About This Guide: This weekly groups guide, “Living Hope: Words of Life for Challenging Days — Eight Weeks in First Peter,” is designed as a companion to Living Hope, our Fall 2021 teaching series, fostering discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting. Join a group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.
growing together
Teaching Text: 1 Peter 2:1-10
Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
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. For in Scripture it says:
“See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and, “A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
What nourishes your life?
What are we being built into?
The cornerstone of Jesus.
A people of mercy.
Read and discuss this quote:
There is nothing like the local church when it's working right. Its beauty is indescribable. Its power is breathtaking. Its potential is unlimited. It comforts the grieving and heals the broken in the context of community. It builds bridges to seekers and offers truth to the confused. It provides resources for those in need and opens its arms to the forgotten, the downtrodden, the disillusioned. It breaks the chains of addictions, frees the oppressed, and offers belonging to the marginalized of this world. Whatever the capacity for human suffering, the church has a greater capacity for healing and wholeness… The potential of the local church is almost more that I can grasp. No other organization on earth is like the church. Nothing even comes close.
Presence
Read this passage:
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. (Psalm 100)
Spend time in thanksgiving to God. Be in his presence and meditate on the good He is and has done in your hearts.
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
Peter builds community identity:
He names what will keep the community from being what it is meant to be.
He reminds them of the source and cornerstone on their life together.
Shows them what that life together can be
Threats to communal life:
Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.
Malice: an angry desire to do harm to another; present hostility.
Deceit: a desire to distort or obscure the truth for your benefit.
Hypocrisy: a division between what we say we are and how we actually live; lacking integrity.
Envy: the false desire that if we had what someone else had we would truly be happy.
Slander: a willingness to run someone else down for our own entertainment or benefit even when it is false.
Can you imagine a life or a community without these things?
The source and cornerstone of our life: be nourished and built on Jesus.
Jesus is the cornerstone.
What our life can be:
Living stones: you are fully alive.
A spiritual house: you are built together into a spiritual house.
A royal priesthood: you are a royal priesthood in a spiritual house.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Declare Praises as a people made by mercy.
Lift up God in the world - for joy and wisdom.
Lift up mercy in the world.
Is that our lives? If not, rid ourselves of these community destroyers. Built on Jesus and realize the community are you invited to become.
Love
Read these notes and discuss the questions below:
We are a family. We have a collective identity that we believe, treasure and preserve.
For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. When you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat.
There is a way to try be part of this community but still have divisions, rifts and unforgiveness between members.
Is there any relational obstructions that you need to repent of or heal with a member of Christ’s Body?
Pray for one another in the group.
