January 12: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

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Love

Teaching Text:  Matthew 11: 1-20

After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee.

When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”

As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written:

“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
    who will prepare your way before you.’

Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. Whoever has ears, let them hear.

“To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:

“‘We played the pipe for you,
    and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
    and you did not mourn.’

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”

Then Jesus began to denounce the towns in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent.

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Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• Friends of God | The Kingdom of God Moving Along Lines of Friendship in the Life of Jesus

• John the Baptist - the miracle of descent and faith filled questions in the cousin of Jesus

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• When did you obey Jesus/scripture and the result did not look like you thought it would or wanted it to? 

• How did you feel when you obeyed and it didn’t work out the way you thought? 

• "Are you the one who is to come or should we expect someone else?”

• Have you ever had a question like that for God?

  • God is this pain really part of the plan?

  • Is this disappointment, this diagnosis, this delay really what you want for my life right now?

  • Or how about this, “God, you see whats going on in the world. Is this really your response?” 

  • Are you not going to do more? Are you not going to show up? Are you not going to change things?

  • What did I get into this faith thing for in the first place? What can I count on God for?

  • Do I still believe?
    

• We are going to take these 8 weeks after Epiphany and look at friendship in the life of Jesus.
  

• Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?

• Jesus response : 

  • “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”   

    – Matthew 11: 4-6

  • He tells John’s disciples how the Kingdom of God is breaking in.

• What would the Kingdom of God look like coming on earth as it is in heaven?

• But Jesus tells John these signs of the kingdom - what Dallas Willard calls “the range of God’s effective will” a glimpse of where what God wants to happen is clearly realized.

  • Blind see, Lame Walk. Sick are cleansed. Deaf hear. Dead Raised. Good news is announced to the poor.

    • This looks a lot like the list from Isaiah that Jesus reads in Luke 4, which says that today, this has been fulfilled in your hearing.

• But Jesus leaves a crucial one out – Freedom for the prisoners.

• Interestingly:

  • John is not getting out of prison.

  • In fact he is going be killed because of a child’s dance recital in the royal court.

    • Herod’s niece danced and Herod was taken by it and offered her anything. Her mom told her to ask for the head of John the Baptist on a plate.

    • This is the ignominious end for one of the greatest prophets in history.

    • One whom Jesus said was more than a prophet.

    • His last recorded question for Jesus was…

      • "Are you the one who is to come or should we expect someone else?”
        
        

• John was Jesus friend.

  • He was Jesus cousin. 

  • He was a prophet.

  • He did the right thing privately and publicly. 

  • And he loses his influence, his freedom, and his head.

• So why follow God?  Why trust Jesus?  
  

• There are a few implications we need to wrestle with from John’s story….

  • A life of faith and obedience to God can still have tremendous disappointment, doubt, and questions.

  • God may not act how we expect God to act.

  • “The way of Jesus is the way of weakness and the Cross. That is where the power of the resurrection flows”

    – Pete Scazzaro 

  • God’s presence is our reward 
    

Parents:

• Think about what your children need to see about what “successful faith” might look like. 

• Ask your children 

  • “Why do we obey Jesus?”

  • “What will happen when they obey Jesus?”

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January 5: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

---

Love

Teaching Text:  Matthew 2: 1-23

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod,Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

“‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
    who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with giftsof gold, frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.“Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt,where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

“A voice is heard in Ramah,
    weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
    and refusing to be comforted,
    because they are no more.”

After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egyptand said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”

So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.

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Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• Friends of God | The Kingdom of God Moving Along Lines of Friendship in the Life of Jesus

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• If you were alive in 2000 - what was your picture of what 2025 would be like?

• What are you inspired by recently?

• What is a challenge or worry or grief your mind returns to a lot these days?

• What are one or two things you hope for next year?

• You do not have to be good.

  You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

– Mary Oliver

• Jesus was born into the real world

  • Whatever you are facing today, let that be a comfort to you.

• Let us to go for a moment or two with our imagination into the experience of these people we meet in this story.
  

• The Magi

  • There is much we don’t know for certain about them but we can make some very educated guesses.

    • An Ancient Priesthood of the Medes

    • The Supreme Priestly Caste of the Persian Empire

  • Magi were involved in choosing royal succession for the Parthians. 

