September 22: 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:  ‭‭John 15: 1-16

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.

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Themes

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

• Vision Sundays | Love | Gardens

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• What’s one thing you have done that you are proud of and that has taken a long time to accomplish? 

• Name a person who has served or invested an extraordinary amount in your life

• What about that person’s love are you grateful for? 

Gardens 

• “I think this is the best-known story in the world because it’s everybody’s story.  I think it is the symbol story of the human soul.  I’m feeling my way now—don’t jump on me if I’m not clear.  The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears.  I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection.  And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt—and there is the story of mankind.”

  – East of Eden 

• Lee goes on....

“One child, refused the love he craves, kicks the cat and hides his secret guilt; and another steals so that money will make him loved; and a third conquers the world—and always the guilt and revenge and more guilt. The human is the only guilty animal. Now wait! Therefore I think this old and terrible story is important because it is a chart of the soul—the secret, rejected, guilty soul.”

– East of Eden

• Whatever our understanding of the world or our lives we have to grapple with some explanation for why we fall back into the same patterns and struggles and anxieties and violences or aching search

• “In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised. I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of no importance except in so far as it is related to how He thinks of us. It is written that we shall “stand before” Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.”

  – C.S. LEWIS

• Is there a love that could heal everything?

• Creation and redemption are the movements of God Who has love at the very center of God’s Being

• Julian Barnes said, “I don’t believe in God, but I miss him.”

• From Eden to the New Jerusalem - we begin in a garden with a tree in the middle and the last pictures are of a city with a garden in the center and the tree of life for the healing of the nations.

• “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.  “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

  – John 15: 1-5

• Out of love grows fruitfulness

• “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. 

  “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

  – John 15

• Church, our vision is PRESENCE, FORMATION, and LOVE

• It is their story - BE WITH GOD, BECOME LIKE JESUS, LIVE A LIFE OF LOVE BY THE SPIRIT

• “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other. 

  – John 15

• Our vision is love, because God’s Vision is love.

• The fruit of God’s Kingdom grows in love. That is the Garden.

• God is the Gardener, but He has asked us to join in.
  
  

Here is our call. 

• Abide in the Love of God

• Contend for Love in Your Closest Relationships 

• Work the Gardens of Love in Our City 

• We can only pass on what we have received. 

• We sow seeds of love where we can 

• We tend what we can see in the gardens where we see the things of God growing

• What does your garden look like? 

• Your home, your building, your block?

• What tending of that garden is needed? 

• What one place can you love and serve consistently this fall? 

Parents:

• What gardens of love and care can you invite your kids to participate in?

• Where can you serve the city or church together as a family? 

• What habits do you want to create for your family? 

 

For ideas on how to show hospitality through the Good Neighbor Collaborations, email Patricia Manwaring at patricia@trinitygracechurch.com

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September 15: 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:  ‭‭Luke 22: 7-34

Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.”

“Where do you want us to prepare for it?” they asked.

He replied, “As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that he enters, and say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ He will show you a large room upstairs, all furnished. Make preparations there.”

They left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.

When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”

After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”

And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table. The Son of Man will go as it has been decreed. But woe to that man who betrays him!” They began to question among themselves which of them it might be who would do this.

A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. You are those who have stood by me in my trials. And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdomand sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

But he replied, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.”

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Themes

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

• Vision Sundays | Formation | Tables

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Describe one of the most memorable meals you’ve ever had and why it was so memorable.

• Imagine yourself at the end of your life, looking back and asking yourself what matted most in your brief time on earth. 

ALTARS

• We are answering the question, “What matters most?”

• Jesus himself, when asked to summarize, said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.”

• We are spending a few weeks this fall asking what is most important for us as a church. What is our VISION? 

PRESENCE - FORMATION - LOVE

• That we are called to make this a priority as a church family, as people…to…

  • Be with God

  • Become like Jesus

  • Live by the Spirit

ALTARS + TABLES + GARDENS

• We believe God is inviting us to… 

  • Build Altars - places where we are seeking God’s presence and mark that God has met with us

  • Set Tables - places of welcome, friendship, hospitality, where we are formed in community 

  • Tend Gardens - sow seeds of love, tend places where good things are growing, seek the fruit of the Kingdom of God

• “If you can read the gospels without getting hungry, you are not paying attention.”

– Arthur Boers

• In Luke 5 Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners at Levis house.

• In Luke 7 Jesus is anointed at the home of Simon the Pharisee during a meal.

• In Luke 9 Jesus feeds the five thousand.

• In Luke 10 Jesus eats at the home of Mary and Martha.

• In Luke 11 Jesus condemns the Pharisees and teachers of the lay at a meal.

• In Luke 14 Jesus is at a meal when he urges people to invite the poor to their meals rather than their friends.

• In Luke 19 Jesus invites himself to dinner with Zachaeus.

• In Luke 22 we have this account we heard today of the Last Supper.

• In Luke 24 the risen Christ has a meal with the two disciples in Emmaus, and the later eats fish with the disciples in Jerusalem - thats where PETER is restored after his predicted denial 
  

• ”The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10;45); “The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost: (Luke 19:10); “The Son of Man came eating and drinking.” (Luke 7 v 34.) 

• Tim Chester points out in his book A Meal with Jesus …

  • “The first two are statements of purpose. Why did Jesus come? He came to serve, to give his life as a ransom, to seek and save the lost. The third is a statement of method. How was he going to do this? He came eating and drinking.”

– TIM CHESTER

THE SACRAMENT IS A MEAL 

• “The blend of celebration and betrayal in the scene at supper is preparing us for the blend of triumph and tragedy in the crucifixion itself. Jesus accomplishes his true mission by being falsely accused. He achieves his divine vocation by submitting to the punishment that others had deserved. As God took the arrogant opposition of Pharaoh in Egypt and made it serve his own ends in the spectacular rescue of his people, so now, through this one man at supper with his friends, we see God doing the same thing. When the powers of evil do their worst, and crucify the one who brings God’s salvation, God uses that very event to defeat those powers.

  We who, daily, weekly or however often, come together to obey Jesus’ command, to break bread and drink wine in his memory, find ourselves drawn into that salvation, that healing life. The powers may still rage, like Pharaoh and his army pursuing the Egyptians after Passover. But they have been defeated, and rescue is secure.”

– NT WRIGHT

• We grow through BREAKTHROUGHS and HABITS

• What tables can you set?

• What invitations can you extend? 

• Where are you committed to showing up every day? Every week?

• What are your practices and habits of formation?
  

• Parents:

  • What table habits can you create that will immerse your kids in the value of hospitality?

  • Which non-married person/s could you invite over for a meal to welcome them and give the family time to hang out with?

  • How can your family show hospitality to the vulnerable and or under-resourced? 

• For ideas on how to show hospitality through the Good Neighbor Collaborations, email Patricia Manwaringat patricia@trinitygracechurch.com

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September 8: 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:  ‭‭Genesis 3: 8-9

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walkingin the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

Revelation 21: 2-3

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

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Themes

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

• Vision Sundays | Pressnce | Altars

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• What aspects or traditions do you like most about the fall?

• What are you personally excited about this Fall? 

• The world we live in keeps us perpetually in An Imminent Frame

  • What urgent language in our world can you recall? 

• The thing we lose is TRANSCENDENCE

  What matter most? 

  So many opinions about what matters most. 

• And we wanted to take these few weeks at the beginning of the fall as to celebrate 15 years and move into all that God has next for us to center in on what is most important for Trinity Grace.

• At our 10 year anniversary as a church GOD spoke some words to us. Simplified the expression of our vision. It wasn’t utterly new, but it was a sharpening of what we had been living.

  • PRESENCE. FORMATION. LOVE

  • Be with God. Become like Jesus. Live by the Spirit 

• MAKE ALTARS - places of God’s revealed presence

  SET TABLES - places of friendship, hospitality and love 

  TEND GARDENS - places where the things of the Kingdom grow.

• ALTARS + TABLES + GARDENS

  • These are places of a presence, formation, and love. They are spaces we build and set apart, we set up and host, we sow seeds and join in cultivation.

  • Places to consecrate and seek God's face. (prayer events becoming a prayer culture)

  • Places to gather and be formed in hospitality and love. (discipleship in groups and specific equipping, growth in hospitality)

  • Places where good things grow, things of the Kingdom, seeds becoming fruit. (seeds of service, love, partnership, growing and harvesting for others)

• This begins with God’s Presence

  • Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?” 

    And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”
    – Exodus 33

• This is our prayer - God your presence is what matters most and if we have come to place where that isn’t the case will you renew our hearts and minds.

  • The Presence and the manifestation of the Presence are not the same. There can be the one without the other. God is here when we are wholly unaware of it. He is manifest only when and as we are aware of His Presence. On our part there must be surrender to the Spirit of God, for His work it is to show us the Father and the Son. If we co-operate with Him in loving obedience God will manifest Himself to us, and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal Christian life and a life radiant with the light of His face.

    – A.W. Tozer

  • Importance of presence throughout scripture… 

    • In Eden, it is the loss of a sense of God’s presence that we look on at in sadness as Adam and Eve hide in fear from the God they walked with the cool of the evening.

      • And the restoration of our union with God in that way weaves through the whole story 

    • Jacob wrestling with God at Bethel and making an Altar to mark where he had met and wrestled with God 

    • Moses in his tent of meeting, as a precursor to the tabenacle - a place to speak and be spoken to by God as a friend 

    • David - longing to make a place - a house for God - and you can take a deep dive studying David’s tabernacle as a place where he sang and worshipped and ached and celebrated in prayer, writing Psalms, marked by and making God’s presence

    • Jesus - could have prayed anywhere - but he had a custom of drawing away, early in the morning, late the evening, drawing away to be with the Father - he had places, gardens, groves of trees where he went AS HIS CUSTOM WAS - he also also gathered to worship with his neighbors - making altars and sanctuaries in time and place.

    • and the final picture we are given in Revelation is a PRESENCE picture, a marker of where God is with his people, an altar in the text…

      • I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 

        – Revelation 21:2-3

• What is MOST important to you this Fall? What Matters MOST? 

• Where do you 3want God to meet with you?

