October 26: 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.

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Love

Teaching Text: John‬ ‭16‬:‭ 16–22

Jesus went on to say, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.”

At this, some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.”

Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’? Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

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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…

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Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Jesus is having a extended last conversation with His disciples. 

• He is trying to give them a sense of what they can expect for the future. You will weep, He says. But your grief will turn to joy and you will see Me again and no one will take away your joy.

  • “I’m going to die and you will be sad.  And then I’m going to be raised from the dead and you will be joyful again”

• And He’s making one thing very clear:

  • Certainty of tears and joy

    • That both weeping and rejoicing are certain. Whatever else happens in this world, we will have both grief and joy.  

• Weeping

  • We live in a world that is tinged with death.  The separation experienced in the fall was comprehensive—it spread to every area of life.

  • Consider the things in your life that is grief worthy right now… 

    • Pain

    • Loss

    • Take note of them 

  • You will weep over every thing in this world that is not yet fully redeemed. 

• Rejoicing

  • The most inexhaustible source of joy we have is God’s love for us.

  • In Tish Warren’s book, Prayer in the Night, she leans on the writings of Henri Nouwen. She writes:

    • Henri Nouwen described joy as “the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing–sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death–can take that love away.”... “It is a choice,” he says, “based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing… can take God away from us.” –Tish Warren, Prayer in the Night

• There are echoes of Paul here: For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

  – Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭38‬-‭39‬ ‭NIV‬‬

• Just gazing for an extended period at a spring bulb pushing up from dark soil or a robin hopping across the lawn–or at anything in nature—will reveal God’s utter gratuity and the sacredness of every created thing.

  – Richard Rohr, The Tears of Things

• When Job has suffered the loss of everything in his life, God finally appears and begins speaking. He doesn’t comfort Job, but he speaks of all his creative work, sustaining the world in every way imaginable

• And I think God is pointing out:

  • (1) is that he is always working

  • And (2) that everything is a gift. 

• To choose joy is to see all existence as a gift, which is why the practice of joy is inseparable from the practice of gratitude. Gratitude gives birth to joy because gratitude teaches us to receive life as a gift in the moment we’re in, regardless of what lies ahead.

  — Tish Warren, Prayer in the Night

• Both of these authors brush up against this idea of joy as a choice.  For those of you who listen to Lectio 365, every morning there is an opening psalm that speaks to an aspect of God’s character that is being celebrated, and the reader says “I choose to rejoice in God’s steadfast love today, joining with the ancient praise of all God’s people in the words of Psalm”

• Both joy and grief are meant to be shared

• Paul says this: 

  • Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. ‭‭

    – Romans‬ ‭12‬:‭15‬ ‭NIV

• In the letter to the Galatians he writes:

  • Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

    – Galatians‬ ‭6‬:‭2‬ ‭NIV‬‬

• Ask your group:

  • What grief can we share the burden of with you?

  • What joys can we celebrate with you? 

• “Trauma is when severe emotional pain cannot find a relational home in which it can be held.”

  – Robert Stolorow

• A shared burden is lighter.

• Joy shared is multiplied and magnified

• The sharing of grief and joy requires vulnerability

• Weeping and rejoicing are bound together in love

• The psalmist writes:

  • Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.

    – ‭‭Psalms‬ ‭126‬:‭5‬-‭6‬ ‭NIV‬‬

• Everything That Was Broken

Everything that was broken has

forgotten its brokenness. I live

now in a sky-house, through every

window the sun. Also your presence.

Our touching, our stories. Earthy

and holy both. How can this be, but

it is. Every day has something in

it whose name is Forever.

— Mary Oliver

• For When People Ask

I want a word that means

okay and not okay,

more than that: a word that means

devastated and stunned with joy.

I want the word that says

I feel it all all at once.

The heart is not like a songbird

singing only one note at a time,

More like a Tuvan throat singer

able to sing both a drone

and simultaneously

two or three harmonies high above—

a sound, the Tuvans say,

that gives the impression

of wind swirling among rocks.

