January 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: Genesis 1: 16-31

God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds:the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds.And God saw that it was good.

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.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number;fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

---

Themes

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

• Vocation

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Which of these do you resonate with? 

  Purpose of your vocation:

  • To provide resources for living 

  • To serve a larger personal purpose

  • To serve the world we live in

  • To have fun

  • To bolster personal identity

  • Any others…??

• Epiphany: Moment of great revelation. Particularly, as it relates to the church calendar, it is a realization of what life is like in light of the appearance of Jesus. 

• “The word vocation is a rich one, having to address the wholeness of life, the range of relationships and responsibilities. Work, yes, but also families, and neighbors, and citizenship, locally and globally—all of this and more is seen as vocation, that to which I am called as a human being, living my life before the face of God. It is never the same word as occupation, just as calling is never the same word as career. Sometimes, by grace, the words and the realities they represent do overlap, even significantly; sometimes, in the incompleteness of life in a fallen world, there is not much overlap at all.” – Steven Garber

• God, in creation, brings order out of chaos.

• The order is still abundant (TEEMING) - order doesn’t mean boring or stale, but there is thriving in FULL life 

• “God’s creative act brings forth not carefully regimented sets of creatures, but “swarms” of them…Anyone who has been near a swarm of honeybees, gone scuba diving among schools of fish or seen a wheeling flock of sparrows over a grain field at sunset knows how awesomely unpredictable a swarm can be. Other translations use the word teeming…another word for incalculable and inestimable abundance. The Creator is not seeking a world full of pets, individually domesticated animals bred to be attentive to their human masters. He delights in wildness. Swarming and teeming are part of what make the world good - the overflow and excess of life. All of this actually gives greater glory to God, who has breathed into existence the vast spaces of earth, sky and sea where these creatures can teem, than would a meticulously tended back yard. The Creator loves teeming.”  – ANDY CROUCH

• “28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”  – GENESIS 1

• God invites our participation in abundance and order creation 

• But the function is to join in the WORK of the world - THE VOCATION.

• Being made in the image of God means joining in with…. In making good of the world:

  ADAM and EVE were given good work to do, and this wasn’t just because sin came into the world 

  • Cultivation 

  • Exploration 

  • Bringing Order- naming the animals 

  • Some aspects of ruling or dominion 

• Doing meaningful things was part of creation before the fall

• “Human beings] “cultural mandate” - the call to rule, fill, and transform the earth - was established before the Fall and exists independently of our need for redemption. God clearly had an initial basic plan for the development of the newly created earth, which includes human beings cultural involvement.”  – David Bruce Hegeman

• Tim Mackie from The Bible Project summarizes this as…

  “To oversee creation as God's partners and representatives in the world"

• The categories in Genesis still work: 

  RULE - FILL - WORK - PRESERVE

• We are called to…

  JOIN WITH GOOD IN THE WORLD 

  TO PUSH BACK DARKNESS 

  TO BRING ORDER TO CHAOS

• “All day, every day, there are both the wounds and wonders at the very heart of life, if we have eyes to see. And seeing  - learning to know, to pay attention - is where vocations begin.” – Steven Garber

• Pay attention to God

  Pay attention to your Life

  Pay Attention to Your Community 

  • Pay attention to God - PRAYER

  • Pay attention to your Life - PRAYER, SILENCE, REFLECTION, THOUGHT, LEARNING, DEVELOPMENT - you are made in God’s image. 

  • Pay Attention to Your Community - Choose relationship, choose love

• RELATIONSHIP - REVELATION - RESPONSIBILITY

  • ARE THERE THINGS GOD HAS INVITED YOU TO CARE ABOUT?

  • IS THEIR DARKNESS YOU CAN PUSH BACK?

  • IS THEIR ORDER YOU CAN BRING TO CHAOS?

  • WHAT ARE YOU GIFTED WITH?

  • WHAT ARE YOU PASSIONATE ABOUT?

  • WHAT CAN YOU ENDURE IN THAT PERHAPS HAN OTHERS?

  • WHERE CAN YOU FIGHT EVIL WITH THE WEAPONS OF THE SPIRIT?

    • HOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND YOUR LIFE MISSION?

---

January 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: John 15: 1-5

“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.

---

Themes

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

• The Mystery of intimacy and fruitfulness

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• What are you most excited about for 2024?

• Where can I trust you more this year?

• One relationship I want to work on specifically this year is:

• Epiphany: Moment of great revelation. Particularly, as it relates to the church calendar, it is a realization of what life is like in light of the appearance of Jesus. 

• Genesis 12 Abraham has a significant moment. Mark sayers says of this moment:

  “I like to imagine Abraham, looking every bit the madman, staring out into the frightening void of the dark desert. Feeling a pull, a powerful tow toward a nameless, unseen God. Behind him, all the might of the city, the walls of the grain storehouses. From the towering pyramid shaped temple he can hear the drums, screams, and pagan chanting. In his gut, the doubt, the conflicting emotions, the fear that everything he has believed until now is wrong. The city represented safety, comfort, the known. In front of him, the desert representing death, darkness, mystery, and the unknown. Then the resolution, the determination, the trust, followed by the first step, away from the city, away from Ur. The first step of faith into the unknown, into the arms of God.” – MARK SAYERS

• Into the arms of God. The work of building a nation that will bless the world and bend the story towards redemption begins with conversation, friendship, the beginning of intimacy.

• David Was king over Israel and known for his intimacy with God. 

  We have so many amazing Psalms displaying this.

• The golden age King, whom all others would be compared to, was shaped and sustained by prayer.

• All these stories remind us that life is best lived beginning at Jesus’ feet. 

• Jesus’ example:

  At many points with people clamoring to life him up He slips away to pray.

  Those who saw him teach and work miracles and resist evil and show incredible courage in the face of power ASKED HIM TEACH US TO PRAY.

• Prayer: Talking and Listening to God. Then acting on those conversations. This is way we see over and over through the whole story.

• This happens in community, but we are not told to draft off others so much that we don’t have our own talking and listening to God. We are not called to a merely second hand faith. We must take up this invitation of friendship.

• On the fateful night before he was betrayed. He had to get them to see some things that would be essential in their lives and His Kingdom….

  “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 5 v 1-5

• Remain. Abide. Make a life in Christ’s love. Talk and listen.

  Jesus is the fulfillment of all the promise and he makes it as clear as can be.

• Intimacy leads to Fruitfulness

  Friendship invites Participation

• How would you describe your talking and listening relationship with God?

• The Relationship is the Reward

  What the poet King of Israel knew centuries ago. A man who had a Kingdom…

  He said THE LORD IS MY PORTION. 

  YOU FILL ME WITH JOY IN YOUR PRESENCE

• What ways can I take steps forward in talking and listening to Jesus? 

• Ways to join: 

  • Talk and listen to God every day

  • Wednesday Nights at the Office - 7:30pm

  • Pre-Service Prayer

  • Sunday Ministry Time 

  • Dedicated Prayer Times in Every Small Group

  • Groups taking retreats to pray together 

  • Resources and Teaching to Grow your personal prayer life - SECONDS COURSE

  • A Week of Unbroken Prayer May 13 - May 19 before Pentecost

---

January 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: Matthew 2: 1-12

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

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

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

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

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

---

Themes

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

• Magi visits Jesus

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• What are you most excited about for 2024?

• Where can I trust you more this year?

• One relationship I want to work on specifically this year is:

  Epiphany: Moment of great revelation. Particularly, as it relates to the church calendar, it is a realization of what life is like in light of the appearance of Jesus. 

  The Magi show us worship as:

• An Ongoing Pursuit 

• Honoring with Presence 

• Offering Gifts

• Gold (a gift for a King) Frankincense (priestly worship offering) and Myrrh (an honoring fragrance with a prophetic edge to Jesus burial) 

• What is the impression you had of the Magi growing up?

  These Magi are very unexpected additions to this Jewish story. Israel’s Messiah. And here come these - sorcerer, magicians, soothsayers, star gazers from old Babylon. Persia.

  ​​The Magi

• An Ancient Priesthood of the Medes

• The Supreme Priestly Caste of the Persian Empire - grown up from old Babylon

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

• Matthew is letting his Jewish readers know right away that this Jesus’ impact will go beyond anything they could have imagined.

• You and I worship something. Look at what has your affection, devotion, attention, delight, your gifts 

• “Because here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship… -is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things-if they are where you tap real meaning in life-then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already-it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power-you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart-you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.”

  – DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

• HOW SHOULD WE LIVE IN LIGHT OF THIS JESUS BEING BORN?

  • Seek His Face 

  • Honor God with Your Presence 

  • Offer Your Gifts

• How could you endeavor to seek Gods face this year? 

• What Gifts is God asking you to use in his Kingdom’s advace? 