  • Almost certainly traveled with an Entourage – all the pomp of a royal procession and a heavy guard for their valuables and as a statement

  • Asked who was “Born King of the Jews” – a direct insult to Herod

  • Posed a specific threat to Herod

  • Came Bearing expensive gifts

    • No gifts mentioned for Herod

  • There is a reasonable chance the process of looking for this child’s birth had been passed down among their ranks since the time of Daniel’s exile to Babylon.

  • We know the Prophet Daniel was given the Title of Chief Magi by King Darius

  • We can imagine the difficulty of the journey…

    • How many times did they lay awake, camping in the mountains, doubting the sign that started their journey?

    • How many times did they want to give up, head back to Babylon, where they were known and respected?

    • How many times did they wonder if they were losing it, or if it would all even be worth it if they made it?

    • If they might face danger.

    • Sometimes, God works a miracle:  We take the whole journey in a single moment (shepherds).

  • God accelerates His work in our midst.

    • BUT often, God calls us to walk a journey:  It Involves risk, doubt, hard questions, setbacks, and disappointment…what is required is to keep putting one foot in front of the other because the hope that pushed your first step is real and is worth it.

  • 2025 will be a year of single days. There will one moments of inspiration. There will be dark nights?

  • Can you keep the vision God has given you in community and take one step at a time?

  • When they see Jesus they 

    • humble themselves 

    • They bowed down and worshipped Him

    • They offered their gifts to him - the gold for a king, frankescence for a priest, and the myrrh to prophesy his death

    • Then they returned another way - they put their allegiance to Jesus above anything they has seen before

• Herod

  • Herod has a long protected rise to power that involved lots of violence to secure his place

  • But in a crucial moment of that journey he had appealed to Rome for help and apparently Ceasar Augustus had a favorable impression of Herod and so he named him King of the Jews.

  • The highest political and military power in the world had called Herod King, but he still had to come back and violently win his place 

  • And he was never secure. He was a maniacal and paranoid leader. Always afraid of losing what he had. 

  • His life is a testimony to us that the world is not enough.

  • We are not made to be satisfied with an identity less than one we have received from God.

  • But play this out for a minute. Herod believed enough in the story that he called together the priests and wisemen.

  • He asked where Messiah was going to be born. He seemed to know this was God and yet he was so entrenched in his own kingdom that he could only squirm and howl and strike out.

  • What has your heart today?

    • Can you imagine Herod pacing late at night in this palace, in his silk robes, a plaque from Ceasar on his wall?

      • And nothing but fear.

  • “Because here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship - is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.

If you worship money and things-if they are where you tap real meaning in life-then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already-it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story.

The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power-you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart-you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.”

– David Foster Wallace

• • Herod wreaked havoc in the world and eventually was eaten alive from the inside by a stomach disease.

    • But his story confronts us with the question WHAT HAS YOUR HEART?
      

• Mary and Joseph 

  • Mary and Joseph were on the run. And you have to wonder…

    • After all that happened around Jesus birth could they now be having to leave all they knew?

    • Did Mary wonder why Jospeh received the dream to flee after she had been visited by the angel?

    • Did they argue or debate?

    • Did they have a plan? How did they show up in a new city with their young child and no family support?

    • Can you imagine them standing in line, back aching, questions in their mind, wondering how they ended up here.

    • God had spoken in a dream. Was that enough?

  • Here is the thing about the dream of God though 

    • God had a long range plan to bring redemption to the world.

    • God was speaking to those who would listen. 

    • The wise ones were seeking Jesus

  • NT Wright summarizes the arch of the story Matthew is telling us…

    • “There is another way as well in which this story points ahead to the climax of the gospel. Jesus will finally come face to face with the representative of the world’s greatest king—Pilate, Caesar’s subordinate. Pilate will have rather different gifts to give him, though he, too, is warned by a dream not to do anything to him. His soldiers are the first Gentiles since the Magi to call Jesus ‘king of the Jews’, but the crown they give him is made of thorns, and his throne is a cross. At that moment, instead of a bright star, there will be an unearthly darkness, out of which we shall hear a single Gentile voice: yes, he really was God’s son.

