28 May Discussion Guide Coming to a City Near You
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 begin 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
Faithfulness
Discussion Questions
What kind of greeting do you find most welcoming and honoring, and why?
Faithfulness Creates Relational Unity
Ephesians 1:3
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Vincent Bacote, The Political Disciple
The great temptation many of us face today is to leave the mess of the public square and find another way to be faithful, a way that may be less costly though maybe less spiritually valuable. To yield to such a temptation is to develop amnesia about our first commandment and commission.
How has God been faithful to you?
What does faithfulness require of a follower of Jesus?
Is it possible to be faithful to God without being faithful to other people?
Faithfulness Connects us to the Hope of the Gospel
Ephesians 1:4-8
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.
Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction
Hoping does not mean doing nothing. It is not fatalistic resignation. It means going about our assigned tasks, confident that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions. It is not compelled to work away at keeping up appearances with a bogus spirituality. It is the opposite of desperate and panicky manipulations, of scurrying and worrying.
And hoping is not dreaming. It is not spinning an illusion or fantasy to protect us from our boredom or our pain. It means a confident, alert expectation that God will do what he said he will do. It is imagination put in the harness of faith. It is a willingness to let God do it his way and in his time. It is the opposite of making plans that we demand that God put into effect, telling him both how and when to do it. That is not hoping in God but bullying God. “I pray to GOD-my life a prayer-and wait for what he’ll say and do. My life’s on the line before God, my Lord, waiting and watching till morning, waiting and watching till morning.
What hope does the gospel offer us?
How are faithfulness and hope connected?
What daily acts of faithfulness remind you to put your hope in God?
Faithfulness Carries Us into Eternity
Eph 1:13-14
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary
Alfred Hitchcock said movies are “life with the dull bits cut out.” Car chases and first kisses, interesting plot lines and good conversations. We don’t want to watch our lead character going on a walk, stuck in traffic, or brushing his teeth—at least not for long, and not without a good soundtrack. We tend to want a Christian life with the dull bits cut out. Yet God made us to spend our days in rest, work, and play, taking care of our bodies, our families, our neighborhoods, our homes. What if all these boring parts matter to God? What if days passed in ways that feel small and insignificant to us are weighty with meaning and part of the abundant life that God has for us?
Do you think God is ever bored, watching his people live their lives?
How can remembering God is always with us and intentionally reaching for him in the “boring bits” of life enliven our faithfulness?
What ought we do to prepare our hearts for eternity?
Closing Thought
Dorothy Day
People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do.
Take a few minutes to pray for God to prove himself faithful to meet the needs of the people in your group, and ask God to help you be faithful to love him in word and deed.