Cell Notes on Being a Sent People

This Week's Home Group Notices:

Thursday 8-10pm India evening with Prem Babu at the Ravals flat (flat 2, 12 Pleasance Place N1) [we'll take up an offering for Prem]
Saturday 9am-1pm Evangelism Breakfast, 2 Ongar House
Weekend Away 1-4 May last chance for cheap payment

The main objective of our home groups is for church members to learn to live as followers of Jesus Christ.

On Sunday we looked together at the idea of Apostleship in the book of Acts ch.1. Apostleship means being sent. So tonight's big question is how has and is Jesus sending us? and how are we doing at responding? Your challenge if you are involved in leading in home group this week is to keep this focus and to ensure that there is ample opportunity for prayer and prophecy for everyone on this topic during the evening.

Word

On Sunday we looked at two places in the scripture where it talks about being an apostle: Acts1:1-26 about the 12 disciples and Romans 1:1 about Paul. You'll probably only have time for one of these two scriptures, discussing the question (you can refer to my notes) in order to relate each point to us as Christians today - how are we doing at being a sent people??

A. How were the apostles sent by Jesus in the beginning of Acts?

My notes:
Q. What do we learn about the apostles in Acts 1:1-26?:
1. they were with Jesus - observing His ministry and listening to His teaching (v2,3)
2. they were chosen by Jesus (v2)
3. they were given instructions by Jesus (v2, 4,5)
inc. location (v4) v4 - don’t leave Jerusalem
activity (v4) v4 - wait for the gift (Holy Spirit)
4. they were witnesses of His resurrection (v3)
5. they were to be empowered by the Spirit (v8)
6. they were sent as witnesses to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth
map: [Luke lays out the contents for the rest of the book - to be instigated by the apostles, of which Paul is considered one; ch.s 1-8 Jerusalem, (Stephen) 8 Philip - Judea & Samaria, 9- Paul ‘and to the ends of the earth’]
7. they anticipate Jesus’ return (v11)
8. they are obedient to Jesus’ call (v12-14) [go into Jerusalem, wait together in prayer]
9. importance of having 12 apostles (v15-26)
CONCL. Apostles not purely and simply sent out there! (main sending but one of a number of sendings in Acts 1!! sent into the Word, sent into prayer, sent to each other...)

B. How did the Apostle Paul consider himself ‘sent’, and how did this affect what he did?

My notes:

Rom. 1:1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God —

BELIEF:
sent as a servant
servanthood - sharing in Jesus’ ministry - just as Jesus was a servant
suffering - sharing in Jesus' suffering

sent as a royal emissary
authority rooted not in himself but in the one who called and sent him + awareness of a vocation to do a specific, unique and irreplaceable job e.g. Galatians, 2 Corinthians

sent as a pioneer
pioneer - e.g. Romans 15:20 - going places where never imagined crazy story

‘set apart’
message (that Jesus had been revealed as Israel’s messiah - Jesus was therefore Lord of the whole earth, not Caesar!) had itself defined & shaped Paul from the inside + well aware it was a dramatic, life-changing message for those he delivered it to!
The Apostle Paul’s practise as someone who knew he had been sent by Jesus:

PRACTICE:
Urgency of the Times > act quickly
sought to found home groups in a short space of time in places where the culture celebrated Caesar as Lord who would raise the banner of Jesus as Lord

Message
message of one true God, made heaven & earth calling people to account (1 Thess 1, Areopagus)

Expectation of Power - Jesus is the true God

Building Up The Church building up the church as reworked chosen people of God - redeemed humanity
unity, love expressed (not growing warmer and fuzzier), tight boundaries
once baptized - identity changed - responsibility of living as members of Jesus’s body in the power of the Spirit

Recognized and Used his God-given Gifts and Identity - Jewish ultraconservative, personality of a zealot, studied, Roman citizen

[Pray for each other and for your home group to live as sent people. Call upon the Holy Spirit for help to do this...]

Robin Plummer, 10/02/2009