Sermon by Bill Copeland :: Christ Community Church :: August 27, 2006

 

INTRODUCTION

This week’s sermon is based on Acts 9:31 and the growth of the Early Church, despite the persecution and difficult challenges they had to face on a daily basis. 

 

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1.      Looking at Acts 9:31 discuss the following:

a) the church ‘grew and strength and numbers’

b) ‘The believers were walking in the fear of the Lord’

c) ‘and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit’. 

Take these three phrases and think through what they would look like at CCC.

 

2.      What type of persecution, if any, do we as believers face in our walks?

 

3.      Someone stated the following; “We have lived without persecution and consequently we find ourselves without conviction”.  Do you agree or disagree with this assessment?

 

4.      Erwin McManus states; “The real tragedy is not that churches are dying but that churches have lost their reason to live!”  Is this hyperbole or is it ‘in your face’ truth?

 

5.      Bill offered up Romans 12:1-2 & Matthew 11:27-30 as verses that are needed for us today to create an ‘early church’ vision and the spirit of perseverance that is needed to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20)

 

THINK ABOUT IT

Are we nothing more than “virtual followers” (meaning, we exist in effect, but not in fact) or are we core followers of Jesus Christ who live by the

14th verse of John 15?  Is our faith so compartmentalized that we really live in nothing more than a laissez-faire churchianity?

 

WHAT WILL YOU DO?

Eugene Peterson gets it here in his paraphrase of Romans 12:1-3

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

 

So, what will you do?