• This is really important to realize in our current context of immediacy: 

  • Your story has more than you can see - God is the storyteller

  • Your obedience can radiate out to generations

  • Prayer sustains the life of creative minority in God's Kingdom (see Daniel and Elijah)  

• We often measure our current moment only by immediate results

  • This undermines patience, perseverance, and faithfulness

• How you live today, in light of eternity, will impact generations ahead that you cannot imagine right now. 

• The way to connect our now with eternity is to remain connected to God in prayer. 

• What everyday, un-sensational things are you tempted to neglect, but know they have a compounding effect of your history and generations to come? 

• Here are some basic commitments that make a big difference: 

• How can you commit to pray for God’s kingdom in your life, NYC, and the world with us? 

• What smaller group participation could help you grow in community? 

• What Gifts can you bring in worship to God this year?

---

December 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: 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.

---

Themes

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

• Peace

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• ADVENT: Arrival

  Often regarding the arrival of a moment or a person. 

  In the church calendar, it refers to the arrival of Jesus. 

  Advent season is the season of waiting for the arrival of our Savior.  

• Advent is a season where we look at the darkness of the world, maybe even the darkness of our present lives or circumstances in the face and say HOPE IS STILL A PRESENT REALITY. 

• Peace: SHALOM - not just the absence of conflict but the presence of well-being and thriving.

  • How would others describe you if they were to say if you are a glass-half-full or half-empty person?

  • Do you think their perceptions are accurate? 

• Isaiah in this text, offers a prophetic poem into the tension of the day…

• And he sets it up by saying, you know the places that have already fallen, our neighbors who the Assyrians have already gobbled up. EVEN THEIR GOD’S STORY IS NOT FINISHED.

• In fact, they will be some of the first places to see God’s intervention and redemption

• “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” – Isaiah 9 v 1

• The prophet is giving them another way to see a story they think they know….

• Isaiah’s words to the people in this desperate time takes them back to moments in the past, it takes them forward to moments in the future and reminds them that what they see surrounding them is not everything….

• Alec Moyer, the revered Isaiah scholar, helps us…

  “As always, the people of God must decide what reading of their experiences they will live by. Are they to look at the darkness, the hopelessness, the dreams shattered and conclude that God has forgotten them? Or are they to recall his past mercies, to remember his present promises, and to make great affirmations of faith? 

  [The prophet] insists that hope is a present reality, part of the constitution of the ‘now’. The darkness is true but it is not the whole truth and certainly not the fundamental truth.”

  – J. Alec Motyer

• And so Isaiah is an advent prophet.

• HOPE - It is part of the constitution of NOW. The darkness is true, but it is not the whole truth and certainly not the fundamental truth.

• We might be in one particular valley or one particular mountain top but the prophet is helping us to see the whole range, the peaks stretching behind us and out in front of us, so we do not give in to the TYRANNY OF OUR PRESENT MOMENT, or THE URGENCY OF OUR PRESENT MOOD.

  • What do you do when experiencing the tyranny of the present mood? 

  • Are you able to see a reality beyond what you feel? 

  • On a scale from 0-10 how much do your current feelings dictate your life? 

• In This text we see 

  • PEACE IS A PERSON

  • THIS PERSON CAN BE KNOWN IN FULLNESS BY NAME

  • SHALOM IS A PASSION FOR GOD

• Isaiah gives them a poem about a baby on the eve of the battle to shake them awake

• What you're longing for cannot be accomplished this way. SOMETHING NEW MUST BE BORN IN THE WORLD

• PEACE is a person. 

  • It is not just an idea or a state of being. A person who has faced death and come back carries peace and offers into all of us in love 

• “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”  – Colossians 1 v 19-20

• LEARN THE NAMES OF GOD - WE CAN KNOW MESSIAH IN THIS FULLNESS

  • Wonderful Counselor - a God who can give us supernatural wisdom in our real life

  • Mighty God  - who is strong enough to keep promises even if they don’t track exactly long the lines of our expectations, moods, or circumstances

  • Everlasting Father - who loves us in the gracious covenant way of family and holds us in tender care

  • Prince of Peace - and who can make true of us what is true of him. Who can bring our lives and the world to Shalom.

• How do you find your practice of unburdening your heart to God? 

• Are you comfortable asking God to be powerful in areas where you are not able to effect change? 

• How convinced are you of the idea that God is always loving and will not change or let you down? 

• Do you believe God can settle areas of conflict where you have not been able to? 

• “Shalom is one of the richest words in the Bible. You can no more define it by looking up its meaning in the dictionary than you can define a person by his or her social security number. It gathers all aspects of wholeness that result from God’s will being completed in us. It is the work of God then that, when complete, releases streams of living water in us and pulsates with eternal life. Every time Jesus healed, forgave or called someone, we have a demonstration of shalom.” – Eugene Peterson

• Which aspect of the character of God and his names do you want him to show you? 

---

December 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 Texts: Isaiah‬ ‭9‬:‭2

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.

John‬ ‭1‬:‭4‬-‭5

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

---

Themes

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

• Hope

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• ADVENT: Arrival

  • Often regarding the arrival of a moment or a person. 

  • In the church calendar it refers to the arrival of Jesus. 

  • Advent season is the season of waiting for the arrival of our Savior.  

• Hope 

  • Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Hope: To trust in, wait for, look for, or desire something or someone; or to expect something beneficial in the future. 

• It is often said that the most repeated command in scripture is to not fear - a close second would be “remember”

• So much of Jewish scripture, especially the Psalms, is them reminding each other of the things that God has done and of the character of God. Psalm 136 retells the story of the Exodus and has the repeated refrain “His mercy endures forever”

• The feasts of the Jewish calendar were set for the purpose of remembering. 

• The story that we are invited to sit in and give remembrance to every Advent starts in a world where God is or at least appears to be silent.

• Starting our year in darkness, helps us to remember that the darkness comes before the light.  We get to remember not just the bright shiny moments of triumph but also the darkness that preceded those moments. 

• And it’s a helpful rhythm, because ultimately we are a people defined by waiting.  More than victories, more than triumphs, we are a people that waits in those in between spaces. 

• For the people of God, there’s a lot of waiting.

  • And then there’s us, the church, the bride of Christ.  We are waiting for our Bridegroom, for Jesus to return just as He said He would and for His Kingdom to come in its fullness.

• The relationship/intimacy between the bride and bridegroom:

  • “At its core lives hope: the anticipation of coming good based on the character or nature of another”

  • “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.” 

• As followers of Christ, we feel this intensely: the reality of a kingdom that has come, but is also coming.  Of a King and Savior who has come and is also coming. And we’re not just waiting for the world to become good and beautiful and kind, but waiting for ourselves to become good and beautiful and kind.

• Excerpt from TIRED by Langston Hughes

  • I am so tired of waiting,

    Aren’t you,

    For the world to become good

    And beautiful and kind?

• Fortunately for us, this hope is not dependent on our faithfulness, but is completely reliant on God’s.

• We can expect GOOD because of God’s ability to fulfill His promises

• In which areas of your life is hope running low right now? 

• But the waiting can become difficult.

• Waiting can either:

  • Builds appetite v. dulls senses

  • Deepens love v. inflates fragility

  • Reveals our deepest hope or illuminates our fears

• “How we wait and what we do with it, where we set our gaze and our hope in it will determine the type of intimacy and goodness we know as we wait.”

• It matters how you wait.

  • How do you respond in seasons where you are required to wait? 

  • What do you do in those seasons?

  • How do you feel in those seasons? 

  • How is your faith affected by waiting? 

• “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” – Romans‬ ‭5‬:‭5‬ ‭NIV

• And our advent hope is that on the other side of death is life.  You will feel like you are passing through the valley of the shadow of death, but our good shepherd who walks with us through the valley promises to transform it into a door of hope. He chooses to live inside of us by the Holy Spirit so that we can be formed more and more into his image and likeness until there is an unmistakable family resemblance. 

• Because of Jesus and by the Spirit, we also have become light:

  • “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.” – ‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭5‬:‭8‬ ‭NIV‬‬

• How do we wait with hope?

  • Hope is a discipline 

• Keep telling the story

• Gather

• Remember God’s character and goodness

• Fix your eyes on Him 

• Be honest in prayer 

• Pray for the coming kingdom and the coming King

---

November 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 Texts: John 16:29 - 17:5

Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”

“Do you now believe?” Jesus replied. “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone.Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:

“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal lifeto all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you,the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

---

Themes

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

• Joy Complete – God wants your joy to be complete and Jesus is showing us the way.

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• One of life's biggest questions - If God exists, what is God like?

• Sometimes is easier to believe God exists than to believe He is kind

• Dominant narrative of our time: Consumeristic, technologically driven individualism. 

