Listening To Hope

Hope Chapel Sermons

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Geno Hildebrandt
Unity, Purity and Power
Acts 4-5 - 8/1/2010
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No Place for Pretenders

August 1, 2010

by Geno Hildebrandt

 

 

Lesson:    

 

God’s plan for the church in the earth is for her to exhibit Unity, Purity and Power.

 

Texts:        Acts 4:32-5:16

 

Ice-Breakers:

 

  1. Share your best experience with a local church or small group gathering.  What made it so special?

 

  1. Tell the story of how you experienced a great move of God or walked in the place of tremendous blessing for a season.

 

 

Background:

 

After an amazing prayer gathering with their friends, the apostles Peter and John went about business as usual, preaching about Jesus and praying for healing.  God was pleased to meet them in their obedience and bring about a revival movement in Jerusalem.

 

At the same time a deep unity came upon the Spirit-filled believers of First Church Jerusalem so that they sacrificially gave up their goods to meet the needs of their poorer brothers and sisters.  The Scriptures teach us that no one went with needs unmet in that season.  But evil reared its ugly head in the form of hypocrisy when Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit about the extent of their gift to support the poor.

 

This vignette of the early church ends in the first part of Chapter five with a mighty display of the healing power of God and a description of the increasing popularity of the leaders of the Jesus movement in Jerusalem

 

Digging Deeper:

 

  1. Geno noted that when the believers were filled with the Spirit in the book of Acts the value of people rose against the value of their personal possessions.  This meant that, in love, they shared sacrificially with one another.  Have you ever experienced this kind of love, this desire to bless others sacrificially?  How did that come about and how did you respond to the Spirit’s prompting?

 

  1. Do you think God was fair to Ananias and Sapphira?  Do you think their judgment was too harsh?  Just right?  Too lenient?  Why?

 

  1. What was the core offense committed by Ananias and Sapphira?  Do you think God judges people like that today?  What should the role of church leaders be in disciplining believers today?

 

  1. Have you ever experienced a revival or a movement that demonstrated God’s healing power like those first believers did?  Do you believe that God wishes to do that today?

 

  1. Peter wasn’t perfect.  The New Testament records several misses on his part including his denial of Jesus and Jesus’ rebuke, “Get thee behind me, Satan.”  How can God use such a person in such a powerful way?

 

 

Wrap Up:

 

  • In groups of two or three share your own view of what a church tuned by God would look like.

 

  • Pray for one another that we would walk in unity, purity and power.

 

Outreach/Mission:

 

  • Take some time to visit with someone you know who has been wounded by a local congregation and refuses to associate with a local church.  As the Lord leads you find a way to confess how messy and imperfect our congregation is and ask them to forgive those that have hurt them.
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