• What parts of your life do you want to consecrate to Jesus? 

• How can you make time to be with Jesus?

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June 23: 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:  ‭‭1 Corinthians 12: 1-11 and 27-31

Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? Now eagerly desire the greater gifts.

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Themes

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

• FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT | Meditations on the Ministry of the Holy Spirit

• Gifts of the Spirit

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• What special ability do you have that people in your group does not know about? 

• Resume Virtues and Eulogy Virtues.

  • “The resume virtues are the ones you list on your resume, the skills that you bring to the job market and that contribute to external success. The eulogy virtues are deeper. They’re the virtues that get talked about at your funeral, the ones that exist at the core of your being - whether you are kind, brave, honest or faithful; what kind of relationships you formed.

    Most of us would say that the eulogy virtues are more important than the resume virtues, but I confess that for long stretches of my life I’ve spent more time thinking about the latter than the former. Our education system is certainly oriented around the resume virtues more than the eulogy ones. Public conversation is, too - the self-help tips in magazines, the nonfiction bestsellers. Most of us have clearer strategies for how to achieve career success than we do for how to develop a profound character.”

    – David Brooks

  • God is a wild life artist. Eugene Peterson has said this in his book Run with the Horses…

    “Every time that there is a story of faith, it is completely original. God's creative genius is endless. He never, fatigued and unable to maintain the rigors of creativity, resorts to mass-producing copies. Each life is a fresh canvas on which he uses lines and colors, shades and lights, textures and proportions that he has never used before.

    We see what is possible: anyone and everyone is able to live a zestful life that spills out of the stereotyped containers that a sin-inhibited society provides. Such lives fuse spontaneity and purpose and green the desiccated landscape with meaning. And we see how it is possible: by plunging into a life of faith, participating in what God initiates in each life, exploring what God is doing in each event. The persons we meet on the pages of Scripture are remarkable for the intensity with which they live Godward, the thoroughness in which all the details of their lives are included in God's word to them, in God's action in them. It is these persons who are conscious of participating in what God is saying and doing that are most human, most alive. These persons are evidence that none of us is required to live "at this poor dying rate" for another day, another hour.”

    – Eugene Peterson

  • God is an artist with our lives, but beautifully God is not simply making us into something, but inviting us into a story, giving us gifts along the way, filling our spirits with the Spirit of God in this kind of friendship dance.

• When God wants to build something, God equips people with gifts.

  • Corinth - was a city and church where God was clearly at work - they saw fruit in the Gospel and outpourings of the power of the Holy Spirit, but we also know they dealt with..

    • divisions over leadership 

    • jealousy and quarreling 

    • obvious and public sexual sin 

    • indulgence and forgetting the others in the body

    • spiritual pride 

    • confusion and even chaos in their gatherings 

  • Their gifts were greater than their maturity - it is interesting that this then is the letter in the New Testament with some of the most extended teaching on the spiritual gifts.

• Our strengths and weaknesses are often intermingled and what can make us great can threaten our downfall. And where we most need help may be the place God is most clearly seen in our lives. 

• The Spirit of God is always lifting up Christ.

  • “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. 

    Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”

    – 1 Corinthians 12 v 4-7

• These are two huge errors the church can make…

  • Demanding each story to look the same.

    or 

  • Missing that each person’s gifts are not just for them but for the body.

• We see this in the American church in 

  • Rigid behavior modification in a given community - wells vs fences

  • Celebrity Christianity - overly exalting someone because of their gifts

  • Phariseeism - clean up the outside but your heart is heart 

  • Second hand christianity - that person will do the God seeking so I don’t have to

• If you are in Christ you are given the Holy Spirit

• If you are in Christ you are gifted by the Holy Spirit

  • You are gifted by the Spirit to love well.

  • You are gifted by the Spirit to lift up Christ.

  • You are gifted by the Spirit so the body of Christ can this shining outpost of the Kingdom of God, tabernacle that it is meant to be.

• Message of Wisdom – applying knowledge of God and His Word to specific areas of life, making sense of a moral dilemma, I need wisdom here.

• Message of Knowledge – similar but more to do with navigating a particularly difficult to understand issue and making it clear. Help me in this confusion. 

  • Wisdom is the decision

  • Knowledge is the clarity.

• Faith – seeing situations with Gods power in perspective, remembering that all things are possible with God. Trusting God’s character and promise in the real details of life

• Healings – this is the plural which means can happen at times, not necessarily always, and God gives the power for instant or gradual healing. WE should be praying for healing!!

• Miraculous Powers – asking an evil Spirit to leave a person, having a vision of something that will happen, praying for someone to live who has died. 

• Prophecy – sensing Gods heart on a matter and redirecting people by sharing it, Scripture, pictures, words

• Discernment between spirits – being able to sense when motives are impure,  being able to tell when something is not from God

• Speaking in Tongues – praying in a language that is not understood by the speaker, happened at Pentecost and all heard, happens in private prayer, if it happens publically in church then it is meant to have an interpretation

• Interpretation of Tongues –  the ability to interpret what has been said it tongues

• Apostolic – visionary, pioneering work in the Kingdom of God

• Which of these do you think you have? 

• These are way to love one another

  Ways for Jesus to be lifted up

  And you are gifted by the Spirit

• Spiritual gifts emerge in the body of Christ as we…

  • Walk in friendship with Jesus – ABIDE is what the Jesus calls this

  • Speak the Gospel to your heart

  • Regularly spend time in extended prayer

  • Practice speaking with God through your day

  • Hide His word in your heart

  • Meet regularly with the church

  • Have people in your life with permission to call you to Jesus

  • Take risks of obedience when given

• Take Opportunities of Service – when you have chances to serve even if you are not sure yet what you GIFTS are, begin serving

  • Understanding for Christians is often on the other side of obedience

• Follow the Clues of your Passions – look at what makes your heart race

  • Look at what you have imagination for

  • Look at what bothers you in our church

  • How are you meant to BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE

• Follow the Clues of Confirmations from Community

  • Pay attention when those in your community feel deeply encouraged by your service

  • Pay attention when you are being used to build the body up

  • Paul reminded Timothy that the church had prayed words over Him about his calling

• Practice Using Gifts  - once you get an idea about something realize that it will take development

  • A gift can be neglected

  • Practice in your Life Group – you may sense God gving you special insight for a person

  • You may notice a skill at explaining hard to grasp things

  • You may sense it is easy for you to bring people and be open about your faith

  • You may have vision for new things your life group or our church could do

• Capacity - God has given you gift but you may not know yet the space it will fill 

• Development - is in consistency 

• Acceleration - acceleration is a gift God occasionally gives

---

June 16: 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:  ‭‭1 John‬ ‭2‬:‭ 29‭‭ - ‭3‬: ‭2

If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him. See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

---

Themes

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

• FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT | Meditations on the Ministry of the Holy Spirit

• Seal | Evidence of Adoption

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• What are some unique personality traits in your family of origin? 

• What are some habits that are unique to your family growing up?

• A family image. 

• In the book of Genesis, the author is describing the thought process of the creator God and writes:

  “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

  – ‭‭Genesis‬ ‭1‬:‭26‬-‭27‬ ‭‬‬

• Image: the Hebrew word is selem and in the bible it is mostly used— outside of this verse and a few others in Genesis—to describe idols. We tend to talk about idols today in sort of metaphorical terms: things that we build our lives and worth around that are not God (work as an idol, marriage as an idol, etc. But biblically idols were very literal—they were structures made of materials that people carved or smelted into the shape of other created things (whether animals or other humans) and then they worshipped those structures.

  • “You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god— which you made for yourselves.”

    ‭‭– Amos‬ ‭5‬:‭26‬

• That same word is used in the psalms to describe a phantom or a shadow—something that has form, but no substance—like the same way a ghost is an image of a human being, but is in fact disconnected from its life source.

  • “Surely everyone goes around like a mere phantom; in vain they rush about, heaping up wealth without knowing whose it will finally be.”

    ‭‭– Psalms‬ ‭39‬:‭6‬

• God takes his image very seriously. Later in Genesis, God is speaking—making a new covenant with Noah. God says:

  • “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.”

    – ‭‭Genesis‬ ‭9‬:‭6‬‬‬

• You and every person you have ever met carries the image of the creator. Being made in the image of God means that you have inherent worth and value as derived from the one who gave you that image. 

• The word “Likeness” (in Hebrew demut): is used to compare things that are similar in substance.  This one thing is like this one other thing—they share a quality or qualities.

• When Isaiah is prophesying trying to put into words what he’s hearing, he says:

  Listen, a noise on the mountains, like that of a great multitude! Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms, like nations massing together! The Lord Almighty is mustering an army for war.

  – Isaiah‬ ‭13‬:‭4‬ ‭NIV‬‬

• We were created in God’s image and likeness. We both bear the mark of creator God in our physical bodies, but we were also meant to share in his character–in the substance of who he is. 

  • The image of God in you is immutable. It cannot be changed. 

  • Wherever you are, whatever you do in this world, you will always carry the indelible mark of the one who created you. We look like our Father.

  • So we carry the indelible mark of our creator, but the fall did happen. And part of what was broken or injured was the likeness. The separation that humanity experienced made us not unlike the phantom images the psalmists wrote about. The events in the garden disconnected us from the source of life and cast a shadow over the likeness of God in us.  

• And that is what Jesus came to repair.  It says in Colossians that:
  For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him…

  – ‭‭Colossians‬ ‭1‬:‭19‬

• Jesus came and showed us how to live, not only as an image of God, but also in his likeness–the full likeness of God, in Jesus.

  • Jesus, through his life, showed us how to live by the power of the spirit–the spirit is what re-creates us the likeness of God that was marred in the garden.

  • “Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.”

    – ‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭5‬:‭5‬

• In the biblical story, seals were a big deal.  It was the way you authenticate a message from a person of importance, usually a king.  It indicates a decision that cannot be changed.

  • “Now write another decree in the king’s name in behalf of the Jews as seems best to you, and seal it with the king’s signet ring—for no document written in the king’s name and sealed with his ring can be revoked.”