  Creation narrative: God miraculously and lovingly creates and sustains

• When we immerse ourselves in the dominant narrative, we forget the creation story 

  • Then, a series of things happen: 

    • 1 - We forgo rootedness of the past – we self-invent 

    • 2 - We forgo hope in a faithful God for our future – self-rely 

    • 3 - Our present is filled with FRIGHTENED MEANNESS. 

• Where in your daily life do you experience this drive towards self invention/defining identity?

  Where do you see the encouragement and temptation towards self relying/self preserving? 

• Brueggeman: 

  “For it is only when the past is brimming with miracle and the future is inundated with fidelity that the present can be recharacterized as a place of neighborliness in which

  • Scarcity can be displaced by generosity

  • Anxiety can be displaced by confidence

  • Greed can be displaced by sharing

  • Brutality can be displaced by compassion and forgiveness.

  “Recovering the biblical text includes the daring persuasive conviction that God’s fidelity outlasts every circumstance.”

• The story you live in, is the story you live out

• How can we better immerse ourselves in the creation narrative? 

• What God is like is the catalyzing question of this whole conversation. 

  • “May they know you” is Jesus’ prayer at the end. 

• This text is less about a to-do list and more about how we can know God deeply. 

• Challenges in the conflicting narratives:

  • The dominant cultural narrative might be more prevalent in our lives than the true creation narrative 

  • We are trying to trust Jesus for that joy, but we reserve the right to define still what makes us happy.

  • We are not able to discern the timing and the perseverance required

• Which of these challenges do you struggle with most?

• Where in your life do you struggle with a lack of peace and joy? 

• Take some time to scan through chapter 14-16 of John 

  • Notice one or two things that Jesus says that reveal something about the Father that He wants the disciples to know. 

  • Share them with the group. 

  • Pray prayers of thanks and praise to God for who He is. 

• God’s Peace comes from a deep conviction that

  • My future is not in my hands

  • My God is kind and trustworthy and wants my true and lasting joy 

  • No obstacles I face here and now will have the last word

  • Jesus completed the work to restore the kingdom and invited us in

  • He leaves us with His very presence, the Spirit by whom we have access to the Father. 

---

November 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 Texts: John 15: 18-16:11

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’

“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. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

“All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you, but now I am going to him who sent me.None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ Rather, you are filled with griefbecause I have said these things. But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

---

Themes

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

• Joy Complete – God wants your joy to be complete and Jesus is showing us the way.

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Jesus has been sitting with His friends on the even of going to the cross, pouring out His heart to them

• He warns them about the incredible resistance they will face. 

• There are systems and powers in the world that are bent against the things of God and the Kingdom of God - THE WORLD 

  • “the world hates you keep in mind that it hated me too”

• There is internal resistance in the disciples’ own lives that will entice them to fall away and will wrangle them in grief - THE FLESH 

  • “I am telling you this so that you will not fall away.”

• They will meet with outright spiritual resistance, accusation, deception, and temptation from a spiritual entity called here the ‘prince of this world.’ - THE DEVIL

• Even though these blend and overlap, try to: 

  • Name one system thats resists the kingdom of God in your life/world

  • Name one weakness of your flesh (internal to you) that resists the kingdom

  • Name one moment you thought there was specific spiritual resistance you encountered

• Whatever else is happening here - Jesus is being honest with His friends about the resistance they are going to face living as disciples.

  • About the pain and difficulty 

  • About the challenges

• Some important questions and facts to consider in light of this are:

  • Why is it hard to follow Jesus?

  • How we can be helped in the midst of this resistance?

  • Why it is worth it.

    • What do you find hard about following Jesus? 

    • Why do you think these things are so difficult? 

    • What helps you most in the hardships of following Jesus? 

    • What motivates you in the tough times? 

• FLESH may have good manners and even do nice things but its fundamental motivation and operation is the SELF.

  • The flesh is also craving, lust, violence, lost tempers, greed

  • It is trying to meet the deep needs of life and our soul without God

• WORLD that is opposed to the KINGDOM OF GOD

• SIGNS of THE KINGDOM : 

  • Salvation/Deliverance

  • Righteousness and Justice

  • Peace

  • Joy

  • God’s Presence 

  • Healing

  • Return from Exile

• SIGNS OF THE WORLD:

  • The self-made person - identity through achievement 

  • Accomplishment and wealth 

  • Victory 

  • Pleasure 

  • Self-sufficiency and power

  • Cost of doing business - degradation, disease, pollution  

  • Looking out for yourself and your group only

• How can we be helped in the midst of this resistance?

• A share in the Life of God through the Holy Spirit.

• Listen 

• “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. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.” – John 15 v 26-27

• No Matter how loudly it insists otherwise, the world cannot change that love is better than selfishness in bringing life and life to the full

• No Matter how loudly it insists otherwise, the world cannot change that violence is not the way to peace 

• No Matter how loudly it insists otherwise, the world cannot change greed and getting more and more doesn't satisfy the soul

• No Matter how loudly it insists otherwise, the world cannot change that power doesn’t make you secure 

• No Matter how loudly it insists otherwise, the world cannot change that indigence, lust or workaholism doesn’t bring joy 

• The Spirit will show the difference between sin and true life

• The Spirit will show there are spiritual realities we cannot change

• WHY IT IS WORTH IT? - to deal with this resistance

  • Our present is lived in friendship with Jesus - His spirit testifies with our spirit 

  • We can endure in the way of Jesus - die to the way of the world 

  • Our future is united with Jesus 

---

November 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 Texts: John 15: 9-17

“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. This is my command: Love each other.

---

Themes

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

• Joy Complete – God wants your joy to be complete and Jesus is showing the way.

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Read the text slowly and contemplatively, then share what stood out to you. 

  • What surprises you when you read this text?

  • How does this commandment compare to what you were taught is most important for faith? 

• There are 7 staggering things Jesus says to them.

  • YOU ARE LOVED - as the Father has loved Me, so I have loved you 

  • REMAIN IN MY LOVE

  • THIS REVELATION IS MEANT FOR JOY

  • YOU ARE MY FRIENDS - I am telling you what I am up to

  • I CHOSE YOU

  • YOU HAVE FRUIT TO BEAR

  • I WILL HELP YOU

• YOU ARE LOVED - as the Father has loved Me, so I have loved you 

  • “The Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit existing eternally as one divine essence shows us how God can be the love which no greater can be thought: an interpersonal love that comes from God and is directed toward God, fruitfully freed of all selfishness, eternally generative of still more love. The God who is not a “thing”, but an activity. The Father is the loving of the Son, and the Son is the returning of love to the Father, and from this mutuality of love the loving that is the Holy Spirit is breathed out.” – Frederick Bauerschmidt

• REMAIN IN MY LOVE

  • There are ways to live that make you forget God's love 

    • What ways do you live, that makes you forget God’s love? 

  • There are ways to live that keep you remaining in God's love 

    • In what ways can you live to remember gods love?

• THIS REVELATION IS MEANT FOR JOY

  • ‘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.” – John 15 v 11-12

  • How dows it feel that God’s intent with His commandments and direction is meant for our joy? 

• YOU ARE MY FRIENDS - I am telling you what I am up to

  • “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.”  – John 15 v 14-15

  • We know He isn’t saying if you keep enough of My commands you can be My friends. 

    • He is saying WE ARE FRIENDS and a key way that is expressed in joining this way of LOVE!! - living this JESUS WAY

  • “The gift-like character of God's friendship with us helps us understand why Jesus was so unconcerned about the perils of befriending sinners and outcasts, so unconcerned about the 'contagion' of sin. The love that is God is present so perfectly, so abundantly in the person of Jesus that his goodness cannot be diminished by contact with fallible and failed human beings. Because God's love is not drawn to our goodness but creates our goodness, because it is active and not reactive, the Spirit can transform God's enemies into God's friends.” – Frederick Bauerschmidt

  • How does friendship with God adjust how you can go about your everyday relationships and responsibilities? 

• I CHOSE 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.” – John 15 v 16-17

  • How does being chosen affect your understanding of your identity? 

• YOU HAVE FRUIT TO BEAR

  • Fruit of the Spirit in your ever-forming character  - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control 

  • Fruit in your relationships - forgiveness and mercy and peace and generosity and creativity and love 

  • Fruit in the gospel - salvation, healing life and light, wholeness, freedom , JOY JOY JOY 

  • Is bearing fruit a burden for you or do you experience it naturally? 

• I WILL HELP YOU

  • “whatever you ask in My name the Father will give you. This is My command: Love each other.”  – John 15 v 16-17

  • JESUS’ WHOLE LIFE IS PRAYER…

  • “[JESUS’] whole life is a prayer because it is the expression in time of the eternal conversation of love that is the life of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the stillness of eternity, God the Father speaks the Son as His Word, and as the Son responds in love, the Spirit is breathed forth. Through friendship with Jesus in the Spirit, we have become part of that eternal dialogue of love.