The heart understands swirl,

how the churning of opposite feelings

weaves through us like an insistent breeze

leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves,

blesses us with paradox

so we might walk more openly

into this world so rife with devastation,

this world so ripe with joy.

— Rosemary Wahtola Trommer

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October 19: 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.

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Love

Teaching Text: 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

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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:

• The missing “ands”

• And so just to be clear I don’t mean the ands really aren’t there. I just mean that when we read these passages we can sometimes tune out around the and and miss what’s next or sometimes feel like we can just make the ands into ors.

• So lets look at it again quickly so you can see what I mean….

  • For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. 

    So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 

    – 2 Corinthians 5: 14–21

• One died for all AND therefore, all died - So Christ has given us His life and in trust and receiving that in faith we also die ourselves. Our old way of living on our own, out of our our old resources is dead. 

• We died with Christ and now we live with Him.

• And one of the first places this shows up, this resurrection life is:

  • How we evaluate each other

  • How we consider worth

  • Decide wether to love

  • Decide whether to include

    • Jew. Gentile, Slave, Free. Republican. Democrat. Rich. Poor. Artist. Banker. Teacher. Doctor. Citizen. Immigrant.

• These things may affect our lives in many ways, but they are not the basis of how we regard one another any more. 

• When we are united to Christ - we are living in a new type of world. 

• So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here.

  – 2 Corinthians 5: 16-17

• As we live this way, we are getting a glimpse of the new creation right here in the middle of the old.

• When we start to have this new way to regard one another that begins in Christ’s love for us, that goes to the lengths of Christ’s death and resurrection…

• Then we start that see the world of Shalom break into the fractured reality of life without God.

• All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

  – 2 Corinthians 5: 18-19

• What is that ministry? Reconciliation

• God has been reconciling the world to Himself - not counting people’s sins against them - not because God doesn't cane about sin, but that He loves us so much that He died to free us from the power and penalty of it. 

• AND he has give us a message - What is the message? Reconciliation

• A ministry and message of reconcilation
  
  
  

• So is this what the church is carrying?

• Is this what we are carrying?

• “As a lifelong evangelical, I’ve been taught to hope, pray and work for revival. I’ve even experienced small-scale revivals — in my law school Christian fellowship and at a small church in Georgetown, Ky., where my wife and I served as volunteer youth pastors for a short period.

  I love the succinct description of revivals by my friend Russell Moore, an editor at large and columnist for Christianity Today magazine. “Revival,” he wrote in The Atlantic, “is a concept with a long history in American evangelicalism, rooted in the Bible, that says a people who have grown cold and lifeless can be renewed in their faith. It is a kind of resurrection from the dead.”

  In 2023, shortly before he died, Tim Keller, the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York and one of the leading evangelical pastors and theologians in the nation, wrote that genuine revival has three characteristics: It wakes up “sleepy” Christians, it converts nominal Christians into a more vital and genuine faith, and it brings non-Christians to Christ.”

  – David French 

• In other words, revival begins with the people proclaiming, by word and deed, “I have sinned.”

• [Certain streams of American Christianity] have a different message. It looks at American culture and declares, “You have sinned.”

• “And it doesn’t stop there. It also says, “We will defeat you.” In its most extreme forms, it also says, “We will rule over you.” That’s not revival; it’s revolution, a religious revolution that seeks to overthrow one political order and replace it with another — one that has echoes of the religious kingdoms of ages past.”

  – DAVID FRENCH

•  Humble yourself. Turn to God. Receive mercy. Be reconciled. 

• We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 

  – 2 Corinthians 5: 20-21

• We are talking this fall about the ways God has equipped us 

• And I want you to know friends 

  • That you are ambassadors of peace with God

  • You are agents of reconciliation

  • As though God were making His appeal through you

  • Passing the Kingdom through the relational lines of changes lives

• One of the resources that every lasting relationship needs that the church is meant to have in abundance is forgiveness

• If someone is our enemy, maybe we can start praying God help me love them.

• Who in your life do you need to ask God: God help me Love them

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October 12: 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: 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.

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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…

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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

• Friends, as followers of Jesus we are equipped to join in the healing of God. 

• Where do you want prayer for healing?

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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