May 17: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

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Love

Teaching Text: Hebrews 3:7-19

So, as the Holy Spirit says:

“Today, if you hear his voice,
    do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
    during the time of testing in the wilderness,
where your ancestors tested and tried me,
    though for forty years they saw what I did.
That is why I was angry with that generation;
    I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,
    and they have not known my ways.’
So I declared on oath in my anger,
    ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”

See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. As has just been said:

“Today, if you hear his voice,
    do not harden your hearts
    as you did in the rebellion.”

Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

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Themes

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

• Hebrews

• Today, If You Hear His Voice

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Hebrews is a book written to help urban followers of Jesus going through immense challenges and suffering and in some cases persecution to endure in love and faith. 

• Hebrews is written as a manual for endurance in the furnace of life’s pain.

• CS Lewis says he knows from experience what draws him away from God, what flags his motivations to love, what draws him into selfishness, how the power of distraction is often even better than some elaborate temptation to ruin your life, how small irritants in our relationships can be just as effective as causing love to die, and some great scandal or betrayal.

• There are these warning passages that say basically whatever you do, don’t let go of your hope, don’t let go of your love, your confidence in God’s love and promises. Hang on. You will make it. God will hold you. 

• The author takes us back to the exodus (this great picture and example and narrative or God’s Salvation in Torah) and walks us imaginatively through it and then says, in the same way, today if you hear His voice do not harden your hearts

• God speaks. God is a communicator. God is a revealer. God’s heart consistantly runs towards relationship. God is love.

• God speaks, and Hebrews is asking if we are willing to listen?

• Lewis highlighted a very similar thing in The Screwtape Letters. He says…

  For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which [God] has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity or with the Present--either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.

  – CS Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

• Lewis is echoing Hebrews —-> Today if you hear His voice…

• Do not harden your hearts as in the days of the great rebellion. NT Wright translates that “Do not harden your hearts as in the days of the great bitterness” 

• And so we are invited into this story of God’s salvation.

• The people get bored, the people get scared, the people get annoyed, the people get comfortable quickly not being in Egypt, but they don’t live on gratitude. They turn to complaining.

  • The Great Rebellion. The great bitterness was basically saying we don’t trust Moses and we don’t trust God has good things for us, we’ll take care of us, we’ll protect and provide for us. 

  • And what happened to Pharaoh’s heart, happens to the peoples’ hearts. They hardened their hearts.

• Sin’s deceitfulness works along these lines. Do you really think God is gonna provide for you? If so do you really think it will be what you want? 

  • It will be boring and dull and on a timeline you don’t control

  • “If you want the real deepest needs of your soul met you are going to have to do that on your own, out of your own resources.” 

• What the enemy doesn’t want is today you hear His voice. Today you trust His love. Today you trust His provision.

• These are warning passages of Hebrews and this one in particular is telling us there is a cost to unbelief. 

  • The people didn’t lose God’s love. They didn’t have to go back to Egypt. But they did lose their joy and the sense of their freedom and a whole generation was defined by wandering instead of receiving their inheritance. 

• Recognizing the state you’re in spiritually and morally is something few Christian teachers have had anything to say about in recent years, at least in the parts of the church where I work. We have heard so much about ‘following your own spiritual path’, and ‘continuing your own journey of faith’, that we can easily get the impression that we should merely do whatever feels best at the time, and hope that it’ll all work out somehow. Well, it may, but it may not.

  – NT Wright

• So what do we do? The passage gets very direct with us…

  See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.

  – Hebrews 3:12–14

• Watch Your Heart - (see to it) when it turns away from the living God, it turns to things that bring death.

  • Death of trust, gratitude, confidence, joy, connection, love 

  • The root of temptation to sin is always a temptation to not trust God 

• Encourage One Another - there is such tremendous power in this

  • When you are grumbling and doubting and veering towards selfishness or indulgence or back towards your addiction or towards bitterness or getting even or anger and revenge or apathy and boredom or cynicism - we need each other

  • Be the friend willing to say I love you but I think you are lying to yourself or believing a lie

• As long as it’s called today - we only have to trust God on days ending in Y.

  • The present is the only point you can exercise faith 

  • The enemy will pull you into the past, the enemy will pull you into future anxiety and worry

• So we have to build rhythms to today 

  • Ways to listen for God’s voice

    • Process of taking what we hear and putting it into action.

    • Scruipture reading, daily prayer, real community (be known enough to be encouraged), the prayer of examen. (daily inventory) 

• Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts

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May 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.

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Love

Teaching Text: Hebrews 3:1–6

Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house.Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmlyto our confidence and the hope in which we glory.