    – Frederick Bauerschmidt

---

October 29: 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 Texts: John 15: 1-9

“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.

---

Themes

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

• Joy Complete – God wants your joy to be complete and Jesus is showing the way.

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Read the text slowly and contemplatively, then share what stood out to you. 

• “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 v 1-6

• The picture is unmistakeable.

  I am your source.

  Your life comes in connection to me

  There is no spiritual life outside of this union

  As my life and power flow in your life, you will produce fruit (the things of God will show up in your life)

  Remember what he just said about the Holy Spirit.

• THE LIFE OF GOD IN THE SOUL OF A PERSON

• You must live by this connection, by this union, by this friendship, by this trust.

  • Without it nothing of God’s Kingdom will come.

  • God is utterly determined to work through relationship

• What do you think and feel when you hear that God wants to prune you?

• What form do you think that pruning usually takes? 

• Gardener and Pruning

  • Often a vine will grow in too many directions, or begin growing inward in places, or at  times produce too many smaller, less vibrant grapes.

  • Don’t be surprised by this pruning, by this ongoing cleanining, nourishing, realigning, cutting away what is dead or dying so new life can

  • But it’s a cut to refocus, to direct from inwardness, to forgo smaller immature clusters so the rich full fruit of the vines potential can be produced.

• He prunes so it will be even more fruitful. This is a work of love.

• It is for the sake of love and flourishing

  • What has God pruned in your life? 

  • How did you respond to that pruning? 

  • What was the result of that pruning?

  • What is this fruit the pruning is supposed to produce?

• The signs of the Kingdom from Israel’s prophets….

  • Salvation/Deliverance

  • Righteousness and Justice

  • Peace

  • Joy

  • God’s Presence 

  • Healing

  • Return from Exile

• Character Fruit -  the best list for this is the fruit of the spirit….

  • “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 v 22-23

• Relationship Fruit - forgiveness, hospitality, peacemaking, justice doing, generosity 

• Spiritual Fruit - salvation, obedience, the fruit of repentance, healing, God’s presence 

• “Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are halfhearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” – C.S. LEWIS - The Weight of Glory

• ABIDE: 

  • How do you grow your friendship with God?

  • Abide everyday - it is the most important opportunity available to you.

  • God loves to be in union with you

  • God longs for the fruit of abundant life to grow in your life

  • Pruning is part of that

  • Abiding is how we nurture that healthy connection

---

October 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.

---

Love

Teaching Texts: John 14: 15-31

“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.”

Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”

Jesus replied, “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. 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.

“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 troubledand do not be afraid.

“You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me, but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me.

“Come now; let us leave.

---

Themes

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

• Joy Complete – God wants your joy to be complete and Jesus is showing the way.

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• What kind of peace does the world offer us? 

• What shape does it take? 

  • Peace when you win 

  • Peace when you are on top

  • Peace when you have crushed the other into submission 

  • Peace when your circumstances all take a turn for the better

• What about God’s peace? 

• In first-century Israel, among the Jewish men and women there was a compelling question…

  WHAT WILL THE WORLD BE LIKE? when Messiah arrives. 

  They had expectations:

  • Rome will be pushed back

  • We will step into our promise and our place

  • There will be victory and peace and self-determination 

• Jesus shows up and begins making these Messiah claims, sometimes quite obscurely, but He keeps asking now that Messiah has arrived – WHAT WILL YOU BE LIKE?

• Many are asking what will the world be like when God sends the Messiah (Jesus’ disciples among them - there’s an obsession with this certain groups of American Christianity even now) 

• God is asking what will you be like now that I’ve sent the Messiah?

• We ask what will the world be like when God shows up?

• God asks What will you be like when God shows up?

  BECAUSE YOU WILL MAKE THE WORLD

• God says “I already made the world, what will you make the world?”

• One of the ways you bear the image of God is the ability to make worlds - to make spaces what they are, to make times what they are, to fill up voids with creation, where there is nothing, to make something, where there is something to to take that and make something out of it.

  • Your interior life

  • Your actual habits

  • Your apartment 

  • Your family 

• THERE ARE PLACES YOU HAVE DOMINION IN THE WORLD. WHAT WILL YOU BE LIKE?

• AGAIN THE CONTEXT IS JESUS’ LAST EXTENDED HOURS TALKING WITH HIS FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS WHO WILL CARRY THIS MOVEMENT FORWARD

  The last time he will teach them before going to the Cross. Often called the farewell discourse.

• IF YOU LOVE ME → KEEP MY COMMANDS

• How do you feel hearing these words? 

• How does your heart respond to such a statement? 

• This is pretty hard for us on first blush.

• We do not want to think at first of our love relationships being contingent on keeping commands.

  But we cannot flip it around. We know from the whole story He isn’t saying, IF YOU DON’T KEEP MY COMMANDS I WONT LOVE YOU.

• We have so many examples of Jesus showing love even to those who had no interest in hearing or doing what He said.

• JESUS SAYS IF YOU LOVE ME…

  • It is not simply feeling nice feelings towards me (though our affections matter) 

  • It is not gathering weekly to sing songs (though worship matters), 

  • It is living the life I have shown you and given you.

• JESUS IS SAYING IF YOU LOVE ME, TRUST MY LOVE ENOUGH TO FOLLOW MY WAY OF LIFE

• SO THEN ALSO A SUPER IMPORTANT QUESTION IS - What does Jesus command?

• The best summary is in Matthew 22:

  Love the Lord with all you heart soul mind and strength

  Love your neighbor as yourself

• HOW?

  • Live in conversation with me

  • Live by the Holy Spirit

• THE PROMISE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

• Read John 14

  • “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.” – John 14 v 25-27

• What does the Spirit do? 

• How can this encourage you today? 

• “All the main themes of the gospel so far are now revealed for what they are: truths about the inner life of the father and son, truths which turn to fire and love and invite us to warm ourselves within their inmost circle.” – NT WRIGHT

• Judas asked a key question: 

  • “Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?” – John 14 v 22

• Jesus answers: 

  • “Jesus replied, “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.”  – John 14 v 23-24

• This stretches back to the first motivations of creation and the last hopes of redemption 

  • THAT GOD WOULD MAKE HIS HOME WITH US

• God’s peace

  • Peace that can hold up when you have just been betrayed, when you are being denied, when you are falsely accused

  • Peace that might be able to pass through death and return 

  • Peace that is beyond human understanding 

  • Peace that is like the shalom of being united to the inner life of God and radiant love that is at the center of the Trinity.

---

October 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.

---

Love

Teaching Texts: John 14: 1-14

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 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.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority.Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

---

Themes

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

• Joy Complete

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• God wants your joy to be complete and Jesus is showing us The Way.

• What do you think about Jesus’ conversation with His friends at the end of His life? 

• What do you notice about what Jesus gives His attention to? 

• What surprises you? 

• “You don’t have to let your heart be troubled.”

• For many of us this is the real crucible of belief

• How can I deal with the swirling agonies of my own heart?

• How can I hold on to concrete hope in a world that throws pain in my face everyday?

• How can I know my days are filled with meaning and love?

• How can I speak of one way to life or God in a pluralistic world?

• DO NOT LET YOUR HEARTS BE TROUBLED

• I am, in fact, very grateful that we don just see Jesus in one emotional state throughout His life.

  • He gets angry and flips over tables 

  • He cries

  • His spirit is deeply troubled at times (these hours show us this)

  • He keeps a party going long into the night 

  • He has deep joy and gladness

• So what is He saying to His friends (the disciples) here?

  • I don’t think He is saying never feel emotional turmoil in a broken world. 

  • I THINK HE IS SAYING – DON’T LET YOUR HEARTS MAKE TROUBLE THEIR HOME

    • Don’t stay there til you sink 

    • Don’t forget hope 

    • Don’t become defined only by your pain or the pain of the world

• WHY NOT?

• UNION WITH ME…

  • YOUR PLACE IS SECURE

  • THERE IS SO MUCH GOOD FOR YOU TO JOIN IN 

• Remember, Jesus is on the way to the Cross. 

  • In just a few hours he is going to be arrested in the garden where he loved to pray 

  • His friends are going to scatter 

  • He will go through a trumped up trial, a brutal humiliating beating, and torturous death 

• And He chooses to do this with His time. 

• He moves to comfort them.

• You an learn a lot by questions one asks. 

• What questions do you have for God right now? 

• What longings, hopes, hurts, etc. do those questions point to?

• Jesus response: 

  • First, YOUR PLACE IS SECURE…

    “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 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.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” – John 14 v 1-7

• Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” 

• The disciples are often trying to help Jesus make more sense …. But Jesus says I AM THE WAY

• I am not giving you a disembodied religious pathway to walk and I’ll meet you at the end of your life in heaven.