    – ‭‭Esther‬ ‭8‬:‭8‬

• The clear implication here is that once you believe the good news and receive the Holy Spirit. That the King—our living and eternal king has made a decision about you that cannot be changed

• Here, the thing that is promised, the thing that God has sealed and made an irrevocable deposit toward is our full and complete redemption. 

  • Like the immutable image of God in us, the seal and deposit of the Holy Spirit makes God’s likeness in us an inevitability—it makes it a promise. This is the description that Paul is giving us and the picture that John is painting for us.

  • When you see Jesus, you will be like him. You will be like him. Somehow in the mystery of the gospel and of grace, by the power of the holy spirit, what was lost in the garden will be fully restored to us when we see our savior face-to-face.

• There will be an unmistakable family resemblance—not just appearance, but also character.

  • That is the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives—reconciliation into the family of God. 

  • “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

    ‭‭– Galatians‬ ‭5‬:‭22‬-‭23‬

---

June 9: 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:  John 14: 25-27

“All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

---

Themes

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

• FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT | Meditations on the Ministry of the Holy Spirit

• Teacher | Reminder | Keeper

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• What aspects make for a good life in NYC? 

• If we pay attention to our city we can hear the question being asked, being lived. WHAT MAKES A GOOD LIFE?

  • We see the Spirit of God at work in Creation.

    • In the opening moments of Genesis, in the poetry of the creation account in Torah, we have a picture of God as Spirit.

  • We see the role of the Holy Spirit in initiating New Creation 

    • When Jesus goes to begin His public ministry, we have this powerful picture again. The picture is of the Spirit as a Bird, descending on Jesus.

  • The Holy Spirit gives birth to the New Creation community of Jesus 

• All of what we see Christ doing throughout the Gospels is done in the power of the Holy Spirit.

  • And this is the very same Spirit that fills you and I. The life of God in the soul of a person.

  • Jesus says in the upper room…

    “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.”

• John 14

  • The Spirit of God Teaches Us - instructs us, helps us with discoveries of who God is.

  • The Spirit of God Reminds Us of what we have come to know - often in crucial moments the Spirit will pull into our minds and hearts who Jesus is, what God has said is true about us, how life actually works.

• Jesus’ expectation for us is that the Spirit will give them a share in the peace that He experiences. The Holy Spirit will give them, give us a share of The Shalom of God.

• 2 Corinthians 5 says … “if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

  • You may be familiar with a translation that says if anyone is in Christ they are a new creation.

  • THE HOLY SPIRIT MAKES US ALIVE IN A WAY THAT WE WERE NOT BEFORE

• The apostle Paul puts in “I pray that out of his glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” – Ephesians 3 v 16-17

• THE SPIRIT COMES TO DWELL IN OUR INNER BEING.

• Romans 5 says the Holy Spirit has been poured into our hearts.

  • So now there is a new way to live, a new way to operate, a new way to change that is not simply our already formed MIND, WILL, and EMOTIONS.

  • We are in the REALM OF THE SPIRIT.

  • Our minds are renewed, and our decision-making is changed by God.

  • ONE WAY TO UNDERSTAND THIS IS OUR SOUL BEGINS TO BE HEALED 

• THE GOSPEL IS NOT JUST PUNCHING YOUR TICKET FOR AN AFTERLIFE IN PARADISE. IT IS HEALING YOUR SOUL SO YOU CAN BEAR BEING IN GOD’S FULLY REVEALED PRESENCE 

  • SO YOU CAN BE FULLY ALIVE.

  • “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. “

    – 2 Corinthians 4 v 16

• How does this reality inspire you to change how you live? 

• THE SPIRIT IS OUR TEACHER AND REMINDER

  • BUT THERE ARE SOME PLACES THE SPIRIT HAS PROMISED TO MINISTER TO US 

  • TO TEACH AND REMIND US.

  • SCRIPTURE. WORSHIP. COMMUNITY. PRAYER

• How much is your life ordered around the practices that engage specifically with the Holy spirit? 

• SCRIPTURE. WORSHIP. COMMUNITY. PRAYER

  • The Spirit might teach and remind us in many ways in our life, but these are four places we can expect the Spirit to minister to us

  • THIS IS A CRUCIAL PART OF THE HEALING OF OUR SOULS

• Scripture - the stories of Jesus, God’s work in the world, in the armor of God, the sword of the spirit is the word of God

• Worship - the narrative of the Scripture shows us over and over again that God inhabits the praises of his people. 

  • The ministry of the Spirit is to lift of the life of Christ. When we worship we are agreeing and participating in that.

  • Worship helps to re-orient our affections, it begins to direct and reinforce our love to the highest aim of God rather than some other lesser thing.

  • So those lesser things find their proportion and place 

• Community - the priesthood of all believers, we minster the Spirit to each other, where two or more are gathered in God’s name, God is there.

• Prayer - as we grow in talking and listening to God we learn to discern how God speaks to us, often in a still small voice in our inner being, prompts and invitations to love, conviction or correction when we have drifted from God’s way

• So the Spirit is teaching, but the Spirit is often teaching by reminding …

  • Reminding 

  • I often experience this as conviction in my heart or mind…

    • Of identity + Of correction + Of promises

• ASK THE HOLY SPIRIT TO BE YOUR INSTRUCTOR AND REMINDER TODAY, IN YOUR INNER BEING.

• I want the last words of this meditation to be the words of this prayer for the ministry of the Holy Spirit…

  • “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 

    Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” 

    – Ephesians 3 v 16-21

• Pray this prayer over one another in your small group, family, marriage, friendships…

---

June 2: 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:  Roman 8: 9-14

You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodiesbecause of his Spirit who lives in you.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.

---

Themes

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

• FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT | Meditations on the Ministry of the Holy Spirit

• Advocate | Intecessor

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• How do you observe shame being used or leveraged in our culture? 

• Specifically, do you see shame playing a role in relationships you have?

• Is Christianity a set of thoughts about God in our head that we have organized in the right or satisfactory way or is it something more?

  • Certainly, there are essential beliefs, but what is the experience? 

  • And since the experience can be so subjective, can we really say anything definitive about what must be true of it?

• Is it dangerous to have a set expectation about what the experience of being a Christian should be like to be real and true or enough?
  

• We certainly have testimony from the ages, from the saints of the past that the same Christian life might have rapturous joy in God's presence; a full emotional fire at God's nearness and also seasons of dryness, distance, and even dark nights of the soul.

• Jesus said “it is good that I go away, because My Father will send you The Spirit” - THE PARAKLETOS

  • The Helper, Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor. This word is so rich and holds for us some pointers to the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

• Jesus prophetically tells them about the sending of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit's ministry.

• And then they wait and pray and wait and pray, and at Pentecost—50 days after the Passover—Christ died as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

• WE HAVE THE OUTPOURING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

  • The Spirit is poured out, and the church is born.

• And the community they form by the Spirit is an heart-stirring and beautiful

  • “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 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, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” 

    – Acts 2 v 42-47

• They see Jesus’ promise prove true.

  • They experience the Holy Spirit as Parakletos. Helper. Comforter. Advocate. Intercessor.

• SO: Yes, Christianity is something you believe 

• But it is also something you experience

• And it becomes something that you live.

• And if you have only had the belief, the thoughts about God organized a certain way, and never the experience, never the fullness of life, I want to tell you THERE IS MORE

  • More of Jesus. Poured out in our hearts and minds and bodies by the Holy Spirit.

• “You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you. 

  Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. 

  14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.”

  – Romans 8 v 9-14

• The Spirit of God makes us alive in Christ. In the Gospel.

• The realm of the flesh is about living the human story by human resources

  • The realm of the flesh is all your natural resources for living that don’t include awareness of, surrender to, or love for God.

• The realm of the spirit is living with a dependence and trust on the loving kindness that is God.

• Two ways the Spirit ministers the life of God in us 

  • The Spirit lifts our shame

  • The Spirit helps us pray

• The Spirit lifts our Shame | Advocate

  • Applies what is true of Jesus to us 

  • Forgivness for all sin 

  • Power to break free from any pattern or thought 

    • Uncontrollable anxiety 

    • Lust and pornography  

    • Destructive patterns with alcohol 

    • Anger and a vision of masculinity rooted in aggression rather than sacrificial love 

    • Love of comfort 

    • Measuring success in materialism 

    • Really defensive when criticized 

    • The Holy Spirit is my advocate

• THE SPIRIT HELPS US PRAY | Intercessor

  • “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. 

    And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

    – Romans 8 v 26-28

  • When you pray you aren’t praying alone.

  • When you are out of words, you can still pray 

  • No matter where we start we can come to alignment with God’s will through prayer 

• What place of your life does shame reside? 

• How is the Spirit trying to address that place and apply what is true of Jesus to that part of your life?

---

May 26: 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:  John 14: 15-21

“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

---

Themes

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

• FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT | Meditations on the Ministry of the Holy Spirit

• Helper | Comforter

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• What is the Holy Spirit’s purpose? 

• The New Testament’s Greek word to describe the Holy Spirit is Parakletos - one summoned or called alongside.

  • “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.”

    – John 14 v 15-17

  • This one being given is helper, advocate - PARAKLETOS.

  • You will know the Spirit, the Spirit will be in you..

• Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. 

  25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. 

  – John14 v 23-27

• This Holy Spirit will point to Jesus.

• The Holy Spirit is eternal, is our teacher, our reminder, and peace.

• The Holy Spirit is a person, the third person of the Trinity, sent from the Father., given by the Son. The Spirit is God.

• Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.  

• “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. 27 And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. 

  – John 15 v 26-27

• So The Spirit Comforts us by Making Jesus Known

• Jesus SAYS…The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, He has anointed Me ...

  • To proclaim the gospel to those who need it

  • Freedom for those who are trapped

  • Sight for those who cannot see

  • Release for those who are oppressed

  • And favor from God

• When the Holy Spirit is lifting up Jesus in our midst:

  • We know and remember we are can be forgiven and united to God - What Jesus has done has accomplished that so we can come in Jesus’ name, not our own deserving or performance

  • We can be set free from those things that ensnare us 

  • We can see where have not been able to - vision for our life

  • We can experience freedom even in a world with broken systems that attempt to crush us 

  • We can know God doesn’t just love us, God like us

• God is with us in our pain

  • God has put a time limit on it, and God will be present when it is gone.

