October 5: 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 John 3: 11-24

For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

---

Themes

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

• Built Up in love

• Equipped for Sacrificial Love

• 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:

• 1 John 3:11-17

• Jesus' message got Him killed because He contrasted the way of the Kingdom with the way the world was governed. 

• He was less known for what He was against than what He was for…  He spent most of His time and energy critiquing the powers of this world by showing a different and better way. 

• Through His example, we learn, power comes through service and particularly through sacrificial love. 

• “Greater love has no one than laying down his life for a friend” 

• No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.

• He is willing to pay a price to gain something that cannot be gained otherwise. 

• Jim Elliot well understands this when says:

  "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

• Practicing sacrificial love is not the same as practicing self-neglect.

• The late Tim Keller - Freedom of Self Forgetfulness:  it's not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. 

• “For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.”

• The message was always the same. This is not a new gospel. 

• What is this love? Who defines it?

  • “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.”

• We measure love through the lens of the cruciform example.

• Every time I pay a price of sacrifice for someone else… I am showing a little picture of the love of Jesus to them. 

• I am telling them their life is worth it. I am saying, “You are loved.” In a believable way. 

• A R Bernard makes the desperately needed point in the midst of political gameplay and the commandeering of scripture to gain political power, from both sides, that: 

  “One can be very biblical and at the same time not at all Christlike.”

• Then, still describing the nature of love, John gives an example and an explanation: 

  “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? “

• What would John write to you if he was giving you an example to live by? 

  • “And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.”

Serve:

• John 15-17, John has his last address to his disciples and he gives them the example of a servant washing their feet. This was his object lesson when he gave them a new command… to love one another. 

Forgive: 

• Forgiveness is costly. Its an act of sacrificial love, in the example of Jesus. 

• On the cross.. The ultimate expression of love he said “forgive them…”

Trust:

• Paying the price for others through sacrificial love takes trust that God will take care of you. 

• In what areas of your life to you need to practice Trust, Forgiveness and Service?

---

September 28: 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: 2 Peter 1:3-11

FHis divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

---

Themes

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

• Built Up in love

• Equipped to Live the Promises of God

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• 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…

• TODAY - 2 Peter 1:3-11

• And SO this passage is an old and seasoned saint taking our hand and walking us through how it works…

  • Don’t forget you have everything you need

  • Don’t forget where to find it: in union with Christ and in the promises

  • And Don’t Forget that it’s through the promises of God we grow in such a profound way that we become participants in divine nature.

  • We actually have a share God’s life.

  • We actually have a share in what is true about God’s character growing up in us.

• His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. 

  2 Peter 1:3–4

• In a world that plays up scarcity, can we really believe that we have what we need?

  • What areas of life do you feel like you are experiencing scarcity? Not enough? 

• God is not lacking - remember in Psalm 23 when David is giving us this classic picture of walking with God through life. 

  • “The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.”

• The promises of God are doorways for us to participate in God's very nature

• The first temptation and every one thereafter: 

  • Maybe God is keeping something Good from you. 

• The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. 

  – John 10 :10

• Now if we’re making our way through our lives without drawing on the power of these promises to get us participating in the God’s nature, in God’s way and character in the world, then we are leaving this tremendous resource of abundant life untouched and unused.

• How? 

• MAKE EVERY EFFORT

  • How does this line up with God’s free gift of grace? 

• We come in on Christ’s accomplishment.

• But Peter says MAKE EVERY EFFORT to add to your faith and then he gives this list.

• I love what Dallas Willard says..

  • God is not opposed to effort, He is opposed to earning

    – Dallas Willard

• AFTER YOU BELIEVE…

  • Virtue is what happens when someone has made a thousand small choices requiring effort and concentration to do something which is good and right, but which doesn't come naturally. And then, on the thousand and first time, when it really matters, they find that they do what's required automatically. Virtue is what happens when wise and courageous choices become second nature.

    – NT Wright

• Its not ramping up our willpower, its turning our will over and over again to God with the help of the Holy Spirit so that we grow in the life of God.

• At the end of this journey of maturity that Peter highlights is LOVE.

  • That we share in the active, anti-selfish, sacrificial, enduring, world changing love of God.

  • There is a GOOD NEIGHBORS FAIR TODAY. Each both is a way to practice love…

  • GOD HAS NOT LEFT US WITHOUT WHAT WE NEED.

Practice

Offer prayers together of:  

• Gratitude for the promised of God 

• Gratitude for the provision of God 

• Gratitude for for the person(s) of God

---

June 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: Ephesians 5:8-20

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the lightbecomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said:

“Wake up, sleeper,
    rise from the dead,
    and Christ will shine on you.”

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

---

Themes

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

• Pentecost

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• The phrasing of this passage we read today can run past your ears and you might change it without noticing because it is not exactly what you expect. 

  • When it can easily make it say something different from what it actually says because its close to what you would expect it it say but it then its not.

• The passage does not say, “You were living in darkness, now you are living in light.”

• For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 

  – Ephesians 5:8

• We think it’s going to say you were living in darkness, but it says you were darkness. 

• We think it’s going to say you are now living in the light, but it says you are light. 

• Live as children of light.

• This letter that was first directed to a city church in a bustling crossroads, cross cultural, pluralistic city was also passed around to other cities.

• It was written to people who were trying to understand and to live the staggering change that Jesus was bringing into people's lives.

• Pattern of the letter

  • Here is who you are. Now here is how you live.

  • You were once this. You are now this.
    

• The chapter begins:

  • Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. 

    – Ephesians 5:1–2

• You were darkness, You are light.

• Your life once made it harder to discern reality, to grasp what is really there.

• You weren’t just living in a dark place, you were contributing to it.

• You may have had no nefarious intentions and you weren’t setting out to harm, but the self disconnected from God is confusion. 

• Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be partners with them. 

  – Ephesians 5:6–7

• “‘God’s wrath’, in fact, isn’t just a punishment waiting for people at the end of the present age. It isn’t an arbitrary thing whereby God makes up some rules to stop people enjoying themselves and then threatens to get angry with them if they go ahead anyway. God’s wrath is built in to creation itself. There are certain ways of behaving which are so out of line with the way God made the world, and humans in particular, that they bring their own nemesis.”

  – NT Wright

• He is saying there are spiritual laws that are just as real and consequential as physical laws.

• To live apart from God is like trying to ignore gravity. 

• It’s like pretending you don’t need water to live.

• It’s like having no regard for how you feed yourself.

• You may have moments or days where you get away with it, but the trouble is built in.

• It carries its own consequence.

• Sin is a flight from reality. 

• Light is visible and makes things visible - live in a way that accords with the truest truth of reality

• For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 

  – Ephesians 5:8–9

• There is a way of life that produces anxiety, loneliness, disconnection, frantic search with no light, anxiety, even death.

• And there is a way of life that accords with God’s love and light. It’s not a trouble free life, but it does produce certain fruit … (the three mentioned here are … )

  • Goodness - character growth 

  • Righteousness - actions of justice and shalom 

  • Truth - a lived expression of actual reality

• But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said: 

         “Wake up, sleeper, 

         rise from the dead, 

         and Christ will shine on you.” 

– Ephesians 5:12–14

• HOW?

  • “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. “

    – Ephesians 5:15–20

  • Recognize the gift of every day (and every moment)

• Be filled with the Spirit (and not the substitutes and short cuts) 

• Soak your life in gratitude and worship.

• In a world of scarcity overflow.

• In a world of fear, live connected to your courage 

• In a world where selfishness is expected, shock with kindness 

• In a world of alone, be together

• In a world of lies that shroud in darkness, be light.

---