[Podcast] Bold Obedience

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If we are going to do great, bold things as Jesus promised, it will require BOLD obedience on our part.  What does bold obedience look like in my life? 

Life group discussion questions next!

If you are the life group discussion leader, please have everyone open to this page on their mobile device.  Take turns reading, asking questions, and discussing.  This is a GUIDE.  Your group discussion may need to go in different directions.  Be sure to keep from chasing too many rabbit trails!

Get On The Path to Financial Peace

Before you get going, watch this very short video together.

Have you signed up for Financial Peace University?  The leadership of our church believes that this is an identity issue.  God is calling us to become this now. Beginning April 10, all life groups will meet one of three nights during the week, and we’ll go through this together.

I want financial peace!

Your group leader will have the answers to most of your questions.  If you need more help, just let me know.

Life group Discussion Questions

On Sunday, I described my encounter with $10 obedience, and $100 obedience.  I said, “It is easy to obey God when it is easy to obey God.”  Did that ring true in your own life?  Or, is that just me?

What kinds of things do you find it easy to be obedient in.  What kinds of things are harder?

Those early disciples had BOLD, $100 obedience.  (maybe $1,000,000 obedience??)  They had already been arrested once for being bold in the temple, preaching Jesus. Upon their release, they prayed for more boldness.

“And now, O Lord, hear their threats, and give us, your servants, great boldness in preaching your word.”
-Acts 4:29

Of course, after that, the meeting place shook, and look what happened:

After this prayer, the meeting place shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached the word of God with boldness.  All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had. The apostles testified powerfully to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God’s great blessing was upon them all. There were no needy people among them, because those who owned land or houses would sell them and bring the money to the apostles to give to those in need. 
-Acts 4:31-35

Just talk for a minute about what that kind of spirit in a modern church would look like.

The story of the result from this bold prayer continues with more bold obedience:

The apostles were performing many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers were meeting regularly at the Temple in the area known as Solomon’s Colonnade. But no one else dared to join them, even though all the people had high regard for them. Yet more and more people believed and were brought to the Lord—crowds of both men and women. As a result of the apostles’ work, sick people were brought out into the streets on beds and mats so that Peter’s shadow might fall across some of them as he went by. Crowds came from the villages around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those possessed by evil spirits, and they were all healed. 
-Acts 5:12-16

So, in the face of threats against their own lives, they continued their pattern of $100 boldness.

EVEN AFTER they were arrested for a second time, the angel of God commanded that they keep going, and they did just that.

But an angel of the Lord came at night, opened the gates of the jail, and brought them out. Then he told them, “Go to the Temple and give the people this message of life!” So at daybreak the apostles entered the Temple, as they were told, and immediately began teaching. 
-Acts 5:19-21

What does bold obedience look like in my life?

What has God called me to be obedient in?

What keeps me from being obedient?

Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego had to be boldly obedient to God.  The thing that COULD have kept them from obedience was pretty powerful, wasn’t it?  What could have kept them from obedience?

And what was their response?

O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us. He will rescue us from your power, Your Majesty. But even if he doesn’t, we want to make it clear to you, Your Majesty, that we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up.”
-Daniel 3:16-18

How do I need to boldly obey God?

  • Inviting someone to come with me to Easter Sunday
  • Signing up for Financial Peace University
  • Deciding to serve on a ministry team
  • Some other, bold way?

In light of those early disciples, and of Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego… What is my reason for disobedience?