Prepare – Week 1 – It’s Who You Are

I’m going ask that you take up a challenge for the next 4 weeks. I will be preaching a series of sermons from Acts during that time, my challenge to you is to spend time each week getting ready for the message to come and applying the message you heard the week before. I will post twice each week. One post on Thursday that I hope you will use to get ready for the Sunday to come and one post on Monday that I hope will help use to apply what we talked about on the Sunday before.

I want you to understand how “the church” should not be a place you go but who you are. That is where the title for this series comes from, “It’s Who You Are, Not Where You Are.” You are the church.

Our identity is wrapped in so many things. We are American, we are Texan, we are Cowboys fans, we are country music fans, we are graduates of ______, we are members of ______ family… Many of us identify ourselves as Christians, when we think about ourselves and describe ourselves, we associate ourselves with Christ. But I think we too often miss that this means we ARE the church.

This week we will be looking at the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. We will be looking at the birth of the church and trying to discover in scripture what it means that we have the Holy Spirit in us. I have written a short devotional below, with some scripture for you to read and some questions for you to ask yourself. Try it for 4 weeks, and see what God does.

Read: Acts 1 & 2; Romans 8 (These are fairly long chapters so block off sometime to read through them. You can read them in one sitting or break them into three sittings. Answer the questions below from your reading.)

Questions:

1. What does Acts 1 tell you about Jesus? What does it tell you about the Apostles?
2. What does the Holy Spirit do in Acts 2?
3. What happens to the church in Acts 2?
4. What does Romans 8 tell you about your standing with God?
5. What does Romans 8 tell you about God?
6. What does it mean that the Holy Spirit is in you?
7. What does it mean that you are the church?