• The Lord is near

  • God comforts us with His Presence - 

    • Many times the Holy Spirit will let us know God is near

    • It may not resolve every circumstance in the moment

    • But You are loved and God is with you is a powerful sense from the Holy Spirit 

  • God comforts us with His Promises - we have times where we hold these promises without the benefit of feeling better right away

    • His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. 

      – 2 Peter 1 v 3-4

• Here’s just a few …

  • I will never leave you or forsake 

  • You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you 

  • Nothing will snatch you out of My hand 

  • My peace I give you 

  • And on and on…

• All the promises of God are yes for us in Christ. The Spirit is our guide to live these promises.

  • God comforts us with Intervention - sometimes the Spirit will comfort us with direct change 

  • God comforts us with Sustaining and Endurance 

• Here’s the thing…

  • Your anxiety, your depression, your illness, you loneliness, your addiction, your sin has a limited time.

  • God is before and God is after. You are untied to God in Christ.

  • So God will remove your suffering or carry you through it 

  • and in both experiences … And the Holy Spirit is your Comforter and Helper

• Do you need comfort today?

• Do you need help?

  • This is what the Holy Spirit does.

• Where in your life do you need the Holy Spirit to bring comfort?

---

May 19: 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: Acts 2: 1-41

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia,Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”

Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

“‘In the last days, God says,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your young men will see visions,
    your old men will dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
    and they will prophesy.
I will show wonders in the heavens above
    and signs on the earth below,
    blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness
    and the moon to blood
    before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
And everyone who calls
    on the name of the Lord will be saved.’

“Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. David said about him:

“‘I saw the Lord always before me.
    Because he is at my right hand,
    I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
    my body also will rest in hope,
because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
    you will not let your holy one see decay.
You have made known to me the paths of life;
    you will fill me with joy in your presence.’

“Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said,

“‘The Lord said to my Lord:
    “Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
    a footstool for your feet.”’

“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

---

Themes

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

• FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT | Meditations on the Ministry of the Holy Spirit

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• The Promise

  The Outpouring

  The Counterfeits and Questions

  The Invitation

  • How have you experienced the Holy Spirit in your life? 

  • Do you live with an expectation of the Spirit’s nearness and awareness? 

• The Promise

  • “On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” 

    – Acts 1 v 4-5

  • Pentecost is a reminder that God keeps His promises.

  • Don’t be so sure that all you’ve tasted is all there is. God may have a day of revelation on the way.
    
    

• The Outpouring

  • The story opens…

    “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” 

    – Acts 2 v 1-4

  • The Holy Spirit makes the presence of God known and people are filled.

  • Two challenges.

    1. If it doesn’t happen like this its not the Holy Spirit 

    2. Or we go the other way and ignore what’s possible - these were a one time thing

  • The Spirit can speak as a gentle whisper 

  • The Spirit may move as an inner conviction or an insight when reading the Bible

  • But The Spirit may also break through your categories.

    • A sound like a violent wind

    • Visuals of tongues of fire 

    • Physical sensation and empowerment.

  • The outpouring is God making His love alive and knowable.

  • The Holy Spirit is not simply to give us a memorable experience but to make the goodness and love and victory of Jesus known.

  • This account ends with people being cut to the heart and trust in Christ as their Savior and Lord

    • Have you seen people experiencing the Spirit, and it leads to them relating to Jesus more? 

• The Counterfeits and Questions

  • Some of us long to be filled with the Spirit, but there is also a place in us that we will not surrender. Our experience of God is shallow because we know we are keeping certain things in our control.

  • In the text:

    • People think they are drunk and grasp for a reasonable explanation 

    • People are afraid and wonder what is happening 

    • There is confusion and distraction - how is this happening and theories shared

    • There are commitments to the world’s power structures

  • Our problem is not a new problem. 

  • Alcohol is the one example here but there are many. Some in the crowd think they are drunk. And it’s not just a random possibility or comparison.

    • Booze can help you escape stress for a time, it can make you feel connection, it can give you temporary courage, it can turn the volume down on your pain.

    • Jesus turned water into wine. The traditional cup of communion is wine, but many of us have appetites that we satiate that are substitutes for the Holy Spirit.

    • “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

      – Ephesians 5 v 18-20

  • Pentecost is a challenge to our appetites that lead us away from God

    • What appetites can you recognize in your life that are substitutes for experiencing the Holy Spirit? 

  • Some of us are just afraid. Or when spiritual longing comes up in us it is always mixed with fear. Fear of losing control. Fear of it not working for us. Fear of failing later. Anxiety

  • There is confusion and bewilderment in this story. People don’t have categories for what they are seeing.

  • “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

    – 2 Timothy 1 v 7

  • Pentecost is a call out of our fear and into the experience of God’s love.

    • Some of us know the confusion and distraction - we go down the rabbit holes of our own questions and never take what God is offering us.

  • Pentecost is a call to be present to what God is doing - now, today

    • Some on Pentecost had deep commitments to the world’s power structures. They wanted to keep things as they were.

    • God has no problem shaking up our allegiances if they are misplaced.

      • Many of us are finding to stay in charge of our lives but let God consult. 

        • Peter has to confront those who wanted Jesus out of the way so their way could go on..

  • Pentecost is a challenge to surrender to God. To let go of having to be the one in control. 

• The Invitation

  • “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” 

    When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 

    Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” 

    – ACTS 2 v 36-39

  • When the Spirit moved through the message of Jesus, people were cut to the heart.

  • Cut to the Heart

    • And the call to trust Christ and be filled with the Spirit is open to…

      All who are near. All who are far.

    • “This work of God is wonderfully inclusive, because there is no category of people which is left out: both genders, all ages, all social classes. But it is wonderfully focused, because it happens to all ‘who call on the name of the Lord.”

      – NT Wright

• What is your ask of God regarding the Holy Spirit? 

• Where in your life do you want the Holy Spirit to reach in to?

---

May 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.

---

Love

Teaching Text: Numbers 6: 22-27

The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:

“‘“The Lord bless you
    and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you
    and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you
    and give you peace.”’

“So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”

---

Themes

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

• Blessing prayer

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• How would the world be different if God answered all your prayers?

• If everyone prayed the way I pray, what would the prayer life of our church life be like? 

• Prayer is our participation with God in making the word right.

• God can do whatever God wants

  • But God shows us over and over that God wants relationship 

  • God invites us to participation and cooperation 

  • God insists on involving us through love 

• But it’s even more than that. God is committed to distributing the resources of Heaven in the world through His sons and daughters in Christ.

• God has said you are My sons and daughters. Here is My Ring.

• It’s all by grace. Distribute the resources of My Kingdom in the world through your prayers and love.

• God’s entire plan has always been participation - Joining/Sharing - Friendship - Love

• A blessing is more than a well wish. It is to use our spiritual authority to confer something to another. It is to partner with God in declaring a present identity or a future good into someone's life.

• To really bless someone is to conspire with God for their good

• To ignore or belittle a blessing is a profound mistake.

• When we pray for one another - we practice blessing one another.

• A blessing confirms our identity - one loved by God

• A blessing invites us into good - may a light shine on how to live out who we are

• A blessing announces the security of our future - reminds us that we cannot be taken out of God’s love 

• When we bless - we are not only offering the Good News of Christ to others. 

  • We are offering our lives as well. 

  • We say I will join in in giving you what God intends in your life.

• “Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, 8 so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.“

  – 1 Thessalonians 2 v 7-8

• Who needs you to pray and enact blessings in their life? 

• What moments in the lives of those around you require you to represent and disperse the blessing and resources of God?

---

May 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: John 10: 1-10 and 27-30

“Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.

Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

---

Themes

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

• Hearing God

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• When God began to set the world right after the fall, God initiated a conversation ...

  • Abraham heard a calling - an invitation 

  • Moses drew near to something he has seen everyday for years before

  • Samuel was sleeping as a child when he began to sense God's voice

  • Mary, Paul, Augustine, Martin Luther, Thersea of Avila, Brother Lawrence, and Jackie Pullinger

• Redemptive History is shaped by God's children hearing His voice and responding in faith and love.

• In a relational world and a relational Kingdom of God, there is little that rivals the importance of communication. It is at the heart of every deep relationship.

• God speaks. God is active in revelation. We can learn to discern the voice of God in our lives. 

• Jesus gives us this incredible promise that His sheep will hear His voice. 

• It comes at a moment where His very identity is being questioned. Jesus locates who He is in the reality that His sheep, His disciples, those He has saved, who apprentice under Him WILL HEAR HIS VOICE.

• HEARING FROM GOD IS ESSENTIAL TO OUR LIFE AS FOLLOWERS OF JESUS

• Hearing from God is your spiritual birthright in the Gospel 

• But as in so many things, what is important is not without challenges.

  • It can take time to discern how God speaks to us

  • It can take some wisdom and consideration as to why that is so very rarely in human history in an audible voice

  • It can be humbling to know we may get it wrong sometimes when discerning God's voice

  • I have four children and communicating with them over the years has taught me that different ways of communicating are needed based on the situation and on who they are. There are shared principles, but ways and settings of talking and listening that are unique to each of them.

  • God has children beyond number, but we can be confident that we can learn to hear God's voice, especially if we ask to and commit to seek God's voice.

• Experiencing God study in college

  • 4 of the primary ways - SCRIPTURE, GOD'S WHISPER IN THE SPIRIT, COMMUNITY, CIRCUMSTANCES
    

• Which of the 4 ways of hearing God have you found most prevalent in your life?

• Which of hearing God do you want to grow in? 

• How can you learn/practice that?

---

April 28: 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: Song of Songs 2: 14-15

My dove in the clefts of the rock,
    in the hiding places on the mountainside,
show me your face,
    let me hear your voice;
for your voice is sweet,
    and your face is lovely.
Catch for us the foxes,
    the little foxes
that ruin the vineyards,
    our vineyards that are in bloom.

---

Themes

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

• Little foxes that ruin your prayer life

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• On the scale of discipline to delight where would you plot your prayer life right now? 

