February 2: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

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Love

Teaching Text: Luke 19: 1-10

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

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Themes

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

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

• Tax Collectors and Sinners - The Miracle of a God Who Eats with the Outsider - Zacchaeus

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

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

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

• Jesus was accused of being a Friend of Sinners

• He keeps getting in trouble for eating and talking and welcoming and being welcomed by types of people that religious people in the day thought he should have known better than to be friends with
  

• Zacchaeus in the text tells us was a chief tax collector. So the bad guys reported to him. They got their share, and he no doubt exponentially got his share.

• He was a wealthy man. He was a powerful man. He was a hated man.

• In Luke 19, he is also a desperate man.

  • Yes, he is short and he urgently wants a view of Jesus, but why would a powerful and wealthy man climb a tree.

  • Zacchaeus is willing to compromise his dignity and suffer embarrassment to get even a glimpse of Jesus. 
    
    

• In your own personal expectation: Is experiencing Jesus worth being embarrassed for? 

• What have you done that may be embarrassing in order to experience Jesus? 

• What shapes your understanding of the reputation of Jesus?

  • Is it what Christ himself does or those who insist on making themselves better than others?

• Zacchaeus climbs a tree in broad daylight. He seems to be beyond caring about his reputation compared to the chance to see this Jesus?

• What had he heard about Jesus?

  • Maybe he had heard that Jesus had a tax collector in his close group of followers. His disciples.

  • Maybe he had heard of the many times Jesus seems to welcome someone who others thought should have been run off, or judged, or not welcomed.

• Zacchaeus is willing to humble himself to the point of risking his dignity and reputation to really see Jesus.

• Seeing Jesus for who He really is still often requires this. You will need to humble yourself to get a real look, whatever you have heard. 
  

• What happens when we seek Jesus in this manner? 

  • Jesus calls him by name.

  • We get a picture of salvation. 

  • Goodness flows into the world.
    

• What do people learn about Jesus by looking at my life?
  
  

• “I have a word for you. I know your whole life story. I know every skeleton in your closet. I know every moment of sin, shame, dishonesty and degraded love that has darkened your past. Right now I know your shallow faith, your feeble prayer life, your inconsistent discipleship. And my word is this: I dare you to trust that I love you just as you are, and not as you should be.”

  – Brennan Manning
  
  

• Zacchaeus gives us A PICTURE OF SALVATION 

  • There is an invitation 

  • There is a glad response 

  • There is a new life 
    
    

parents:

• How can people see who Jesus is by looking at your life?

• How do I change when I see Jesus’s kindness to me?
  

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January 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.

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Love

Teaching Text:  John 3: 1-21

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we knowthat you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.

“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

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Themes

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

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

• Seekers - The Miracle of Rebirth in the Secret Conversation with Nicodemus

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• How do people respond to knowing you are a believer in God? 

•  “If 20 years ago people were worried that belief in God would make them an idiot, today I run a across a mentality that belief in God will make me a bad person.  If 20 years ago people thought I might wish I could believe in God, but I would have to check my brain at the door. Now its something like I might be curious about God, but I could never let myself become like.  And so the conversation has shifted some. I find people leading with moral objections to Christianity as often or more than intellectual ones.”

• Quite often the unwillingness of our hearts and minds to find life in God is not just an information problem. It’s intended to remain a control problem.

•  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

  • This famous verse that gives us the Gospel in one sentence and tells us of the great love of God and how far God is willing to go to share His love is found in a conversation between Jesus an influential religious leader of His time.

  • it answers for us some crucial questions. Among them…

    • How one might come to God

    • How you can know God

    • How God shows us His Heart 
      

• How One Might Come to God

  • People come to Jesus in all manner of conditions and circumstances and timing in the Gospels and each of these is instructive for us because it shows us ways that we might come to God.

  • And Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night

    • By "at night” I mean…

      • Curious but unsure, intrigued but unconvinced, questioning but reluctant 

      • I’ve seen something things but I don’t know how to explain them

      • In a posture of negotiation - keeping your dignity and offering terms

  • Jesus has been doing miracles - showing the power of God, but Nicodemus puts Him in a category he can understand….

    • “He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” 

    • He is ready for Jesus to be a teacher.  Give us the instructions.  We will take what we can use and it may make our lives better.

