About This Guide

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

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

pdf download

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

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

more Resources

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

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

Love

Teaching Text: Matthew 10: 1-8

Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.

These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.

Themes

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

Built Up in love
Equipped to Join in the Healing of God
Series Intro:
- So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
  Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.
  From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
  – Ephesians 4:11–16
- The Kingdom of God is most accurately represented when all the saints are equipped and participating in the mission of God to love show his love to our world.
- The word EQUIP was used to refer to…
  - THE SETTING OF A BROKEN BONE - things are are broken in our lives being healed.
  - THE TEACHING OF A SOLDIER TO FIGHT - to be made ready of for struggle of life and the way of love in Christ by the Spirit
  - THE SUPPLY OF WHAT IS NEEDED FOR ALONG JOURNEY - that we would have what is need for the long journey of life
  - THE RESTORATION OF SOMETHING TO ITS ORIGINAL CONDITION - maybe its been worn out, beaten down, damaged, and it gets restored to like new…

Formation

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

Is healing really something we should expect from God?
What do we see God doing in the very beginning?
- Genesis 1:1-10
- In these early mysterious movements of creation we see God bringing order out of chaos

Sin, and more broadly a lot of what is wrong with the world, is also trying to manage the Chaos life in our own way, without God.

Where in your own life are you trying to manage the chaos in your life without God?

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because He has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
– Luke 4: 14-21
Here is the Word from Genesis, here is the hovering Spirit now anointing Messiah, here is Jesus saying what the Father has sent Him to do…and what is it??
- To the chaos of desperation, He brings good news
- To the chaos of being trapped, He brings freedom
- To the chaos of a blind darkness, He brings light and sight - healing
- To the chaos of oppression, He brings a lifted burden
- To the chaos of fear and insecurity, He brings favor - to know God is for us
- This is Jesus’ ministry
If you trust in the gospel of Jesus for your salvation and seek to live as a follower of Christ - you are equipped my friends to join in the healing of God.
Healing is what Jesus does.
God doesn’t do a work in our lives that puts us in a place where we don’t need God anymore.
Because God’s vision for you life is relationship - NOT I-never-need-anything-on-your-own-ness.
- That’s a myth from our radical individualism.
God wants us to know the joy of interdependence.

We see Jesus healing.
We hear Jesus saying I am here to heal.
We see Jesus sending His disciples out to heal.
WE see them healing.
We hear Jesus saying - you are going to do what I have done.
Freely you have received, freely give.
We hear Jesus say His followers will do greater things …
And yet we struggle to believe that God really heals.

The hurt or embarrassment around asking God for healing and not seeing anything is also real and painful.
But friends. What if we just do it anyway?

Some things that matter:
- Obedience matters
- Faith matters
- Love matters
- A combination of humility, character and endurance matters

We need healing in many forms
We need God to bring order to our chaos. THIS IS JESUS’ MINISTRY. He saves us. He heals.
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
– Isaiah 53: 5
In Jesus we find forgiveness and friendship with God.

Where do you need healing? How do you need healing?
- Sickness, Injury, Addiction, a Fearful Way of Doing Things, A Destructive Habit, A Childhood Coping Mechanism that No Longer Serves Us
- The wounds from rejection, the ache of loneliness, the trouble of intrusive thoughts, a sprained ankle, cancer, an ongoing shoulder pain