Series: Momma Says… (James)[#9]
KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL
James 5:13-20
Chris (Congregational Reading):
What is our vision? It is our vision to:
1. Lead the lost to Jesus Christ!
2. Live lives in the world that lead the lost to Jesus Christ!
3. Intentionally make all church activities about the worship of Jesus Christ, growing stronger in Christ, and taking our faith beyond these walls.
IT’S ALL ABOUT JESUS!
Prayer: Chris
Baptism
Scripture Reading (Chris): James 5:13-20
Boyd’s Testimony Of Healing
Introduction:
What a week! We have lived Nehemiah 6 and James 5:13-20 this week (which is where both our series just happen to be). On Wednesday evening we have Foundations Worship Service (which is our youth service) at 6:00 p.m. Our praise and worship team struggled with tempo the whole time to the point that Brandon (the worship leader) was skipping parts of the song so that it could end quicker. Jeff (the youth minister) was sick and feeling terrible. He had almost no voice. As Jeff preached a powerful sermon on salvation to an audience with several lost people in it, his voice began to get stronger and stronger to the point that I had to turn his microphone almost off. At the invitation time, 6 of the youth walked out of the service. Jeff went and spoke to them while the praise team continued to struggle.
After the service, we have our Sunday Morning Praise Team rehearsal. Chris knew that Brenda and Pat needed to leave on time so he had prepared very well in order for that to happen. We started later Wednesday then we ever do. Music that was there was gone. Praise team members had unexpected problems they had to deal with. We finally got started and Chris’ guitar popped and sputtered several times. After only practicing 1 song, Chris told Brenda and Pat they could go and apologized for how things were going.
The rest of us stayed and begin to talk about what a tough day it had been and all of sudden God showed me why Chris had not preached Nehemiah 6 last Saturday. I had asked Chris to continue in the series but he thought I said not to continue in the series. Anyhow James 5:16, (which is usually a dangerous thing to do amongst gossiping people in churches today) began to happen. “Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed” (James 5:16 MSG). I began to tell them about Nehemiah 6 and what was going on. In verse 1 it says, “Now it came about when it was reported to Sanballat, Tobiah, to Geshem the Arab, and to the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall, and that no breach remained in it, although at that time I had not set up the doors in the gates”. The wall was completed, but the gates were not yet up. The city was still vulnerable to attack but not for much longer. The enemy knew that and had to do something quickly before their opportunity for victory over Nehemiah and the people was over.
Nehemiah 6:2-4 (Message)
“Sanballat and Geshem sent this message: "Come and meet with us at Kephirim in the valley of Ono." I knew they were scheming to hurt me so I sent messengers back with this: "I’m doing a great work; I can’t come down. Why should the work come to a standstill just so I can come down to see you?" Four times they sent this message and four times I gave them my answer.”
1. The enemy tries to draw us out from where we are secure. This message looked innocent, but Nehemiah knew that if he went to Ono he would end up dead.
The enemy was trying to draw those 8 guys out of this Church the other night so we wouldn’t stay and wage spiritual war against him. He was trying to get us to not stay and continue that work God had been stirring up in us all day long. We didn’t leave, and God moved in a mighty way as we prayed. We are secure in the arms of Jesus.
Nehemiah 6:5-9 (Message)
“The fifth time- same messenger, same message- Sanballat sent an unsealed letter with this message: "The word is out among the nations- and Geshem says it’s true- that you and the Jews are planning to rebel. That’s why you are rebuilding the wall. The word is that you want to be king and that you have appointed prophets to announce in Jerusalem, ’There’s a king in Judah!’ The king is going to be told all this- don’t you think we should sit down and have a talk?" I sent him back this: "There’s nothing to what you’re saying. You’ve made it all up." They were trying to intimidate us into quitting. They thought, "They’ll give up; they’ll never finish it." I prayed, "Give me strength."
2. The enemy tries to destroy our character. If the enemy can’t draw us out alone to get us, he will try to destroy us through creating doubts in the minds of those we serve with. It has been rumored that when I told the Church on Sunday February 6th that either this Church was going to be about Jesus or I was going to go back to McDonald’s and I told them that God had told me not to shave my beard until someone was saved and baptized; that I was doing that to play a game, grow this Church bigger than others, and bring notoriety to myself. That’s a lie and the enemy was just trying to get me and others to give up and quit, so that we couldn’t see 2 young ladies give their lives to Jesus Christ.
The solution: Pray.
James 5:13 (MSG)
“Are you hurting? Pray.”
Nehemiah 6:10-14 (MSG)
“Then I met secretly with Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, at his house. He said: Let’s meet at the house of God, inside The Temple; Let’s find safety behind locked doors because they’re coming to kill you, Yes, coming by night to kill you. I said, "Why would a man like me run for cover? And why would a man like me use The Temple as a hideout? I won’t do it." I sensed that God hadn’t sent this man. The so-called prophecy he spoke to me was the work of Tobiah and Sanballat; they had hired him. He had been hired to scare me off — trick me — a layman, into desecrating The Temple and ruining my good reputation so they could accuse me. "O my God, don’t let Tobiah and Sanballat get by with all the mischief they’ve done. And the same goes for the prophetess Noadiah and the other prophets who have been trying to undermine my confidence."