• Do you feel shame or reticence to engage with Jesus because of how you come to him?

  • Jesus was ok with Nicodemus coming the way he did. 

  • And later, he is willing to acknowledge his change in perspective publicly. 

  • But Jesus answers in a totally different way. Nicodemus says we’ve seen some good things out of you. Jesus says you can’t see anything unless you find a new way to be alive…

    • “Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’” 

    • Nicodemus comes to negotiate with Jesus and he starts by saying he we can admit you are a great teacher… 

• I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

  – C.S. Lewis

• Nicodemus says we think you can lead some good devotionals. Jesus says you are going to need a whole new life.

• How you can know God | Be Born Again

  • “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” 

    Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” 

    – John 3: 4-8

  • The tragedy of the fall of humanity in Genesis 3 is that we all come equipped with starting place of false gods, either ourselves or some other substitute…

    • We are born physically but we need to made alive spiritually

  • “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[s] the kind of life He has…Every Christian is to become a little Christ.

    – C.S. Lewis

• How God Shows Us His Heart | Rescuing Love

  • God loves giving life 

  • God loves removing condemnation 

  • God loves things being seen for what they really are (truth)

  • Very often, we believe that what will bring us closer to God is just a few small behavioral changes. 

    • How often do you believe this? 

    • How true is this thinking? 

Parents:

• Consider what language you use to describe a relationship with Jesus. 

• Does it lean towards a moral construct that leads to eternal life? 

• How can you help your kids know that it’s not about being good, but about accepting an invitation to friendship from Jesus?

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January 19: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

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Love

Teaching Text:  John 2: 1-12

On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

“Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.

Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.

Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom asideand said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.

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Themes

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

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

• Neighbors - The miracle of the Abundance and Specific Provision at the Wedding of Cana

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• John tells us … What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which He revealed His glory; and His disciples believed in Him. 

• This is Jesus’ opening sign.

• Context can help us see.

  • The stress of the moment

  • The scandal in the solution 

  • The abundance of the miracle

• The Stress of the Moment

  • Why is this His opener?

    • Jesus often works in ways that are initially unexpected and this story is no different. He keeps showing us that the Kingdom of God is something different than you have seen before.

  • “My hour has not yet come”.

    • My hour in John’s Gospel doesn’t mean miracle time. IT means the hour of Jesus death.

  • IN ISRAEL’s most famous miracle water was turned to blood to begin the rescue of God’s people.

  • Jesus is going to hand a cup to His friends in the upper room before His arrest and say this cup of wine is My blood shed for you.

  • Jesus is feeling a weight, some stress.

• The scandal in the solution

  • The water He uses - He uses the water that people wash in before they go into the presence of God

  • The Hands He passes it through - the master of the banquet and the bridegroom have no idea what has happened with the water and the wine

    • Maybe if they knew where it came from they would be more hesitant to drink it 

  • The miracle is passed through the hands of the servants

    • God passes the revelation of his Kingdom through the servants who know the true lack

  • The credit received - The bridegroom is out and the bridegroom gets credit for what Jesus has done 

  • This is a picture of how Jesus’ salvation works.

• The abundance of the miracle

  • This is between 150-180 gallons of wine.

  • God is not just meeting the need. He is being extravagant in His generous provision. 

  • His care is about our lives big and small.

  • John tells us this took place on the third day

  • You and I are meant to be brought into union with God

  • Admit you are out 

  • Receive credit for what Christ has done 

  • We are invited to taste and see - this is not mere cognition, this is experience 

  • Being filled with the spirit is compared to being intoxicated 

  • God cares about our shame

  • The glory of God is reveals - His friends believe

  • The Character of God shows through in this story in a particular way.

    • Christ is willing for His hour to come so you can be invited to the feast of abundance

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January 12: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

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Love

Teaching Text:  Matthew 11: 1-20

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Themes

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

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

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

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

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

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

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

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

  • God is this pain really part of the plan?

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

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

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

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

  • Do I still believe?
    

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

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

• Jesus response : 

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

    – Matthew 11: 4-6

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Interestingly:

  • John is not getting out of prison.

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

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

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

    • One whom Jesus said was more than a prophet.

    • His last recorded question for Jesus was…

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

• John was Jesus friend.

  • He was Jesus cousin. 

