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 primary 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 continue our series titled Coming Soon to a City Near You, in which we study the letter of Ephesians. Written to Christians in the ancient city of Ephesus, which is in modern-day Turkey, Ephesians announces to the world that there is a better story coming to a city near you, and the church is the screen on which the “Jesus movie” plays. 

Today’s Topic

An Urgent Appeal for Unity

Discussion Questions

Ephesians 4:1-6

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

John of Kronstadt

As the Holy Trinity, our God is One Being, although Three Persons, so, likewise, we ourselves must be one. As our God is indivisible, we also must be indivisible, as though we were one man, one mind, one will, one heart, one goodness, without the smallest admixture of malice – in a word, one pure love, as God is Love. That they may be one, even as We are One (John 17:22).

Have you spent much time thinking about the mystery of how we worship one God who is three distinct persons (Father, Son, Spirit)?

When you spend time with God, do you tend to feel more connected with one Person of the trinity than the other two?

How can we better connect our hearts and minds with all three Persons of God?

How does the mystery of the Trinity help us navigate the mystery of many different people creating one body of believers?

The Means of Unity: Humility & Gentleness

Philippians 2:3-4

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather in humility value others better than yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.

Martin Luther King, Jr

I was convinced that worship at its best is a social experience with people of all levels of life coming together to realize their oneness and unity under God. Whenever the church, consciously or unconsciously, caters to one class it loses the spiritual force of the “whosoever will, let him come”, doctrine and is in danger of becoming a little more than a social club with a thin veneer of religiosity.

What does it mean to be a humble person?

How can gentleness also forge strength in a person’s life?

How does a commitment to humility and gentleness create space for unity to flourish in a community?

The Means of Unity: Patience & Loving Forbearance

Ephesians 4:2b-3

…be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Henri Nouwen

A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.

 

How can patience also help us bear “with one another in love” when faced with conflict in our relationships?

How does bearing “with one another in love” grow our patience when there is strife or disunity in our relationships?

What part does hope play in patience and forbearing with one another in love?

Closing Thought

 M.R. DeHaan

We need not all agree, but if we disagree, let us not be disagreeable in our disagreements.

Take a moment to pray as a group that we would all grow in unity through increased humility, gentleness, patience, and loving forbearance.