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Lesson 2

Unity in the Church

Acts 1:12-14

Recently a number of youth gave testimony to what God had done in their lives at a youth camp. As they shared it brought back memories of a retreat in which I participated some 37 years ago. It seems that some things never change. Both groups went into their time away fragmented and some did not even know what they believed about God. During the time together I saw lives changed and brothers united who had been at odds with each other for years. There were those who found their faith for the first time and others who reaffirmed what they believed. It certainly reminds me of what took place in the time after Jesus ascension when the disciples truly came together and became a unified body.

If you would stop and think each of you have probably found yourself in similar situations like:

1. Been left out of some club or group you wanted to join.
2. Being chosen last or not picked at to be on a some team on the playground. The most humiliating part of this process is one person saying to the other person “you take him we don’t want him he does not play well.”
3. Finding yourself in a place where groups, better known as cliques have already been established. There has been many a person, especially youth, who have left the church for this very reason. (Give the class the opportunity to share their experiences.”
4. Actually found yourself in a place where everything just seem to come together for those who were part of a meeting, retreat, conference, worship time etc.?

(A Possible Exercise to emphasize the point of unity) Divide the class up into groups of its own choosing. Make sure that the groups either have 3 or 5 members depending on the number in attendance. After the groups are formed ask the following questions:

1. What guided you to the group of which you are a member?
2. How would you feel if you were asked to leave the group and join another one?
3. How open would you be to discuss your feelings in another group?
4. How does this exercise help us to understand the how difficult for an organization to become unified?

(God)

If there was one thing that Jesus sought for His disciples was unity. Up until the point of His ascension He had been the unifying person around whom all of the disciples had rallied. Now He was gone. So now these men would have to work together in a way they had never experienced before. They would have the Holy Spirit and each other upon whom they have to rely for strength, courage and accountability. Before we look at Acts 1:12-14, let’s go back to John and pick up some of the thoughts that Jesus expressed concerning, not only His disciples, but us as well.

1. Jesus said to His disciples during the last supper, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” He then continues to clarify what He was saying to them, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)
2. Speaking of the vine and the branches, Jesus emphasized that they must as He said, “Abide in Me, and I in you.   As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. (John 15:4) Jesus was speaking of the collective you, telling the disciples that their unity was dependent on their relationship with Him.
3. Then from the high priestly prayer in John 17 we find these words:
4. “Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are.” (Vs. 11)
5. “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those who believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one; even as You, Father are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may know that You sent Me.” (Vs. 20-21)
6. We will look at two final verses before we leave this chapter. “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them that they may be one, just as We are one, (Here it is) that they may be perfected in unity so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You loved Me.” (Vs. 22-23)

Luke 24:52-53 and Acts 1:12-14 give us a picture of what the disciples did after the ascension. Luke says, “And they, after worshipping Him, returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple, praising God.” In the Acts account we are told that all of the disciples returned to the city and “went up to the upper room where they were staying.” It then says, “These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer.” Looking at these two passages there are a couple of questions that need to be asked

1. What are some the things that would indicate that the disciples realized that they really did need to wait for the Holy Spirit?
2. What did the disciples not do during the seven days?

Now to Acts 1:12-14.

The first thing we are told that they returned to the upper room where they had been staying during their time in Jerusalem.

1. What was the significance of the upper room? The last supper had taken place there.
2. We are not given the location, so where was this room? It was probably at the home belonging to Mary, John Mark’s mother.
3. What two activities took place during their time their? We are told that they became of one mind and that they prayed.
4. What was the one factor that enabled them to become of one mind?

These are important questions. We will address the last one in more detail. First, there is a question that needs to be answered. What did take for the disciples to reach the point of being of one mind? We must understand that before any group can become of one mind they have a common focus, goal, passion or desire. For the disciples they could unite their hearts around Jesus Christ even though they were all so totally different from each other.

One thing that we are told was that they spent the time in prayer. The King James translation added the word supplication to the word prayer. This means that all the forms of prayer took place within the gathering of the more than 120 people who had come together.   While we know it was a time of intense prayer, it very well could also been a time of cleansing and confession.  Peter, for example, may have shared his failure to acknowledge Christ on the night of His trial.  James and John certainly had to ask forgiveness for ambitious plan to be in the highest positions in the new kingdom they expected Jesus to establish. Thomas may have confessed his shame for doubting the testimony of the other disciples the first time Christ appeared among them following His resurrection (John 20:25).  The disciples may even have apologized to the women for not believing their good news when they returned from the empty tomb (Luke 24:11).  Whatever took place during that week, we know that it transformed a band of scared and dejected followers of the human Jesus into men and women who were cleansed and ready to receive the power of the Holy Spirit.  It was only when the disciples were emptied of themselves that they were ready to be filled with God’s power for spreading the Gospel.

1. What evidence do we have that the disciples achieved this position?
2. Were the disciples ready for the Holy Spirit at that time?
   Members of Bethany Place could benefit from a similar experience.  Are you willing to come together for a time of prayer, reconciliation and humbling ourselves before each other and God. It will necessarily be a time of vulnerability and admission that we have sometimes tried to force the church into accepting our agendas. Only by doing this can we expect to be of one mind, focused on the purpose for which God has called each of us to be here.

As I shared above I have been part of a group whose members had bonded through prayer and confession.  The retreat had led to a powerful moving of the Holy Spirit among members of the group, some of whom gave their lives to Christian service.  We have seen how God can still move in the lives of a church as again we reflect on the testimony given by our young people.

Let’s talk about how we can make this happen for the entire Adult Bible Community and the whole church. When this happens we will see how God will use this church.

Are you and I interested in experiencing such an encounter with God?  What are we willing to sacrifice to make it happen?

Additional Questions:

1. What does it take for a people to be unified?
2. Why is unity so difficult?
3. What does it mean for a group to have unity?
4. How did the disciples achieve being of one mind?
5. What does it take for focus not to be on your own agenda but the right thing?
6. What was some of the baggage that the disciples had to discard before the coming of the Holy Spirit?

Copyright

November 2, 2010

Richard T. Lipscomb