  • He was a prophet.

  • He did the right thing privately and publicly. 

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

• So why follow God?  Why trust Jesus?  
  

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

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

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

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

    – Pete Scazzaro 

  • God’s presence is our reward 
    

Parents:

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

• Ask your children 

  • “Why do we obey Jesus?”

  • “What will happen when they obey Jesus?”

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January 5: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

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Love

Teaching Text:  Matthew 2: 1-23

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Themes

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

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

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

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

• What are you inspired by recently?

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

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

• You do not have to be good.

  You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

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

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

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

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

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

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

– Mary Oliver

• Jesus was born into the real world

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

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

• The Magi

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

    • An Ancient Priesthood of the Medes

    • The Supreme Priestly Caste of the Persian Empire

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

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

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

  • Posed a specific threat to Herod

  • Came Bearing expensive gifts

    • No gifts mentioned for Herod

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

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

  • We can imagine the difficulty of the journey…

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

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

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

    • If they might face danger.

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

  • God accelerates His work in our midst.

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

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

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

  • When they see Jesus they 

    • humble themselves 

    • They bowed down and worshipped Him

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

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

• Herod

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • What has your heart today?

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

      • And nothing but fear.

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

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

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

– David Foster Wallace

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

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

• Mary and Joseph 

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

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

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

    • Did they argue or debate?

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

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

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

  • Here is the thing about the dream of God though 

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

    • God was speaking to those who would listen. 

    • The wise ones were seeking Jesus

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

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

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

      – NT Wright
      

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

• Keep taking steps even when the way is challenged.

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Pray 
  
  

Parents:

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

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

• Pray with them and offer the year up to

---

November 17: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

---

Love

Teaching Text:  James 4:13-5:6

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

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

---

Themes

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

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

• God Will Set Things Right

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

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

• James is New Testament Wisdom literature.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Fire yourself from the role of God

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

  • There are inescapable time limits for injustice

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

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

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

• Fire yourself from the role of God

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

    – James 4: 13-17

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

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

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

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

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

    – N.T. Wright
    

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

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

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

      – James 4: 17

    • A prayer:

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

      Amen. 
      
      

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

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

    – James 5: 1-6
    
    

Parents:

• Ask your kids where they recognize current injustice. 

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

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

---

November 10: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

---

Love

Teaching Text:  James 4: 1-12

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

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

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

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

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

---

Themes

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

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

• Humble Yourself Before God

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

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

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

• James is New Testament Wisdom literature.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    • A desire points to an allegiance, and friendship.

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

    • It’s pride.

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

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

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

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

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

  • And James says God opposes the proud.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Humble yourself

  • “God opposes the proud 

    but shows favor to the humble.” 

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

    – James 4: 6-8

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

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

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

    • More like Corrie Eleven Boom there.
      

Parents:

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

• What does it mean to be a peacemaker?

---

November 3: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

---

Love

Teaching Text:  James 3: 1-18

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

Themes

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

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

• Speaking Peace

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

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

  • Share this with your group. 

• James is New Testament wisdom literature.

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

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

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

    • How you speak 

    • How you treat the poor and the vulnerable 

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

  • In this text, he is showing us ….

    • Words have tremendous power

    • Words reveal our hearts and shape our lives

    • What to do when words have torn us apart

• Words have tremendous power

  • Our words have the power to create reality.

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

  • Our words have the power to describe reality

• Words reveal our hearts and shape our lives

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

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

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

    • The answer is Yes.

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

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

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

• What to do when words have torn us apart

  • Listen to how serious this is…

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

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

      – James 3: 13-18

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

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

  • Ask God for a change of heart

• Pay attention to what shows up in your words

  • Consistent negativity or do you see encouragement?

  • Do you catch cynicism or is hope spring out?

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

  • Do you use sarcasm to protect you from vulnerability?

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

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

• Pay attention to what shows up in your words

  • And then…with God’s help….

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

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

• Pay attention to what shows up in your words.

• Ask God for help and a change of heart

• Sow seeds of peace.

Parents:

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

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

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

---

October 27: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

---

Love

Teaching Text:  James 2: 14-26

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

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

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

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

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

---

Themes

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

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

• Faith Without Deeds is Dead

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

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

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

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

• He says faith without works is dead.
  

