Read:  Acts 26:1-23

Open

“Friendship is a gift.”  Can you share with the group a friendship in your life that you have particularly experienced as a gift given at just the right time?

Dig

In Acts 26 we find Paul describing his life of following Christ.  The sermon’s main premise is that Paul’s life is an example to us of how to follow Christ.  Paul’s life is a template for us that contains four elements.  Let’s examine our own lives to see if they, too, contain these four elements.

1. His conscience was sparked—Paul was convicted by Christ on the Damascus Road (vs. 12-15).  Have you had an experience in your life when you have been powerfully convicted of the fact that all that you were doing that you thought was good and right was really wrong?  How did you come to that realization?  What “sparked” your conscience?

2. His understanding was enlightened—The appearance of the Risen Christ to Paul on the Damascus Road entirely changed Paul’s understanding of God and His purposes.  He went from thinking that he was chasing down “Jews gone bad” to realizing that he was persecuting the Messiah.  How has your experience with Jesus changed your understanding of who God is and who you are?  How has your understanding of Jesus changed in the course of your life?

“Jesus is Lord of everything leads to the adventure of a lifetime.”  Can you testify to the truth of that statement?

3. He surrendered his will—Paul’s response to the Risen Christ is, “What shall I do?”  Christ tells Paul what to do in vs. 16-18 and Paul dedicates the rest of his life to fulfilling that calling.  Can you share an experience where you felt like you were able to surrender your will in order to do God’s will (even if only temporarily)?  What was the result?  Does the thought of surrendering your will to Christ feel like an attractive thing or a terrifying thing to you?  Why?

4. He lived a changed lifestyle—Paul’s life went through a dramatic change after his encounter with Christ.  His lifestyle was radically different.  The form of our encounter is not important.  What matters is the Lord we encounter.  Jonathan Edwards said that the true evidence of a real encounter with Christ is faithful reliance upon Christ and obedience to Him.  How has your lifestyle changed because of Christ’s presence in your life?

Reflect

Can you see these four elements in your life?  Can you see these four elements in each other’s lives?

10 May 2009

Read:  Acts 22:1-22

Open

What was the best graduation speech you ever heard?  What do you remember from any graduation ceremonies you have been a part of?

Dig

Notice the context of Paul’s speech by reading Acts 21:27-40.  His audience has just tried to kill him for defiling the temple (a charge he was not guilty of) by bringing a Gentile into the temple.  He then proceeds to share his testimony of how God has called him to bring the good news of God’s Kingdom to the Gentiles (a message that nearly gets him killed a second time).

How would you summarize the “good news” of Ananias’ message to Paul in vs. 14-16?  Would you receive such a message as good news?  Why or why not?

Do you believe that God has a particular calling for you?  What have you discovered about God’s calling on your life?  What do you know about His calling on your life?  What are you still trying to figure out about this calling?

How have you seen “the Righteous One” in your life?  Specifically, how have you seen Jesus through other people?  Can you share with us an example of how another person revealed the Risen Christ to you?

Reflect

In the sermon, we noticed that the testimony of Paul was more about his vocation than his salvation.  The Good News of the gospel is not merely that we get our sins forgiven and we get to go to heaven (as great as that is!).  The Good News is that Jesus has work for us to do for His Kingdom here, today.  What work is Jesus calling you to do that lights a passion in you comparable to Paul’s?

If our lives lack that passion to live out that calling then why is that?  What keeps us from being energized to do an important work for Christ and His Kingdom?

Read:  Acts 21:17-26

Open

What were some of the “rules” in your household growing up?  Were there rules that exasperated you as a child or teenager?  Were there rules that you look back on and are now thankful for?

Dig

Look again at vs. 20-25.  What is the concern of James and the Jewish elders?  Are they concerned about what people perceive Paul is saying to Jews or to Gentiles (v. 21)?  How is this different from the issue the Church dealt with at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15?

Paul agrees to fulfill the Nazirite vow of Deuteronomy 6 to satisfy the request of the Jewish elders.  Why is he willing to satisfy that request but he absolutely refuses to compromise on requiring Gentiles to be circumcised or keep kosher laws?

In the sermon we were told that Paul was following the “Weaker Brother Principle” [WBP] of Romans 14—love compels us to go along with the one who has the greater scruples.  The WBP is one that gives us freedom to give in when it involves non-essentials.  Can you think of an example of when you have seen the WBP used in real life?

The sermon mentioned several threats to the unity of the Body, e.g. jealousy, appreciation of only people like us, presumption that I am not needed, choosing to complain rather than to commit, and especially an unwillingness to forgive.  What do you see as primary threats to the unity of the Body of Christ?

