During summer months, it's often difficult to have the same momentum that you may have in, say, early spring. So you may want to be creative in how you wrap up this discussion with your group to ensure that it doesn't fall flat. Specific emails to key people in the group, a group meal with communion, mailing out letters of appreciation and encouragement; the bottom line is this- don't let this great opportunity to take the impact of Jesus' words as far as they can go get away for any person you're doing life with.
If you have any brief stories about how this last 10 weeks has be impactful for one or more of your members, for your group dynamics, etc... please share. We'd love to hear what God has been up to in the context of your weekly gatherings and discussion.
Thaw
- What are some decisions you made in the past that you would say directly affect your present?
- What are some decisions you made in the past that you would say directly affect someone else's present?
- What are some decisions you, for some reason, didn't make in the past that you would say directly affects your present?
- What stuck with you from Sunday?
- What would you say has been the weightiest thing you have taken away from the Color series? Why?
- What feels most unresolved as the series closes?
Read
- Matthew 8:1-13
- Thoughts?
Leader note: Verse 12 typically gets seen as a depiction of some people's destiny in a fiery hell. But the phrase, literally rendered "But the children of the Kingdom shall be cast into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" is a picture of those who seemed to be destined by heritage (Israel) to get a seat at the table, being uninvited because trust was found in who they thought they were better than. Weeping and gnashing of teeth is hyperbole for extreme frustration and anger over the state of things. Jesus was making an evocative statement regarding a Roman centurion exhibiting the kind of Kingdom faith that God was looking for, in vain, in his chosen people.
- Why does Jesus get so excited about this kind of faith?
- Israel knows a lot about God, knows the scriptures as well as the customs. Why doesn't Jesus get as excited about that?
- Judging by how you see yourself relationally and how you stand in this culture, are you more alike a leper coming to God, a centurion coming to God, or an Israelite already having come to God? Why?
Read
- Hebrews 12:2-3
- Thoughts?
- Fixing our attention on Jesus assumes that the earliest recipients of Hebrews needed a reminder to stop fixing their attention on something else. What are some things that take our focus off of Christ?
- What does it mean to focus ourselves on Christ, and what are we up against?
- How does this focus equate to great faith, and how is it counterfeited?
Leader note: The thrust of the last question is to help the group identify ways that we fix our eyes on a conversation about Jesus, or on church, or on our skepticism, or on a particular way of doing church so that we don't look too churchy, etc. All of this can, over time, fool you into thinking you are fixated on the person and way of Jesus, but it's counterfeit in that it's aimed at stuff, not him.
Discuss
- How many in this group feel as though they don't know what they should know about scripture, or enough about Jesus?
- How many of those who raised there hand feel like somehow that fact disqualifies them in the faith, or makes them rank lower than others that do know much?
- How would you describe the cause of Jesus' astonishment about the leper and the centurion's faith to someone?
Leader note: see if you can get 1 or 2 people to describe the scene, and pay attention to the fact that Jesus will likely be described as highlighting not so much what they "know", but their confidence in God Himself. These guys didn't have Bibles with them, but they submitted their plans and hopes to Jesus.
- What are you sensing you are created to do, but you keep refusing to step into it because of fear?
- What might happen if you lived in confidence of God and risked for him, even though there is much you don't know or understand?
- In one year, where might you and your world be if you acted on the hunch that God has given you about what He wants you to do, despite your unanswered questions?
- What can the group pray over for you that you have decided God can't help with (whether it's medically, financially, or a general sense that there's a hole in your life)?
- Are there any members of the group that wish to invite the others to help them take step into fixing their eyes on Jesus? Explain what this means.
Leader note: Encourage them to be specific. It may be baptism, or surrender to Christ in some way. Ask follow up questions and offer words if you sense the person is speaking in generalities because they don't know how to articulate what's going on inside them.
Prayer.
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