• Paul said: 

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

  – Ephesians 2: 8-9
  

• Is James saying something utterly different here? 

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

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

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

• James knew what Paul wrote to the Galatians…

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

    – Galatians 5: 6

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

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

• NT Wright commenting on this passage said…

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

  – NT Wright
  
  

• The Gospel invites us to active friendship with God 

• Active friendship with God matures through obedience 

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

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

1. How we treat the poor

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

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

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

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

• Rahab took action that was a huge risk.
  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Parents:

• Belief is something that needs a practice to become visible

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

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

---

October 20: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

---

Love

Teaching Text:  James 2: 1-13

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

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

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

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

---

Themes

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

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

• Doers of the Word

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

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

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

– Rodney Stark

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

  • The prayer meeting before Pentecost 120 or so Christians

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  – 2 Corinthians 5:  14-21

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  – James 2: 1-4

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

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

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

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

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

• “Mercy triumphs over judgement”

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

  • The kingdom He promised those who love him?

  • an outpost of the Kingdom of God

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

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

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

• What does this do in your heart?

• Where has your heart been bribed by status?

• Where do you need mercy?

• Where do you need to give mercy?
  

Parents:

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

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

---

October 13: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

---

Love

Teaching Text:  James 1: 19-27

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

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

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

---

Themes

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

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

• Doers of the Word

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

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

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

  – James 1: 19-21
  

• The dangers of overconfidence

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

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

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

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

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

      which yields its fruit in season 

      and whose leaf does not wither— 

      whatever they do prospers.”

      – Psalm 1: 3

• Watch out for 

  • Closed Ears, Quick Words, and Anger 

  • Thinking Agreement is the Same Thing As Action 

    • Beware of thinking hearing is the same thing as obedience 

  • For the temptation of Ignoring the Fruit of Our Heart 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• JAMES HAS SOME PROVERBS LEVEL WISDOM FOR US.

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

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

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

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

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

  • We really struggle with this as Americans. 

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

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

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

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

    • WE MISTAKE AGREEMENT FOR ACTION

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

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

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

    – James 1: 25-27

• What do I do when this is my struggle? 

  • James gives us a clue…

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

      – James 1 v 21

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

    • “As the rain and the snow 

come down from heaven, 

and do not return to it 

without watering the earth 

and making it bud and flourish, 

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

so is my word that goes out from my mouth: 

It will not return to me empty, 

but will accomplish what I desire 

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” 

– Isaiah 55: 10-11

• Jesus is the Word of God.

• Jesus will accomplish the purpose He was sent for.

Parents:

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

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

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

---

October 6: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

---

Love

Teaching Text:  James 1: 13-18

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all He created.

---

Themes

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

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

• The Truth about Temptation and Desire

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Do you still notice temptation in your life? 

• Where did you get tempted this week? 

• What is your go to response when you are faced with temptation? 

  • Give in

  • Avoid/Escape

  • Justify

  • Other…?

• James, from his endurance in the fire of trials and with the help of the Holy Spirit, writes this letter.
  

• “Consider it pure joy my brothers and sisters when you face trials of many kinds…”
  

• He says “hey watch out if you find yourself blaming God” for the difficulty you are going through, that does something to us. Namely, it turns us away from the person who is our comfort and help.”
  

• Now he writes about temptation.

  • When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

    – James 1: 13-15
    

• God can always be turned to in a time of temptation because God is not the cause of temptation.

• It’s worth mentioning just briefly, this dynamic though, that there is a difference in our life with God between TESTING and TEMPTATION.

  • TEMPTATION very often works on a desire that really does need to be met in our life and a suggestion of how to meet that desire without God or in conflict with God and God’s way.

    • Appetites, Approval, Ambition

    • Consumption, Security, Status

    • These are archetype temptation areas of the human life.
      
      

• God will allow us to be tested, sometimes even lead us into testing. But God does not tempt us to sin.

• There are times when testing is essential

  • Before we are given more power and responsibility 

  • When it needs to be determined if you are ready 

• If God brings you into a time of testing, it almost always because God wants to trust you with more.
  

• One of the more difficult aspects of maturity is learning to deal with the reality that not everything your mind and heart produces is worth trusting and worth acting on

• There can be powerful impulses in our life that are deeply deceptive.

