The Healing Church (Acts 3)

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SYNOPSIS OF THE SERMON
The field of healing and health are important both economically and personally in contemporary society. Healing, through both divine and human means, has been important in the life of the Church throughout history as a sign of God’s mercy and power. Divine healing is a sort of partnership, powered and determined by God but flowing through availability of His followers in most cases. Divine healing does not rest on our great character or moving prayers. The primary thing we need to add to any divine healing is to explain it as God’s work and to convey that God is reaching out in love to the healed person.

GETTING THE CONVERSATION STARTED
These questions can be used as ice-breakers in the beginning OR interwoven between the questions below to draw the group into the discussion.

1. Describe a project you started by yourself but quickly found that you needed more help to complete.
2. The last time you needed help on a project or with a relationship, whom did you seek? Why did you choose that person?
3. Have you ever been let down by someone you were partnering with in business, a community project, a school project, etc.? Have you ever done the same thing to someone else?


INTERACTING WITH THE SERMON
1. In 5 minutes or less. Briefly give a synopsis of this week’s sermon. What insight, principle, or observation from this weekend’s message did you find to be most helpful, eye-opening, or troubling? Briefly explain.

2. Read John 14:10-20:

“10 Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, all who have faith in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
15 "If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”

• At the outset of this passage (vv. 10-11), Jesus is explaining how the authority works behind the signs and wonders He performed in His earthly ministry. Did Jesus claim to be the sole mind and authority behind His miracles? Whom did Jesus claim that He partnered with as the source for His miracles?
• If Jesus (who is fully God) modeled and taught that He could do no miracles apart from the will of the Father, what does that mean for our ability to “do miracles”? Can we perform miracles outside of a relationship with God? Can we heal someone “on our own” just because we are Christians?
• Why is it so important to Jesus that He underscore His relationship with the Father in regard to miracles (v. 11)? What does Jesus say His miracles are evidence of? Have you ever thought about the fact that signs and wonders reveal the character of God, that they are literally “His works”? Discuss briefly.
• Note that in verse 12, even as Jesus speaks of a time when He has left His earthly body, His relationship with the Father is still our source of power. What is the ultimate aim of God’s powering and providing miraculous signs and wonders (v. 13)? How do you respond to the clear work of God in your life? Do you recognize it? Does your response bring glory to God, and what do you think that means?
• Why do you think Jesus mentions keeping commandments in a passage primarily about relationships and miracles? Why do you think Jesus equates them with our love for Him? Do you ever feel like obeying God is just a cruel duty? How does seeing obedience as a vibrant, living act of love toward God impact the way you see obedience? How would your attitude toward obeying God change if you grasped that when we obey, we are acting in partnership with God’s power and plan in the world? Discuss.
• What does the word “in” imply throughout the passage (especially note verse 20)? How do the phrases “Because I live, you also will live” (v. 19), and “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (v. 18) help you understand what an “in” relationship with God looks like? What other portions of this passage help you understand the “in” relationship Jesus describes? Have you ever experienced periods of life like Jesus describes in verse 20, where you realize “that I [Jesus] am in my Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you”?

3. Small group leaders: take time to ask if anyone received healing at last weekend’s Come Holy Spirit Conference. If someone in your group did, please have them share. Open it up further and ask for any personal stories of healing in your group. Sharing these stories encourages us to look for what God might be doing and opportunities to be available to partner with His desired work.

In his sermon, Rich said that human availability was a necessary component of healing. In the story or stories people may have shared about healing, who was the person that was available to administer God’s healing? Ask youself?

• Am I available to God? Why or why not? Is our group available to God for healing?
• In what ways could you make yourselves more available to what God is doing in your community?

Please take some time to pray about your answers. Invite the Holy Spirit to speak to you as a group.