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Themes

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

• Hebrews

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• The book of Hebrews is written for exactly these reasons to show people who are suffering the story they are in, and how to rely on resources beyond themselves in the moments of their lives.

• It’s so important to remember this book is not just a theological treatise on how Jesus fulfills Torah. It is an endurance manual for people in the furnace of life.

• Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest.

  – Hebrew 3:1–2

• Hebrews is a book that helps define faith for us, it is a book that helps define home for us, and it keeps giving us this beautiful and powerful instruction …

• Fix your thoughts on Jesus. Let them return there over and over again. Not merely as some religious duty but as way to return each day, moment by moment to the love of God, to the person of our salvation.

  • To Christ who is here described as an Apostle and High Priest.

• To fix your thoughts on Jesus is to consider this One who has been sent to us.. To show us what God is like, what God cares about, how God loves …

  • But also this Apostle is our High Priest

  • One who represents God to us  - the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being and also One who represents us to God - the High Priest

  • To the One sent for us - to show us God

  • And to One who has been through what we have been through and now represents us to God - as a Priest...

• ...we learn that faith is not a once-done act, but a continuous gaze of the heart at the Triune God. Believing, then, is directing the hearts attention to Jesus. It is lifting the mind to "behold the Lamb of God," and never ceasing that beholding for the rest of our lives. At first this may be difficult, but it becomes easier as we look steadily at His wondrous person, quietly and without strain. Distractions may hinder, but once the heart is committed to Him, after each brief excursion away from Him, the attention will return again and rest upon Him like a wandering bird come back to its window.

  – AW Tozer

• Moses has to get to know this God - that’s a huge part of his vocation - burning bush and bygone 

• And then Moses has to let the people know this God - Apostle and Priest 

• We have been saying that Hebrews was written in particular to urban followers of Jesus who were experiencing tremendous resistance and challenges to their faith. 

• They needed resources for strength, for endurance in suffering. 

• And the author is saying fix your thoughts on this Jesus.

  • The One who is building the house God has been building all along. 

• Know you are connected to this story 

ALONE AND TOGETHER

• The instructions here are to fix your thoughts are something we can do on our own at any moment and in any situation with no equipment or privileged information or years of training.

• You can fix your thoughts on Jesus at any moment. Turn the 'gaze of your soul to Christ or back to Christ.

• We to know that we can do that on our own at any time and in any condition, but the next part we cannot do on our own. 

• We are the house of God together

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

  – 1 Peter 2:4–5

• This is our home. To know we are God’s home. And we are being built together. United as those who fix the gaze of our souls on Jesus.
  

• Lets turn the gaze of our souls to Him 

• Know you are not alone. We are being built together into the house of God.

• We together are a fuller picture of God and God’s love than any of us could be on our own.

• “In speaking of this desire for our own far off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter….

  The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

  – C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

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May 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.

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Love

Teaching Text: Hebrews 2:10–18

In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. He says,

“I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters;
    in the assembly I will sing your praises.”

And again,

“I will put my trust in him.”

And again he says,

“Here am I, and the children God has given me.”

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants.For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

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Themes

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

• Hebrews

• Brothers and Sisters Set Free

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• The book of Hebrews is written for exactly these reasons to show people who are suffering the story they are in, and how to rely on resources beyond themselves in the moments of their lives.

• It’s so important to remember this book is not just a theological treatise on how Jesus fulfills Torah. It is an endurance manual for people in the furnace of life.

• This section of Hebrews that we read this morning has one of the most astounding asides in all of the Scripture.

• The author is busy telling us about why and how Christ has to suffer. He is writing to early urban followers who are facing immense challenges for their faith in Christ.

• And in telling them about the suffering of Jesus, he drops this little wonder...

  • God, for whom and through whom everything exists.

• He is the Source, the Sustainer, the Destination of life.

  • Poetically He is the Beginning and the End

• God is a creator and when the world He made was ruined by sin and death and violence and evil, it was revealed that He is also a Savior.

• In an unfallen world you don’t see the aspect of God. In allowing for choice, God also allowed for many to choose other than God.

  • And so it is now also revealed that God is One who will suffer for healing, for reclaiming, for redemption.

• There is a word in the passage that is translated "pioneer” in the NIV …

  • It is the Greek word archēgos - it has a wide lexical range and is hard to translate with one English world, but it means

    • Pioneer, Champion, Author

      • Pioneer, one who goes ahead where there is no known way and makes a way for others

      • Jesus is the Archēgos of our salvation

        • He has gone ahead to make a way where there was no known way

        • He has faced an enemy and force we could not face on our on and won a victory we have a share in

      • And He is telling a new story of how the world is healed and we have a share in a new type of life united to God.