Discipline –----------------------------------------------------– Delight 

Song of Solomon 2: 14-15 – My dove in the clefts of the rock,
    in the hiding places on the mountainside,
show me your face,
    let me hear your voice;
for your voice is sweet,
    and your face is lovely.

Catch for us the foxes,
    the little foxes
that ruin the vineyards,
    our vineyards that are in bloom.

• Prayer is about relationship with God. 

  • When Jesus teaches we should pray for His kingdom to come, He is not just trying to keep us busy, and out of trouble. 

  • He invites us to cultivate and share His heart for putting the world right. 

• It is intended to cultivate a communion between us and God. 

  • There are ways we can approach prayer that harm the relationship it was intended to cultivate

• In our text, we see that the lover acknowleges the threat of disruptors of intimacy. 

  • They are called little foxes. 

• Disruptors of intimacy can take on many shapes … little things that you don't think have meaning, or big, looming, glaring, violent things. 

• Foxes chew at the vines and break off the ability for the life-giving nutrients to make their way to the branches. 

• There are little foxes, intimacy disruptors, that are right now at work in breaking down your vital connection to the Jesus. 

• Before prayer changes our circumstances, its intent is to change us. 

  • “Whether prayer changes our situation or not, one thing is certain: Prayer will change us!”

    – Billy graham 

  • It changes us because it has us encountering the living God. 

• Then it does change our world…

  • “It would be of course a low voltage spiritual life in which prayer was chiefly undertaken as a discipline, rather than as a way of co-labouring with God to accomplish good things and advancing his Kingdom purposes.”

    – Willard

• The goal is to restore relational connection and, through that, affect all of life. 

  • “The goal of prayer is to live all of my life and speak all of my words in the joyful awareness of the presence of God. Prayer becomes real when we grasp the reality and goodness of God's constant presence with 'the real me. ' Jesus lived his everyday life in conscious awareness of his Father.”

    – Ortberg

1. Exchanging a relational offering for a bowl of soup

2. A Misrepresentation of the character and nature of God 

3. Superficial Formality

4. Lack of Honesty

5. Paralyzing Guilt and Shame

6. Spiritual Laziness

7. Neglecting Prompts from the Holy Spirit

8. Sensationalism

9. Unrepented sin

• Which of these affect you prayer life? 

• Who can you partner with to work on this? 

• What action can you take to combat each of them?

Confess it

Share it 

Schedule it

---

April 14: 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: Luke 11: 1-13

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

He said to them, “When you pray, say:

“‘Father,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
    for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation.’”

Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

---

Themes

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

• Praying the Psalms

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

Did you recite the Lord’s Prayer growing up? 

• If yes, what did you think when you did that? 

C.S. Lewis lost the love of his life, his wife Joy, to cancer after only being married for 4 years. Afterwards he wrote A Grief Observed - at first published under a pseudonym.

Here is the brutally honest way Lewis described some of his prayers in that time…

“When you are happy, so happy you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be — or so it feels— welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.”

– C.S. Lewis

Prayer doesn’t work, or doesn’t always work like pulling a lever and getting what we want from God. The wild part is sometimes it does, but because we don't always know when we develop all these THEOLOGIES OF UNBELIEF to protect ourselves and to protect God.

Either we can’t bear being disappointed, or we don’t think God would bother, or we just want to leave it to a sense of mystery of whatever life reveals.

But Jesus wants to tell us to keep going with prayer. Even if we don’t like how it goes at first, especially if we don't like how it goes at first.

• What about the practice of prayer makes you want to give up or not even try? 

The invitation and the instruction is to just keep knocking even when it looks like we aren't getting what we need.

And in the shameless audacity of the continuing knock - you will find yourself provided for. 

Tim Keller said God answers our prayers exactly as we would if we had all the information.

• But of course we don't have all the information. Or the same degree of Love or Power. We often don’t know the prayers of our neighbors, or the way all the longings of our heart relate to the wider world.

• We are often aren’t aware of resistance to our prayers. 

So we have to trust God. And it's building that loving friendship and trust and confidence in conversation with God that we realize our whole lives are held. And even what we lose is held by God.

So Jesus teaches us:

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” 

He said to them, “When you pray, say: 

“ ‘Father, 

hallowed be your name, 

your kingdom come. 

– Luke 11: 1-2

The Kaddish was one of three important prayers in the first century Jewish worship liturgy and it began like this…

“Magnified and hallowed be His great Name

In this world which He created according to His Will.

And may He establish His Kingdom during your life.”

Look at the two of them side by side… (this is also in Pete Greig’s book)

“Magnified and hallowed be

His great Name

in this world which He created

according to His Will.

And may He establish His Kingdom

during your life.

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your Name,

Your Kingdom come,

Your Will be done,

on earth as in heaven.

The utter crucial difference is the personalization of Jesus’ prayer…

• Call Him Abba. OUR ABBA. 

• Call Him Abba and then speak to Him like you would to a good Father….

You can call the God of the Universe, Abba - Father - Friend. 

"The most important discovery you will ever make is the love the Father has for you.  Your power in prayer will flow from the certainty that the one who made you likes you, he is not scowling at you, he is on your side.  Unless our mission and our acts of mercy, our intercession, petition, confession, and spiritual warfare begin and end in the knowledge of the Father’s love, we will act and pray out of desperation, determination, and duty instead of revelation, expectation, and joy.”

– Pete Greig

There are some important things to say about this prayer, but the most important thing is to pray it.

• Get it in your mouth and mind and heart.

• The one who asks receives.

• The one who seeks finds.

• To the one who knocks the doors is open.

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?  Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?  If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” 

– Luke 11: 9-13

PERSIST

• What does it mean to persist in prayer? 

• What stops you from persisting in prayer?

---

April 7: 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: Psalm 147: 1-11

Praise the Lord.

How good it is to sing praises to our God,
    how pleasant and fitting to praise him!

The Lord builds up Jerusalem;
    he gathers the exiles of Israel.
He heals the brokenhearted
    and binds up their wounds.
He determines the number of the stars
    and calls them each by name.
Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
    his understanding has no limit.
The Lord sustains the humble
    but casts the wicked to the ground.

Sing to the Lord with grateful praise;
    make music to our God on the harp.

He covers the sky with clouds;
    he supplies the earth with rain
    and makes grass grow on the hills.
He provides food for the cattle
    and for the young ravens when they call.

His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse,
    nor his delight in the legs of the warrior;
the Lord delights in those who fear him,
    who put their hope in his unfailing love.

---

Themes

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

• Praying the Psalms

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

What has the easter reality of the resurrection of Jesus changed for you personally? 

Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.

What should we do? What was the resurrection for? 

“A restored relationship with Jesus” 

We should talk with Jesus. We should listen for what Jesus has to say to us.

• We should participate relationally in His Life, Death and Resurrection

I can talk with Jesus.

Our hope for the Resurrection of Jesus is not simply about verifying a past event. It is about experiencing the ongoing reality of a conversation with Christ, a friendship with Christ.

“The resurrection is not just something that happened to Jesus two thousand years ago and will happen to each of us sometime in the future, after we die, when our own bodies will be raised to new life. It is that, but it is much more. The resurrection is something that buoys up every moment of life and every aspect of reality. God is always making new life and undergirding it with a goodness, graciousness, mercy, and love that, in the end, heals all wounds, forgives all sins, and brings deadness of all kinds to new life.”

– Ronald Rolheiser

Our life becomes a prayer, becomes a sensing of God's presence, becomes worship, becomes talking and listening to God.

• Mary Magdalene who was first human to tell of Jesus resurrection. How did she begin? She talked with Jesus. She heard Him say her name, and her eyes were opened.

• Peter was an erratic mess, in shambles, buried in shame. And in talking and listening to Jesus after the resurrection, his life was reasssmbeld stronger than before.

• Thomas was full of doubt. He wouldnt believe his friends’ account of Jesus being alive. He has to see Him for himself too talk with Him.

• A couple on the road to Emmaus - they were leaving dejected and confused. They talked with a man as they left town. And then they finally recognized Him in the breaking of bread.

As they recounted their time with Him they said, as we were talking....

• Did our hearts not burn?

• Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.

• What should we do?

But the reality is many of us find prayer challenging.

• We struggle to get started 

• We struggle to keep it going 

• We struggle to make it a regular part of our day 

• Many of us feel we don't pray very well

• We wish we prayed more 

Caleb says:

“And the least part of the challenge from my experience is that many of us have a primary way we have thought about prayer that is basically EYES CLOSED SPIRITUAL IMPROV”

Have you experienced prayer this way?

How would you describe your experience of prayer?

Is your idea of prayer helpful for or hindering to your prayer experience? 

And if that is intimidating, then hear this:

• You are not alone

• That’s not the only way to pray

“The great and sprawling university that Hebrews and Christians have attended to learn to answer God, to learn to pray, has been the Psalms. More people have learned to pray by matriculating in the Psalms than in any other way. The Psalms were the prayer book of Israel; they were the prayer book of Jesus; they are the prayer book of the church. At no time in the Hebrew and Christian centuries (with the possible exception of our own) have the Psalms not been at the very center of all concern and practice in prayer.”

– Eugene Peterson

In Jesus’s most trying moments, He prays a pre-written prayer that He is familiar with. He was praying the psalms.

“My God my God why have you forsaken me”

“Into thy hands I commit my spirit”

– Psalm 22 and Psalm 36.

We learn to pray by praying other prayers. 

The Psalms is an amazing place to learn to pray. 

Our vision as a church this year is to expand our prayer life.

For every person in TGC to talk and listen to God every day.

“The Psalms model ways of talking to God that are honest, yet not obvious – at least, they are not obvious to modern Christians. They may guide our first steps toward deeper involvement with God because the Psalms give us a new possibility for prayer; they invite full disclosure. They enable us to bring into our conversation with God feelings and thoughts that most of us think we need to get rid of before God will be interested in hearing from us. The point of the shocking psalms is not to sanctify what is shameful (for example, the desire for sweet revenge) or to make us feel better about parts of ourselves that stand in need of change. Rather, the Psalms teach us that profound change happens always in the presence of God. Over and over they attest to the reality that when we open our minds and hearts fully to God who made them, then we open ourselves, whether we know it or not to the possibility of being transformed beyond our imagining.”

