WEEK 4 : Built Together, Not Alone
Ice breaker: Share about a time that someone came through for you when you really needed them.
Pray: Holy Spirit, would you speak to us and teach us today, helping us to surrender our will and forming us to be like Jesus.
Read 1 Peter 2:4-10.
Why does Peter talk about stones?
Read Matthew 16:13-20. After Peter’s bold claim that Jesus was the Christ, the promised Messiah, Jesus tells him that he is Peter (meaning rock) and “on this rock I will build my church.” The rock is: Jesus and his work on the cross, Peter (the first great leader of the church in Jerusalem), and the confession of faith that Peter just made (and that future believers would make as well). In 1 Peter, Peter is likely remembering this statement of Jesus, knowing that Jesus is the cornerstone (the most important, foundational piece), but that all believers are joined into this one church through faith in Jesus as Savior, which Peter proclaimed in Matthew 16:16. The church is God’s living, spiritual house, but each believer is a stone. Everyone is necessary and everyone is included.
Read Acts 4:1-22.
1. What power does Peter speak with? (see 4:8)
Look at Peter’s claim in verses 11 and 12. With verse 11, he sends them back to Psalm 118:22, showing Jesus fulfills Old Testament prophecy about himself being the capstone for the church! Verse 12 is a great verse to post around your house and memorize.
2. How does v. 13 encourage or empower you?
3. Look at v. 20. Have you encountered Jesus so personally and powerfully that you cannot help but speak about what he has done for you? Our pursuit to KNOW and LIVE like Jesus should leave us overflowing with excitement to talk about him!
Read Acts 4:23-30 slowly, taking time to make it your prayer to God. What an amazing gift that we have this prayer of the early church in writing!
Read Acts 4:31 and finish your prayer asking for more of the Holy Spirit and boldness to share about Jesus.
Read 1 Peter 2:9-10.
4. How do these verses convey that the community of believers is essential and we can’t live our faith in isolation?
The early church was largely made up of Jews, but Peter wrote to make sure everyone understood that non-Jews had now been grafted into this community too. He made it clear that this new people, our new identity, involved all nations and ethnicities.
5. How should our identity as a multi-ethnic people of God practically impact our church today?
Read Acts 2:42-47 and Acts 4:32-37.
6. What do you learn about the community Peter and the early church experienced?
7. What could it look like for the Holy Spirit to bring that kind of unity to our church today?
Sovereign Lord, you made heaven, earth, seas, and everything in them. Lord, in spite of the threats of the world around us, enable us, your servants, your Church, to speak with great boldness. Use us to bring healing, restoration, and the justice and righteousness of your kingdom here to earth. Amen.