• Christ has become an Archēgos, a Pioneer, Champion, Author who gives

  • Freedom from the fear of death

  • Atonement for sin

  • Help in temptation

FREEDOM FROM THE FEAR OF DEATH

• 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 from the foolish child to the wisest elder: it was a question without an answer to which one cannot live as I had found by experience. It was: "What will come of what I am doing today or shall do tomorrow? What will come of my whole life?"

  Differently expressed, the question is: "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

• Jesus has gone ahead of us into death. And He has not made it so that we don’t have to die, but He has made it so we can share in the victory He won over death.

• 1 Corinthians 15 puts it like this...The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:56–57)

Atonement for sin

• He has made atonement for our sin, for the ways we are separated from God

• We are going to talk in Hebrews about many of the beautiful ways that we understand the Atonement

• But it is a ransom given to one who held us captive. It is a victory that we now have a share in, it is something Christ did on our behalf that we could not do on our own. It is the lamb of sacrifice and the scapegoat of Yom Kippur. Our death is faces and our shame is carried away.

• And now we are made family. Christ is not ashamed to call us brother and sister.

Help in temptation

• And Christ is a help in temptation

  • In all the ways we are drawn to doubt, and fear, and letting go of our confidence.

  • In all the ways we are tempted to do what we swore we wouldn’t do again,

  • In all the ways we feel trapped by patterns of thought and behavior. Addictions and little compromises of our integrity.

  • Our imaginations of vengeance or indulgence or laziness or workaholism.

• Christ is able to help us when we are tempted.

• When Christ was tempted (Matthew 4, Luke 4)

  • He clung to the hope that God would meet His needs better than the short cut or the substitute

  • He held on to His identity as a beloved Son

  • He spoke truth back to the lies from the Word of God

  • He received comfort from heavenly resources

• How are you at using these mechanisms to help you in times of temptation?

  • Jesus it the Archēgos of our salvation - Pioneer, Champion, Author

  • He confronts our fear of death

  • He has made atonement for what separates us from God

  • He gives us help in temptation

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April 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: ‭Hebrews 2:1-9

We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord,was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. But there is a place where someone has testified:

“What is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    a son of man that you care for him?
You made them a little lower than the angels;
    you crowned them with glory and honor
    and put everything under their feet.”

In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them. But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honorbecause he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

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Themes

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

• Hebrews

• Crowned

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• What we believe at the deepest level matters.

• Hebrews 2 begins with a warning. It’s the first of several warnings in Hebrews and in my opinion they get more intense from here. 

• But this one starts very directly…

  • We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.

    – Hebrews 2: 1

• The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful Word.

• And what Jesus has done…

  • After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

• The author is suggesting that we need to pay the most careful attention to this revelation, to what we have heard.

• We live in a self-proclaimed attention economy. We live with more potential distractions than any era in history. We can make entire lives in our phones, in digital fantasies, in the ever increasing power of the artificial.

• Pay attention so you do not drift away.

  • So you don’t look up and realize you are miles off course. You are no where near where you thought you’d be or where you want to be.

• For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. 

  – Hebrews 2: 2-4

• In the law of Moses 

  • There was a personal cost to ignoring the words and way of God

  • There was communal cost to ignoring the words and way of God 

• The warnings in Hebrews were to be pretty intense. Some of them have been straight up scary to me in parts of my life. 

• And what I want to ask is are the warnings harsh or are they loving?

• How we hear a warning can really depend on the heart behind them. Is this an expression of violence, threat, pride, and control? Or is this an expression of loving care?

• The warning here is from the loving heart of God. Do not ignore too great a salvation. 

  • Don’t ignore the mercy, don’t ignore the friendship, don’t ignore guidance, don’t ignore the love.

• This salvation, if it is anything, is union with God in a real relationship.

• There is cost, now and forever, to living without God.

• So the warning comes - pay close attention.

  • Don’t let this get shoved off the priority list for all the shouting urgency of everything in our world. 

  • There is real resistance. The complexity of sin in the scriptures is profound. It is not simply obviously bad things we do from time to time out of selfishness or boredom.

  • Sin is a way of seeking to be your own God or to put something in the center of your life that functions like God.

    • That might look like all our sex, drugs and rock-n-roll rebellion or it might look like a much quieter life of anxious and distracted workaholism

• Pay attention to God.

• Pay attention to how you are living.

• Pay attention to to what has your attention 

• Pay attention to what God has given you.

• Pay attention to the relationship in prayer

• Paying attention is listening to word.

• Pay attention to the still small voice of the Holy Spirit. 

