Mark 4:24-25 What You Already Have.

Take time as a group to not only discuss the message, but to try and uncover ways that Christ's words are speaking to us about life and what we already have. Because God's words are. 

When a lack of contentment with what is is identified, we're well beyond half way to a life full of peace and meaning. Until this blindness is identified though, we're numbered among miserable millions waiting for God to make our lives like someone else's. Waiting for God to do more, to fix, to add- so we can live the abundant that God had the audacity to imply was possible regardless of whether things conformed to our preferences or not.

Thaw

• What is this group's plan for Easter week? Will it be like any other week, or will the time take on a different feel?
• Will the group be meeting over spring break?

• What had most stuck with you from sunday morning?
• How much time would you say you spend thinking about other people's lives as a metric for the quality of your own?
• For how long have you done this?
• Why do you think you do this? Though it would be perfectly acceptable to do so, try and answer this question without referencing the culture's way of encouraging envy and discontent. Or, in other words if you life, refer to yourself as the culture as you speak.

Read

• Proverbs 14:30
• Thoughts?
• Assuming bone rot is a metaphor- What specifically happens to someone who lives in envy?

Read

• Mark 4:24-25
• Thoughts?
• This is a confusing passage. Spend some time talking about it through the lens of:

Physical ability.

Talent.

Knowledge and mental sharpness.

Time.

Money.

Joy.

Etc...

Leader note: This is an exercise in understanding Christ. He is not necessarily painting a scene where God "comes to collect". Instead, think of his words as observations about how life is. When you don't use your mind, even what you have diminishes. But if you remain engaged, you're ability to learn grows. If you don't give time, you will feel like you don't have it. But if you offer what you do have in the most healthy and Kingdom ways possible, you find that life is constantly replenished. Etc.

Read

• Exodus 20:1-17
• What do you notice about the last one compared to the first nine?

Leader note: With the first nine commands, others can tell whether you are obeying them or not. There are outward manifestations to observe. But number ten is internal. This has led some throughout time to say that as well as being part of the ten, it's also an outcome or result of the first nine. The affect of honoring God, family, life's rhythm, never taking life or property, etc, is "You will not covet." You will be free. 

• Discuss this resultant freedom in light of each of the commands. (i.e. Honoring mother and father, rather than wishing for different family circumstances, provides freedom from the anxious anger that comes with feeling like your childhood was some sort of rip off.)

Discuss

• Watch this video and see how it can parallel your own life and, envy and unique orientation to Christ's words about "what you already have."

EMBRACE THE SHAKE!

Mark 4:1-23 (3:22-30) The One at The Center is an Artist

There's an old story of a rabbi asking his students to write down the questions they have about a particular text. When they each produced just a handful, the rabbi slammed his hand down on his stand and said, "How dare you dishonor Torah with so few questions!"

Rather than a didactic, constitutional approach to the scriptures, allow yourself to sit at the feet of a master artist, one confident that, in your communal trust and humility, will get at at least a few of the many layers to all that has been written.

On the wall in the atrium, a few words of Christ have been captured within frames. Discuss their content, the way they are presented, and how our own perspectives and experiences shape how we hear them- and what we do with them. Key in on certain words or imagery, and ask why Jesus may have used them instead of something else. Allow contradiction to be considered. Ask if the thrust of it changes if Jesus says it smiling. Ask if being poor or rich or male or female or from a peace-filled, whole upbringing or a broken, desperate one, changes how these phrases sit in our minds.

Imagine there are 70 angles.
Imagine that getting it "right" isn't the Artist's chief concern.
Imagine this is all a discussion we can have as we all view and entrust ourselves to he who sits at the center, with our without our comprehension!


Matthew 5:43-44
Matthew 7:21
Matthew 13:33
John 14:13-14
Matthew 9:13
Matthew 26:52

Mark 3:31-35 "Your Biggest Regret"

Expectations.
They are most often ways that we ready ourselves to be disappointed. Ways that we hope others come through for us, as we have made our very enjoyment of our lives dependent on it.
Expectations are also those things others have of us.
Those ways that we can pass or fail with our words, our decisions, our existence. The list of healthy expectations one holds over another are very few. Most of them, the scads of them we live within the pressure of, are killing us. And most of us can't tell the difference between healthy or un. We just keep subjecting ourselves and others to them indiscriminately.

