If It Is of God, You Cannot Overthrow It

In one paragraph

The pastor picked up the series in Acts 5, covering the apostles' second arrest and release, and what followed from it. The passage sits right between Carl's sermon on Ananias and Sapphira and next week's turn toward Christmas, and the pastor leaned into that position, showing how a church under evident blessing is also a church under evident pressure. Before getting into the text, the pastor...

Read together

1. 2 Thessalonians 3:16 read aloud during the Advent candle lighting as the verse for the candle of peace
2. Acts 1:8 quoted to show Jesus's charge that the disciples would be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts
3. Acts 5:12-42 the main passage preached through the sermon
4. Acts 4:29 referenced as what the believers prayed for after their first arrest: boldness to keep preaching the name of Jesus
5. Matthew 27 referenced to show Pilate washing his hands and the crowd calling for Barabbas and saying let his blood be on us
6. Acts 4:12 quoted as Peter's statement that there is salvation in no one else and no other name under heaven whereby we must be saved
7. Acts 2:42 quoted as the summary statement that all believers devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, fellowship, sharing meals and prayer
8. 1 Peter 4:12-16 quoted to encourage believers not to be surprised at fiery trials but to rejoice as partners with Christ in suffering
9. 1 Peter 4:19 quoted to urge those suffering in a manner that pleases God to keep doing right and trust their lives to God who created them
10. 1 Peter 2 referenced to say that when Jesus was reviled he did not revile in return but entrusted himself to the one who judges rightly

Talk about it

1. James Montgomery Boice's paragraph warned that Satan is more likely to attack a church that is actively doing something for God than one that is just going through the motions. Where do you see that playing out, either in this church or in your own life right now?
2. The believers kept meeting at Solomon's Colonnade even though great fear had gripped everyone after what happened to Ananias and Sapphira, and no one outside dared to join them at first. How do you hold together genuine reverence for God's holiness with the kind of boldness that keeps showing up anyway?
3. Peter told the high council, 'We must obey God rather than human authority,' and the apostles went straight back to the temple after the angel freed them, right where they had been arrested. What does that kind of obedience actually cost in your own context, and what makes it possible?
4. Gamaliel's advice was essentially that if this movement is from God, you will not be able to stop it, and if it is merely from man, it will fall apart on its own. How does that logic shape the way you think about discouraging seasons in the church or in your own walk with God?
5. The apostles left the council rejoicing that God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus, and then the very next day they were back at it, teaching in the temple and from house to house. What would it look like for you personally to carry that same daily, ordinary faithfulness in the place where God has put you?