  HE IS SAYING THE WAY IS RELATIONSHIP WITH ME

• How is your peace in turmoil? 

• How is your walk/closeness and understanding of Jesus your friend? 

• GOD SAYS I WANT TO LIVE WITH YOU and your worst failures. I am there to say Father forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing 

  THE KEY TO THE IMPOSSIBLE IS THIS FRIENDSHIP WITH JESUS.

• BUT ALSO YOU ARE GOING TO DO THE JESUS STUFF

  • “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”  – John 14 v 12-14

• You will do what Jesus does

• You will do even greater things

• This will be sustained and supported in prayer - talking friendship 

• Jesus’ invitation to His friends in the midst of turmoil is a place of peace (connected to Him) and a mission of love to be used in the midst of the chaos. Sometimes in spite of your chaos. 

• “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask Me for anything in My Name, and I will do it.” 

• What does it mean to pray in the name of Jesus? 

• What does this mean for us?

• Where do you need Him to meet you with peace? 

• Where can you be a Kingdom influence in your world?

---

October 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.

---

Love

Teaching Texts: John 13: 18-38

“I am not referring to all of you; I know those I have chosen. But this is to fulfill this passage of Scripture: ‘He who shared my bread has turned against me.’

“I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am who I am. Very truly I tell you, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me.”

After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, “Very truly I tell you, one of you is going to betray me.”

His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant.One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, “Ask him which one he means.”

Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?”

Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.

So Jesus told him, “What you are about to do, do quickly.” But no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him. Since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the festival, or to give something to the poor. As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night.

When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.

“My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Simon Peter asked him, “Lord, where are you going?”

Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.”

Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”

Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!

---

Themes

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

• Joy Complete

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• God wants your joy to be complete and Jesus is showing us The Way.

• In John 13, Jesus is eating in the room with His friends. 

  For 3 years, Jesus has walked with these friends. He called them to join Him out of their lives, to join in the Kingdom of God coming on earth as it is in heaven.

• Now Jesus is saying one of them is going to betray Him.

• Think about what Jesus is facing here.

  • Betrayal from a close friend 

  • He is very troubled in spirit 

  • It was night - He knows what the night holds

  • Failure of His comforters - you will deny me 3 times

• “It was night” is an amazing detail just dropped in there. 

  Recall the dark night of the soul moments of your life. 

  • Recall a moment of were you betrayed? Or,

  • When were you extremely troubled in your spirit? 

• We don’t have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weakness. We have One who has been through what we have been through.

  • That hospital waiting room

  • That night of anxiety 

  • That break-up

  • The stress of ‘will the money come through’ 

  • Feeling alone when you thought you were loved 

  • Not knowing how on earth you will ever feel better

  • Jealous, betrayed, unfulfilled, whatever it is.

• “I am not referring to all of you; I know those I have chosen. But this is to fulfill this passage of Scripture: ‘He who shared my bread has turned r against me.’ “I am telling you now before it happens so that when it does happen you will believe that I am who I am. – John 13: 18-19

• These moments will happen. 

• When we hear I am who I am - memory bells should be ringing.

• The Exodus accounts of God revealing Himself

• Yahweh, who made the bush burn

  Yahweh, who confronted each of Egypt gods with powerful plagues 

  Yahweh, who parted the Red Sea

  Yahweh, who shook the mountain 

  Yahweh, who knew Moses could only stand to see his shoulder blade

  I AM WHO I AM 

• We need a God powerful enough to shake the mountain and split the sea. 

  But just as much we need a God who can sit with us in pain.

  We need a God of fire and a God of unseen tears

  Jesus shows us we have both!

  • Recall a moment God showed up in a time of need. 

• “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.” – John 13: 34-35

  • How does this differ from the hallmark of the Jesus people in our day and context? 

• We are called to undoing the pain and hostility of these conflicted moments in our lives by responding in love. 

• Do you care for the purity of your own heart and life and not the condition of others? 

• Do you care about your own joy but not the other? 

• The path to my joy is the way of love for others. 

  • Whatever you have been through, Jesus has been there and is with you

  • You can follow in His way of love then.

• Jesus’ vision for healing the world is love

  By this, they will know you are My disciples 

  Follow Me in the way of love

---

October 1: 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 Texts: John 13: 1-17

It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God;so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

“No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

“Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

---

Themes

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

• Joy Complete

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• God wants your joy to be complete and Jesus is showing us The Way

  • Look at how Jesus understands His identity

  • “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. “ – John 13 v 3-5

• He takes up the job reserved for the lowest servant 

• He moves to the humble place. He takes the job no one wants to do.

• He washes the real-life grime out from between the toes of His friends.

  • What are some irrefutable truths of your identity?

  • How could understanding our identity affect how we respond to those we love? Or those we are called to serve? Or even our enemies? 

• Later in these upcoming hours, He is going to say multiple times I want you to have My Joy. I want your joy to be complete.

• One of the secrets of Joy that God knows and we are invited to learn is that power is for service, the truly happy life is one of service and love …

  • What are the paths to joy that you recognize the world around you offers?

• Jesus is showing us the shocking truth of how God uses power. To serve.

• “He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

  Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

  “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

  Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

  “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

  Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.” – John 13 v 6-11

• Peter shows us a bunch of reasonable responses that all miss the Kingdom of God

  • You are the King, you shouldn’t wash my feet - Peter is seen several times trying to talk Jesus out of taking the low road of humility 

  • I am not worthy of this act - it is easy for us to let our sins and failures swell so we imagine them larger than God’s mercy 

  • OK fine but the rest of of me also needs this - we struggle to receive. We struggle to believe that God can make us clean without us directing the process.

    • thank you for you sentiment, let me show you how to fix me

• We want to control God and how God is seen 

• We want to control our lives and how we are seen 

• We imagine our current mood or feeling is the truest thing about us 

  • What are some reasonable responses you can recognize in your life that also might miss what God intends in His kingdom? 

  • What areas do you desire to control how you are perceived? 

  • What areas do you try to control how God is perceived?

• “When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them.  “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” – John 13 v 12-17

• But we aren’t blessed if we understand that concept.

  We are blessed if we do this.

• Our world says power is having the upward mobility to never have to do the inconvenient things, thats the dream 

• God is showing us when you are truly secure and full of love you can serve others.

• To be like Jesus is to grow in the ease and spontaneity with which we do the little, annoying, messy things, the things we always secretly hope someone else will do so we won’t have to waste our time, to demean ourselves.

• It is a pattern we can follow - it shows us the way of Love

• Learn the mysterious God-type Joy of love expressed in service

  • The world’s vision of power is so much more alluring in the surface, but once you get into it, you realize it is empty 

• The apostle Paul shows us the pattern in his letter to the Philippians

  • “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 

    In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

    Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 

    rather, He made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 

    And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross! 

    Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the Name that is above every name, 

    that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 

    and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” – Philippians 2 v 3-11

• Jesus trusted His identity and future to the Father so He was able to take the nature of a servant

  And God exalted Him 

• Can you trust God that way?

---

June 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 Texts: 1 Peter 2: 4-6

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by Godand precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says:

“See, I lay a stone in Zion,
    a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
    will never be put to shame.”

---

Themes

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

• Spirit-empowered

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Think of a conversation that you had that changed your life. 

• Share this with your group. 

• John 3: 1-8

• This is a pivotal conversation for how we understand salvation

  • Being united to God through Jesus 

  • Being forgiven for our sins - anything that would separate us 

  • Being filled with the life of God 

• “We are not begotten by God, we are only made by Him: in our natural state we are not sons of God, only (so to speak) statues. We have not got Zoe or spiritual life: only Bios or biological life which is presently going to run down and die. Now the whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share in the life of Christ. If we do, we shall then be sharing a life which was begotten, not made, which always has existed and always will exist. Christ is the Son of God. If we share in this kind of life we also shall be sons of God. We shall love the Father as He does and the Holy Ghost will arise in us. He came to this world and became a man to spread to other men the kind of life He has…Every Christian is to become a little Christ.” – C.S. Lewis

• We are to be Little Christs built together into a spiritual house.

• What is this spiritual house like?

  • A house of peace

  • A house of priests 

  • A house of gifts

  • A house of compassion

  • A house of presence

• A house of peace - God has given His life - the living stone - rejected by men and chosen by God to bring us to a place of peace (Ephesians 2 v 12-18)

  • So the question is, are we living that experience of PEACE WITH GOD which is your spiritual inheritance? 

  • Is there a disconnect between your positional  peace, received through Jesus, and the experiential peace in your life? 

• A house of priests

  • You are being built into a spiritual house; to be a holy priesthood

  • What do priests do? 