– Ellen F. Davis: Getting Involved with God  

Easter tells us God’ve love will not fail.

Unfailing love is a pretty good foundation for prayer  - God is not disappointed in you. 

For conversation - for talking and listening

God is always previous - you don’t have to start it all

God is in conversation - you don;t have to sustain it all

Praying the Psalm is a way to being when you can’t work out how to begin

“I need a language that is large enough to maintain continuities, supple enough to maintain nuances across a lifetime that brackets child and adult experiences, and courageous enough to explore all the countries of sin and salvation, mercy and grace, creation and covenant, anxiety and trust, unbelief and faith that compromise the continental human condition. The Psalms are this large, supple, and courageous language.”

– Eugene Peterson

Praying the Psalms this week:

• Like Mary, you may hear your name called 

• Like Peter, you may sense a lifting of your shame 

• Like Thomas, you have have your doubts confronted 

• Like those leaving town going to Emmaus, you may find your heart burning.

The Psalms lift our spirit before they lift our circumstances. 

---

March 24: 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: Luke  18: 28-48

Peter said to him, “We have left all we had to follow you!”

“Truly I tell you,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.”

Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him;they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.”

The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about.

As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging.When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.”

He called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?”

“Lord, I want to see,” he replied.

Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God.

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Themes

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

• Triumphal Entry

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

Lent: Historically, the season of Lent in the church year is a time of preparation, repentance, and renewal. We remember and mark Jesus’ time of fasting and temptation in the wilderness. We ask God to help remove our sin and anything that has entangled us or is keeping us from experiencing our union with Jesus.

5 moments as Jesus comes into this final week and what they show us: 

• About what it takes to save the world

• What it costs to forgive 

• How we can be brought into God’s family and Kingdom forever 

• How that Kingdom might come on earth as it is in heaven 

• Why this MARCH OF LOVE was worth it

The Triumphal Entry

• Luke has been telling us that Jesus had set His face towards Jerusalem. Even though He had been there many times, this was different. He had tried to tell His disciples, but they didn’t seem to be able to hear. 

• He was coming to Jerusalem to give his life away. To die.

• Jesus is deeply aware this is THE MARCH OF LOVE

• “Imagine the imperial procession’s arrival in the city. A visual panoply of imperial power; cavalry on horses, foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets, weapons, banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, sun glinting on metal and gold. Sounds: the marching of feet, the creaking of leather, the clinking of bridles, the beating of drums. The swirling of dust. The eyes of the silent onlookers, some curious, some awed, some resentful.” 

  – The Last Week

• NT WRIGHT summarizes this…

“That was the way the pilgrims came, with Jesus going on ahead as he had planned all along. This was to be the climax of his story, of his public career, of his vocation. He knew well enough what lay ahead and had set his face to go and meet it head-on. He couldn’t stop announcing the kingdom, but that announcement could only come true if he now embodied in himself the things he’d been talking about. The living God was at work to heal and save, and the forces of evil and death were massed to oppose him, like Pharaoh and the armies of Egypt trying to prevent the Israelites from leaving. But this was to be the moment of God’s new Exodus, God’s great Passover, and nothing could stop Jesus going ahead to celebrate it.”

The Borrowed Donkey

• There a centuries-old prophecy from Zechariah…

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!

    Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!

See, your king comes to you,

    righteous and victorious,

lowly and riding on a donkey,

    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

• Jesus is not riding a warhorse or accompanied by soldiers

• It’s an unexpected Kingdom. A donkey is the carrier of the king. 

  • In what ways is the kingdom of God unlike what you’d expect as strength in our culture? 

Weeping over the city

• “As He approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it”

 – Luke 19: 41

• Even further back than the prophecy about the donkey, God revealed Himself to Moses in a way that Israel has repeated ever since…

• “And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” 

– Exodus 34: 6-7

• GOD HAS SHOWN THAT HE IS COMPASSIONATE, GRACIOUS, MERCIFUL, LOVING, FORGIVING

• God will not compromise His holiness. But He will not let go of His love.

  • He doesn’t say I will throw our justice so I can forgive 

  • He doesn’t say I love so much that it means people living as their own God is fine and does no damage.

• This is the Gospel.

• “For the essence of sin is we substitute ourselves for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for us. ”

– John Stott

• The tears of Jesus show that God hates what our separation has done to us. 

• “Oh, that you would know even now what makes for peace” 

  • That you wouldn’t cling to your stubbornness 

  • That you would come out of your blindness

  • You have no idea what pain you are bringing on yourself 

  • You are missing the moment of God visiting you 

• His heart breaks for His people. But then also for people who aren’t His people yet…

  • What does it mean to you that God weeps over the separation you experience because of sin?

Cleansing the Temple

• “When Jesus entered the temple courts, he began to drive out those who were selling. 46 “It is written,” he said to them, “ ‘My house will be a house of prayer’; but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” 

 – Luke 19

• A HOUSE OF PRAYER (FOR ALL NATIONS)

• A place of communion for all types of people, for anyone who would join 

• For us.

• JESUS did something to get Himself arrested. But it wasn’t a random act of anger. IT WAS MAKING SPACE FOR ALL OF US.

A Meal with Friends

• Sometimes, you will hear the crowds who shouted Hosanna, just a few days later in the week, were shouting crucify Him.

• That very well may have been true. There may have been some of the same crowds from this moment of walking into Jerusalem who were there when Pilate offered to release Jesus.

• But we know with more clarity where His disciples, His friends were in these scenes

• In the height of emotion, at the height of a long climb when they could fairly see the city. They shouted, "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord"

• Then days later they would betray Him, argue over their own status, fall asleep in His hour of agony, run away, and deny Him multiple times…

• The Gospel is that Jesus laid down His life for friends, knowing all of that.

• On the Cross, He speaks mercy over the ones who are killing Him. Forgive them; they dont know what they are doing. At the heart of the Gospel is a man dying for His enemies.

• DO YOU SEE THE SAVIOR’S MARCH OF LOVE?

  • He has come to the city, though He knows what it holds

  • He is inviting us to join in

  • He is weeping when we do not

  • He is making space for us

  • And when we fail or scream “crucify Him”, or deny Him by the fire 

---

March 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.

---

Love

Teaching Text: Ephesians 4: 11-16

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

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Themes

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

• Spiritual Parenting

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Who has been a parental figure in your life for whom you are very grateful? 

• What did they do that impacted you?

Lent: Historically, the season of Lent in the church year is a time of preparation, repentance, and renewal. We remember and mark Jesus’ time of fasting and temptation in the wilderness. We ask God to help remove our sin and anything that has entangled us or is keeping us from experiencing our union with Jesus.

We have looked at the ecosystem of our various relationships during lent. Jesus says that people will recognize us as those who are becoming like Him - by noticing the way we love. 

Today, we are looking at spiritual parenting. 

Spiritual parenting: This journey of helping one another from infancy to maturity.

I am writing this not to shame you but to warn you as my dear children. Even if you had ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me. 17 For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church. 

– 1 CORINTHIANS 4 v 14-17

Paul as a spiritual father cares about their future! 

• Who has been involved in your life that really cared about your future? Send them a text of gratitude. 

There are many tutors… with their own agenda and their own ministry. 

A  father or a mother is different

There is a powerful combination of invitations in what is described here in Spiritual Parenting.

• Imitate me  

• See the integrity between my words and actions

If God’s world is a relational world and the Kingdom of God moves along relational lines then YOUR INFLUENCE IS ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL GIFTS YOU CAN GIVE

Can you recognize when someone is exerting their influence for their own benefit instead of for the benefit of those being influenced? 

What a privilege:

• That someone would know God’s love from your life

• That someone would know the good news of Jesus from you. That they can know forgiveness and union with God

• That someone could be rooted in their true identity as deeply loved by God because of you

• That someone could see an aspect of how to follow Jesus from your life

• That you walk with someone in how to endure grief without giving in to bitterness

• How to experience free from crippling addiction

• How to navigate treacherous career waters with grace and trust in the Holy Spirit  

• Someone learns how to pray from praying with you

“It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations....

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” 

– C.S. LEWIS

YOUR INFLUENCE IS ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL GIFTS YOU CAN GIVE

The gifts of the spirit:

• They are ways God helps us to love one another.

Apostles: Often carry a burden and spiritual responsibility to take new ground. To establish new works. To build the church where it hasn’t been. To expand the community of Jesus  into new places. 

• This could be thought of like spiritual entrepreneurship. They often are strong at carrying and creating a certain type of culture.

• My friend Jon Tyson who helped start the first Trinity Grace’s in Manhattan is one of the most apostolically gifted people I have ever been around.

Prophets:  A prophet is gifted with hearing and longing to hear God. They keep asking

What is God saying? What has God said?

• They want to speak the words of God to the people of God.

• A prophet helps a community continually align itself around the world of God.

• Where have we drifted from the heart of God?

Evangelists:  someone gifted with communicating the good news of Jesus.

• Someone who might say I love the new ground we have taken, I love that we are listening for the Lord, but are we welcoming in the outsider?

• Is our church aware of those around us who need to experience the love of God?

• Do we have the courage to be honest about the hope with have in Christ?

Pastors:  these are shepherds of the soul. They are gifted with caring for people

• Are people being loved well or forgotten?

• A community may be growing and doing new things and sharing faith but are people falling through the cracks, getting trampled by busyness

• Are we healthy in our souls?

Teachers: They help take the mysteries of God and give us access points

• They help teach us how to read, hear, understand and hear God’s word 

• They may take something that feels inaccessible or confusing and break us off nourishing morsel 

• Our city last year mourned the loss of Tim Keller who was certainly an evangelist, but one of the greatest teachers of the Scriptures of his generation.

As we look at these things, we can start to see the brilliance of God. 

• Not only should we ask “Which can i identify with (there may be more than one)?”

• We should also celebrate the diversity and difference that others represent! 

GOD HAS GIVEN THEM ALL TO THE CHURCH - and in concert they help us move from infancy to maturity.

We are “given to one another” and can appreciate and show gratitude for one another. 

There’s a picture of spiritual parenting in this passage. 

