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

The Joy of Jesus

Discussion Questions

John 16:19-24

Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’? Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.

Happiness & Our Hearts

John 16:20-21

You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.

CS Lewis, The Four Loves

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal…avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

Ayn Rand

Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.

How is our emotional life connected to our happiness?

How is our happiness at risk when we allow ourselves to love, to hope, or to have faith in a future , yet-to-be-experienced joy?

What practices or perspectives help you hold both sorrow and joy simultaneously?

Happiness & Our Minds

John 16:22-24

So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.

 

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

 

Abraham Lincoln

Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.

Do you feel that cultivating happiness is a skill that comes naturally to you?

How can practicing gratitude help us to discipline our thoughts toward experiencing joy?

How does society at large benefit from the work we do to grow into happier, more joyful people?

Happiness & Joy to Come

Jeremiah 31:13

The young women will dance for joy, and the men—old and young—will join in the celebration. I will turn their mourning into joy. I will comfort them and exchange their sorrow for rejoicing.

 

Mother Teresa

Joy is prayer – Joy is strength – Joy is love – Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. God loves a cheerful giver. She gives most who gives with joy. The best way to show our gratitude to God and the people is to accept everything with joy. A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love. Never let anything so fill you with sorrow as to make you forget the joy of the Christ risen. 

 

How do you imagine the joy you will experience in eternity?

How can setting our hearts and minds on the future joy of eternity help us experience more happiness now?

Closing Thought

1 Chronicles 16:32-34

Let the sea and everything in it roar! Let the countryside and everything in it celebrate! Then the trees of the forest will shout out joyfully before the Lord, because he is coming to establish justice on earth! Give thanks to the Lord because he is good, because his faithful love endures forever.

 

Spend some time praying for one another, specifically focusing on celebrating God’s goodness toward you by giving you the gift of his Son and one another.