• There is a cost when we do not pay attention.

  • I’ll just tell you somethings you can lose awareness of or connection to that are mentioned here.

    • You can lose your wonder.

    • You can lose a sense of your vocational inheritance.

      • The Psalm speaks of humankind in general as set in authority over the world, with ‘everything subjected to him’. But, says Hebrews, this clearly hasn’t happened yet. Humans are not ruling the world, bringing God’s order and justice to bear on the whole of creation. Everything is still in a state of semi-chaos. How then can this Psalm be taken seriously?

        The answer is that it has happened—in the case of Jesus. He is the representative of the human race. His exaltation as Lord, after his earthly ministry, suffering and death (in which he was indeed ‘lower than the angels’) has placed him in the role marked out from the beginning for the human race. He has gone ahead of the rest of us into God’s future, the future in which order and justice—saving order, healing justice—will come to the world. The exaltation of Jesus, and the fact that we who follow him can celebrate that and live in the light of it, is one of the major themes of the whole book.

        – NT Wright

    • You can lose a sense of the mercy of Jesus

Consider:

• Have you lost any of your wonder? 

• Do you have a strong sense of your inheritance in God?

• Are you aware of the gift of mercy available to you daily?

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March 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: ‭Zechariah 9:9-13

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
    Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
    righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
    and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
    and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
    His rule will extend from sea to sea
    and from the River to the ends of the earth.
As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
    I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit.
Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope;
    even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.
I will bend Judah as I bend my bow
    and fill it with Ephraim.
I will rouse your sons, Zion,
    against your sons, Greece,
    and make you like a warrior’s sword.

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Themes

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

• Cry of the Prophet

• Zechariah – Behold Your King

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• And the picture leaves us with a decision to make.

• Jesus is a King unlike any other 

• Here is one who is a Prophet a Priest, and King 

  • Prophet - telling us God’s heart 

  • Priest - making atonement with His own life  

  • The King - raising us to a new type of living. 

• The Crowd is a crowd like any other 

  • They cheer Jesus when hHe is healing and parading and representing a possible new hope for them. 

  • Within the week the chants will turn to crucify Him. 

• He rearranges the furniture in God’s house like its His, He confronts death. He is a threat to the status quo of how power works. He storms into the temple, Tells tress to never bear fruit again and then stand silent before His accusers.

• The crowd loves Him till they can’t control Him, can’t get what they expect from Him, and then they turn. 

  • I love Jesus as a helper, a healer, a giver of encouraging words. BUT AS A KING?

• Palm Sunday shows us a King moving in humble love but also staggering demands on our allegiance and devotion.

• Palm Sunday gives us a picture of our fickle hearts.

  • I want help. But I want to remain in control.

• Jesus keeps giving up His options. He keeps letting His world narrow down until he is fastened to one place to die.
  

• If we pay attention on Palm Sunday…

  • We are moved to a place of decision
    

• Honestly one of the most miserable and disappointing places in the world is trying to be a little bit Christian. 

• Jesus gets it. It’s like … crown Him or kill Him.

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March 22: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

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Love

Teaching Text: ‭Isaiah 6:1-8

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
    the whole earth is full of his glory.”

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

---

Themes

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

• Cry of the Prophet

• Isaiah - An Undone Prophet Seeing in the Dark

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Isaiah begins - In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord

• Judah has had the same King for 52 years and much of Uzziah’s rule has been prosperous and peaceful, but the rumblings of corruption, and mighty foreign powers, and the tension of the transfer of power makes for a troubling national moment.

  • This is the time that Isaiah has a vision of God.

    • A vision that changes the world

    • This is a vision that can change your life

    • It shows us...

      • Why the actual God is better than the one we make up

      • Heads up, God might show up when you are sure you already know what to expect

The Vision

• Isaiah sees the Lord.

  • I saw the Lord high and exalted.

• There is a reality of the full revelation of God that seems impossible to fully take in.

• The angels sing holy, holy, holy and I will give you Alec Motyer on this but this is a sentiment you will hear often repeated about this song...

  • “Hebrew uses repetition to express superlatives or indicate totality. Only here is the threefold repetition found. Holiness is supremely the truth about God, and His holiness is in itself so far beyond human thought that a 'super-superlative' has to be invented to express it...

    ... the question arises what it is that makes Him unapproachable or what it is that constitutes His distinctiveness. The answer is that it is his total and unique moral majesty.”

    – Alec Motyer

• To really see God is to come into contact with Holiness and it somehow both ruins us and saves us.

• Everything else we know about God, His love, His justice, His anger, His compassion is holy.

• It is set apart. Unlike any other. Unique to God and pure and brilliant and strong to the point we cannot stand it.