And as we are finding out through the honesty of the dying, it ends up being our biggest regret.

As a group, see if you can take one step out of the world of enslaving expectations and into the freedom Christ insists is ours when we're ready.


Thaw

• What most stuck with you from Sunday morning?
• With what do you find yourself conflicted over, and why?

Read

• Mark 3:20-35
• Thoughts?
• Why is Jesus catching all of this criticism?
• What, in your mind, would he have to do, to soothe the tensions over him, and how would that affect us and our faith today?

Discuss

• What are some examples in your own life where you feel tossed back and forth between what you feel like you're wired for and the expectations (and the threat of consequences that come with those expectations) of others?
• Would you rather die regretting not being true to what you really are, or die regretting being misunderstood? Why?

• Each person in the group choose no more than two from the following list of people and detail the expectations you have on them:
• Parents, boss, children, employees, siblings, significant other, teacher, government leader.
• Where did you get your expectations?

Leader note: Alert the group that any answers like "common sense" or "reasonable expectations" may very well (and quite likely are) culturally conditioned and are therefore not common. Other cultures probably go about the relationship in ways very foreign to our method. Understanding the preferential nature of our expectations, despite them feeling inherent and instinctive, can dislodge them from moral absolutes to preferences, therefore reducing the pressure and tension in big, freedom offering ways.

• Where did you get your expectations of yourself?
• Do expectations on you, from others and then on yourself, ever make you feel bitter or tired or generally negative? How does your answer help you understand this as yet another way to put the golden rule in effect?

Leader note: If a member feels under the gun by everybody, and is constantly editing and criticizing, they are likely tired over it all. Taking this pressure off others is a way of saying "this is the world I'd like to live in, so I will begin creating it for others. I will love others the way I would like to be loved."

Apply

• What expectations exist in this group, within the couples, the singles, the group and its leader(s), etc? Positive or negative, discuss them in the safety of total honesty, and see what you can learn about yourselves, about how you carry expectations and the bitterness or subtle divides that comes with them, etc.

Mark 2:13-28 "Of Wine and Skin"

There's missing the forest for the trees, and then there's saying it's not a forest because the trees are the wrong species, or they're growing on the wrong hill, etc.

Often times people of faith can't see what God is up to because of the myriad ways they've predetermined what God will do, How God will do it, and For whom it will be done. This was a problem for scribes and pharisees. It's a problem for notable Christians of our day. It's a problem for pastors. It's a problem for LifeGroup Leaders and their group members. 

Take time in your group this week to explore what our modern context for requiring fresh wineskins might be, and how we truly think the Spirit of Christ is speaking to it.

--------------------------

Thaw

• Have there been experiences in the last week where you believe the Spirit was at work in your life, awakening you, inviting you, etc.? Please share.
• What has stuck with you the most from Sunday? 

Read

• Micah 6:6-8
• Thoughts?
• Mindful that we don't participate in the sacrificial system with animals and oil, etc., How would you modernize the language for our own context?
• How have you experienced the importance of loving others, working for equity and justice and walking humbly with God?

Read

• Mark 2:13-28
• Discuss that which glows brightest for the various members of the group. See if you can validate the criticisms leveled at Jesus for what he was doing, using scripture. See if those criticisms are effectively countered by the spirit of Micah 6:8. Then see if you can uncover modern equivalents for the people and behaviors in each scene, and how Christ responds to it.

Discuss

"...do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?" Romans 2:4 NASB

• How does this differ from how we think God transforms people? 
• How does this seem to line up with the work and ministry of Christ, even if at odds with our typical conceptions of Christianity?
• Why do we resort to Us & Them, Do's & Don't and Sacred & Secular in trying to advance God's Kingdom?

Apply

• What would you say are some of the New Wine God is up to in society, church, etc, and some of the Old Wine Skin responses?
• What are ways that your view of God is historical, verses open to something new today?
• What's the balance to strike for respect for the past and openness to the present?

(For a few more thoughts in this vein, you may consider reading my blog post from last year entitled, A Couple Thoughts About God and Beer.)