Sent: Playing with Fire

Missio Church - Bismarck

Verses Used:

• Acts 12:1-23
• Romans 13:1
• John 19:11
• James 4:6
• Matthew 23:12

Takeaways:

Herod’s Power

• Herod had power, he had the ability to kill people and get away with it.
• Sometimes bad people are in power. They get away with doing bad things to good people.
• God is the giver of power and authority.
• Just because we follow Jesus and are about his mission, does not mean that we won’t have opposition.

God’s Power (through prayer)

• We saw the power that Herod had to kill James and imprison Peter, now we will see the power of God to intervene
• Herod showed his power to have James executed and Peter imprisoned, but God showed his power to free Peter from prison.
• God invites us to pray, to converse, to talk with him as a son would with his father, or as you would with your closest friend.
• God includes us in prayer because it’s a relational connection that lets us know him deeper, and we get to see what he is doing.

Pride and Humility

• From James we read, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
• From Matthew we read, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

Discussion Questions:

• What keeps you from placing a higher value on prayer, or spending more time with God in prayer?
• How might your daily life be different if you made prayer a bigger priority?
• Can you think of some ways pride causes problems in our lives?
• Why is it harder to live with humility than pride?

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