• And this is a problem.

  • Isaiah doesn’t join in the angels song. He gets a sense of what God is really like and he realizes everything is shaking.

  • And what happens when we encounter God is shaking and unraveling

  • At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

    “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

    – Isaiah 6:3-5

• When we really get a sense of God’s nearness, it gives a shake to everything we hold dear and have been counting on as our security, significance, meaning.

• Isaiah doesn’t start singing. He starts confessing.

• If you really look at this, it may be hard to imagine this as good thing.

• We live in a world where we have many practices to boost our self-esteem, where our egos feel fragile and need regular refilling, where we only want positive self-talk.

• And here is a vision of God that brings an unraveling.

• Why is this good?

  • Because a God who is really there is better than a god you make up.

• He says I have unclean lips.

• When we really see God for who He is we don’t just confess our sins, we confess our strengths. We confess the ways we try to distinguish ourselves and make a life out of our own resources.

• Isaiah was a man with the right family connections, the right education, the right set of skills, the obvious gifts and ability.

• And he gets a vision of God that unravels him.

• Isaiah gets no comforting words in his vision.

  • In fact, in contrast to God’s majesty he can’t confess fast enough

  • And it’s the best thing that ever happens to him

• Isaiah is about to step into joy and courage and creativity and endurance and the life he was meant to live with transcendent impact across the world that we still marvel at

  • But it starts with this unraveling.

  • For some, God’s love falls lightly on our hearts because we don’t really grasp the scope of it

    • Is this you?

  • For some of us, we are bored with God’s love, like its just the hallmark sappiness we know they sing about in church, because you haven’t had a vision of God’s holiness.

    • Is this you?

    • If you do, it will shake the foundations of your life and it will be the best thing that could happen to you.

• But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him.

  – Philippians 3: 7-9

• And in becoming unraveled, of confessing sin but also anything that rooted his life and identity other than God

• We cannot rightly envision God without holiness but we cannot stand holiness, so we have to have mercy.

  • And mercy comes from the altar.

• Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

  – Isaiah 6:6

• When we part ways with God, death is what enters. And death and separation has ripped through the human story and human heart.

• And God taught Israel something of the cost in the temple system, but all along as a place holder.

  • If you have a god who loves you but isn’t Holy - his mercy will always be light. His love will become boring to you.

  • If you have a god who is holy without love - you can’t stand before him. You are only undone.

• But here is a God who is majestically holy and is Himself undone so we can be changed, so we can be made holy.

• He goes from unraveled to unstoppable.

• He is ready for whatever God would ask of him. If you read on and get his job description, it is not one you would agree to lightly.

  • But Isaiah says “Here I am. Send me.”

    • Let me be a representative of this God who has changed and healed me. Let me show what God is really like even if it costs me.

• God gives this vision to Isaiah as an act of mercy even though it begins with unraveling and as we close I want to say that if you want get a true vision of God it must include God’s holiness.

  • If you want that you can ask for it.

  • And you can put yourself in places revelation.

    • Look into His Word

    • Come into the company of worship at the house of the Lord

    • Go into prayer

    • Look at the natural world with wonder and gratitude

    • See your neighbor

    • Live a life of compassion

---

March 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: ‭Lamentations 3:18-26

So I say, “My splendor is gone
    and all that I had hoped from the Lord.”

I remember my affliction and my wandering,
    the bitterness and the gall.
I well remember them,
    and my soul is downcast within me.
Yet this I call to mind
    and therefore I have hope:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
    for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
    therefore I will wait for him.”

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
    to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly
    for the salvation of the Lord.

---

Themes

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

• Cry of the Prophet

• Jonah - When We Hate God's Instructions

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Can you think of a time in your life when you wanted to give up? When you felt crushed by disappointment? When you felt you could not believe any more. Trust anymore. Love anymore. Go on anymore?

• Jeremiah is a prophet who teaches us something about endurance. About reliable maturity.

• Endurance and reliable maturity don’t sell much ad space in our culture.

• Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet

  • He found a way to cling to God’s love and faithfulness even in the middle of despair, in the middle of what looked like failure, when his spirit was crushed, when surely he wished he could give up.

• Anybody can say God you are my portion when you have as many portions of whatever else you want. But your city is crumbling and your life work lies in ruin and you can say to God...

  • You are enough for me. Your mercies are new every morning. You are my hope.

  • That type of prayer in the middle of despair is profound.

• How do we do that?

  Jeremiah had sense of being known by God

  • The word of the Lord came to me, saying,

    “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

    before you were born I set you apart;

    I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

    – Jeremiah 1:4-5

• One of the first things after God calls Jeremiah by name is God tells Jeremiah that He has known him well before Jeremiah became aware of it.

