This week the relevance continues as Jesus dives into how our hearts worry. When we talk about "trust in Jesus", this is largely what we mean. Many of us have relegated trust and faith to merely an intellectual embrace of what may be true after we die, if we get our doctrine sorted out. But Faith in Christ is in real time, and salvation is something that starts every morning when we refuse again that day to act like timid little sinners locked outside of the Garden. We're saved from self-determined worry.
For your group time this week, you may want to step into the discussion time with more boldness than normal. This, because, fear and worry and anxiety are the basis of every sin. What we worry about is our master, and that plays itself out in dark ways too numerous to count. So, if you can't have a rich discussion about all the things we live anxiously over, you're just not talking!
You will note in the "Thaw" section a moment created early on to entrust something worrisome to God. This will be a moment (and subsequent season) of trusting each other that you'll want to be prepared for, and even tweak as you see fit as the leader to make it work for your group.
You may also want to look at this list of phobias to see just how paralyzed humanity has become. You may also want to make a matching game out of it just for a fun icebreaker... unless you have a fear of matching games.
Thaw
- Who has a phobia they would like to share?
- Who has a superstitious ritual that they used to (or currently) follow)?
- What is a way that fear and worry has cost you an opportunity?
- A relationship?
- What's something that really stuck with you from the message Sunday?
Leader note: At this point, pass out index cards or small pieces of paper, and invite your group to write out one big thing they are stressed/worried/anxious/fearful about. As they do it, remind them that this group is in place to deepen faith and friendships, and to create an environment that challenges as it comforts. Tell the men and women to exchange their concerns with someone else in the group once they have finished writing. You may pre-determine who trades with who (pre-existing prayer-partners; each man to the man closest to his right, each woman same; name drawing, etc). Once the cards are given to another, the idea is that the other person has handed over their worry to a friend to be prayed for, as well as received a concern to pray for another. This is an exercise on trust, release, peace and actualized love and prayer for someone else in place of reserving that anxious energy for self.
Read
- Matthew 6:19-21
- Thoughts?
- If you truly treasure something, you give your heart to it. Which means you concern your deepest self with it. What are unhealthy ways of treasuring things?
- What does it mean to lay treasures up in heaven, and how do we do that?
Leader note: Don't let the group turn this phrase of Jesus into a total denial of all material things so as to get some sort of riches "up in heaven". This is about valuing things the way God does, and not letting life become an effort to horde "stuff". Remember, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." (James 1:17 ESV). Stuff isn't the issue. It's how it is sought after. Jesus says seek after things that have an eternal quality to them.
Read
- Matthew 6:22-24
- Thoughts
Leader note:Remember, in the first century Jewish world, a bad eye simply meant greed. And, so, remember that in this context especially, greed is the product of fear, and is condemned as something deadly to people, and foreign to the Kingdom of God. Additionally, "money is the word "mammon", a pretend god of avarice or acquisition. There is no real god named this in history, but it was a way of saying "selfish interests".
Read
- Matthew 6:25-34
- Thoughts?
- Worry makes us more self-preoccupied, less loving toward others, makes temptation more attractive, erodes our ability to be grateful, increases irritability, poisons relationships within community because the focus is on "me" more than loving you... so explain what "seek first Kingdom of God, and his righteousness" means.
- How does uncertainty about life or circumstances become harmful?
- Read verse 25 again. Then, read James 1:27. What lives should we be concerned about?
Leader note: Jesus says, "Therefore (based on all that I have said to this point), do not worry about your life". If you emphasize the the word "your", you can hear him say something that he says often; don't make you the concern. Give your emotional energies away. Take responsibility for the needs of others, and let the Kingdom play itself out for you. This is certainly a difficult idea, but let the group explore the beauty of what fighting for others needs and comforts and preferences would look like, while quietly and peacefully trusting that God's Kingdom will be a place that "adds to us" what we need in the process.
- Jesus doesn't say to not seek the things that cause anxieties. He says seek the way of the Kingdom first. How do we switch priorities in reality, when it turns out to include our homes, jobs, health, appearance, vacations and day-to-day reality?
- Respond as a group to the phrase:
Do what you can do today. After you’ve done all you can do today, trust God with tomorrow.
Apply
- What works against us being the kind of people that lets tomorrow worry about itself?
- What's a way to end a day in such a way that acknowledges your responsibilities, but doesn't hang on to worry?
- Who do you know that seems to have struck the balance of responsibility and peace? What do they do that you could learn from (especially if they are in this group!)
- What are practical ways that this group, and each individual, can be reminded of God's faithful and the trustworthiness of the Kingdom way?
Prayer
Spend some time in prayer at the close of your time. Perhaps each person could pray over the concerns on the card they have been handed. Perhaps one or two people could pray for a new level and depth of understanding into what it means to trust Jesus, and to deny the mind the pleasure of worrying over things it cannot control. Pray that the group would be, more than ever, a place where fears can be shared, prayed over, and crushed as it moves toward the courageous, confident Kingdom way of Jesus Christ.
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