Reflect

We were reminded that the key to our unity is found at the Communion table—none of us are worthy and all of us are welcome.  Is there someone in your life that you need to forgive or from whom you need to seek forgiveness?  Can we as a group support you as you seek to give or receive forgiveness?

Read:  Acts 20:17-38

Open

Have you ever participated in a “tearful farewell”?  Were you leaving or being left?  Why was it so hard?

If you were a parent, what three character traits would you most want your children to possess?

Dig

In the sermon, we were told that Paul exemplifies for this young church three keys for their survival: Character, Courage, and Conviction.  What marks of Christian character do you see in Paul’s example here in vs. 18-19?

Read Romans 5:3-5.  It talks about what produces character and what character produces.  Certainly Paul lived the example of suffering and perseverance producing character.  How have you experienced this in your own life, of suffering producing perseverance producing character?  Have you seen this to be true in our life together—as a congregation or a small group or another group that you have been a part of?

How did Paul demonstrate courage in the way he lived with the Ephesians (vs. 21-23)?  How might we engage our world with courage?  How do we love those who disagree with us?

Verse 24 demonstrates the conviction with which Paul lived his life.  Can you express in one sentence the conviction that drives your life?

Reflect

Read v. 24 again.  Do we have a sense of what God has called us to?  Is there a shared conviction that can give us a passion to live similar to Paul’s?  Is there a shared conviction that can center us in a truly shared life of community that is given to God’s calling?  What is it?  What do you think it could be or should be?

Read:  Acts 18:1-18

Open

Read 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 where Paul describes his feelings when he first arrived in Corinth.  Can you share with the group a time when you entered into a new situation “in much weakness, and in much fear and trembling” [RSV].

Dig

Notice the context for Paul’s arrival in Corinth.  He arrives there after being beaten and jailed in Philippi, threatened by a mob and escaped under the cover of darkness from Thessalonica, being chased out of town in Berea, and receiving a lukewarm response to the gospel in Athens.  As he begins his ministry in Corinth we are told that the Jews in Corinth opposed him and “became abusive.”  Certainly fear and/or discouragement would be a normal response to all of this.  Do you think Paul was afraid or discouraged?

In the sermon we were told that fear oftentimes keeps us from freedom in Christ and from speaking up for Christ.  Can you think of an example of how fear has kept a person from freedom or from speaking up?

The sermon highlighted the characteristics of Paul’s mission to the Corinthians.  We observed that Paul was:

· personal—he went to people and made personal contact with them,

· thoughtful—he reasoned with them (v. 4), it was not just an emotional appeal, and

· faithful—he stayed, did not expect immediate results but stayed “for some time” (v. 18)

How can our mission to Durham/our job/our school/our neighbors, etc be more personal, thoughtful, and faithful?  Which of these three do you think we do best?  Which do we need to work on more?  What are some concrete ways we can live out our mission in these three ways better?

Reflect

Where in your life are you tempted to give into fear?  How can we speak Christ’s words of encouragement (vs. 9-10) to one another?

Allan asked the question, “Will we be governed by fear or by the greater power of the love of God found in Jesus Christ?”  How would you answer that question?  How would an objective observer answer that question if they were observing our lives?  How can we allow the “greater power of the love of God found in Jesus Christ” to take greater control of our lives?

Read:  Mark 15:16-39

Open

Do you have favorite Holy Week traditions or memories of when God spoke to you clearly through the events of Holy Week?

Dig

In the sermon we were reminded that every religion affirms that there is something wrong with the way things are.  As Christians, we believe that Christ came and died on the cross to fix what is wrong.  Historically, the nature of the problem that Christ came to solve is discribed in various ways:

· The power of death

· Our own sinfulness and divine judgment against sin

· A break in the relationship between God and his creation

· The dominion and power of Satan who seeks to destroy us

How would you describe the primary problem that we need Christ to save us from?

What did the death of Christ accomplish?  How would you explain that to someone who knows nothing about the Christian faith?  What does the Cross teach us about God?  About ourselves?

The sermon said that the Cross is the “final blow to pride and self-sufficiency” and that it “opens the door to joy.”  Can you share with the group how the Cross has impacted your pride and your own sense of self-sufficiency?

Reflect

Is your life characterized by joy?  Share with the group a time when your realization of what Christ did for you on the cross resulted in an overflow of joy in your life?

Read:  Acts 17:16-34 and Isaiah 40:12-31

Open

Athens was famous in the first century as a center for intellectual and philosophical thought.  For what would your hometown growing up have been famous?