• the word equip here is a rich word with many uses in the ancient world.

• if you’ve been at TGC for a while you will have heard these uses before.

EQUIP

1. To reset a broken bone 

2. To pack a ship with the supplies it will need for a journey 

3. To restore something that has been damaged to its original condition

4. To train a soldier to fight 

We need healing 

• When we parent well - we help offer healing for wounds the world gives us

We need to be made ready for what is ahead 

• When we parent well - we help supply someone with what they will need for their journey 

We need reminders of our identity 

• When we parent well we help remind each other of who God says we are - apart from any sin or failure 

We need help (skills and tools) for the struggle of life 

• When we parent well we help prepare each other for the fight of keep faith, hope, and love 

When we parent well we remind people who they are in God:

WHO YOU ARE IN CHRIST | The Identity of a Christian

John 1:12 I am God's child.

John 15:15 As a disciple, I am a friend of Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:1 I have been justified.

1 Corinthians 6:17 I am united with the Lord, and I am one with Him in spirit.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 I have been bought with a price and I belong to God.

1 Corinthians 12:27 I am a member of Christ's body.

Ephesians 1:3-8 I have been chosen by God and adopted as His child.

Colossians 1:13-14 I have been redeemed and forgiven of all my sins.

Colossians 2:9-10 I am complete in Christ.

Hebrews 4:14-16 I have direct access to the throne of grace through Jesus Christ.

Romans 8:1-2 I am free from condemnation.

Romans 8:28 I am assured that God works for my good in all circumstances. Romans 8:31-39 I am free from any condemnation brought against me and I cannot be separated from the love of God.

 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 I have been established, anointed and sealed by God.

Colossians 3:1-4 I am hidden with Christ in God.

Philippians 1:6 I am confident that God will complete the good work He started in me.

Philippians 3:20 I am a citizen of heaven.

2 Timothy 1:7 I have not been given a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind.

1 John 5:18 I am born of God and the evil one cannot touch me.

John 15:5 I am a branch of Jesus Christ, the true vine, and a channel of His life.

John 15:16 I have been chosen and appointed to bear fruit.

1 Corinthians 3:16 I am God's temple.

2 Corinthians 5:17-21 I am a minister of reconciliation for God.

Ephesians 2:6 I am seated with Jesus Christ in the heavenly realm.

Ephesians 2:10 I am God's workmanship.

Ephesians 3:12 I may approach God with freedom and confidence.

Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me. 

AND FROM THIS IDENTITY YOU HAVE A LOT TO OFFER. No matter your age or life stage.

---

March 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: John 15: 11-17

I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.

---

Themes

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

• Friendship

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Think of a childhood friendship. What aspects of that friendship did you particularly enjoy? 

• Who do you most unlikely friend? Why does this friendship surprise you?

Lent: Historically, the season of Lent in the church year is a time of preparation, repentance, and renewal. We remember and mark Jesus’ time of fasting and temptation in the wilderness. We ask God to help remove our sin and anything that has entangled us or is keeping us from experiencing our union with Jesus.

In our text today, Jesus is talking about friendship in one of the most crucial hours in the history of the world.

• God is a relational being - the Trinity 

• The world is a relational world 

• The Kingdom of God moves along relational lines 

• So friendship is one of the most powerful forces in this world 

If we can see an enemy become a friend, it is one of life's great miracles

• It happens to be at the heart of the Gospel. 

What is a friend?

How can we make friends?

How can we keep friends?

• What makes a good friend?  

• Share with your group something that stood out  that a friend did for you.

What a friend is:

• A friend is someone you share with and who shares with you

• That’s what we hear Jesus saying here. You are my friends and not something else like a servant because I am sharing with you.

Friendship and Selfishness. Two of the great defining realities of human experience. It’s wild how often selfishness feels safer, but over time diminishes us.

“Each of us has contact with hundreds of people who never look beyond our surface appearance. We have dealings with hundreds of people who the moment they set eyes on us begin calculating what use we can be to them, what they can get out of us. We meet hundreds of people who take one look at us, make a snap judgment, and then slot us into a necessary category so that they won’t have to deal with us as persons. They treat us as something less than we are: and if we’re in constant association with them, we become less.

And then someone enters our life who isn’t looking for someone to use, is leisurely enough to find out what’s really going on in us, is secure enough not to exploit our weaknesses or attack our strengths, recognizes our inner life and understands the difficulty of living out our inner convictions, confirms what’s deepest within us. A friend.”

– Eugene Peterson

When you stop sharing, friendship will diminish. This can happen in a well established relationship or a brand new one.

When we look at Jesus life.

• We see Enemies, Multitudes (Neighbors), 120 disciples, 12 apostles, and the 3 close friends.

• The difference in a real way was He shared more as the relationships grew in intimacy.

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 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, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” 

– ACTS 2 v 42-27

• That word FELLOWSHIP there is a Greek word KOINONIA and it means SHARING.

“It is no small thing to open our hearts and our arms and allow another to enter there, to grant another person the same worth, the same consequence, the same existential gravity that we take for granted in ourselves. The fact is that our natural tendency is to treat people as if they were not “others” at all, but merely aspects of ourselves. We do not experience them as the overwhelming, comprehensive realities we find ourselves to be. Compared with us, they are not quite real. We see them through a haze, the haze of our own all-engulfing self-hood.”

– Mike Mason

How can we make friends?

• Jesus says here to His friends that He made a choice. He chose friendship with these whom He is sharing the meal with

• Friends are discovered and friends are made

• We aren’t joined in Christ by mutual compatibility similar demographics. We are joined by the love and mercy of God revealed to us in Jesus.

• One the most beautiful and needed aspects of church life is we don’t curate who is here. We brought together and we discover friendship. By first sharing the mercy and grace God has given us with each other.

• We don’t begin with the old resume lists for friendships. We, together at the communion table, offer the grace we have received.

• Friendships in Christ are discovered, but they are also MADE, and I think it comes back to sharing.

• When you share time, share honesty, share a love of something, share a sense of humor, share an effort, share suffering even you see bonds strengthen.

• Companionship becomes friendship through intentional sharing. 

C.S. Lewis said it’s hard to find friends if you just want friends. Because friends bond over something shared.

Pursue deep friendship with Christ - Jesus will shape and reshape your heart with grace

• Helps ground your identity 

Go after your loves, passions, and talents. Pursue the things God has made you to love and be good at and care for most

• Your passions may be a clue to your friendships

• We keep showing up to serve together, to create together, to practice together, to enjoy something together

• Pursue God and what God has given you to care about and then…

Pay attention to whom your fellow-travelers are.

• When you see a potential friend

• Take the risk of sharing

• That intentional paying attention and sharing can build and strengthen friendships 

***I HAVE SOME FRIENDS WHO HELP ME WITH THIS***

Friendship has risk

• Someone could move away, or hurt you, or not give as much as your giving to the relationship

• It might cost you time at some achievement or accomplishment 

• It requires investment and some of those are without guarantees

• Some of you have seen a regression in your willingness to pursue friendship in

”To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
– C.S. Lewis

Sometimes People Use the Word Friend When They Mean Something Else

• Internet acquaintance  

• Someone I am networking with to get what I want 

• People I compete with and compare myself to 

• We won’t be able to be friends with everyone even some of our companions and that’s ok

We have lost the art of loving confrontation, confession, and forgiveness 

• Friendship has to be maintained by resolving differences

If we cant confront, confess or forgive - our friendships will be short lived or shallow

If you get close to someone they are going to hurt you.

How can we keep friends?

• We do have to lay down our lives for one another.

• “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

– JOHN 15 v 11-13

• We keep friends by walking in the way of Jesus - the way of forgiveness and mercy and self-giving love.

• But also we keep friends in Christ because we share in His death to share in His resurrection.

What aspects of your friendships do you feel to pay attention to and change?

Where do you withhold sharing more of yourself? 

Are there any friends that you need to share forgiveness with?

Any friends you want to build and share more of your resources asnd even yourself with? 

---

March 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: Revelation 21: 1-5

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City,the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bridebeautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

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Themes

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

•  The Marriage of God and His People

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• What parts of marriage represents to you the relationship between God and the church? 

Lent: Historically, the season of Lent in the church year is a time of preparation, repentance, and renewal. We remember and mark Jesus’ time of fasting and temptation in the wilderness. We ask God to help remove our sin and anything that has entangled us or is keeping us from experiencing our union with Jesus.

Ancient Jewish weddings 

As we look at Ancient Jewish Weddings: (I should say I am indebted to Ray Van Laan, Marty Solomon (from Bema), Frank Viola, and Bethany Allen (from Bridgetown and 24/7 prayer) for all presenting great work and helpful research on this …)

• Arrangement - How the family makes the choice. We sometimes think of this in only negative terms, but quite often this worked well and was a true communal effort. A way today maybe a teenager with raging hormones could use some guidance - this isn’t just about you. But it’s a negative Disney type myth that the wishes of the kids wouldn’t have been take into consideration. 

• Betrothal  - father would bring a cup and give it to the son. The son would hand this cup filled with wine to his potential bride and he would say, “This is the cup of a new covenant that I make with you today. I will drink of this cup again until I drink it with you in my Fathers house.

  • He hands her the cup. He is saying I will do what most be done. I will prepare a place. I will pay whatever price to make us one.

  • If she takes the cup and drinks from it, it was her way of covenantally sealing the arrangement.

• Preparing a place: groom goes back to father’s dwelling and builds a place for he and his bride.

  • Only the father knows the timing, because he has to approve the work

  • A time where father gets to really see the formation of his son.

• Groom Returns - he returns. The timing was not known. There was an expectation of readiness and preparedness during whole engagement. Remember Jesus’ parable of the ‘bridesmaids.’

• Cleansing - She goes for a big ritual spa day - helped by her bridesamaids and community 

• Shofar is sounded - a trumpet blast to begin the festivities 

• Gather under the Chuppah - symbol of their new home and open doors of hospitality 

• Present the Ketubah - take their vows - Ketubah

  • A covenant of what their marriage will me

  • Saw this this fall on a roof top but industry city. Chuppah whipping in the wind.

