What Begins to Exist

Key Scripture Passages: John 17:20–23 · 1 Peter 2:4–10 · Acts 2:42–47

Sometimes separate people begin to become something more than people who happen to be in the same place. A few neighbors start watching out for one another. Members of a family begin carrying responsibilities without keeping score. Friends who have walked together for years know when someone needs room, help, or simply company. No single moment created what now exists between them, yet something real has taken shape.

That raises a question worth carrying into three passages. Can something come into existence among people that none of them could be by themselves?

Three passages approach that question from different places. 1) In John 17, Jesus prays for people who will believe in Him long after the disciples gathered with Him that night, and He uses His own relationship with the Father when describing the closeness He desires for them. 2) In 1 Peter 2, Peter begins with living stones, then speaks of a house being built and of people who once were not a people. 3) In Acts 2, Luke describes a group whose life together reaches prayer, learning, meals, homes, possessions, needs, worship, and gladness. Placed beside one another, the passages leave us with something larger to explore. When Christ’s life is present in people, what might begin to exist among them that did not exist before?

Prayer

Father, help us see these passages clearly and listen well to one another. Give us openness to notice what You are showing us and wisdom to receive it. Amen.

Movement 1 — A Life We Did Not Create | John 17:20–23

Context: Near the end of a prayer on the night before His crucifixion, Jesus looks beyond the disciples with Him and prays for people who will later believe through their message.

John 17:20–23 (NIV)

²⁰ “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹ that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— ²³ I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

1) Who is Jesus including in this prayer, and what do you notice about how far His prayer reaches beyond the people with Him that night?

Probes

a. Who are the people who will believe later?

b. How would they come to believe?

c. Where would people like us fit into this prayer?

Reflection Jesus is praying not only for the disciples beside Him but for people who would come to believe through their witness. The shared life He describes was meant to continue far beyond the first generation.

Consider What changes when you realize Jesus’ prayer reaches beyond the disciples in that room to people who would believe in Him generations later?

2) What comparison does Jesus make when He talks about His followers being one? What seems surprising about it?

Probes

a. What words describe the Father and Son relationship?

b. What similar words does Jesus then use about His followers?

c. Does this sound like simply “getting along” together, or something deeper?

d. What does Jesus hope people outside the group might notice?

Reflection Jesus does not describe this shared life as something people manufacture by simply trying harder to agree. He connects this with His own relationship to the Father.

Consider What might be different about closeness that begins with Christ rather than with people simply deciding to become closer?

Movement 2 — Something New Comes Into Existence | 1 Peter 2:4–10

Context: Peter writes to scattered believers and uses the picture of a building to describe what God is forming as people come to Christ.

1 Peter 2:4–10 (NIV)

⁴ As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— ⁵ you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. ⁶ For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” ⁷ Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” ⁸ and, “A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for. ⁹ But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

3) Peter begins with Jesus as a living Stone and then calls believers “living stones.” What exists by the end of this picture that was not there at the beginning?

Probes

a. What can one stone be by itself?

b. What requires more than one stone?

c. What do you notice about the words “are being built”?

d. What is different about a house compared with a collection of separate stones?

Reflection Peter’s picture does not stop with what happens to each person individually. The living stones are “being built” into something that no one stone could be alone. Something new comes into existence as they are joined together.

Consider What can a house become that one stone, no matter how valuable, could never become by itself?

4) Why do you think Peter keeps bringing the picture back to Jesus as the cornerstone?

Probes

a. What role does a cornerstone have in a building?

b. What might happen if every stone determined its own direction?

c. Who seems to give the building its shape?

d. How is this different from people simply deciding to work together?

Reflection Peter does not picture people creating this new reality on their own. Jesus remains the cornerstone around which the whole picture is formed.

Consider What difference might it make if what is being formed takes its shape from Jesus rather than simply from the preferences of the people involved?

5) Peter says, “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.” What seems to have changed?

Probes

a. Is Peter only describing several individuals who now believe the same thing?

b. What can be true of “a people” that cannot be true of one person alone?

c. How does this connect with the house image earlier in the passage?

d. What has come into existence that was not there before?

Reflection Peter moves from individual people coming to Christ to something larger being formed among them. Those who once were “not a people” are now called “the people of God.”

Consider Could part of what God is doing in a person be larger than what happens inside that person alone?

Movement 3 — When That Life Reaches Ordinary Things | Acts 2:42–47

Context: Luke describes the life of the first believers in Jerusalem after many had responded to Peter’s message about Jesus.

Acts 2:42–47 (NIV)

⁴² They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. ⁴³ Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. ⁴⁴ All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵ They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. ⁴⁶ Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

6) As you read this scene, how many different parts of ordinary life seem to be affected by what is happening among these believers?

Probes

a. Which parts of life are now happening together rather than separately?

b. What seems to be changing in how possessions and needs are viewed?

c. Which detail feels most surprising to you?

d. If you were watching this group from the outside, what might you notice first?

Reflection Luke shows this shared life reaching teaching, prayer, meals, possessions, needs, homes, worship, and gladness. The practices may be evidence of the shared life rather than the mechanism that creates it. Something deeper seems to be taking visible form in many ordinary parts of life.

Consider What difference does it make if these practices are signs of a life already growing among them rather than a list of practices meant to create that life?

7) What seems to have happened among these people that is now showing up in so many ordinary parts of their lives?

Probes

a. Does any one practice explain the whole scene?

b. What seems different about how they notice one another?

c. Where do you see shared life becoming tangible?

d. What might people outside the group have been able to see?

Reflection What began with life in Christ did not remain an inward belief. It began taking recognizable form in the way people prayed, ate, shared, noticed needs, opened homes, and lived alongside one another.

Consider Where might you notice Christ’s life becoming visible between people this week, perhaps when someone notices a need, makes room for another person, shares what they have, or carries something another person could not carry alone? ---

Day Break With Jesus - daybreakwithjesus.com