      Listen to the whole story, Matthew is saying. Think about what it meant for Jesus to be the true king of the Jews. And then—come to him, by whatever route you can, and with the best gifts you can find.”

      – NT Wright
      

• Begin this year coming to Jesus. He has come to you.

• Keep taking steps even when the way is challenged.

• Bring your gifts and open them to God - they may be used to point to the deep reality of the world’s story 

• Watch if you heart has been captured by another god - you can return home today

• Make a plan to come to the feet of Jesus every day in 2025. If you miss one. Begin again.

• We want to help and walk with you. We have Groups, Reading Plans, Prayer Resources, places to serve, 

• We have the Seconds Course starting this month. A course on how to follow Jesus in practices.

• Join us in following Jesus. This baby born to turn the world upside down , the redeem and heal it.

• Pray 
  
  

Parents:

• Ask your kids what that are scared of right now?

• Ask them what they hope for this year and direct their thought towards, relationships, experiences, growth. 

• Pray with them and offer the year up to

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November 17: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

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Love

Teaching Text:  James 4:13-5:6

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes.Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.

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Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• The Crown of Life: Meditations on the Book of James

• God Will Set Things Right

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• What areas of your life is it easy for you to be a control freak?

• James is New Testament Wisdom literature.

  • It is direct. At times, it feels abrupt. It is meant to lead to practical action.

  • This is our 8th week moving through this relatively short letter. And we have been saying that James is like New Testament wisdom literature.

  • This letter is a cousin to the Proverbs or parts of the Psalms, and Ecclesiastes. 

  • It is trying to grapple with how people who have trusted in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection should live.
    
    
    

• In this text James is pressing in on something that he has been addressing at several points in the letter and here as well.

  • Watch out, you are in very perilous place when you start trying to play God. When you see all the gifts of your life as something you have just gotten for yourself, or you imagine that because your ability and resources you can steer you life wherever you want it to go.
    

• He says “Now, Listen” and here is some of what I think he is saying to us.

  • Fire yourself from the role of God

  • Take on fully the role of image-bearing human being

  • There are inescapable time limits for injustice

• We have to fire ourselves from trying to do God’s job in the world - this is humility that needs to show up in how we pray and how we plan 

• But there are still certain things we absolutely can do. We shouldn’t imagine that because we aren’t God, there aren’t meaningful choices we need to make and actions we need to take. - this is humility of doing what we can with what we have 

• And then look where we are going to give an account for our lives. James keeps reminding us of this. Even the moist ingrained and established injustice has a time limit. God will set thing right.  This is the humility to acknowledge that and look towards that day with our lives.

• Fire yourself from the role of God

  • “Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.”

    – James 4: 13-17

  • Is God against you making plans? Is God against your vision board? Is God against a sound strategy?

    • Of course not. There are plenty of other places in the Proverbs and in Jesus’ teaching that show the wisdom and fruitfulness of planning ahead.

    • The trouble here is that God is an afterthought if anything

  • James is not against praying and planning. He is saying the essence of friendship with the system of this world, the essence of sin, the essence of us living with the illusion of control like we are God 

  • “Don’t you realize what your life is like? Think of the mist you see out of the window on an autumn morning. It hangs there in the valley, above the little stream. It is beautiful, evocative, mysterious; yes, just like a human being can be. Then the sun comes up a bit further, and … the mist simply disappears. That’s what your life is like. You have no idea what today will bring, let alone tomorrow... Learn to take each day as a gift from God, and to do such planning as is necessary in the light of that.”

    – N.T. Wright
    

• Take on fully the role of image-bearing human beings

  • At the end of this paragraph James almost seems to change directions. He says …

    • “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them. “

      – James 4: 17

    • A prayer:

      God, I don’t want to make plans without you, but I also don’t want to skip this wonderful adventure of life you have called me to.I want to walk in the humility of Jesus and the authority of Jesus. The Lion and the Lamb.

      Amen. 
      
      

• There are inescapable time limits for injustice (or money sometimes tells a great lie)

  • “Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. u 6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.” 

    – James 5: 1-6
    
    

Parents:

• Ask your kids where they recognize current injustice. 

• Help them understand that God has a limit on the timeline of injustice. 

• Pray together  for the people they recognize as victims of injustice.

