quickiconnect!guide!! discussion!guide opening!prayer! ·...

Week 4 February 13/14, 2016

Getting Started

• Where did you notice God’s presence this last week? Where did you feel alone?

• What Next Step did you commit to last week? Share how you’re doing in following through on that Next Step.

• What comes to mind when you hear the word obedience?

Quick-‐Connect Guide

Use the questions in this section if your group is already studying something else and won’t be using the full discussion guide.

• What comes to mind when you hear the word obedience?

• What does being obedient to God mean? Be specific about what obedience looks like in your life—with your family, friends, and neighbors.

Discussion Guide In this section, you will find an opening prayer, discussion questions, next steps, and a closing prayer. The discussion questions are separated into three categories—Getting Started, The Basics, and A Little Deeper—and are designed to allow the group discussion to deepen as you move through them. Use the prayers, questions, and next steps in whatever manner you find helpful based on your group’s needs. The Message Recap might help you and the group to prepare or to remember key points.

Opening Prayer

Father in heaven, thank You for the ability to gather together. Open our hearts to hear what You have to say to us.

Guide our time and our words. Amen.

Week 4

February 13/14, 2016

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The Basics

The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because

they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.

—Acts 5:41–42

A small group is a place to know and be known, to love and be loved, to serve and be served, and to celebrate and be celebrated. God designed certain spiritual practices to operate best in a small group. One of these practices is confession. In James 5:16, we read: “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” (James 5:16) And in 1 John 1:9, we read: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

Let’s take some time to act together in obedience to this Scriptural command.

• We will take about a minute of silence for each of us to reflect on the ways in the last several weeks or months we failed to be obedient to Jesus’ command to love God with our whole heart, mind, and soul, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Let’s do that now.

• If you feel comfortable, share with us what came to mind and we will simply pray over you. After each person shares, thank them for sharing and pray over them: Thank You, loving Father, for [insert person’s name] and [his/her] willingness to trust us. May [he/she] know your grace and forgiveness, which is already present in Christ Jesus. Help [him/her] to continue to walk in obedience to Your commands. Amen.

Ask one person to read Matthew 22:34–40 aloud: Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

• What does being obedient to God mean? Be specific about what obedience looks like in your life—with your family, friends, neighbors.

• Share a time you experienced suffering—humiliation, bad-‐mouthing, reputational damage, disappointment, sadness, or even physical pain—as a result of living out your faith in Jesus. Perhaps you suffered for doing the right thing, speaking up for someone, or refusing to do something. What impact did that experience have on you?

• If you have not suffered in any of these ways, or if it’s been a long time since you have, why do you think that is?

A Little Deeper


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Next Steps

Review the next steps below and consider which one or ones each member of the group would like to commit to for the upcoming week (and beyond).

• Pray and journal. Take some time this week to reflect on and journal about the other things in your

life—time, money, fame, shame, pain—that vie for your obedience. Ask God to reveal to you the moments you are more interested in obeying the clock, the bottom line, your past story, or your reputation than His call to love and share the good news about Jesus with others.

• Practice. Is there a particular area in your life or a specific relationship in which you are struggling to bring yourself under God’s authority? Often the first step towards obedience is inviting a trusted friend to help you. Try taking one step and sharing your struggle, talking about what obedience would look like, and begin practicing. Remember that the God you follow is loving and merciful.

• Discover Your Next Best Step. At Willow, we offer many different options to help you grow in your love of God and others. Take some time this week to discover your next best step by exploring our website to learn more about our Midweek offerings, Care Center serving opportunities, Section Communities, and The Practice.

Closing Prayer

Pray for whatever difficulties or needs were shared during your time together and have someone close that time by reading the prayer below.

Father in heaven, thank You for Your faithful apostles and giving us the opportunity to come to know them through the book of Acts. Spark in us the desire and the ability to be obedient to Your call to each of us to love You with all our hearts, minds, and souls and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Lead us into deeper

levels of obedience and love. Have mercy on us when we fall short and give us the courage to try again with the support and love of this group. May we honor You in all that we do. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Week 4


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Message Recap Steve Carter’s Teaching: Acts 5:12–42

Acts 5 is an invitation to obedience school. Obedience is not a word we like, but when we look at the apostles and how devoted they were, it is so inspiring. As we continue our study in the book of Acts, what it means to be fully devoted becomes clearer. In the past weeks, we have talked about “fully devoted” including being filled with the Holy Spirit, filled with boldness to preach the gospel, and authenticity. Now, in Acts 5, we see that being fully devoted includes being truly obedient.

