most effective small group is the group that has a good cook in the group everybody wants to go to those small group meetings [Laughter] absolutely now this kind of leads us to our next section talking about small group dynamics but pastor just before we go there questions come in it says what is self-denial how can you give an example of giving up one's own will to god what is self-denial i think when it talks about taking up our cross and denying herself any time we know something is uh out of god's will though we may want it when we deny ourselves what it is that we may want whether it's something you want to say that might glorify yourself and you hold your tongue because you think that won't glorify god that's self-denial if if it's that extra cookie after dinner we're just talking about cooking and you think i've had enough and it's border it's going from satisfaction to gluttony now you say no that's self-denial saying oh i could take that job and it would pay so much better but i'd have to break the sabbath or i wouldn't have enough time with my family and you say no even though you want it so whenever you deny yourself anything for the sake of being a christian for serving christ that's self-denial when you get up at night when you're tired and you go visit a friend who's struggling because they need prayer and you really would rather stay in bed that's self-denial you know i've been reading some great testimonies and stories of early missionaries not only of of our denomination but early protestant missionaries that were truly self-sacrificing where they would say farewell to their family a good chance of never seeing them again they would travel to places they had never been before very primitive conditions they could have stayed home lived a much more comfortable life but they denied themselves so that somebody else can hear the gospel and have an opportunity to be saved so there's an aspect of self-denial now we might not be called to go to some distant land to preach the gospel but sometimes we've got to deny ourselves to get involved in evangelism at the church you know driving out an evangelistic series every night well we've heard these messages before but you know that's part of self-denial by doing your part to reach somebody else with the gospel yeah you know before we run out of time i see we've just got a few minutes left and we can back up to section five there i just want to talk about what are some of the reasons that we need small groups and i borrowed some of this i'll admit from online because the principles are truth are true in any church denomination they all flourish when they use the small groups personal growth is one you grow personally when you're in another group you're getting new information you're studying new subjects when you're by yourself you might come up with some eccentric ideas but as you bounce those off other people it guides and it shapes and it helps form you to have a healthy character and healthy theology another reason is smaller communities are more cohesive it's important for us in a big church you can kind of get lost people slip in the back they slip out and you don't have the accountability and and uh it's not very cohesive you're not connecting with other people so that's another very important reason deeper friendships in a big church you can have acquaintances i've got millions of acquaintances maybe not millions but thousands people i know them i shake their hands hi how you doing slap each other on the back there's no intimacy there it's not a real friend it's an acquaintance you know in the church you need people that you're intimate with and then the fourth part is maximum participation it is so much easier to mobilize people if you know who the people are you know what the gifts are and group leaders know who the people are in our their uh group that have the different gifts and so you get your maximum participation in a church when you say okay we're gonna have our mission planning group take charge of this project you've got your gifted people they they do it our children's ministry group or whatever it is they're formed into trained groups like an army and we would just encourage wherever you are whatever church you might be involved with get involved in a small group if you don't have a small group well it's a good opportunity to try and organize and start a small group and again not only is it for in reach for fellowship which is important but the goal of every small group should be outreach focused reaching out to others sharing the gospel with them so a small group is an important part not only for a healthy church but for a healthy individual for a healthy christian amen i would like to just remind those of you who are joining us about our free offer that we have today a book entitled is it easy to be saved or to be lost and this is our free gift to you all you have to do is call the number eight six six seven eight eight three nine six six and ask for offer number one two four and we'll be happy to get in the mail again that's eight six six seven eight eight three nine six six ask for offer 124 or you can get a digital download of the book by texting the code sh039 to the number 40544 also pastor ross before we say goodbye for today's lesson i want to remind everybody something we mentioned earlier very important event coming a major international evangelistic program between amazing facts and three abn called the revelation now starts october goes through november 14 gonna be a full scale evangelistic program go to the website revelationnow.com join us register you'll get all the information on how you and your church or your small group can participate in reaching souls don't forget to request today's life-changing free resource not only can you receive this free gift in the mail you can download a digital copy straight to your computer or mobile device to get your digital copy of today's free gift simply text the keyword on your screen to 40544 or visit the web address shown on your screen and be sure to select the digital download option on the request page it's now easier than ever for you to study god's word with amazing facts wherever and whenever you want and most important to share it with others amazing facts change lives [Music] i was born into a family of criminals when i