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November 10: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

---

Love

Teaching Text:  James 4: 1-12

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive,because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:

“God opposes the proud
    but shows favor to the humble.”

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?

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Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• The Crown of Life: Meditations on the Book of James

• Humble Yourself Before God

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• How do you think pride is defined in our culture?

• What does it look like in the world you engage with? 

• James is New Testament Wisdom literature.

  • It is direct. At times, it feels abrupt. It is meant to lead to practical action.

• James knows it's hard to be a person. 

  • And maybe for you this week, in particular, it has felt hard to be a person.

    • If you were thrilled with the election results, I want you to know that you are fully welcome at this church. We celebrate your presence.

    • If you were devastated by the election results I want you to know you are fully welcomed at this church. We celebrate your presence.

    • If you’re somewhere in between those two: apathetic, numb, resigned, relieved, looking for explanations, whatever. You are fully welcome here. We celebrate your presence.

• We really believe you are made in God's image no matter what.

• If you are a follower of Jesus, you have been given the Holy Spirit. Each one of you carries the potential to show us more of God than what we have known before.

• James knows it’s hard to be a peacemaker who walks in God's wisdom and controls their speech, puts action to their trust and love and endures challenging times with a vision for what patience and perseverance offers  a vision of wholeness

• He shows us that he knows being a person is hard. That’s what verse 4 starts with….

• When desires that are false advertisers get rooted in our hearts, they then get expressed in our lives, choices, and relationships. They tear at the fabric of our love and connections.

• James is saying Pride will kill you and keep you alone and make you think it had to be that way.

• James is saying – you're tearing each other apart because some desires that are totally disconnected from God are running rampant in your souls. They cannot actually bring you real satisfaction, but for the sake of them you are breaking apart your lives and loves.

• James is saying We have to be so careful because we can want to play the role of God in our lives, sometimes in the world, so much. But it always does damage. There is only one who is loving, wise, and sacrificial enough to be God.

• Recognize the source of your conflict and its damage to our soul

  • Your desires are like road signs and even if they are lying to you, they show a type of journey you are on. 

  • They show your allegiance, your friendship, your love.

  • As James K. A. Smith restated for us across the ages.. “You are what you love”

    • A desire points to an allegiance, and friendship.

  • And what is that allegiance? What is that ethos of life in opposition to or disregarding God?

    • It’s pride.

  • You see one of the big western myths is that of autonomous self determination. You are who you decide you be.

  • As if it’s that simple and your self-expression as you see it is the paramount thing to you being fully alive and joyful.

  • But most older cultures and even most of our social scientists know that your immediate community shares who you are and what you want tremendously.

  • Your childhood attachments, your friendships, your community now. Shape you deeply. 

  • You are way more than just what you decide to be. 

  • And James says God opposes the proud.

    • It’s another way of saying God cannot cooperate with you trying to take His job.

  • 6 Markers of Spiritual Pride - Keller summarizing a Christian Author from the middle of 1800s

    • Pride makes you more aware of others’ faults than you are aware of your own. But humility causes you to be far more aware of your own faults. - "if you spot it you go it"  

    • Pride leads you when you speak of others’ faults to have an air of contempt and disdain, but humility leads you to speak of others faults with some understanding, grief, and mercy

    • Pride leads you to quickly separate from those you have criticized or have criticized you, but humility means you stick with people even through difficult relationships 

    • Pride makes you dogmatic and sure about every point of belief. Proud people cannot distinguish between minor and major points of belief because everything is major.

    • A Proud person either loves to confront to be proven right or they refuse to confront out of apathy or fear, but a humble person will gently confront when necessary

    • A Proud person is often unhappy and sorry for themselves. They are filled with self-pity. 

  • When can we start to get a picture of the life of Biblical humility.

  • C.S. Lewis - “Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is thinking of yourself less.”

  • Entering the bliss of self-forgetfulness out of our worrying self-obsession

• Humble yourself

  • “God opposes the proud 

    but shows favor to the humble.” 

  • “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you.

    – James 4: 6-8

  • One of the scariest and most difficult parts of being a person is realizing that your character formation up to this point in your life has not left you with enough maturity to make it through this season of life.

• Trust God will be near and God will lift you up.