    • Help people remember and connect with the presence of God.

    • Hears confession - to be those who really listen to those around us

      • Really, listening seems to be something of a lost art in the internet age

      • To be those who can receive and enter into other people’s stories

    • Communicates mercy

      • To say there is forgiveness available

      • To say the heart of Christianity is a man dying for His enemies

    • Intercession

      • To be those who pray fervently for the needs of those around us

      • Who stands in the gap

    • Speaking God’s Word

      • Encouraging and building each other up

      • Remembering that God’s words and promises will not fail

• A house of gifts

  • We are given a picture in the New Testament of a people equipped to love in the way of Jesus by the power and gifting of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12 v 4-13)

• A house of compassion (Romans 12 v 9-18)

  • How do you react when someone gets a win in their life?

  • How do you feel when you see the pain of another?

  • Jesus was moved by compassion - it stirred Him at the center of His being 

• A house of presence

  • There is a beautiful picture in 1 Corinthians 14

  • When people are living as a house of peace, walking in their gifts, moved by compassion.

  • When people are speaking God’s words - as the priesthood of all believers

  • Someone would come in from the outside and say – SURELY GOD IS AMONG YOU

• What parts of a spiritual house do you feel is not as it is intended to be in your life?

• Do you need peace with God?

• Do you long for the distinguishing part of your life to be that God is with you? 

• Do you need to know or begin to live in your Spiritual Gifts?

---

June 11: 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 Texts: Genesis 1: 1-5

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

Genesis 2: 1-25

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground,but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
    for she was taken out of man.”

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Ephesians 2:10

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

---

Themes

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

• Spirit-empowered Work

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Describe the best day you have had at work in the last month. 

• What word would you use to describe how you feel about your job?

• “How can anyone remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of his life?” – Dorothy Sayers

• Your work matters

  • It is not at all that God mostly cares about when you pray or read the Scriptures or attend small group or serve in some obviously charitable way. 

  • God cares deeply about what you do with your energy, and creativity, and time. What you make with your hands or dream up with you mind or lead with your heart 

  • It is no small thing that in Jesus the Word become Flesh and dwelt among us and half His life worked as a carpenter or stone mason in relative obscurity.

• Your journey through life going to present you with some really important questions.

• Potentially none bigger than these three:

  • What will you worship?

  • Who will you love?

  • What will you make? Or do with your time?

• “Tell me, what is it you plan to do

  with your one wild and precious life?” – Mary Oliver

• In Genesis, God shows up on the scene bringing order out of chaos, then we see God pushing back the darkness by the Spirit

• This is part of your calling as well. 

  • And it’s true if you are working your dream job in a fully resonant sense of vocation 

  • Or you are doing work you despise at the moment - waiting for something else 

  • Or anything in between 

• God invites you, God created you to join in 

  • Bringing order out of chaos and pushing back the darkness 

• The Genesis text say there was work to do:

  • Cultivation 

  • Exploration 

  • Bringing order - naming the animals 

  • Some aspects of ruling or dominion 

• “[Human beings] “cultural mandate” - the call to rule, fill, and transform the earth - was established before the Fall and exists independently of our need for redemption. God clearly had an initial basic plan for the development of the newly created earth, which includes human beings cultural involvement.”  – David Bruce Hegeman

• “Humans are called to work the earth in order to uncover the rich potentialities “hidden” as it were, beneath the earths surface. On the most basic, agricultural level, mankind cuts into the earth and sows seed, which grows up into plants, which, when carefully tended, yield fruit in the appointed seasons. Dig deeper and the earth will yield still more riches; precious stones and gold; ore which can be melted to make metals; and basic chemical raw materials which can be synthesized into pigments and dies for artwork, fertilizers to increase crop yields, or rocket fuel to explore God’s vast universe. Other parts of the creation can be transformed as well. Wood can be fashioned into flutes for the praise of God or timbers for buildings, stones can be dressed and fitted into walls etc.” – David Bruce Hegeman, Plowing in Hope

• RULE - FILL - WORK - PRESERVE

  • Rule - have dominion, bring order, make peace, organize for thriving, this isn’t about using power to manipulate

    • Recovered dominion is a big part of what Jesus has done for us in the Gospel

  • Fill - Be fruitful. This call is for the us as a people but also to fill the world with songs and homes and meals and enterprises for good and on and on 

  • Work - make, create, innovate, clean, repair, edit, build, teach, dream, write

    • Build a cabinet, repair an eye, make as latte, craft a lesson plan, make a pitch deck

    • Comfort a mother in labor, coach a team, make something beautiful

    • Sweep a floor, sell a house, argue a case, set a menu 

    • We are made to work

  • Preserve - protect, guard, recycle, tend, manage resources with love

• God has accomplished creation.

• Jesus has accomplished our salvation.

• “Now that you dont have to be perfect , you can be good.”  – John Steinbeck, East of Eden 

• Where can you bring order to chaos? 

  • Think small

  • Think medium 

  • Think big 

• Where can you push back darkness?

  • Give vision, give light, give hope

• Glorify God - represent God in true ways (even if incomplete)

  • RULE - FILL - WORK - PRESERVE

• Here are some questions:

  • What is wrong? Confront and stop

  • What is missing? Create and catalyze.

    • Changes what is possible in a place.

  • What is good? Celebrate and cultivate

    • Enjoy. Share. Spend. Watch. Reward.

  • What is confusing? Clarify and compel.

• “It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. This is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.”  – Oscar Romero, priest in El Salvador

• Pray over our endeavors

  • Work challenges Confusion or Opportunities 

  • Pray for each other

---

June 4: 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: 42-47

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 numberdaily those who were being saved.

---

Themes

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

• Pentecost

---

Formation 

For group discussion:

• Which forces shape your life the most in your present moment? 

• What do you think changes in someone's life when they become a follower of Jesus?
  

For reflection:

• What do you do the day after your life changes?

• Our life often changes in two ways.

  • Breakthroughs and habits

• Significant moments like:

  • We meet God in Salvation

  • We experience a shame freeing experience of love or forgiveness

  • God shows us how seen and known and loved we are

  • You have a new insight into God's character

  • You come to the absolute end of a thought or behavior thats been sapping your life and you cry our for help and God meets you

  • Maybe the Spirit leads you to a new place of surrender of obedience

• And now you have to decide how you are going to live - especially after the adrenaline or emotion or immediate challenge has passed.

• How will you shape your time?

• What will fill up your thinking?

• What will relationships look like?

• How will you do mornings?

• What will the rhythms of you week be?

• What will be non-negotiable a part of your life?

• A way to ask this is what you will be devoted to?

• What changes in me can be put into three categories:

  • Identity: WHO YOU ARE - known, loved, forgiven, adopted in the family of God, filled with the Spirit, qualified to share in the inheritance of the saints

  • Desires: WHAT YOU WANT - God’s Word, God’s presence, Expressions of the Kingdom of God, people to experience God’s love, to use my gifts and talents to reflect God and do good, to lift others up, etc

  • Rhythms: HOW YOU LIVE - how I spend my time, my energy, my attention, my money, how my actual days go, what my habits are

• But it’s not just automatic:

  • ​​What if you have a moment or season of forgetting or losing who you are?

  • What if your desires are primarily shaped by our moment in American culture, advertisements, social media, or just selfishness?

  • What if your life doesn’t match who you say you are or what you want most?

• This passage at the end of Acts 2 is an incredible guide….

  • Their lives changed in a radical moment

• What were they devoted to?

• We are told of 4 things they were devoted to the Rhythm of their life.

  • The Apostle’s Teaching

  • Fellowship 

  • Breaking of Bread

  • Prayer

• Apostles teaching – instead of just being shaped by their wider culture they were forms by God’s Word to the 

• The Fellowship – instead of remaining isolated and going it on their own or using the world’s criteria for evaluation, they joined in this new shared life.

• Breaking of bread – In being devoted to the meal, they were devoted to keeping Jesus and the message of the Gospel at the center of their shared lives.

• Prayer – as you learn to pray, you will learn to enjoy God

  • Start praying in the simplest ways.

    • Begin and end your day 

    • Make spaces where you pray 

    • Practice venting as you go

    • Normalize praying together 

    • Don’t despise small beginnings

    • Prayer changes lives

• “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

• The most incredible things flow out of a life of devotion to the things of the Holy Spirit

---

May 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: 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:

• Pentecost

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• How would you describe your experience of the Holy Spirit?

• What about the Holy Spirit is confusing for you? 

• What about the Holy Spirit is intriguing to you? 

• During the Pentecost season we will look at: 

  • What does the Holy Spirit do?

  • When God is ministering to us by the Holy Spirit what should we expect?

