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The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.
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Love
Teaching Text: Matthew 6:19–24
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
Built Up in love
Equipped to be Ambassadors of Reconciliation
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:
Equipped for generosity
Starts with - a God of teeming abundance
Whatever else there is to discuss about the early pages of Genesis and there is quite a lot - one thing that sometimes gets missed is about over the top God is with the abundance of creation.
God doesn’t create a world of tiny rigid back yard play pens with animals. The wildness of the world made in God’s image is that it teems, and overflows, and surges, and swarms.
“On the very first page of the Bible, then, power, flourishing and image bearing are connected. Power is for flourishing—teeming, fruitful, multiplying abundance. Power creates and shapes an environment where creatures can flourish, making room for the variety, diversity and unpredictability of coral reefs and tropical forests, but also the surprising biological richness of high deserts and ocean depths. And image bearing is for power—for it is the Creator’s desire to fill the earth with representatives who will have the same kind of delighted dominion over the teeming creatures as their Maker. Which means image bearing is for flourishing. The image bearers do not exist for their own flourishing alone, but to bring the whole creation to its fulfillment.”
– Andy Crouch
God could choose to use God’s power however, and God uses power to create and shape an environment where creatures can flourish.
SO we have a God of teeming abundance inviting us to share in this - to share in a steward this abidance, to take raw materials and make culture, to be fruitful and multiply.
After the fall - we see a thread of scarcity woven through the story
We see scarcity and jealousy leading to murder.
We see distorted competition leading to violence and corruption.
We see world-altering greed.
We see the misuse of power and ambition and attempts to forget God.
“[What was] put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could ‘be like gods’—could set up on their own as if they had created themselves—be their own masters—invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”
– C.S. Lewis
A mysterious priest
And this mysterious priest comes out with bread and wine and blesses Abraham. And we may have forgotten these few throw away lines, but God brings them back mentioning them several more times in the story
This priest is called Melchizedek. And Jesus in Hebrews is called a priest according the order of Melchizedek.
And what does this priest do. He blesses Abraham for this rescue and redemption of his family member.
Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram, saying,
“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
Creator of heaven and earth.
And praise be to God Most High,
who delivered your enemies into your hand.”
– Genesis 14:18–20
Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
– Genesis 14:20
This is well before the Law of Moses, but God would certainly direct His people to generosity of exactly this kind - in particular to prioritize the community around God in the center
Get this right and the rest will find its proper place.
God is finding in Abraham a man He can covenant with for the repair of the world.
Another example is in Genesis 18
There is radical generosity and hospitality
And there is the promise of the covenant.
“I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.
“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’
“Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’
“In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty. “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty.
– Malachi 3:6-12
Test me in this.
You have been so insistent on meeting your own needs in your own way.
You have thought to get or stay rich by refusing to give
But you haven’t trusted me and your resources are ruining you and are now ruined.
You have ignored my instruction and done things your own way.
But even still. Even at the last minute I invite you back. Learn the mystery of trust. Test me on this and see my faithfulness..
It has a similar ring to what Jesus says just down from what we read about where our treasure is and what that says about out hearts … Jesus says …
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
– Matthew 6: 33
Mammon is a false god
It is relying on your own resources to satisfy your needs.
At the heart of the gospel is God giving Himself away for us
God is a generous God, inviting us to know the joy of becoming generous people
It is woven through the entire story.
It is an issue of our heart.
It is an issue of our primary allegiance.
It is an issue of the story we are living and the story we are telling.
What we see in the New Testament and Jesus’ followers is an even more radical generosity of which 10% would be kind of like a baseline.
And if you don’t have a tithing practice at all yet I am not heaping on burden on you to hit that tomorrow. I am saying you couldn’t make a better move than to turn over every aspect of your life to Christ.
To seek God’s direction, to grow in generosity.
The Heart is the Issue
We really think God will take care of TGC whether you give here or not.
But we will say there is so much joy in participating, so much enthusiasm in sharing in the heart of our generous God. And if God has put you here then this community needs your generosity to fully thrive in its mission of love to Brooklyn.