• Room Set Aside for the consummation where the best man stands gaurd

  • Produces a bloody cloth (scandalizes us, but our cultures norm of using sex to get to know someone would scandalize them)

• The families Exchange the Dowry - bride price from the cup of the betrothal 

• Party for up to a week - remember when they ran out of wine

• One Year - Honeymoon. Severely reduced communal responsibility. Learn to love each other 

This is also the story of God and His people Israel:

We can trace this same picture through the story of Israel.

• The Arangement

  • Is off the page.

  • On the recesses of eternity past God determined to get bride for His Son

• Betrothal - Genesis 12 -15

  • God tells Abram leave your father's home and come to a place I will prepare for you.

  • They ratify this covenant by walking the blood path

  • He becomes Abraham 

• Time in Egypt – Waiting. Where is the Groom to be found? They are oppressed. Crying Out.

• Arrival of the Bridegroom – Passover 

• God tells Moses to Consecrate Israel – prepare them

• A SPECIAL TREASURE TO ME

  • Wedding talk in the Hebrew 

  • Later in Exodus 19 is the SHOFAR - the sound of the Trumpet 

• They gather Under the Chuppah - the cloud at Mt. Sinai. Camped against the mountain.

• God presents the Ketubah - the Ten Commandments.

  • Here is how we thrive.

• Tabernacle is going to serve as the Honeymoon suite and the Law is Gods gifts to them. 

  • It makes it all the more tragic that when Moses is up on Mt. Sinai and the people become unfaithful and we have the Golden Calf incident. 

  • This is like a bride being unfaithful in the middle of the wedding ceremony.

• But God continues to move in covenant love. There are places like Ezekiel 16 that describe God’s heartbreak at this unfaithfulness.

  • But the picture is there over and over.

• The marriage of God and His people.

And then when Jesus arrives and on the eve of his betrayal and death. He says….

 “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” 

– John 14 v 2-4

Look at this detail Matthews account gives us…

“Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” 

 – Matthew 26 v 27-29

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”  This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church”

– Ephesians 5 v 31-32

How do we live as the Bride of Christ?

Why are we talking about this in Lent?

• Lent a time for us to examine our lives in light of Christ.

• We often think of only personal devotion. 

• But what about our relationships?

How are we living in our marriages? How are we living in our singleness? As the Bride of Christ?

As men, as women? Are we faithful to Christ and faithful to one another?

Are we living with what the Apostle Paul calls a sincere and pure devotion?

“When somebody belongs to the Messiah, they continue with their life on earth, but they have a secret life as well, a fresh gift from God, which becomes part of the hidden reality that will be ‘revealed’ at the last day. That is why, in those great scenes in Revelation there is a great, uncountable number of people standing around God’s throne in heaven, singing glad songs and shouting out their praises. This is the heavenly reality which corresponds to the (apparently) weak, feeble praises of the church on earth. And one day this heavenly reality will be revealed, revealed as the true partner of the lamb, now transformed, Cinderella-like, from slave-girl to bride.”

– NT WRIGHT

Enjoy Communion - there is clearly some ALREADY and NOT YET in the reality of God and his people.

Make Ourselves Ready 

• Let Christ wash us with water and with the Word

  • “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless”

    – Ephesians 5:25-27

• Consecrate ourselves

  • Where have we given ourselves to other gods, to other loves?

  • What else has your primary devotion, attention and affection?

Long for His Appearing - think about where we are the story

Bethany Allen - pastor and elder at Bridgetown in Portland about the bride:

• A term distinguished from wife—emphasizes being the center of one’s affection and love

• Intrinsically tethered to a counterpart: the groom and the groom brings these aspects of pursuit, promise, patience

• An anticipatory term connects to something that is about to happen or has just happened

• “At the core of a bride’s greatest and most defining act is waiting. This waiting has the power either to define her or to diminish her.” 

Waiting can either:

• Builds appetite v dulls senses

• Deepens love v. inflates fragility

• Reveals our deepest hope or illuminates our fears

“Singleness points us beyond earthly marriage (and earthly sex). And bears witness to a life beyond this one—to a heavenly life. It exhibits a high invitation to give oneself to God, who enables us to give oneself to others. Singles can offer a divine state of existence from which marrieds have a lot to learn.”

– Abbie Smith

If you are married in this church you have a chance to show us something of the faithfulness and delight of Christ.

• Let your marriage reflect the love of Jesus and His covenant love 

• Work on and protect your talking and listening 

• Make a covenant with your eyes - not to look on another 

• Remember what your marriage represents

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February 25: 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: Luke 10 :25-37

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

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Themes

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

•  The Good Samaritan

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

If your apartment is in the middle, how many of your neighbors do you know?

Lent: Historically, the season of Lent in the church year is a time of preparation, repentance, and renewal. We remember and mark Jesus’ time of fasting and temptation in the wilderness. We ask God to help remove our sin and anything that has entangled us or is keeping us from experiencing our union with Jesus.

Here are lent resources: https://trinitygracechurch.com/lent

Read the text and share what stands out to you about the encounter. 

In this text… A really important question:

What must I do to inherit eternal life?

The temporal state of our current context

Many of us are not thinking about Eternity. We are thinking about:

• How to get through today

• How to get through this week

• Our minds are caught up in a trend we won’t be able to remember this time next year
  
  

“On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’”

Luke is letting us know that this man is not just curious. He isn’t simply wanting to learn. He is testing Jesus. And he does so with a famous question of his time.

”He answered, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 

”To inherit eternal life, all he must do is to consistently practice unqualified love for God and his neighbor.” – Kenneth Bailey

It’s a huge question,  its the right answer and none of us can execute this perfectly. 

THE priest and the Levite - this should have been good news for our wounded Jewish traveler. 

Yet, both of them avoid this man. 

What do our needy neighbors think of our presence? 

• The man is naked and might be dead. If they are on their way to serve in the temple, they cannot come in contact with a dead body and being naked they cannot tell if this man is Jewish. So they aren’t sure what their obligation is to him 

• Basically they have really good reasons from experience why they cant help. And their reasons are connected to good religious conviction.

How easily do you find very legitimate, reasonable, and logical reasons not to show love to the most difficult/risky people to love?

• And everyone hearing the story knows who the next person was going to be. The parable has a set rabbinic formula.

• The priest, the Levite, the Jewish laymen. Jesus is going to make the hero a Jewish laymen.

• But then he doesn’t. He introduces the hated enemy - the Samaritan.

  There is so much risk and cost in what the Samaritan does. 

What do our needy neighbors think of our presence? 

What does the Samaritan do? 

• He saw him

• He had compassion

• He acted on his compassion and went to him

• He used his own oil and wine

• He went on a the dangers road on foot

• He brought him to safety

• He paid a high cost for his needs to be met

“Go and do likewise”

”Salvation is not some felicitous state to which we can lift ourselves by our own bootstraps after the contemplation of sufficiently good examples. It is an utterly new creation into which we are brought by our death in Jesus' death and our resurrection in his. It comes not out of our own efforts, however well-inspired or successfully pursued, but out of the shipwreck of all human effort whatsoever.”

– Robert Farrar Capon

American evangelicalism has shown us you can have a ornate systems of personal devotion, prayers, Bible readings, conferences, and NOT LOVE your neighbor.

We often measure our spiritual well-being in personal devotional terms but God keeps putting the emphasis on how we love.

• You cannot reach eternal life without the rescuing love of Jesus, and that is all

• Once changed by that love, we learn to love our neighbor who includes our enemy.

• The world is not moved by people who love the other people who like them and are like them.

  • The Kingdom of God looks like loving your enemy. At its heart is a man dying for his enemies 

Jesus is interested in how you love your neighbors, because how we love our neighbor is how we love Him. 

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February 18: 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 25: 31-41

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

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Themes

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

• Sheep and goats

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• How do we measure fruitfulness in our spirituality?

• What makes people seem more spiritually mature?

Lent: Historically, the season of Lent in the church year is a time of preparation, repentance, and renewal. We remember and mark Jesus’ time of fasting and temptation in the wilderness. We ask God to help remove our sin and anything that has entangled us or is keeping us from experiencing our union with Jesus.

Here are lent resources: https://trinitygracechurch.com/lent

In this text, we see:

• Do not be apathetic about the time

• You will be held accountable for what you have been given

• The measurement is how you treat your neighbor - how you love those in need

Criteria for righteousness:

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?”

– Matthew 25 v 37-39

Shocking Detail #1: The Righteous Don't Know They are Righteous

• This was contrary to what the Pharisees were saying equates to righteousness.

• “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’”
  – Matthew 25 v 37-39

  • What do current religious norms describe as characteristics of righteousness?
    

Shocking Detail #2: The King (The Son of Man) so identifies with these people in need that he says a kindness done to them is a kindness done to them.

• “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”
  – Matthew 25 v 40

Shocking Detail #3: The Consequences of Not Caring for Those in Need is Extremely Drastic

• It was the same as denying, ignoring, and withholding help from Jesus

• The eternal fire is not prepared for people, but pride and lack of love makes it there place

• We have to wonder is this passage saying something different than many other parts of the New Testament?

• DEPART FROM ME - there is an echo of a phrase that isnt here but is in the chapter and several other places I NEVER KNEW YOU

• The hinge point is their sacrificial love and their pride or humility

THE DANGER FOR US

HOW TO BE A THEOLOGICALLY ACCURATE CHRISTIAN PHARISEE

• Using the atonement of Jesus to let myself off the hook for living a comfortable American life where I ignore my neighbor

• This is so close to what the Pharisees of Jesus day did with the Law of Moses

• We are covered by God's covenant so we worry about keeping ourselves clean and we despise others

IMPLICATIONS OF THIS STORY - prophetic picture

• Knowing Jesus must lead to loving like Jesus and loving Jesus through our neighbors

“It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.”

– C.S. LEWIS

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses.”

– C.S. LEWIS

Loving our neighbors is a primary way God has asked us to Love him.

“God identifies with our neighbor just so we can do for the neighbor what we cannot do for God, which is to love another with complete and total generosity. Moreover, it is precisely this recognition of how freely and generously we have been loved by God that inspires our free and generous love of neighbor.”

– Frederick Bauerschmidt

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