  • Corrie Ten Boom said “When a train goes through a dark tunnel, you don’t tear up your ticket and jump off; you sit still and trust the driver.”                 

    • More like Corrie Eleven Boom there.
      

Parents:

• How can you talk to your children about what pride is? 

• What does it mean to be a peacemaker?

---

November 3: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

---

Love

Teaching Text:  James 3: 1-18

Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.

When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving,considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.

---

Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• The Crown of Life: Meditations on the Book of James

• Speaking Peace

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Think of words that someone spoke over you that have stuck with you for years. (positive or negative)

  • Share this with your group. 

• James is New Testament wisdom literature.

  • It is direct. At times, it feels abrupt. It is meant to lead to practical action.

  • James is giving us something of a litmus test for living the Jesus way

  • He provides this like a thesis early on and then expands on each one. Living in the way of Jesus must impact…

    • How you speak 

    • How you treat the poor and the vulnerable 

    • How you adopt or resist the systems of this world.

  • In this text, he is showing us ….

    • Words have tremendous power

    • Words reveal our hearts and shape our lives

    • What to do when words have torn us apart

• Words have tremendous power

  • Our words have the power to create reality.

  • There’s a quote from Mark Twain in one of the english classes here in this school that says “the difference between the right word and the wrong word is difference between Lightening and Lightening Bug.”

  • Our words have the power to describe reality

• Words reveal our hearts and shape our lives

  • Jesus said out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

  • James says if we could somehow control our speech, we could control our entire lives.

  • So, we need self-control or do we need a change of heart?

    • The answer is Yes.

  • Our words reveal what is going on in our hearts.

    • When you use words to harm it almost always lives past that moment. 

    • Many of us have deep wounds from how words have been used in our lives. Our use and others. 

• What to do when words have torn us apart

  • Listen to how serious this is…

    • “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. 

      But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.” 

      – James 3: 13-18

  • James has already told us that if we lack wisdom, we should ask God and God will give it freely to us.

    • So that is where we begin. If we find ourselves participating in damaging speech, we ask God for help and we expect God’s help!!!

  • Ask God for a change of heart

• Pay attention to what shows up in your words

  • Consistent negativity or do you see encouragement?

  • Do you catch cynicism or is hope spring out?

  • Do those around expect words of anger or words of peace?

  • Do you use sarcasm to protect you from vulnerability?

  • Do you vilify and run down those who you disagree with?

  • Do you work to recognize where someone else may be coming from?

• Pay attention to what shows up in your words

  • And then…with God’s help….

• Use your words to sow seeds of Peace (Shalom)

• Consider how GOD MAY HAVE EQUIPPED YOU TO BE A PEACEMAKER.

• Pay attention to what shows up in your words.

• Ask God for help and a change of heart

• Sow seeds of peace.

Parents:

• How do you talk to your kids about the power of their words? 

  • Consider the affirmation your children need and make some plans to speak life and peace over them.  

  • Ask your children how they can use their words at school to be peacemakers rather than bring harm.

---

October 27: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

---

Love

Teaching Text:  James 2: 14-26

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction?As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

---

Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• The Crown of Life: Meditations on the Book of James

• Faith Without Deeds is Dead

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Think of a person you might know who is clearly living very practically what they believe

• Is it possible that you can see what everyone believes by their actions?

• James is trying to write in a way that gets our attention. 
  

• He says faith without works is dead.
  

• Paul said: 

  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 

  – Ephesians 2: 8-9
  

• Is James saying something utterly different here? 

  • James stayed in Jerusalem. He was talking to a specific group of believers who were at risk of their faith becoming only tradition, only a belief system. 

  • James is writing to combat any assumption that may have grown up that faith in Jesus was just about arranging thoughts about God in your head.
    

• He is writing to make sure that his readers knew there was no place in Judaism or Christianity that simply involved an inner state with no outward expression.
  

• James knew what Paul wrote to the Galatians…

  • “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” 

    – Galatians 5: 6

  • Phillip Maliagnon, the apprentice of the monk Martin Luther, said centuries later

    “We are saved by faith alone but not by faith that remains alone”
    

• NT Wright commenting on this passage said…

  “It won’t do simply to tick the box saying ‘I believe in one God’ and hope that will do. It won’t. Without a radical change of life, that ‘faith’ is worthless, and will not rescue someone from sin and death.”

