God’s people support each other and care for people.

Scripture: Acts 4:32-37; 5:1-11 

Central Truth

Unity in the church is so important. When we are unified, it displays God’s ability to change lives and help us be selfless. It isn’t natural to keep peace and to keep gossip and fighting out of a group. But when we all seek Jesus together and have the goal of becoming more like Him, we display God’s power to change hearts.

Key Question

Why do you think Ananias promised to give his money to the church? What was Ananias’s sin?

Keep in Mind

A lot of us have gone to camp or retreats and made promises to God, like walking away from specific sins, living for God, and allowing Him to really change us. Many of our students have experienced this as well. We often refer to it as the “camp high.” But we often go back on our word later. We decide we aren’t willing to truly give this much to the Lord, and this passage shows us this is a serious sin.

Students want to be authentic. They crave being unique. But they often don’t realize what they strive for in being different actually makes them look just like everyone else. They begin to slowly fade away from the promises they made to God in an effort to be what culture tells them to be. We want to encourage students to take their promises to God seriously. We want to encourage them to strive for real change instead of an emotional high as a result of a church function. 

APPLICATION

Why should we take our promises to the Lord seriously?

THE WIN

FOR THE STUDENT: We must encourage students to be careful of getting caught up in emotion or making a decision because everyone else is. Instead, their decisions must be grounded in the Holy Spirit’s leading. 

FOR THE LEADER: God’s promises are true. He is faithful to us even when we’re unfaithful. As leaders, we can look back on moments when we made a promise to God for the wrong reason or when we broke a vow to Him. But we can also see His willingness to give us a fresh start. May we always be grateful for God’s mercy and compassion on us as we share it with our students.