  • Cultures says:

    We need to learn to trust what we want.

• Now this takes some nuance to parse because of course there can be good instincts, and wisdom, and true longings that grows up within us

• BUT ALSO the long testimony of the Scriptures says that desires can come into our consciousness, into our field of consideration, that if we follow them will not lead where they initially seem they will.
  

• We seek the satiation of our appetites, or the satisfaction of our souls, without considering God and God's way.
  
  
  

• The image James uses is graphic; there are certain desires that get you pregnant with death.

  • There are desires that when followed diminish your genuine human life

    • The desire for revenge, gives birth to violence, which leads to physical loss of life.

    • The desires to seek comfort over and over again in a harmful numbing or mind altering substance, leads to addiction, which leads to many deaths before then actual physical death.

      • workaholism, envy, distraction, lust
        
        

• How these idols work:

  • In the beginning there is a great promise and small request

  • Over time the requests get more and more and the shine comes off the promise 

    • The job, the relationship, the alcohol, the grudge, the envy.

    • Laziness asks more and more of you gives less and less
      
      

• “Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.”

  – James 1: 16-18
  
  

• If it's good in this world, it originated with God

• Have you been in a place where you have been following desires that lead away from God?
  

Parents:

• How do you talk to your kids about desires?

• Do you help them recognise desires and help them think through how to be patient and find healthy satisfaction?

• Can you help your children be aware of temptation? 

• How can you help them see the prize of delayed gratification?

---

September 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 Text:  James 1: 1-12

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations:

Greetings.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position.But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.

Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

---

Themes

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

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

• Joy in Trials

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• If you could change one thing about your instantly, what would you change? 

• What defines your well-being? 

• What does our world say about what well-being looks like? 

• There has to be more than just the circumstances you are currently in to determine your well-being. 
  

• One of the other most powerful arguments for the resurrection of Jesus, 1 Corinthians 15, the apostle Paul makes note of this sibling phenomenon…

  • “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, He appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all He appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” 

    – 1 Corinthians 15: 3-8

• There is no gospel without the resurrection of Jesus.

  • Jesus could not have been just a good moral teacher with some historical influence because his ideas were compelling.

  • He claimed to be God, to be Israel’s Messiah, and the world’s Redeemer. 

  • If He wasn’t those things, then He was either crazy and delusional, or He knew He was lying, or He was those things.

  • He is life and He gives life.

    • And this brings us to the heart of the book of James.
      
      

• JAMES is New Testament wisdom literature. Like what you might find in Proverbs or Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew Scriptures.

  • Whatever your view of the world or your belief system or your philosophy, you need some answers to the questions …

    • Why is life so challenging? AND 

    • How do we deal with its difficulty and pain?

    • Is there is a way to live through pain other than just being blown and tossed by it and then despair?
      

• Our world is good at some things. It’s not very good at all in our currently culture for preparing people to go through hardships and pain 
  
  

• James gets right into it. And he shows us that patience doesn’t give all its treasure away on the first day, but that if we can learn to endure in faith 

• We might 

  • shatter the illusion of sufficiency

  • deepen our understanding and awareness of God

  • expands our compassion

  • we might even know and understand ourselves more

• “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” 

  – James 1: 2-4

• James seems to know that suffering exposes reality and because of that can deepen our understanding of and ability to live in the real world.

• Our world had a brokenness and violence in it that runs through to the core. The more you live well doesn’t mean you will live easily with a smooth journey.

• At the heart of our faith is a perfect Person suffering deeply, all the way to death for crimes He didn’t commit.

  • A man dying for his enemies.
    

• James is saying that we need to pay attention to our perspective when life gets hard.

  • But along the way you may have to realize all the other things you are practically relying in for your well-being, 

  • You may need to see that despite what you say about God you have many other functional Saviors.

  • “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.  But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.” 

    – James 1: 5-8
    

• “Doubt” is translated more accurately as divided loyalty. 
  

Ask for wisdom

• God doesn’t just give wisdom to the best people who have earned it.
  

They ask for help

• “Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business. 

  Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.” 

  – James 1: 9-12

• Sometimes suffering exposes things for how they reality are.

Connects us to reality

• Suffering shows the character of God beyond my mood and circumstances. 