3. The enemy tries to draw us into disobedience to God. The enemy hired Shemaiah to give a false prophecy and get Nehemiah to compromise God’s Word. Nehemiah knew that the Temple wasn’t a hideout or a fort for the fearful. The enemy has been trying to draw me and other Baptist believers into disobedience to the Word of God. The Devil has been able to use men and women through many years of fine Baptist heritage to replace truth with tradition and it has been brought to my attention that I’m being labeled as a renegade amongst Baptist because of my stance on some Scriptural areas. Our text in James is one of those areas.
James 5:14-15 (MSG)
“Are you sick? Call the church leaders together to pray and anoint you with oil in the name of the Master. Believing-prayer will heal you, and Jesus will put you on your feet. And if you’ve sinned, you’ll be forgiven — healed inside and out.”
I’m a renegade because we have done this at our Church. In a Baptist Church, praying for the sick is great; but apparently the anointing with oil is considered almost like “voodoo”. If it is “voodoo”, then why did God tell us to do it. Also, I have been told that God doesn’t heal this way anymore. He only uses doctors to heal. Have they lost their mind? One of my best friends is a doctor and yes sometimes God heals us through those doctors that God has given that ability to and through the medicines that God has showed man how to make through the materials that God has created. But, sometimes God heals us when our best of medical science says it is impossible just to remind us where our healing comes from. By the way God could even choose not to heal you if that is His will. Ask Paul about his thorn in the flesh that he asked God to remove 3 times and God told him, “My grace is sufficient”.
Guess what? If God said to do this in this way we are going to do it. Maybe if we would do it God’s way, we would see more people healed; and it has nothing to do with oil, but everything to do with God. Let’s do it His way! My prayer right now is, “Lord please break this spirit of territorialism and elitism in our city and draw your people together”.
Nehemiah 6:15-19 (MSG)
“The wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of Elul. It had taken fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard the news and all the surrounding nations saw it, our enemies totally lost their nerve. They knew that God was behind this work. All during this time letters were going back and forth constantly between the nobles of Judah and Tobiah. Many of the nobles had ties to him because he was son-in-law to Shecaniah son of Arah and his son Jehohanan had married the daughter of Meshullam son of Berekiah. They kept telling me all the good things he did and then would report back to him anything I would say. And then Tobiah would send letters to intimidate me.”
4. The enemy will continue to try to get in once the gates are up on the wall; but will only be able to get in if we open the gate and let him in. The enemy will try to distract us by talking about us from the outside of these walls and will try to use our friends and relatives to get to us.
Conclusion:
James 5:19-20 (MSG)
“My dear friends, if you know people who have wandered off from God’s truth, don’t write them off. Go after them. Get them back and you will have rescued precious lives from destruction and prevented an epidemic of wandering away from God.”
I believe in all my heart that the walls that we have been rebuilding here at Bel Aire Baptist Church are built, but our gates are not on. Wednesday night marked exactly 52 days since we have begun the “Momma Says” series on Sunday Morning out of James which is when we began the rebuilding.
So why did I just read James 5:19-20? Because God has showed me that the Devil is trying to distract us away from His presence so that he can sneak into our Church and kill the spiritual babies. See, Satan has always been after the babies when God was raising up something great. Satan tried to kill Moses. Satan tried to kill Jesus. Now, Satan is trying to kill the spiritually immature and our job as more mature believers is to go after them. Don’t forget about this or write them off. Bring them back to God.
Isn’t that what the entire vision of our Church is all about?
Invitation:
[Have the deacons come forward and ask everyone else including the praise team to remain seated.]
1. If you are here without Jesus, God can heal you more than just physically- He can resurrect you from being spiritually dead and give you life. That only comes through Jesus Christ. If you want Christ to be the Savior of your life, then I want you to raise your hand and I will have someone go with you in the corner room and talk and pray with you.
2. If you are here today and you have wandered away from God’s will, but today you are coming back I want you to raise your hand knowing that I and the deacons are looking. In a moment I am going to ask you to come forward and pray with one of us. (The person God leads you to.)
3. If you are here today and you are sick or have a medical condition that you feel God leading you to be prayed for today knowing that we are going to also anoint you will oil, then I want you to raise your hand. If you have raised your hand then I want you to come forward and indicate that to one of these deacons that you want to have this done to you. I want you to remain in prayer until I indicate that it is time, then the deacons and pastors will gather around and anoint you will oil and pray over you. Congregation, while this happens I want you to remain in your seats quietly or come to the altar and pray fervently with all your heart.
James 5:16 (MSG)
“The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with.”
At this time if you raised your hand for prayer for recommitment, then you need to come forward.
[Give some time.]
At this time if you raised your hand for prayer for healing I want you to come forward.
[Give some time.]
[Have the time of praying over those who are sick.]
This morning we are having a time of celebration for those who have been saved and baptized. We are having a time of celebration for those who God has healed. I had said that we wouldn’t have blended music service anymore because the Devil used that to distract us but God’s doing something here today and this week that is overwhelming and I can’t explain.
At this time we are going to have our offering and if you feel led to exit that is o.k.; but please don’t leave the premises because after we sing we are going to have a lunch and then Janie Castillo is going to shave my beard which represents a brand new start and a putting on of the gates on our walls today. “Do you feel great? Sing” (James 5:13 MSG).
