November 30: 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: ‭‭Isaiah 9:1–7

Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan—

The people walking in darkness
    have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
    a light has dawned.
You have enlarged the nation
    and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you
    as people rejoice at the harvest,
as warriors rejoice
    when dividing the plunder.
For as in the day of Midian’s defeat,
    you have shattered
the yoke that burdens them,
    the bar across their shoulders,
    the rod of their oppressor.
Every warrior’s boot used in battle
    and every garment rolled in blood
will be destined for burning,
    will be fuel for the fire.
For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace
    there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
    and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
    with justice and righteousness
    from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
    will accomplish this.

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Themes

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

• Watching for the Light

• PEACE: See a light—God's unchanging Character Across the Ages

• Series Intro: 

  • God is near

  • God is saving and rescuing

  • God is filling and healing.

  • But that can be confusing or disillusioning because life has quite a lot of waiting, some real season is difficultly, loss, grief. Life has what feels like delays. It has uncertainty, pain, and longing.

  • And so we need the darkness of Advent also.  We need the wilderness and waste places of Lent, we need the confused grief of Holy Saturday when Christ has died but we see no sign of resurrection.

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• A poem of shalom

• This poem says – The character of God is reliable
  

• King Ahaz was looking for assurance and hope. Isaiah brings him a poem. 

• This seems very unhelpful in the trenches of every day real life tragedy and challenge. 

• Ahaz wants to be helped but also wants to remain in control. 

• Surrender wasn't an option for him. 

• He ultimately asks Assyria for help and they end up overcoming Judah. 

• For to us a child is born, 

  to us a son is given, 

  and the government will be on his shoulders. 

  And he will be called 

  Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, 

  Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 

  Of the greatness of his government and peace 

  there will be no end. 

  – Isaiah 9: 6–7.  

• Wonderful Counselor - the One wise enough to give wisdom that may not look like the world 

• Mighty God - the One strong enough to effect change for real 

• Everlasting Father - the One ready to call us family forever 

• Prince of Peace - the One who inherits and distributes shalom 

• The character of God is revealed.

  • Counselor, Strength, Father, Peace

  • This poem is what God is passionate about….

    • The zeal of the LORD Almighty 

      will accomplish this. 

      – Isaiah 9: 7

• In the Christian story God descends to reascend. He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity; down further still, if embryologists are right, to recapitulate in the womb ancient and pre-human phases of life; down to the very roots and seabed of the Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him. One has a picture of a strong man stooping lower and lower to get himself underneath some great complicated burden. He must stoop in order to lift, he must almost disappear under the load before he incredibly straightens his back and marches off with the whole mass swaying on his shoulders.

  – C.S. Lewis

• Advent is about learning to trust in the promises of God when circumstances seem to contradict hope. 

• When we are faced with evidence of dark broken realities in life, we have the character of God to trust in. 

  • Name your needs and dark moments. 

  • Then think about the character of God and pray for Him to help you trust in His Nature instead of looking at the darkness. 

  • Look for ways this week where God is inviting you to trust and hope. 

• We look to other things so we can control our circumstances without any relational obligation.

  • Maybe I find myself in a spot where I want God’s power but not God, I am in a troubling spot. 

  • God says “you cannot control Me, but I have shown you My love for you.” 

• Learning in love to trust the promise…

  …those who hope in the Lord 

  will renew their strength. 

  They will soar on wings like eagles; 

  they will run and not grow weary, 

  they will walk and not be faint. 

  – Isaiah 40: 31

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November 30: 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: ‭‭Jeremiah 32: 1–17

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. The army of the king of Babylon was then besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was confined in the courtyard of the guard in the royal palace of Judah.

Now Zedekiah king of Judah had imprisoned him there, saying, “Why do you prophesy as you do? You say, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am about to give this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will capture it. Zedekiah king of Judah will not escape the Babylonians but will certainly be given into the hands of the king of Babylon, and will speak with him face to face and see him with his own eyes. He will take Zedekiah to Babylon, where he will remain until I deal with him, declares the Lord. If you fight against the Babylonians, you will not succeed.’”

Jeremiah said, “The word of the Lord came to me: Hanamel son of Shallum your uncle is going to come to you and say, ‘Buy my field at Anathoth, because as nearest relative it is your right and duty to buy it.’

“Then, just as the Lord had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me in the courtyard of the guard and said, ‘Buy my field at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. Since it is your right to redeem it and possess it, buy it for yourself.’

“I knew that this was the word of the Lord; so I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel and weighed out for him seventeen shekels of silver. I signed and sealed the deed, had it witnessed, and weighed out the silver on the scales. I took the deed of purchase—the sealed copy containing the terms and conditions, as well as the unsealed copy— and I gave this deed to Baruch son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the presence of my cousin Hanamel and of the witnesses who had signed the deed and of all the Jews sitting in the courtyard of the guard.

“In their presence I gave Baruch these instructions: ‘This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Take these documents, both the sealed and unsealed copies of the deed of purchase, and put them in a clay jar so they will last a long time. For this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.’

“After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah, I prayed to the Lord:

“Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.

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Themes

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

• Watching for the Light

• Hope: Buy a Field - Holding Onto Promise Against Incredible Odds

• Series Intro: 

  • God is near

  • God is saving and rescuing

  • God is filling and healing.

  • But that can be confusing or disillusioning because life has quite a lot of waiting, some real season is difficultly, loss, grief. Life has what feels like delays. It has uncertainty, pain, and longing.

  • And so we need the darkness of Advent also.  We need the wilderness and waste places of Lent, we need the confused grief of Holy Saturday when Christ has died but we see no sign of resurrection.

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Jeremiah

  • God tells him to buy a field in the land that is falling. The place where the enemy is currently camped, besieging the city.

    • In the midst of the city falling.

    • In the middle of the death of a dream.

    • In the chaos of defeat.

    • God says houses, fields, and vineyards will be bought again in this land.

    • Judgement, death, and defeat will not have the last word.

      • Mercy will. Salvation will. Renewal will.

• Hope-determined actions participate in the future God is bringing into being. These acts are rarely spectacular. Usually they take place outside sacred settings. Almost never are they perceived to be significant by bystanders. It is not easy to act in hope because most of the immediate evidence is against it.

  – Eugene Peterson

• And God invited him to a demonstration and participation in hope. 

• And he put the record of that absurd hope into jars of clay. I hope the bells are ringing in your heart.

  • But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

  • – 2 Corinthians 4: 7–10

    • You are the record of this hope.

    • You carry the deposit.

• What fields are you buying?

• Where are you sinking resources into hope in God's promises?

• What are the places of darkness and defeat in your life right now? 

• What are the hope-determined actions you can do in the midst of the darkness? 

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