Tim Gannon 15/11/15

Wider & Deeper: Acts 3 - Small Group Notes Read Acts 3: 1-20

Questions

1. Do you think the events of Acts 3 can happen today? Could they happen through you? Discuss the reasons behind your answers. 2. Remind people of the concept of walking and stopping. What “ordinary” walks in your life do you think God could use to open up the extraordinary? Where do you need to walk with greater intentionality? Are you prepared to stop and interact with people for the purposes of God? Discuss the challenges behind walking and stopping and pray through what stops people (eg. fear, lack of faith, busyness etc) 3. Tim listed dozens of ways we can witness to the reality of . Which do you find the most effective and why? What did he miss? Which ways of witnessing do you need to use more and with whom? 4. Discuss the three things Peter and John understood as they healed the man in Jesus’ name. Which of these do you need to understand more? Ask God for opportunities this week to bring healing to people as a way of witnessing to the truth of Jesus. 5. See how well Acts 3: 19 sums up the message of the gospel. Where do you need sin to be wiped away in your life? Where do you need God’s refreshing to come? Pray for and with one another. THEN (and don’t miss this bit!) pray for the specific people God is calling you to witness to and take this message to. Pray for opportunities whenever and wherever you walk this week to stop and share God’s love with others.

Sermon Notes

In Acts 3 today we’re seeing a really practical example of how following Jesus commission to be his witnesses, having been filled with power from on high can work out in everyday life.

1. Where do we walk? At the beginning of Peter and John’s walk that day they would have had no idea that the result of their walk was going to be being preached about 2000 years later! This was an ordinary day, an ordinary journey, and yet it led to something extraordinary! A) Where do we normally walk?? I don’t think going deeper in our discipleship to then go wider in our witness is necessarily about adding EXTRA things to our day. It can come about through doing the normal things with eyes and ears open and hearts willing to follow God’s leading. So ask yourself: What are my routines, normal journeys, the steps I take and the things I do every day and every week? Where in my normal and ordinary- does God want to bring his extraordinary? B) Where do we need to walk more intentionally? This could be “regular” intentionality: Tim Chester in his book “everyday church” encourages to “be a regular”. This is about walking intentionally to ensure you bump into the same people so you can have the opportunity to start to engage with them someway. This could be “spontaneous” intentionality: Being open to God telling you to take a different route home that day, open to following the leading of God at a particular time or place. A book by Bill Hybels called “Just Walk across the Room” speaks very simply about getting out of our “circle of comfort” and walking out into the “Zone of the unknown” and seeing what God might do. This is walking with intentionality. Having our eyes and ears open to God’s promptings, and our hearts open and willing to step out of our circles of comfort and see what God will do. C) Are we prepared to stop? Stopping can be harder than walking! In acts 3 this man has quite a lot of obvious needs. He’s poor because he’s begging. He’s lame, crippled from birth we’re told. Yet this lame beggar represents well the whole world we walk past every day. People are in desperate need and we can easily forget it. They may not always look like it on the outside, things may look quite rosy externally, they very often have no idea of the need they’re in, but still this world is sick and dying in its sin. Whatever people look like on the outside- the obvious needs of this paralysed man are a reminder of the equally pressing needs of everyone on this planet, those we walk past every day. I feel Acts 3 calls us to this very simple and yet incredibly powerful lifestyle of walking AND THEN stopping.

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Tim Gannon 15/11/15

Walking wherever I walk with eyes and ears open for opportunities, walking intentionally as God leads and THEN being prepared to stop. Stop and see what God wants to do. WHY? Because… We’ve got something awesome to share!! 2. We are witnesses So we see here Peter and John taking seriously Jesus commission from :8 to be witnesses. They consider themselves witnesses to Jesus. In a Court room a witness simply shares their experience- what they have seen. A witness allows others to see what they have seen. And that’s same for us. That is what we are called to do. To share with others what we have seen and experienced in Jesus. What has God done in your life? (has he changed it? Has he transformed it? He he healed you? Set you free?) What has God allowed you to see and experience? (his grace, his truth, his hope, his love, his kindness, his joy) As witnesses we’re to simply share the reality of all Jesus has done in us, with others.

One major way that our passage clearly leads us to witness to the reality of Jesus to people is through signs and wonders. They’re Signs that make people wonder… they’re signs that witness to and point people to the truth and reality and relevance of Jesus. As Peter and John, walking on the way, STOP and talk to the lame man- it’s clear that they understands at least three things: 1. God’s incredible power For them: Peter and John were filled with power from on high. This power gives us boldness and courage. This power gives us faith which itself is a gift from God! AND for those they meet: We see that it’s God’s power that does the healing (not ours!) 2. God's incredible love I wonder how often we short change people, by giving them what they ask for instead of what they need? Do we really understand that God has got something better for them, that he wants to give through us? Peter could well have worked out a way to give this man some physical help and money. But he doesn’t! Peter realises that God wanted to give something better than money. Peter realised through the pouring out of the Holy Spirit that a whole lot more was available! 3. God’s incredible Authority- delegated to us! Peter and John understood something of the authority they had been given as children of God. See Matt 28: 18-19. Peter and John knew they had a multi-billion pound backer (as it were) - giving them full permission to go and spend the currency of heaven wherever they went. Understanding the Power of God, the heart of God to truly help people with what they need and the authority we have been given as children of God should transform our view of just how possible healing is. I think understanding these things takes the pressure off us when we pray for people to be healed too. We pray trusting God for His kingdom to come and His will to be done. We can go to people and pray for them to be healed and look for his power to come and heal them! We see in the it often does. Our expectation therefore needs to be the same. It is worth saying that we can witness in many other ways too: Kindness, acts of service, acting with honesty and integrity, feeding the hungry, being hardworking and diligent, speaking well of others, smiling, bringing peace wherever we go, fighting for justice, forgiving others, loving each other well, being salt and light in this world, And We can witness to who Jesus is through seeing the sick healed, the dead raised, the addict set free, the demonised delivered and the broken restored… and it all points to Jesus! It all witnesses to the fact Jesus is real, that’s he’s worthy of being worshipped as the one true God. We get to show people God loves this world and loves them personally and wants to come and rescue and save and heal and bless. We get to show that only God’s way is the right way and the best way to live, that living your life with him and for him leads to satisfaction in life. What a privilege- that we get to witness to the reality of Jesus as we walk through our lives!

You see we have an amazing message to share and we hear that message summed up so well in Acts 3: 3. Sin wiped away and times of refreshing to come These verses encapsulate the gospel so well and remind us as we WALK where God leads us exactly what we have to share: Our Sin: All the junk and mess in our lives, in Jesus it can all be wiped away! And what comes instead- times of refreshing. Isn’t this what the world needs? Isn’t it what you need? Jesus offers an answer to our questions. He offers to satisfy us where all else leaves you empty. He can refresh you bring you life and wholeness and healing! You need, I need, the world needs our mess and sin to be washed away and to know true and lasting refreshing from heaven that satisfies the deepest needs of our soul.

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