• Capacity for endurance

An important word about the why and the where of suffering

• Be very gentle and humble with the WHY

• Be courageous with the WHERE
  

The Crown of Life

• Suffering and hanging on to God and knowing God is hanging on to you can prepare you to LIVE

• And the reward is you get LIFE.
  

This is a Friendship

• We are to run to Christ. Who has suffered. And we are not alone.

• We trust in His resurrection!!!
  

• “From the standpoint of Heaven, the most miserable life on earth will just look like one night in a bad hotel”

  – Theresa of Avila 

• “My question – that which at the age of fifty brought me to the verge of suicide – was the simplest of questions, lying in the soul of every man…a question, without an answer to which, one cannot live. It was: “What will come of what I am doing today or tomorrow? What will come of my whole life? Why should I live, why wish for anything, or do anything?” It can also be expressed thus: Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy.”

  – Leo Tolstoy  
  
  

• Shatter the illusion of sufficiency

• Deepen our understanding and awareness of God

• Expand our compassion

• We might even know and understand ourselves more
  

• Where do you go to ask for help?

• Which circumstances make you question God? 
  

Parents:

• What is your first instinct when you see suffering in the lives of your children?

• What do your responses teach your kids?

• Do your children see some of your suffering? 

• How do you model suffering and faith response to your children?

---

September 22: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

---

Love

Teaching Text:  ‭‭John 15: 1-16

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

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

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

---

Themes

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

• Vision Sundays | Love | Gardens

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

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

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

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

Gardens 

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

  – East of Eden 

• Lee goes on....

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

– East of Eden

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

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

  – C.S. LEWIS

• Is there a love that could heal everything?

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

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

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

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

  – John 15: 1-5

• Out of love grows fruitfulness

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

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

  – John 15

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

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

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

  – John 15

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

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

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

Here is our call. 

• Abide in the Love of God

• Contend for Love in Your Closest Relationships 

• Work the Gardens of Love in Our City 

• We can only pass on what we have received. 

• We sow seeds of love where we can 

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

• What does your garden look like? 

• Your home, your building, your block?

• What tending of that garden is needed? 

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

Parents:

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

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

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

 

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

---

September 15: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

---

Love

Teaching Text:  ‭‭Luke 22: 7-34

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

Themes

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

• Vision Sundays | Formation | Tables

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

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

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

ALTARS

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

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

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

PRESENCE - FORMATION - LOVE

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

  • Be with God

  • Become like Jesus

  • Live by the Spirit

ALTARS + TABLES + GARDENS

• We believe God is inviting us to… 

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

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

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

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

– Arthur Boers

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

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

• In Luke 9 Jesus feeds the five thousand.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– TIM CHESTER

THE SACRAMENT IS A MEAL 

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

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

– NT WRIGHT

• We grow through BREAKTHROUGHS and HABITS

• What tables can you set?

• What invitations can you extend? 

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

• What are your practices and habits of formation?
  

• Parents:

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

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

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

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

---

September 8: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

---

Love

Teaching Text:  ‭‭Genesis 3: 8-9

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

Revelation 21: 2-3

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

---

Themes

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

• Vision Sundays | Pressnce | Altars

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

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

• What are you personally excited about this Fall? 

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

  • What urgent language in our world can you recall? 

• The thing we lose is TRANSCENDENCE

  What matter most? 

  So many opinions about what matters most. 

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

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

  • PRESENCE. FORMATION. LOVE

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

• MAKE ALTARS - places of God’s revealed presence

  SET TABLES - places of friendship, hospitality and love 

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

• ALTARS + TABLES + GARDENS

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

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

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

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

• This begins with God’s Presence

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

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

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

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

    – A.W. Tozer

  • Importance of presence throughout scripture… 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        – Revelation 21:2-3

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

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

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

• How can you make time to be with Jesus?

---

June 23: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

---

Love

Teaching Text:  ‭‭1 Corinthians 12: 1-11 and 27-31

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

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

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

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

---

Themes

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

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

• Gifts of the Spirit

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

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

• Resume Virtues and Eulogy Virtues.

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

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

    – David Brooks

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

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

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

    – Eugene Peterson

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

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

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

    • divisions over leadership 

    • jealousy and quarreling 

    • obvious and public sexual sin 

    • indulgence and forgetting the others in the body

    • spiritual pride 

    • confusion and even chaos in their gatherings 

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

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

• The Spirit of God is always lifting up Christ.