got older and i started breaking the rules no one ever taught me about thou shalt not steal thou shalt not lie thou shalt not commit adultery anything like that when i became a runaway at 14 i was just a wild and lost child i had somebody tell me hey you want to earn some money cleaning this guy's kitchen so i went to this house on a different side of town than i was used to someone kept giving me alcoholic drinks and being 115 pounds and 14 years old it really didn't take much time before i was so inebriated that i had no control over what was going on around me he took me to another location another town and i was put in isolation i would come out to be abused between three and eight times a day i was degraded i was humiliated i had no value as a human being and i learned very quickly that what i felt and what i thought and how this made me feel did not matter to him at all if i even thought about not doing what he wanted me to do i would have a gun to my head a knife to my throat there was one time in particular where he had been tormenting me psychologically and one day he said oh you'll never kill yourself you'll never do it and almost defiantly i was like yes i will and he handed me a big old handful of pills and i took them while i was overdosing and i had been overdosing all night i cried out to a god that i didn't even believe in and at that very moment in the most powerful way god shown his light on me and he gave me peace of mind like i never had and he let me know right then and there while i was on that bathroom floor that he was real and that he was loved and that i did not know how at that time but he was going to help me a little less than a year later i became pregnant at 15. i loved my son with my whole heart he also became something that my abuser could use against me in order to pump more fear and coercion i had finally got away from my abuser and i had finally built up a support system to help me stay on the move and stay on the run and i was at my grandmother's house and on my son's third birthday [Music] he he took my son and when i called the police said my son's just been kidnapped they said he's the father we can't do anything about it after my son was gone i lost my mind i started doing drugs and within a month of and a half i robbed a convenience store so i was sentenced to 70 months 5 years 10 months in prison and it was the best thing that ever happened to me i started attending the church services in prison seven days a week it blew my mind i was hooked and then we went through um it was millennium of prophecy and net 99 that just solidified my faith in such a powerful way and i knew god that god was leading me even the guards there commented on how much i had changed and since i started doing the the studies on amazing facts i was so excited about what i was learning that i was coming back from there and trying to convert my my hardened criminal friends with the historicals of prophecy every question i ever had every worry everything that i ever wondered about the bible answered everything and it was so clear and so easy to understand it's been 11 years since i've been out of prison i am married to an amazing wonderful man my first non-abusive relationship in my whole entire life before we got married we watched the millennium of prophecy series together and it was just such a blessing to be able to see him learn and see him grow and i feel like my life now is just a gift that every single thing that happened to me bad in the past is nothing compared to the the joy and the happiness and the stability that i have now my name is christine van order and my life has been changed by jesus christ and amazing facts [Music] today's smartphones are a virtual universe of information that fits in the palm of your hand it's a good thing we have opposable thumbs with it you can buy your groceries take care of your exercise regime watch a video listen to music you can surf the international world wide web which may not always be a good thing and you know there is more computer processing technology and power in a little smartphone today than was used by nasa to put a man on the moon and i almost forgot you can also use these to make a phone call but who does that anymore today communication is not in complete sentences it's all about short message servicing or sms texting that's right there are about 2.5 billion people in the world today that are communicating with their fellow humans in short bytes called texting that's more data that is being used than those who are surfing the web or even playing video games and friends nowhere is this more true than right here in the philippines even though the philippines has about 100 million people they are responsible for the largest number of text messages of anywhere in the world they're the 12th largest country but they send 400 million text messages every day wow that's a lot of finger fatigue even though the greatest number of texters is here in the philippines the record for the fastest texture in the world is from brazil a young man by the name of marcel fernandez philo he was able to text 25 very complicated words in a little more than 18 seconds wow it takes me longer than that to just say i love you to my wife and press send all thumbs one of the neat things about texting is you can text just about anywhere if you're surrounded with people you want to send a personal message you text you're in a crowded subway or an airport you can text if you're surrounded by noise or nosy people you can text just don't text while you're driving that's what's so wonderful friends you can always text god a message of prayer from your heart when you're wondering what school do i go to what job do i take who am i supposed to date that may be a future life partner your prayers don't have to be long the shortest prayer in the bible is three words when peter prayed lord save me jesus answered his prayer and it doesn't matter how fast you can text when you're talking to god he'll know what you're asking for and hear your prayer before you have a chance to say amen and press the send button in fact friends you'll bring joy to god when you send him regular messages from your heart to his so why don't you talk to him right now [Music] you

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Published: Sat Aug 22 2020