SERMON BASED RESOURCES

Dig into the sermon each week with your life group, spiritual growth partner, or even by yourself! We’ll provide ideas to jump start your group time (Opener Questions:  for building community), discussion questions to go deep (Discussion Questions:  for fostering Christ Centered community), and ways to apply what you learned throughout the week (Practical Applications:  for faithfully following Jesus through your week).

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Opener Questions

  • Tell about a time you talked to someone outside your comfort zone. 

  • What’s your favorite thing about spring in Wisconsin?

Discussion Questions:

    1. What are you reading in the Word?  What are you learning about God or about yourself?

    2. The Story so far… What is the most important insight about God, the gospel, the Church, or yourself that you have had from Acts 9:32-11:18?  What would you like to do or pray about this truth?  How do you want it to affect your life?

    3. Why did Luke take the time and space to record the events of 10:9-46 all over again in Acts 11? How do you explain the change of attitudes from v. 2 to 18?  Why did God need to use such extraordinary means such as a trance and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to get across the message of 10:34-35 & 11:18?

    4. Dave listed several current cultural preconceptions.  Is there one that you personally wrestle with more than the others?

    In areas of disagreement, how can we engage in conversations in a way that maintains the centrality of the gospel and the unity of believers? What are the essentials that unify regardless of holding differing viewpoints on matters that are not the Good News of Jesus?

    5. As you wrestle with how to engage with topics that can cause tension, consider how Peter’s example in action and attitude emulate that of Christ’s.  Read Philippians 2:1-11. Now return to question #4, and consider how you hold your beliefs.  

    6. This was a communion service.  Spend some time considering the Lord’s Supper by reading Mark 14:22-25 and 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.  Allow the practice of participating in the Lord’s Supper among the saints to unify the body. Spend time quietly considering your own heart posture and praying for unity in the Body of Christ.

    7. Woodlands in the Word for next week is Mark 16 and Acts 1-4. 
Next Sunday will be a baptism service.

    Practical Applications

    Dinnertime Discussion: In your world, are there places you see tension building?  How might you emulate Christ in those spaces? Everyone share and then pray for each other.

     

    Practicing Prayer: Spend some time in silence before the Lord and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal any areas in which we need repentance due to strongly held beliefs that may promote (or sow seeds of) disunity. Do the hard work of confession and surrender to the Spirit’s work and any ways that a strongly held conception has captured your heart and mind more than Jesus and the cross.

     

    Developing Disciplines: Spend time with someone you know who has different opinions that you do. Come with an open heart to find points in which you agree with one another and the humility to appreciate differences graciously.

     

    Gospel in Everyday Life: When given the time in the service to consider fractured relationships, did one come to mind? Is the Spirit leading you to practice forgiveness or to pursue unity?  Follow His leading. Or, can you celebrate where the Spirit has led toward a redeemed relationship?  Give Him glory.

     

    Verse Memory: “If, then, God gave them the same gift that he also gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, how could I possibly hinder God?” Acts 11:17

     

    Resources: 10 Bible Verses on Humility from the Jesus Film Project

    SUNDAY'S SERMON