Sermon Notes
Freedom used for obedience
- Fourth of July frame: Conrad began with the experience of restriction, using Monopoly’s jail as a familiar picture before contrasting civic freedoms with the deeper freedom Scripture commands believers to live in.
- The controlling text: 1 Peter 2:16 framed freedom as life under God’s service, not a cover for evil. Acts 5 shows apostles whose earthly freedoms were restricted but whose obedience was not.
- Escalating conflict: The arrest in Acts 5 stands between earlier opposition and Stephen’s coming martyrdom. The passage presents rising pressure without changing the apostles’ calling.
- Three uses of freedom: The sermon moved through speech, peaceful engagement, and worship, then returned to obedience as the thread tying Acts 5:42 together.
01 · Acts 5:17-21
Use Freedom to Speak Life
- Restricted but sent: The Sadducees arrested the apostles, but an angel released them and commanded them to return to the temple and speak the words of life.
- Speech reveals the heart: Conrad used Luke 6:45 to argue that speech externalizes what fills us. He challenged the church to consider whether Jesus is present in ordinary conversation.
- The life named: Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. In the sermon’s application, speaking words of life means speaking about Jesus rather than merely exercising a civic right to speak.
- A public witness: Conrad’s airline-captain illustration pictured an ordinary workplace moment in which a believer openly spoke of fellowship, goodness, joy, and the Holy Spirit.
Supporting references used in the sermon: 1 Peter 2:16; Luke 6:45; John 14:6.
02 · Acts 5:22-32
Use Freedom to Engage Peacefully
- Peaceful assembly: The apostles taught on the temple mount without violence. When the officers came, they went with them without force.
- Obedience without hostility: Before the council, the apostles said they must obey God rather than men, then centered their answer on God the Father, Jesus as leader and Savior, and the Holy Spirit.
- The circle: Building on Austin’s earlier teaching, Conrad described family, neighborhood, workplace, and other relationships as circles of influence.
- How we show up: Identifying a circle is not enough. Conrad challenged listeners to resist judgmental, critical, or unlistening ways of showing up and to engage with peace and intentionality.
- Wisdom from above: James 3 supplied the desired manner. Pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, merciful, and sincere.
Supporting references used in the sermon: Acts 5:25-32; James 3:17-18.
03 · Acts 5:33-42
Use Freedom to Worship Jesus
- Gamaliel’s counsel: Gamaliel warned the council that a merely human movement will fail, while opposing a work of God means opposing God himself.
- Worship reveals worldview: Conrad used failed religious movements and celebrity culture to ask what people place at the center of their identity and attention.
- Freedom and truth: Religious freedom brings believers into contact with people who worship differently, but the sermon maintained that freedom does not erase the distinction between truth and error.
- Joyful obedience: After being beaten and commanded not to speak in Jesus’ name, the apostles rejoiced and continued teaching every day in the temple and from house to house.
Supporting references used in the sermon: Acts 5:33-42; Acts 5:42.
Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the ESV Bible, © 2001 by Crossway. Text Edition: 2025. Used by permission. Permissions. Prepared for this small group from the July 5, 2026 sermon; questions and applications are editorial study material.