  – NT Wright
  
  

• The Gospel invites us to active friendship with God 

• Active friendship with God matures through obedience 

• Friendship with God means God’s concerns become our concerns 
  

• James gives three examples in this short section to make his point…

1. How we treat the poor

2. How we are when God asks us something that seems impossible 

3. How we are in God asks us to act on our faith when its dangerous 

• When the Gospel unites us to Jesus, we cannot ignore the poor or escape with just sentimentality.

• Abraham’s faith led to a life of action that built a friendship with God.

• Rahab took action that was a huge risk.
  

• You cannot do enough to make yourself Holy like God is Holy, that would be a serious diminishment of God’s Holiness, but you can be brought in. Adopted in God’s family on the accomplishments of Jesus, His life, death, and resurrection.
  

• But then you learn to live out your adoption. You learn to live the Way of Jesus. 

• Jesus promised His power - all authority in heaven and earth 

• And His presence - surely I am with you to the end of the age 
  
  

• If you say you trust Jesus but you don’t take the actions Jesus calls you to, it shows that you don’t really trust Jesus.

• If you say I trust Jesus with my eternal soul, but not my Tuesday, something has gone wrong.

• “ The Gospel is utterly free and it will cost you everything.”
  
  

• Actions give definition to our faith, but we aren't defined by our worst moments or worst mistakes. Thank God.
  
  

• What shape does unbelief take in your life? What does it look like on a monday morning?

• What areas of your life does your belief and behavior divert from one another? 
  
  
  

Parents:

• Belief is something that needs a practice to become visible

• Ask your kids about some of the things they believe. 

• Ask them what it means to live that belief every day.

---

October 20: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

---

Love

Teaching Text:  James 2: 1-13

My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong?

If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.

Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

---

Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• The Crown of Life: Meditations on the Book of James

• Doers of the Word

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Describe every day situations where favoritism exists in our society.

• “Christianity revitalized life in Greco-Roman cities by providing new norms and new kinds of social relationships able to cope with many urgent urban problems. To cities filled with the homeless and the impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachments. To cities filled with orphans and widows, Christianity provided a new and expanded sense of family. To cities torn by violent ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for social solidarity. And to cities faced with epidemics, fires, and earthquakes, Christianity offered effective nursing services.”

– Rodney Stark

• The growth of the early church is arguably the most remarkable sociological movement in history.  

  • The prayer meeting before Pentecost 120 or so Christians

  • In AD 40:  Approximately 1000 - 4000 Christians in the Roman Empire

  • By AD 350:  53% of the population had converted to the Christians faith

• Believe in God or not, this is a staggering sweep of momentum…

  • How on earth could a Jewish political rebel, crucified on a Roman cross, become the Savior of the Empire that killed him

  • Something changed about the way they did life. This wasn’t a mass media movement, this was a grass roots community emergence.

• For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, and therefore all died. And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again. 

  So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. 

  – 2 Corinthians 5:  14-21

• Our old way of evaluating each other is gone, has been replaced with a new way of love.

• We are agents of God’s welcome, ministers of reconciliation, God became nothing to make us everything, so we are ending our small parades of self-righteous pride, to join the march of God’s healing love offered to anyone who wants it.

• James knows we cannot sink back in to the old world’s way of just looking out for people who are like us or only having energy and time for those who can obviously improve our status.

• James knows whatever ideas we have about God in our head, the people we text back, and the people we invite over, and culture of our welcome says what we actually believe.

• In fact, this ethic of compassion finds its origins as we know it in the Christian movement. We take for granted in some sense what the early church spent their lives for.

• Our culture’s view on equality has largely been shaped by the Christian view. It was not always this way. 

• If God has made you family, extend the welcome to all.

• My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 

  – James 2: 1-4

• The Kingdom of God is often upside down - especially regarding human appearances and status 

  • Often being aware of our need is easier for the poor

  • At times the wealthy have many more levels of self-sufficiency to work through and let go 

• We all need mercy and we all pass on what we have received

• Our actions (how we treat other people) should communicate the Gospel, not just our words. 

• “Mercy triumphs over judgement”

• Do we have a culture of the Kingdom of God?