Dig

In the sermon, idolatry was defined as any time “we dethrone God and enthrone creation…. It is any time we attribute to the creature what only the Creator can do.”  Was this definition helpful?

In the sermon, we named some of the idols in our city.  What idols would you name?

If you were outlining Paul’s message in Acts 17:22-31 what would you say are his main points?  How does his message relate to our own struggles with idolatry?

In Acts 17 and in Isaiah 40 idolatry is confronted by the greatness of the Lord.  Looking at the idols you named above, how would you compare their puny, debilitating, handicapped nature to the greatness of God?  What language and metaphors can you come up with to contrast the living God with these idols?

Reflect

Are you “greatly distressed” (Acts 17:16) by the idols all around us?  Why or why not?  What can we do about it?

Read Acts 16

Open

Can you share briefly about the impact of spiritual friendship in your life?

Dig

Gannon pointed to the way the gospel brings people together in pilgrimage as believers, mentioning Jesus and the disciples as a primary example.  Can you collectively think of other illustrations of the power of spiritual friendship in the Scriptures?

The sermon suggested three keys to deepening our experience and practice of friendship.  The first had to do with yielding to the power of the Christ in us, allowing him “to move to the forefront of our story.”  What does that mean?  Gannon mentioned how he responded to his neighbor at the beach who wanted to take them to a bluegrass concert, when he only wanted to be left alone with his schoolwork.  How do you view interruptions in your life?

Second was the reminder that all of us are bearers of the image of God.  How does that reminder serve to deepen, potentially, our lives of friendship?

Third, we were encouraged to allow Christ to recreate us, to set aside the self protection that keeps us from connecting with others

and put ourselves in his hands.  (Watch out!  Earthquakes follow!)

Can you think of a time when you were surprised by God’s faithfulness in friendship when you didn’t expect it?

Reflect

“Spiritual friendship provides fertile ground for the Holy Spirit.”  How?  Can you remember a time when the Holy Spirit made use of an encounter with a spiritual friend?

Read:  Acts 15

Open

How would you answer Allan’s opening question in the sermon, “Name a time when there was a momentous meeting that changed the course of history?”

Share with the group how you met your spouse or some other significant friend in your life.

Dig

The Circumcision Party believed that one needed to believe in Jesus as the Messiah AND to be circumcised in order to be included in the people of God.  They believed:

Grace + Circumcision = Life with God

The New Testament witness says:

Grace + Nothing = Life with God

because

Grace + Anything ≠ Grace

What do you think are some of the things that we are tempted to add to Grace as a condition for our being included in the people of God?  What has been a particular temptation to you to cling to as a “trump card” that guarantees that God will accept you?

In the sermon we talked about how we rebel against this grace and how we keep reverting to asking questions like, “How much is good enough?” and feeling good (or bad) about ourselves because of our “comparative righteousness.”  Has there been a particular moment in your life when you fully realized that you can never be “good enough”?  Can you share with the group how you came to that realization?

What did it take (or what would it take) for you to not to place your trust in your “trump card,” i.e. that one thing that you hold onto as a guarantee that God will accept you?

In the sermon we were asked the question, “In light of God’s great mercy, how can we respond in ways that are pleasing to him?”  In Acts 15:20-21 James encourages the Gentiles to respond by abstaining from “food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.”  What is on your list of responding in ways that are pleasing to God?

Reflect

How well does our congregation live as a community of grace?  How does understanding and living in this grace impact how we live together as a body of believers?  What are symptoms in our life together that might suggest we are not living as a community of grace?  What things do you need to do or to stop doing so that as a community we better embody the grace of God?

Read:  Acts 12:1-25

Open

Please share with the group a time when you were most desperate in prayer.

Dig

Notices the powers that are arrayed against Peter and the Church: Herod, prison, four squads of four soldiers each, two soldiers shackled to him, two chains, sentries, etc.  What could the followers of Jesus do for Peter?  What was Peter’s only hope?  What application can we make from this in our lives?

In the sermon we were told, “the Church only exists by the power and mercy of God…. We have no power or weapons… we are a fellowship of the dependent.”  The Church in Acts knew this and prayed for what they were powerless to obtain.  Allan said that we do not pray because we are so seldom at the end of our rope.  Do you agree with this?  Why or why not?  What can we do so that we pray as the Church in Acts did and as the Church in many parts of the world does?

Are you comforted, challenged or convicted by the truth that God is for the Church?

Are you surprised when the Church seems irrelevant or powerless in our world?  How does this story in Acts 12 help us to live in the Church’s current context of growing irrelevance and powerlessness?

Reflect

How can we in our small group help remind each other that we are totally dependent on God alone?  How can this small group as a Christian community have humility and dependence at its heart?