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

Over Every Power

Today’s Topic

First Things Second

Discussion Questions

Colossians 2:8, 16-23

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces[a] of this world rather than on Christ.

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 

“Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

Image

Henri Nouwen 

You are not what others, or even you, think about yourself. You are not what you do. You are not what you have. You are a full member of the human family, having been known before you were conceived and molded in your mother’s womb….Look in the mirror each day and claim your true identity…As a spiritual practice claim and reclaim your primal identity as beloved daughter or son of a personal Creator.

What components or characteristics do you consider part of your “image”?

What is problematic for Christians about letting what others think of us become the most important thing in our lives?

How can a greater revelation of how you are an image bearer of Christ affect your posture toward your image?

Institutions

Ed Stetzer, Compelled: Living the Mission of God

We believe the church’s purpose is to glorify God, not to make people happy. The church does not exist for believers or unbelievers; it exists for God’s glory, for the equipping of believers, and the church is God’s missionary in the world.

Vincent Bacote, The Political Disciple

Common grace is a doctrine that gives us a vision for seeing one vital part of Christian faithfulness. While it is vitally important to proclaim the gospel, introduce people to Jesus, and help them move toward faithful discipleship as they participate in church life, it is also tremendously important for Christians to see that it has always been our responsibility to care for the world, cultivating the flourishing of life through our activity in culture, politics, education, medicine, business, and every public arena.

How can our individual spiritual health and humility foster greater health and humility in our institutions?

What can church members do to help cultivate greater health and wholeness in the church at large?

Which institution(s) has God put on your heart to serve and pray for?

Ideologies

Tim Keller

What’s ideology? An idea turned into an idol.

What issues and ideas matter to you most?

How can we become disconnected from God when our ideas begin to create scapegoats out of other people?

Why was Jesus willing to become our scapegoat?

Closing Time

Living sacramentally is when the ordinary things of life—food, water, money, time, are:

“rendered extraordinary, that which is merely worldly is transfigured, that which is most common becomes a means of worship, and each act or event of everyday life becomes sacramental—a sign and celebration of God’s care for every act or everyday life in this world.”

-William Stringfellow

Spend the final moments of your time together praying for God to help you to live sacramentally, and turn the ordinary things in your life into worship of him.