• God is an object about which we have questions. We are curious about God. We make inquiries about God. We read books about God. We get into late-night bull sessions about God. We drop into church from time to time to see what is going on with God. We indulge in an occasional sunset or symphony to cultivate a feeling of reverence for God.

• “But that is not the reality of our lives with God. Long before we ever got around to asking questions about God, God had been questioning us. Long before we got interested in the subject of God, God subjected us to the most intensive and searching knowledge. Before it ever crossed our minds that God might be important, God singled us out as important. Before we were formed in the womb, God knew us. We are known before we know.”

  – Eugene Peterson

JEREMIAH KNEW GOD HAD CALLED HIM AND HAD A VISION FOR HIM

• Jeremiah has insecurity and he told it to God... This is the exchange...

  • Jeremiah 1:6–15

  • God met Jeremiah’s insecurity with two visions

    • The first was an almond tree branch - and there is little world play here...

      • The word “almond” and the word “watching” are nearly identical in Hebrew. “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I see a “shaqed” (“almond”). “Good eyes! I’m sticking with you. I am “shoqed” (“watching”) my word to make every word I give you come true.

      • God told Jeremiah that even the most difficult of unlikely things he had to say he wasn’t saying alone. God was watching his promises to make sure they were fulfilled.

    • The second vision was a boiling pot - Jeremiah had a difficult word to share: because God’s people had ignored His covenant with them and broken it over and over again finally that brokenness was going to become their defining reality.

      • God speaks to Jeremiah in these everyday items.

  • Do you believe God has a call on you?

  • Do you believe God has vision for you?

  • Is your vision for your life so manageable that you can go about pulling it off whether God is involved or not?

  • Jeremiah knew God knew him and knew God had plans for him....

  • One of the most famous verses of Jeremiah is 29:11

    • For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

      – Jeremiah 29:11.

Jeremiah ACCELERATED HIS MATURITY THROUGH OBEDIENCE

• There can often be a huge gap in what we know about God and what we walk in.

• There can be huge gap in what we want most for our lives and how we live on the daily.

• Our maturity grows in leaps and bounds by following through on what God is asking us to do.

• Jeremiah learned to trust and know God more and more by taking God’s invitations and following God’s commands.

• Jeremiah became a new every morning person

• He came to know by experience in the worst possible circumstances that....

  • Because of the Lord’s great love ,we are not consumed,

    for his compassions never fail.

    They are new every morning;

    great is your faithfulness.

    – Lamentations 3:22-23

• Jeremiah endured wicked rulers, humiliation, set backs, failure, war and exile to keep showing up God is still at word, God is still showing mercy. The headlines are not all there is.

---

March 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: ‭Jonah 3:10 - 4:11

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relentedand did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered.When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”

But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

“It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

---

Themes

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

• Cry of the Prophet

• Jonah - When We Hate God's Instructions

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Two mentions of Jonah outside of these 4 chapters that make up the book with his name.

  • In the Gospels, Jesus seems to be frustrated that people keep demanding more and more external phenomena from Him while not experiencing a real change of heart and mind. 

    • He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here. 

      – Matthew 12:39-41

  • In 2 Kings 14 - Jonah, son of Amittai, was a court prophet to Jereboam II. While other prophets of Yahweh in his time, Amos and Hosea, criticized the royal administration for its injustice and unfaithfulness…

    • Jonah had supported Jeroboam’s aggressive military policy to extend the nation’s power and influence.

    • Tim Keller gives a helpful comment on this story and it begins to shine some light on how Jonah ends up running from God…. 

      • The original readers of the book of Jonah would have remembered him as intensely patriotic, a highly partisan nationalist. And they would have been amazed that God would send a man like that to preach to the very people he most feared and hated.

        – Timothy Keller

• So from these two mentions outside of the book of Jonah we learn some crucial things about the story…

  • Jesus saw this as an essential sign of God’s plan bringing salvation to the world, for breaking healing and redemption to a broken world.

  • We learn a little something about why Jonah was so reluctant to follow through with what God asks of him. 