  • Exactly what is most needed (This is not always what is most expected)

• The Holy Spirit does exactly what is needed to bring the reality of God's life to bear on a person, place, or situation.

  • Sometimes its gifts, words, power, encouragement, truth, conviction comfort. 

• The Holy Spirit lifts up and points to Jesus. The Holy Spirit makes the ministry of Jesus visible in a place.

• In Acts 2 the Holy Spirit comes as fire and wind

  • Because they needed to be reminded that that’s just like the temple dedication in Exodus (confirming this is the new temple)

  • They needed unified language - to reverse the division and scattered nature of human beings

  • That’s what Jesus does and that’s what the Spirit was doing for these people in this moment

• Pentecost

  • “For a first-century Jew, Pentecost was the fiftieth day after Passover. It was an agricultural festival. It was the day when farmers brought the first sheaf of wheat from the crop, and offered it to God, partly as a sign of gratitude and partly as a prayer that all the rest of the crop, too, would be safely gathered in.” – NT WRIGHT

  • “Passover was the time when the lambs were sacrificed, and the Israelites were saved from the avenging angel who slew the firstborn of the Egyptians. Off went the Israelites that very night, and passed through the Red Sea into the Sinai desert. Then, 50 days after Passover, they came to Mount Sinai, where Moses received the law. Pentecost, the fiftieth day, isn’t (in other words) just about the ‘first fruits’, the sheaf which says the harvest has begun. It’s about God giving to his redeemed people the way of life by which they must now carry out His purposes.” – NT WRIGHT

• Jesus said: “you will receive power”

  • What do you think the power is that Jesus wants to give us? 

• We often are led through experience and history to think of the dangers of power or the corruption it can bring…

• But what would it mean for us to receive power from God?

  • “Power is the ability to make something of the world ... Power is simply (and not so simply) the ability to participate in the stuff making, sense making process that is the most distinctive thing that humans do.

    Power in the broadest sense of making something of the world, is a universal quality of life from coral reefs to cellists. But only human beings, as far as we can tell, exercise power in the second sense [of not just] make stuff but making sense. It is the unique power of human beings to invest our creations with meaning, to interpret the world rather than just blunder through it. As singular as our human power has become to physically reshape the world into gardens and cities, dammed rivers and mushroom clouds, even more singular is our ability to pass on meaning to the next generation, to shape their horizons of possibility with interpretations of not just what the world is, but what it is for.” – Andy Crouch

• We are made in the image of our powerful God to participate in making and making meaning.

  • “The whole point is that, through the Spirit, some of the creative power of God Himself comes from heaven to earth and does its work there. The aim is not to give people a ‘spirituality’ which will make the things of earth irrelevant. The point is to transform earth with the power of Heaven, starting with those parts of ‘earth’ which consist of the bodies, minds, hearts and lives of the followers of Jesus—as a community” – NT WRIGHT

• The Holy Spirit brings exactly what is most needed for expressing the life and kingdom of God.

• The Holy Spirit brings the power to have God’s kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven.

• Power on Pentecost manifests largely as a power to speak 

  • What is needed in order to make sense of the moment 

  • AND make sense of life and the invitation of union with God. 

  • It also shows up as the power to revel in that union and respond to that message

• What does the Holy Spirit say through Peter?

  • God has always intended to fill our lives

  • You can have a full share in Jesus’ resurrection

  • Here is how to have both - How you can get in on both

    • Repent

    • Be baptized in the name of Jesus

    • Receive the gift

• The Ministry of the Holy Spirit

  • Engage our senses in the reality of God’s presence - Acts 2

  • ‘Advocate to help and be with you forever - the Spirit of Truth’ -John 14

  • 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. - John 14

  • “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. And you also must testify, for you have been with Me from the beginning. - John 15

  • But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. When He comes, He will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in Me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see Me no longer; and about judgment, because the Prince of this world now stands condemned. - John 16

  • He will glorify Me because it is from Me that He will receive what He will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is Mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from Me what He will make known to you.” - John 16

  • Soften and renew our hearts - Ezekiel 36

  • Bring the prophetic Word of God to His people from all categories of people -Joel 2

• Love us as God loves us:

  • Advocate

  • Apply God’s love and Gospel

  • Exalt Jesus

  • Empower love

  • Convict when we’ve gone wrong

  • Gift

  • Unify

• “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.” 

• They repent 

• They believe 

• They receive 

• This is our pattern as well…

  • Commit to reorder your life around Jesus 

  • Trust His life for forgiveness and freedom 

  • Receive the life the Holy Spirit gives

---

May 21: 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 1: 1-11

In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 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. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria,and to the ends of the earth.”

After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

---

Themes

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

• Ascension

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Can you think of a time in your life when waiting was excruciating? 

• Share this with the group. 

• How good would you say you are at waiting patiently? 

• Luke begins the sequel to his first book with these words…

  “In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.” – Acts 1

• Luke starts Dear Theo

• Acts is the continuation of Jesus’ ministry

• Luke is attempting to lay out an honest and orderly account of Jesus and His movement so that Theophilus can know the truth of it all.

• And His resurrection changed everything for them and He showed them that the Kingdom of God was coming on earth as it is in Heaven!

• Now Jesus is leaving.

• Advent and Christmas we get  - We celebrate the Incarnation - that God would come and live among us in the person of Jesus - Immanuel - We have Advent and Christmas

• Holy Week and Easter - we throw a party -  we celebrate the power of the Cross and Resurrection - that Jesus has died and on our behalf taken all of our sin on himself and then having dealt with sin and death has risen to new life - we have Holy Week and Easter 

• But Ascension Sunday???  we certainly have no similar culture-wide celebration for and can often be easily overlooked even by those who are followers of Jesus

• The could be many reasons for this…

  1. The incarnation powerfully communicates God’s nearness, revelation, and love, that our pains and joys are known by God

  2. The cross and resurrection powerfully show God’s love and make possible salvation for us and the world. That death is not the end 

  3. The ascension however is a moment where Jesus becomes absent and where we are reminded of the unfamiliarity of God

• But consider what we see in this moment of Jesus’ disappearance …

  • 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. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”  Then they gathered around Him and asked Him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” 

    He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” After He said this, He was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid Him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as He was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 1“Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”  – Acts 1 v 4-11

• Wait for the gift

• There are times when then most important thing you can do is WAIT.

• Jesus is leaving in physical form because JESUS IS GOING TO ARRIVE in THE HOLY SPIRIT 

• How should we begin this mission of God… a world changing initiative? 

  • WAIT

• There are some echoes of the first sabbath here…

• We work from rest. We don’t work to rest. 

• Jesus mission for them to join is to bring redemption, salvation, forgiveness and new life to ends of the earth 

• And they being by waiting in prayer

• What do we know of what God the Father is doing - making promises, setting time and dates by His own authority, King of the Kingdom

• What do we know of what God the Son is doing? He suffered and died, He rose, He ate with them, He instructed them

• What do we know of what God the Spirit is doing? - how Jesus gave instructions, the promised gift, the oOe who will baptize them, the One who will give the power to accomplish Jesus mission 

• The Holy Spirit will accomplish the mission of Jesus in communion with all people all through the book of Acts

• So they wait for the Holy Spirit 

  • “You will receive power and you will be my witnesses.”

• Where in your life do you need the Holy Spirit to help you be a better display of the character of Jesus? 

• “They believed that ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’ are the two interlocking spheres of God’s reality, and that the risen body of Jesus is the first (and so far the only) object which is fully at home in both and hence in either, anticipating the time when everything will be renewed and joined together. And so, since as T. S. Eliot said, ‘humankind cannot bear very much reality’, the new, overwhelming reality of a heaven-and-earth creature will not just yet live in both dimensions together, but will make itself—himself—at home within the ‘heavenly’ dimension for the moment, until the time comes for heaven and earth to be finally renewed and united.”  – NT Wright

• “That is the point of the event, and its explanation. Jesus is ‘lifted up’, indicating to the disciples not that he was heading out somewhere beyond the moon, beyond Mars, or wherever, but that he was going into ‘God’s space’, God’s dimension. The cloud, as so often in the Bible, is the sign of God’s presence (think of the pillar of cloud and fire as the children of Israel wandered through the desert, or the cloud and smoke that filled the Temple when God became suddenly present in a new way). Jesus has gone into God’s dimension of reality; but he’ll be back on the day when that dimension and our present one are brought together once and for all. That promise hangs in the air over the whole of Christian history from that day to this. That is what we mean by the ‘second coming’.” – NT Wright

• He is our High Priest and He intercedes for us

• We have a praying Savior and We are a praying church 

• Pray for His Kingdom in your life, your family, your neighborhood, city, and world.  

• The way to be good at waiting is to wait and pray.