To understand the story this week, we need to understand some key terms:

Sadducees: the wealthy elite Jewish religious leaders; they were literalists, following the Torah very precisely; they did not believe in angels or in the resurrection.

Pharisees: the largest group of Jewish leaders who, in our day, have a bad reputation; many were sincere and faithful, but many (as we see with their interactions with Jesus) fell into showing off and their heart conditions didn’t match their external projections; they believed in the Torah and the interpretations of the Torah to understand what the Scriptures meant in their day; they believed in angels and in the resurrection.

Essenes: this group lived in the wilderness and were prophetic voices.

Sanhedrin: this was the religious body made up of 70 leaders (Sadducees and Pharisees) who met in the center of the Temple near the Holy of Holies to solve problems within the Jewish community through court-‐like proceedings. The origins of the Sanhedrin can be found in Exodus 18.

Solomon’s Colonnade or Solomon’s Porch: This was a kind of veranda on the east side of the Temple that had been left standing after the Babylonians destroyed Solomon’s Temple.

The apostles went every day to Solomon’s Colonnade to preach the gospel and the Jews began gathering there, bringing the sick and the lame into the apostles’ presence instead of to the Temple courts before the Sanhedrin. Peter’s shadow alone healed people. (Acts 5:12–16)

Then the high priests and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. “Go, stand in the temple courts,” he said, “and tell

the people all about this new life.” –Acts 5:17–20

Despite being thrown in jail and being told not to preach the gospel, the apostles followed the angel’s instruction to go back where they had been at Solomon’s Colonnade and continue teaching. In the meantime, the Sanhedrin met to discuss what was to be done about the apostles and when they sought to have them brought before the court, they discovered the apostles were no longer in the jail. There is great irony in the fact that an angel released the apostles given that the Sadducees did not believe in angels.


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When the high priest and his associates arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin—the full assembly of the elders of Israel—and sent to the jail for the apostles. But on arriving at the jail, the officers did not find them there. So they went back and reported, “We found the jail securely locked, with the guards standing at the doors; but when we opened them, we found no one inside.” On hearing this report, the captain of the

temple guard and the chief priests were at a loss, wondering what this might lead to. —Acts 5:21b–24

The Sanhedrin ordered the apostles to be brought before them. And so Peter and the other eleven apostles appeared before the most influential religious leaders of their day.

“We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” [the high priest] said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.” Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings! The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead—whom you killed by hanging him on a cross. God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and

Savior that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”

—Acts 5:28–32

Imagine the courage it took for Peter and the apostles to say these things to the Sanhedrin! They made clear that they would not bow down to human beings and they would listen first and foremost to God. Their words essentially guaranteed a death sentence, but they were so committed to obeying God that they weren’t going to stop sharing the message about Jesus until everyone had heard it.

When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death. —Acts 5:33

But then, one Pharisee, Gamaliel, who was and is one of the most respected Jewish rabbis of all time, stood up and asked that the apostles be taken outside. Once they had been removed, he offered his wisdom to the Sanhedrin. He told the story of Theudas and Judas the Galilean, two men who had developed followings, “claiming to be someone.” Both of these movements came to nothing—they died out. Gamaliel advised: “Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.” (Acts 5:38–39) Gamaliel’s words persuaded the Sanhedrin to let the apostles go. There is a legend that after watching the church grow and continue to perform wonders and miracles, Gamaliel, at the end of his life, said that God was in the church and gave his life to Christ. In history, all things have come to nothing—the Sanhedrin itself, the venerable Roman Empire (as examples)—except the church.

In the end, the apostles were each flogged, released, and warned not to teach in the name of Jesus. Flogging entailed being whipped with a whip with glass shards on the end 39 times, which would have opened wide wounds on the apostles’ backs.

The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and

proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.

—Acts 5:41–42

Week 4


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The church got its start because 12 people were willing to be obedient even to the point of suffering. Most of us want to follow Jesus right up to the point of the cross, but we are often unwilling to endure suffering. What we see from the apostles, though, is the joy that comes in identifying with Jesus through suffering. We see joy in the face of adversity.

What does obedience mean? The Greek word is hupakoé, meaning to be under a supreme authority. When you are obedient, you are open to hearing from an authoritative voice and willing to respond and act according to that voice.

Steve provided an acronym to help us understand the concept of obedience:

A – Authority: whose authority do I live under? (Is it God’s authority and His Word? Or is it instead the authority of our past, shame, time, money, fame, or title? Do we ignore certain passages of Scripture that we don’t like or don’t want to live under?)

H – Hear: am I listening for God’s voice and seeking His guidance in my life?

A – Act: am I acting according to God’s authority and guidance?

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