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

Today, we begin a new series that will have focusing on one of the most impactful chapters in all the Bible. Romans chapter 8 is referred to by many as the high point of one of the most influential books in the history of the church. With so much stress, anxiety, insecurity, and strife swirling around our world right now, this chapter helps us to hear, remember, and re-center our lives around our true identity in Christ. And, as we do that, we truly believe that we can all end up Better Than We Began.

Today’s Topic

A Better Voice

Discussion Questions

In what ways, if any, has the last 2 years left you feeling less than, rejected, outcast, or like you are not good enough?

Romans 8:1-6

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”

‭‭‬ ‭

What does condemnation feel like? 

Where does that feeling of condemnation come from?

How do people tend to try to deal with, or get away from, that feeling if condemnation? 

And yet, what is always the result of looking to created things in an attempt to prove our significance and worth?

Romans 5:6-8

“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited

“Nothing less than a great daring in the face of overwhelming odds can achieve the inner security in which fear cannot possibly survive. It is true that a man cannot be serene unless he possesses something about which to be serene. Here we reach the high-water mark of prophetic religion, and it is of the essence of the religion of Jesus of Nazareth. Of course God cares for the grass of the field, which lives a day and is no more, or the sparrow that falls unnoticed by the wayside. He also holds the stars in their appointed places, leaves his mark in every living thing. And he cares for me! To be assured of this becomes the answer to the threat of violence—yea, to violence itself. To the degree to which a man knows this, he is unconquerable from within and without.”

When you think about how God has loved you even at your worst, how does that help set you free from the shame and condemnation we all struggle with?

According to the Gospel, what does God say about you?

How can that word help you become unconquerable without and within?

Closing Thought

Imagine, a community of people who have the humility that comes from knowing Jesus had to save you, combined with the confidence in their identity as one whom Jesus was glad to die for.

How might a community of people like that, who know who they are in Christ, impact the world around them?

What would it take for us to be that kind of community?