  • The kingdom He promised those who love him?

  • an outpost of the Kingdom of God

• Extending the rich welcome - do you practice this personally?

• The first are last - where in your life is this really difficult to live by?

• Mercy is our lifeblood - Where do you lack mercy?

• What does this do in your heart?

• Where has your heart been bribed by status?

• Where do you need mercy?

• Where do you need to give mercy?
  

Parents:

• How does favoritism take shape in your childrens lives? Where are they faced with temptation to show favoritism? 

• How can you talk about it with them around the dinner table?

---

October 13: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

---

Love

Teaching Text:  James 1: 19-27

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

---

Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• The Crown of Life: Meditations on the Book of James

• Doers of the Word

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Describe someone in your life who has been a source of wisdom to you.

• “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.” 

  – James 1: 19-21
  

• The dangers of overconfidence

  • We can hear and hear and hear and remain unmoved, locked in to what we already think and do what we have always done.
    

• Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry for the anger or people does not produce the righteousness of God.
  

• God’s word is like this slow seed that is planted and grows up into fullness and life and nourishment and blessing.

  • The most direct equivalent picture is from Psalm 1 about the person who meditates on God’s word day and night….

    • “That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,

      which yields its fruit in season 

      and whose leaf does not wither— 

      whatever they do prospers.”

      – Psalm 1: 3

• Watch out for 

  • Closed Ears, Quick Words, and Anger 

  • Thinking Agreement is the Same Thing As Action 

    • Beware of thinking hearing is the same thing as obedience 

  • For the temptation of Ignoring the Fruit of Our Heart 

• Malcom Gladwell was warning us in 2009 that a person who talks a lot, doesn’t really listen, and uses anger to get things done may be celebrated as a great leader.

  • But that will not produce the realities of God’s Kingdom and character and love.

• Watch out when you are so full of belief but you cannot really listen to anyone except a select few you are already sure you are in complete agreement with 

• Watch out when you are a zealous for the bread and the cup but you forget Jesus and drag someone out of line 

• Watch out when you are prepping a sermon on James and swearing in texts to your wife or blowing up on your kids cause they left the sink full of dishes

• Be careful if you know the Scriptures but dont live them. If you can quote chapter and verse but dont look anything like the one who is called THE WORD OF GOD.

• Watch out when you’ve got a million words to explain yourself but no compassion for anyone else.

• Watch out when you try to bend the word back to you being in control which was never the same anyway.

• JAMES HAS SOME PROVERBS LEVEL WISDOM FOR US.

• James is saying you will be tempted to move that wrench back control and refuse to wait.

  • Unwillingness to listen - watch out if you are slow to listen 

  • Words disconnected from soul - watch out if you just vomit words to shape your world or protect yourself or control other 

  • Using anger to control - watch out for what your anger actually produces. It feels so right in the moment, but look at what grows

• An unavoidable reality of God’s Kingdom is we mature by obedience.

  • We really struggle with this as Americans. 

  • But obedience to God is trust that God made life and knows how to make life work.

  • It’s trust that God wants what is best for us.

    • That God loves us more than we could possibly fully grasp.

  • When we hear so much that we dont put into action we deceive ourselves.

    • WE MISTAKE AGREEMENT FOR ACTION

• We look in the mirror and then forget what we look like 

• James says pay attention to what is growing out our you heart….

  • “Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” 

    – James 1: 25-27

• What do I do when this is my struggle? 

  • James gives us a clue…

    • “humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.” 

      – James 1 v 21

  • James is pulling from Israel’s prophetic tradition, specifically here drawing from Isaiah 55…

    • “As the rain and the snow 

come down from heaven, 

and do not return to it 

without watering the earth 

and making it bud and flourish, 

so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 

so is my word that goes out from my mouth: 

It will not return to me empty, 

but will accomplish what I desire 

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” 

– Isaiah 55: 10-11

• Jesus is the Word of God.

• Jesus will accomplish the purpose He was sent for.

Parents:

• How do you teach your children the value of wisdom in the sea of information access, which is our current reality? 

• How can you connect obedience of God to the  love God has for you? 

• Pick one thing from the commands of God that you can DO together as a family(prayer, confession, service, affirmation, etc.)

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