Before We Get Started

For our discussion today we will be using the sermon series discussion guides. If you would like to follow along you can access this discussion guide on the website at mosaicchurchaustin.com and then select “community group resources” in the menu options.

Prayer

Because the main goal of our time together is to establish relationships and learn how to walk with one another in all that God has called us to be and do, we’d like to begin by praying for one another. So, does anyone have anything you’d like us to pray for, or  anything to share regarding how you’ve seen God moving in your life that we can celebrate together.

This Week’s Topic

This week we continue our series titled Beloved. This series will be taking us through the book of 1 John. We will be taking a look at how the Gospel, the true story of the sacrificial love Christ has for us, makes us whole.

Today’s Topic

Made Whole Through Practicing What You Preach

Discussion Questions

Do you know someone whom you would say “practices what he/she preaches?” If so, who is it and how do they demonstrate that characteristic?

Genesis 1:26

“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 

Ephesians 2:8-10

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Romans 8:28-29

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”

What did God design humans to be and do?

Romans 3:22-23

“The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” 

In light of that reality, how should we define the word “sin?”

How does sin derail and violate the human design?

What is the difference between committing a sin, and living in habitual and unrepentant sin?

What does it mean to repent then?

James 1:13-15

“Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”

Romans 8:15

“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”  

According to Scripture, what is the driving motivation behind our sin?

What do you think that heart of fear and pride seems to be the default setting for humanity today?

What is the only thing that can cast out, or drive away, that fear and pride? Why is that?

So then, if the broken nature of being human produces fear and sin, what does it take to get back to the design of love that God created us for in the first place? (We must receive a new nature)

2 Corinthians 5:17-19

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”

How does Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and authority through the Holy Spirit make us new and whole so that we can once again love God and others as we were designed to do?

Closing Thought

What impact would that kind of love working itself out through our lives have on the world around us?