About This Guide
The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.
Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.
pdf download
Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.
Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.
more Resources
Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.
Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.
Love
Teaching Text: Isaiah 9: 1-7
Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan—
The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.
You have enlarged the nation
and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you
as people rejoice at the harvest,
as warriors rejoice
when dividing the plunder.
For as in the day of Midian’s defeat,
you have shattered
the yoke that burdens them,
the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor.
Every warrior’s boot used in battle
and every garment rolled in blood
will be destined for burning,
will be fuel for the fire.
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
will accomplish this.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
Peace
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
ADVENT: Arrival
Often regarding the arrival of a moment or a person.
In the church calendar, it refers to the arrival of Jesus.
Advent season is the season of waiting for the arrival of our Savior.
Advent is a season where we look at the darkness of the world, maybe even the darkness of our present lives or circumstances in the face and say HOPE IS STILL A PRESENT REALITY.
Peace: SHALOM - not just the absence of conflict but the presence of well-being and thriving.
How would others describe you if they were to say if you are a glass-half-full or half-empty person?
Do you think their perceptions are accurate?
Isaiah in this text, offers a prophetic poem into the tension of the day…
And he sets it up by saying, you know the places that have already fallen, our neighbors who the Assyrians have already gobbled up. EVEN THEIR GOD’S STORY IS NOT FINISHED.
In fact, they will be some of the first places to see God’s intervention and redemption
“Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations by the Way of the Sea beyond the Jordan” – Isaiah 9 v 1
The prophet is giving them another way to see a story they think they know….
Isaiah’s words to the people in this desperate time takes them back to moments in the past, it takes them forward to moments in the future and reminds them that what they see surrounding them is not everything….
Alec Moyer, the revered Isaiah scholar, helps us…
“As always, the people of God must decide what reading of their experiences they will live by. Are they to look at the darkness, the hopelessness, the dreams shattered and conclude that God has forgotten them? Or are they to recall his past mercies, to remember his present promises, and to make great affirmations of faith?
[The prophet] insists that hope is a present reality, part of the constitution of the ‘now’. The darkness is true but it is not the whole truth and certainly not the fundamental truth.”
– J. Alec Motyer
And so Isaiah is an advent prophet.
HOPE - It is part of the constitution of NOW. The darkness is true, but it is not the whole truth and certainly not the fundamental truth.
We might be in one particular valley or one particular mountain top but the prophet is helping us to see the whole range, the peaks stretching behind us and out in front of us, so we do not give in to the TYRANNY OF OUR PRESENT MOMENT, or THE URGENCY OF OUR PRESENT MOOD.
What do you do when experiencing the tyranny of the present mood?
Are you able to see a reality beyond what you feel?
On a scale from 0-10 how much do your current feelings dictate your life?
In This text we see
PEACE IS A PERSON
THIS PERSON CAN BE KNOWN IN FULLNESS BY NAME
SHALOM IS A PASSION FOR GOD
Isaiah gives them a poem about a baby on the eve of the battle to shake them awake
What you're longing for cannot be accomplished this way. SOMETHING NEW MUST BE BORN IN THE WORLD
PEACE is a person.
It is not just an idea or a state of being. A person who has faced death and come back carries peace and offers into all of us in love
“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” – Colossians 1 v 19-20
LEARN THE NAMES OF GOD - WE CAN KNOW MESSIAH IN THIS FULLNESS
Wonderful Counselor - a God who can give us supernatural wisdom in our real life
Mighty God - who is strong enough to keep promises even if they don’t track exactly long the lines of our expectations, moods, or circumstances
Everlasting Father - who loves us in the gracious covenant way of family and holds us in tender care
Prince of Peace - and who can make true of us what is true of him. Who can bring our lives and the world to Shalom.
How do you find your practice of unburdening your heart to God?
Are you comfortable asking God to be powerful in areas where you are not able to effect change?
How convinced are you of the idea that God is always loving and will not change or let you down?
Do you believe God can settle areas of conflict where you have not been able to?
“Shalom is one of the richest words in the Bible. You can no more define it by looking up its meaning in the dictionary than you can define a person by his or her social security number. It gathers all aspects of wholeness that result from God’s will being completed in us. It is the work of God then that, when complete, releases streams of living water in us and pulsates with eternal life. Every time Jesus healed, forgave or called someone, we have a demonstration of shalom.” – Eugene Peterson
Which aspect of the character of God and his names do you want him to show you?