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

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

    – 1 Corinthians 12 v 4-7

• These are two huge errors the church can make…

  • Demanding each story to look the same.

    or 

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

• We see this in the American church in 

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

  • Celebrity Christianity - overly exalting someone because of their gifts

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

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

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

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

  • You are gifted by the Spirit to love well.

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

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

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

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

  • Wisdom is the decision

  • Knowledge is the clarity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Which of these do you think you have? 

• These are way to love one another

  Ways for Jesus to be lifted up

  And you are gifted by the Spirit

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

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

  • Speak the Gospel to your heart

  • Regularly spend time in extended prayer

  • Practice speaking with God through your day

  • Hide His word in your heart

  • Meet regularly with the church

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

  • Take risks of obedience when given

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

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

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

  • Look at what you have imagination for

  • Look at what bothers you in our church

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

• Follow the Clues of Confirmations from Community

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

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

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

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

  • A gift can be neglected

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

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

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

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

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

• Development - is in consistency 

• Acceleration - acceleration is a gift God occasionally gives

---

June 16: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

---

Love

Teaching Text:  ‭‭1 John‬ ‭2‬:‭ 29‭‭ - ‭3‬: ‭2

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

---

Themes

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

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

• Seal | Evidence of Adoption

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

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

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

• A family image. 

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

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

  – ‭‭Genesis‬ ‭1‬:‭26‬-‭27‬ ‭‬‬

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

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

    ‭‭– Amos‬ ‭5‬:‭26‬

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

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

    ‭‭– Psalms‬ ‭39‬:‭6‬

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

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

    – ‭‭Genesis‬ ‭9‬:‭6‬‬‬

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

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

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

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

  – Isaiah‬ ‭13‬:‭4‬ ‭NIV‬‬

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

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

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

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

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

  – ‭‭Colossians‬ ‭1‬:‭19‬

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

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

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

    – ‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭5‬:‭5‬

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

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

    – ‭‭Esther‬ ‭8‬:‭8‬

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    ‭‭– Galatians‬ ‭5‬:‭22‬-‭23‬

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June 9: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

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Love

Teaching Text:  John 14: 25-27

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

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Themes

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

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

• Teacher | Reminder | Keeper

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• What aspects make for a good life in NYC? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Jesus says in the upper room…

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

• John 14

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• THE SPIRIT COMES TO DWELL IN OUR INNER BEING.

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

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

  • We are in the REALM OF THE SPIRIT.

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

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

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

  • SO YOU CAN BE FULLY ALIVE.

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

    – 2 Corinthians 4 v 16

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

• THE SPIRIT IS OUR TEACHER AND REMINDER

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

  • TO TEACH AND REMIND US.

  • SCRIPTURE. WORSHIP. COMMUNITY. PRAYER

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

• SCRIPTURE. WORSHIP. COMMUNITY. PRAYER

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • So those lesser things find their proportion and place 

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

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

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

  • Reminding 

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

    • Of identity + Of correction + Of promises

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

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

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

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

    – Ephesians 3 v 16-21

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

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June 2: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

---

Love

Teaching Text:  Roman 8: 9-14

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

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

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

---

Themes

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

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

• Advocate | Intecessor

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• WE HAVE THE OUTPOURING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

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

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

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

    – Acts 2 v 42-47

• They see Jesus’ promise prove true.

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

• SO: Yes, Christianity is something you believe 

• But it is also something you experience

• And it becomes something that you live.

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

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

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

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

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

  – Romans 8 v 9-14

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

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

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

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

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

  • The Spirit lifts our shame

  • The Spirit helps us pray

• The Spirit lifts our Shame | Advocate

  • Applies what is true of Jesus to us 

  • Forgivness for all sin 

  • Power to break free from any pattern or thought 

    • Uncontrollable anxiety 

    • Lust and pornography  

    • Destructive patterns with alcohol 

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

    • Love of comfort 

    • Measuring success in materialism 

    • Really defensive when criticized 

    • The Holy Spirit is my advocate

• THE SPIRIT HELPS US PRAY | Intercessor

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

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

    – Romans 8 v 26-28

  • When you pray you aren’t praying alone.

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

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

• What place of your life does shame reside? 

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

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