---

May 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: Matthew 28: 16-20

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

---

Themes

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

• The Great Commission

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• In AD 25, nobody outside a small town in Galilee had heard of Jesus

  By AD 50, there were riots in Rome because of Him

  By AD 65, His followers were being persecuted by the Emperor himself

  By AD 300, the known world knew of Jesus and the Emperor claimed a faith in Christ

• Some women went back in the middle of the night when no one else would

• Jesus sent them to tell the 11 remaining disciples

• Jesus then told those disciples to GO

• THIS IS DEEP IN THE HEART OF GOD. This is our mission and purpose as the church and as followers of Jesus

• Courageous women were commissioned to be the first to tell the news that Jesus was alive. They did the job and now these Apostles are about to be commissioned.

• GO and TELL

• For some reason God chose to partner with us to tell of His Kingdom.

• “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.” – Matthew 28

• The translation is actually the word “hesitated”

  • “When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted (hesitated).” 

  • I dont think this is “What’s it all about, maybe God isn’t real doubt.”

  • I think this is “OK we are now worshipping this Man who is back from the dead as our God type hesitation.”

• No less human but a different emphasis on the moment.

• This is Israel (the 12 tribes represented - Judas) worshipping their God on the mountain and its JESUS.

• The whole story in some sense has been about worship. What will have your heart and affection and devotion and loyalty and love?

• Anything less than God in the primary place will not do and will warp your soul.

• And now they have the culminating moment….AND THEY WORSHIP THROUGH THE HESITATION 

• And Jesus says “Ok, now give this away. Pass this along…”

• Invite others to know me as FATHER, SON, and HOLY SPIRIT

• SHOW them the way of the Kingdom of God that I have been showing you.

• “Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” – Matthew 28 v 16-20

• What He tells them

  • Go and make disciples of all nations

    • Be intentional to move out into the world looking to invite people into this relational pathway of transformation through love 

    • What’s been done for you, make it available to others - we can start there

    • There is a beautiful diversity here. This is not going to just be people like them 

    • The whole world is included in God’s plan of love and redemption in the Gospel of Jesus 

• How do you make disciples?

  • Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit 

    • First introduce them and let people be immersed in the love of God

• The Father is Holy and Other but loving and calling us

• The Son has come to show us the way and give His life to bring us in 

• The Spirit applies Jesus’ life, death and resurrection to us and empowers us to live Jesus’ life and ministry 

• The Gospel is FORGIVENESS and UNION

  • Teaching them the Way of Jesus 

    • Matthew has given us 5 blocks of Jesus’ teaching - start with the sermon on the mount. Start with the parables. Start with the travels and miracles of Jesus 

    • Together in commmunity with the Gospels as our guide and the Holy Spirit empowering us we are learning the live the way of Jesus in our time.

• What He promises them

  • Jesus promises His Authority 

  • All authority in heaven and on earth has been give to me SO GO

    • What do you think this authority means? 

    • How did Jesus get this authority? 

    • Why does it matter that he tells them(us) this?

• He does not let us do it by ourselves. 

• His power and presence go with this mission of love

  • His authority and His nearness 

• And throughout the ages, this question and invitation comes through to us

• What are you doing with the influence of your life?

• Are you living with the sense of Jesus’ authority and presence?

• To be a disciple is to make disciples

  • Baptize into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit 

  • Teach them to obey what I have commanded you 

    • The apologetic of your life

    • The apologetic of community 

    • The apologetic of language

    • We need to learn with Jesus to live beautifully and to talk beautifully - this doesn't mean our lives are perfect or stylized, but they are real and full of God's love 

Reflection:

1. What can you do to invite others to experience God's love and live the Jesus way? 

2. How can you use your influence to share the Gospel? 

3. Share a moment when you felt God's presence while living out the Great commission

---

May 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: Matthew 28: 11-15

While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

---

Themes

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

• Unbelief → Faith

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Can you imagine having a front row seat for the Resurrection of the Son of God and still missing it?

  • This happens with the guards. 

• What would it take for your to miss the resurrection?

• For these guards, it took keeping their job in the world’s most powerful army, pocketing a huge amount of bribe money, and having their status established and protected 

  • What was the alternative? Try to make sense of a wild experience you had on night guard duty

  • Throw in with some fringe types who were already on the run but who may have a teacher who rose from the dead

• I want us to think about that for a moment

  • Physical needs, status, security - that’s what they trade, a share in the new reality of God breaking into the world for.

• Sin is terribly repetitious - sometimes in America we conceive of the wild rebellious indulgent life as truly free, but the contours of the stories are incredibly repetitive.

• The archetype temptations lead us down the same paths, the same stories, with only slight variations.

  • Sex, money, power

  • Appetite, ambition, approval

  • Consumption, security, status

• The fruit is pleasing to the eye

  Desirable to the body 

  And can make you like god 

• Two versions of life went out from that garden

  • The story of the women who went to embalm their dead friend and instead met him 

  and 

  • The story of the guards who had a lot to lose and got swept up into a pretty shallow cover-up

• Both stories spread.

• Faith does not make things that are not true to become true.

• But faith does allow me access to reality that is not always visible or easy to see. 

• “It cannot be stressed too strongly that first century Jews were not expecting people to rise from the dead as isolated individuals. Resurrection for them was something that might happen for all on that great future occasion when God brought history to an end and a whole new world was renewed. 

  It will not do therefore, to say that Jesus’ disciples were so stunned and shocked by his death, so unable to come to terms with it, that they projected their scattered hopes onto the screen of fantasy and invented the idea of Jesus resurrection as a way of coping with their cruelly broken dream. That has an initial apparent psychological plausibility to 20th century people, but it will not work as serious first century history. 

  There were lots of other messianic and similar movements in the Jewish world, roughly contemporary with Jesus. There were many situations in which a messianic leader died a violent death at the hands of authorities. In not one single case do we see the slightest mention of the disappointed followers claiming that their hero had been raised from the dead. They knew better. 

  In the Jewish worldview an individual could not be resurrected in the middle of history and history just continue going. It was not something that was possible in their worldview. So Jewish revolutionaries whose leaders had been executed by the authorities had only two options, give up the revolution or find another leader. Claiming that your original leader had been resurrected was not an option, unless of course he was.”

  – NT WRIGHT

• These who claimed to have seen Jesus -  before they are cowering in fear, denying they knew Jesus as he was being tried and killed

  • When they are next seen in public they are boldly announcing that Jesus whom you crucified was Messiah and God - not by faith but by sight - that they had seen Him

  • In the next 40 years most of these disciples will be killed for their testimony about Jesus. There difference between faith and being an eye witness

• “I believe those witnesses who get their throats cut”  - Blaise Pascal

• “Don’t be fooled by the idea that modern science has disproved the resurrection of Jesus. Modern science has done no such thing. Everybody in the ancient world, just like everybody in the modern world, knew perfectly well that dead people don’t get resurrected. It didn’t take Copernicus or Newton, or Einstein for that matter, to prove that; just universal observation of universal facts. The Christian belief is not that some people sometimes get raised from the dead, and Jesus happens to be one of them. It is precisely that people don’t ever get raised from the dead, and that something new has happened in and through Jesus which has blown a hole through previous observations. The Christian thus agrees with scientists ancient and modern: yes, dead people don’t rise. But the Christian goes on to say that something new and different has now occurred in the case of Jesus. This isn’t because there was an odd glitch in the cosmos, or something peculiar about Jesus’ biochemistry, but because the God who made the world, and who called Israel to be the bearer of his rescue-operation for the world, was at work in and through Jesus to remake the world. The resurrection was the dramatic launching of this project.” – NT WRIGHT

• But trusting this story is certainly not simply believing in an event two thousand years ago.

  • It is sharing a relationship with this risen Jesus today.

  • If Jesus is risen - it means what happened on the Cross accomplished its purpose 

    • You and I can be forgiven and brought into union with God

  • If Jesus is risen - a new way of being human  has begun 

    • A new type of life is possible…We can share in this resurrection life.

• But the same threats as the guards faced will show up in our story.

  • We have to be practical and make some money 

  • We don’t wanna look like fools 

  • We are worried about our place in the world 

  • We had an experience once but we aren’t sure what to make of it.

• How much would it take for us to trade in resurrection for a nice respectable life and comfortable place to watch TV?

• How much would it take to actually upend our normal way of operating where we are in change and we imagine the story unfolding with us as the center?

• God says he loves you all the way to death and back. There is a place for you in His story. In His renewal of the world.

  • What would we trade it for? What are you trading it for?

• The resurrection of Jesus means all the abundance of His life begins to make sense. The water into wine. The treasure in a field worth selling everything for. The son returning home whom there must be a party for.

  • How many of us are still living with the scarcity mentality of the guards?

  • We have no framework for what this could be and so we fall back into a story we know 

• If Jesus is risen from the dead it changes everything.

---