  • Parallels in the story: 

    • In 1:1 - God’s words comes to Jonah – In 3:1 - God’s Word comes to Jonah

    • In 1:2 - the message is conveyed – In 3:2 - the message is conveyed

    • In 1:3 - the response of Jonah – In 3:3 - the response of Jonah 

    • In 1:4 - a warning is given – In 3:4 - a warning is given 

    • In 1:5 - the response of non-believers – In 3:5 - the response of the non-believers

    • In 1:6 - response of the leader – In 3:6 - the response of the leader 

    • In 1:7 unbelievers respond better than Jonah  – In 3:7 - unbelievers respond better than Jonah 

    • In 2:1-10 How God taught Jonah grace through the fish – In 4:1-10 How God taught Jonah grace through the plant 

• Few things that bear on all of us…

  • Why we do not want to do what God says

  • How we return to God when we’ve gone our own way

  • Why our anger new tells the whole story

  • And from all that a few things we learn about how God works…

    • The Conflict of Identity: Jonah’s primary significance was found in being a Hebrew and a nationalist rather than a servant of God. This caused him to flee to Tarshish because he feared God might actually forgive the "wicked" Ninevites.

    • The Storm of Disobedience: The sermon posits that every sin has a "mighty storm" attached to it. For Jonah, the storm was mercy—a visible picture of the chaos that comes from trying to manage the world without God.

    • The Death and Resurrection Pattern: Jonah’s journey "down" (to Joppa, to the ship, to the sea, to the fish) represents the end of self. Jesus later calls this the "Sign of Jonah," pointing to His own death and resurrection.

    • The Cliffhanger of Grace: The story ends with God asking Jonah if he should not love the great city. The sermon suggests the story ends abruptly to force us to answer: Will we be angry at God’s mercy toward others, or will we walk in the grace we’ve been given?

• You may sincerely believe that Jesus died for your sins, and yet your significance and security can be far more grounded in your career and financial worth than in the love of God through Christ.

• Shallow Christian identities explain why professing Christians can be racists and greedy materialists, addicted to beauty and pleasure, or filled with anxiety and prone to overwork. All this comes because it is not Christ’s love but the world’s power, approval, comfort, and control that are the real roots of our self-identity.

  – Timothy Keller

• Sin: 

  It [has qualities like] an addicting drug. At first it may feel wonderful, but every time it gets harder to not do it again. Here’s just one example. When you indulge yourself in bitter thoughts, it feels so satisfying to fantasize about payback. But slowly and surely it will enlarge your capacity for self-pity, erode your ability to trust and enjoy relationships, and generally drain the happiness out of your daily life. Sin always hardens the conscience, locks you in the prison of your own defensiveness and rationalizations, and eats you up slowly from the inside. All sin has a mighty storm attached to it.

  – Timothy Keller

THINGS WE LEARN ABOUT GOD

• God is not just the God of your nation, and group , and people, and politics. God really loves and cares about your enemy. (Be very careful if you imagine God is always cheering on American missles and drone strikes)

• God can meet us where we are even when we run away. (But running away always costs dearly) 

• God redeems through the sacrificial love of death and resurrection. This we see most fully in Jesus. 

• Jonah wanted Ninevah to pay for all their evil and wrong. God wanted to warn them and offer them mercy. 

• This fight between justice and mercy is raging in Jonah - God keeps finding shocking ways to be merciful 

• And ultimately God would say I will be just and the Justifier by going to the cross.

Application Questions

• Where is your "Tarshish"? Jonah ran to Tarshish because God’s command conflicted with his personal politics and national identity. Is there an area of your life (career, political conviction, or personal comfort) that you prioritize over God’s direction?

• Are you "praying your anger"? The sermon notes that Jonah was "rage-filled" but at least he prayed his complaint. When you feel resentful toward God’s timing or His mercy toward people you dislike, do you hide that away, or are you honest with Him about your bitterness?

• How do you view your "enemies"? If God moved powerfully in the life of someone you consider a "villain" or a rival, would you be glad for them, or would you be like Jonah—jealous, resentful, and bitter? How does the "Sign of Jonah" (the Gospel) challenge your view of who deserves mercy?

---

March 1: Groups Guide

About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

---

Love

Teaching Text: ‭1 Kings 19:1–I9

Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.”

Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.

All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.

The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. There he went into a cave and spent the night.

And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

The Lord said to him, “Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael,and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu. Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.”

So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him.

---

Themes

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

• Cry of the Prophet

• Elijah - The Still Small Voice

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Now the cultural moment that Elijah is living through is important to mention. Ahab was King in Israel and this is mid 800s BC. Ahab was in a string of not ideal Kings.

  • There’s a little refrain in the book of 1 and 2 Kings where it will say and so and so did more evil than all the previous Kings before them. 

• There was a progression of moving away from Yahweh, and Ahab accelerated that again. He had a political marriage to a woman from the kingdom of Tyre and Sidon, and she has her own reputation that has spilled the pages of Scripture. 

• Ahab was married to Jezebel, and Ahab and Jezebel were on an intentional strategic path towards pluralism in Israel - that’s a nice way to say it. 

