THE SEND: Luke & ActsSample

Which is more important? The quality of your evangelism or the quality of your community?

Acts 4 teaches us a lot about the boldness God wants us to walk in. I love how Peter and John respond when the Council tells them not to speak about Jesus. “Do you think God wants us to obey you rather than him? We cannot stop telling about everything we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19-20). Filled with the Spirit, these early followers of Jesus just have to share about what he’s done (Luke really wants us to notice just how important the Spirit is - check out Acts 4:8, 31; 5:32). Don’t you want to be the kind of person who follows God, not just people?

And like we’ve seen so many times before, what makes Peter and John bold is not some special training. The members of the council “recognized them as men who had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13). Those who have spent time with Jesus have the greatest qualification for evangelism.

However, obeying God doesn’t make the lives of the apostles easy. In these two chapters, they are imprisoned twice and released twice. How do you think they felt when this was all happening?

But, maybe the more important question isn’t how they felt—but how they responded. Pay attention today to how important it was for them to pray with other believers (Acts 4:23).

I think Luke shows this was the normal experience for the early church: The church is bold → The church is persecuted/imprisoned → The church prays → The church becomes bolder.

Just take a moment to imagine what it would have been like to have been a part of the kind of community that Luke describes in Acts 4:32-37. United. Generous. Powerful. Where no one was in need. The kind of community that responds to difficulty by praying for boldness and miracles when they suffer (Acts 4:29-30). The kind of community whose meeting places shake as they are filled with the Spirit (Acts 4:31).

Now, none of us is forced to sell what we have and give it away. And Acts 5:1-11 is a serious warning about the danger of just wanting to appear generous. But what could it look like if your community were so marked with unity and generosity that people couldn’t help but give to one another? When you know how much God has freely given you, generosity is the only logical response. You can’t outgive God.

So maybe it’s not either/or. What if God’s desire is for a community that is just as bold as it is unified?

What does this look like for you in your community? Where is he calling you to generosity? How can you contend for unity? How will you pray for others as they suffer for following Jesus? Where do you need more boldness?