Acts 2: Conception
Read as a review of last week:
Acts isn’t a rulebook or a set of instructions for how to “do” church. It’s not a perfect picture of what an ideal church should be. Acts tells the story of how the first church came to be. And this story is really the story of Jesus written into his people.
A story isn’t something you tell for a moral or memorize its facts—the stories that we tell shape how we think. Jesus is the plot of our story. But in each church’s story the places, situations, and people are different, creating a story that’s unique to our time and place.
Churches aren’t like fast-food chains, repeating the same model everywhere with only small changes. But each church is uniquely a part of Jesus’ story. If we try to copy what other churches are doing thinking that’s the key to being a “real” or “biblical” church, we will miss a part of the story that God wants to write in us.
The power of Acts as a story is that it keeps us centered on Jesus while also freeing us to follow Him faithfully in our own time and place.
Through the book of Acts there are big questions we can ask:
1. How is the story of Jesus being written into the church of Acts?
2. How does Jesus want to write this same story into Table of Life?
3. How should I let Jesus write this story into my life?
READ Acts 2:1-41, we will focus on verses 1-13
1. How is the story of Jesus being written into the church of Acts?
for help read: Luke 1:34-38, 2:10-14, 2:22-38
In case you are struggling: Jesus and the church are both conceived in wombs of prayer by the power of the overshadowing Holy Spirit. Both conceptions lead to the announcement of God’s gospel to the entire world. Both births are ignored by the powerful and the well-to-do but are embraced by the broken and lost. Both are MIRACLES in which God is coming down to bring about his kingdom.
2. How does Jesus want to write this same story into Table of Life?
Consider the themes above, how many of them have parallels to our story?
What should we be busy doing?
Who should we be focused on being?
Do you feel like we are in a period of waiting? Why MUST we wait?
What comes at the end of waiting? Tell stories about what you dream might happen.
Pray about how God might want to use us in the Lehigh Valley.
3. How should I let Jesus write this story into my life?
What in my life is like this story? Unlike this story?
What themes should you watch for in your life?
What events should happen in your life if this story is being written in you?
Pray about how God might want to use you in the people you know.