  • They had killed prophets of Yahweh and brought in prophets of Ba’al. 

  • And there were many Ba’als but the major one worshipped here was thought to be a god of the storm, a god of the rains. 

• And so Elijah the Tishbite shows up and says, OK well the real God says there isn’t gonna be any rain, there isn’t gonna even be any dew.

  • Like Yahweh had challenged the gods of the Empire in Egypt in the Exodus, he challenges the Ba’al of the storm with a drought. 

• And in a very real way Elijah is hanging on to faith in Yahweh in Isreal at a time when there is very real chance of it dying out.

• Without the turning point of Elijah’s life and ministry - the way of Yahweh and His covenant in Israel was in real threat of dying out.

ELIJAH TALKS AND LISTENS TO GOD 

• A prophetic life, a life that reveals what God is really like is a life that has learned to talk and listen to God.

ELIJAH PRAYS HIS LACK

• Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah: “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.” 

  So he did what the LORD had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. 

  – 1 Kings 17:2–6

• If this was the end of Elijah’s story it would make a great sermon. But God told Elijah to proclaim a drought, but then provided for him with Ravens and a Brook. 

• But just a little while later. The Brook dried up. 

• God is interested in us learning to trust God. And often God will give us something as a gift, but then there is a risk that that thing God has given us becomes what we actually put our confidence in.

• Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.”

  – 1 Kings 17:7

• And Elijah prays his lack. And however he names it, it isn’t in the scene. What we get instead is God’s response.

• Elijah prays his lack. But God knows his need.

• What do you do with your Lack?

• Then the word of the LORD came to him: “Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.”

  1 Kings 17:8–9

• It seems harsh that the brook that God provided dries up

• But Jezebel was from Tyre and Sidon. God sends Elijah to the territory of his enemy. If he keeps providing for him with the magical Brook we never get this story, and (SPOILER) its going to be a story of resurrection.

• But Elijah goes to the widow. He asks her for some water and bread. He has to humbly ask for the thing God has been providing. 

• And she says I have no bread, I am going to make a meal for my son and I and then we are going to die.

• Elijah receives more direction from God in his lack…

  Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD sends rain on the land.’ ” 

  1 Kings 17:13–14

• the woman’s young son dies.

• And she asks the question many of us ask in tragedy? Is this my fault? Has God been against me the whole time? Did you just come to hurt me?

• And then Elijah asks for her son and takes him away to or pray, and he prays basically the same question
  
  

ELIJAH PRAYS HIS QUESTIONS

• When life is really difficult and tragic for us, where we go with our questions matters.

• Are you able to take your questions to God? 

• Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried out to the LORD, “LORD my God, let this boy’s life return to him!” 

  The LORD heard Elijah’s cry, and the boy’s life returned to him, and he lived. Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, “Look, your son is alive!” 

  – 1 Kings 17:21–23

• When he saw Elijah, he said to him, “Is that you, you troubler of Israel?” 

  “I have not made trouble for Israel,” Elijah replied. “But you and your father’s family have. You have abandoned the LORD’s commands and have followed the Baals. Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel. And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.” 

  So Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” 

  But the people said nothing. 

  – 1 Kings 18:17–21

• In confidence do you still turn to God?

ELIJAH PRAYS HIS CONFIDENCE

•  He prays in stages for the rain.

• Rain came. 

• But look what happens instead….

  Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.” 

  Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die.

  – 1 Kings 19 v 1–4

• He doesn’t want to go on.

• He thinks he is a failure. 

• He wants God to end his life.

ELIJAH PRAYS HIS DEPRESSION

• He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep. 

  – 1 Kings 19:4–5

• And we see the incredible wisdom of God here. 

• Elijah goes to the same place Moses went to look for God. To ask to see His Glory.

• And there Elijah prays his desperation

ELIJAH PRAYS HIS DESPERATION

• He makes Elijah food and lets him rest.

• God knows what we need.

• Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. 9 There he went into a cave and spent the night. 

  And the word of the LORD came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 

  He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.” 

  The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” 

  – 1 Kings 19:8–11

GOD COMES AS A WHISPER. A STILL SMALL VOICE.

• Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. 

  Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 

  He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.” 

  – 1 Kings 19 v 11–14.

• Elijah asks the same question, but now the Lord is speaking.

• Elijah is told that God has had a plan, he is not alone. He is gong to receive help. He is given a friend, someone to walk with. Elisha.

• As Elijah learns to pray. Elijah Walks in Wisdom.

Pray your lack

Pray your questions

Pray your confidence

Pray your depression, your anxiety, your illness

Pray your desperation

Pray and walk in wisdom

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