01 Oct Discussion Guide: Friendship Can Save the World: A Light in the Dark
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 Friendship Can Save the World, in which we will explore how God uses diverse friendships to fulfill his miraculous will in the world. In an increasingly polarized world, our collective ability to navigate friendships with people whose backgrounds, experiences, and views differ from our own has diminished. Along the way, valuing diversity has come to be seen by many Christians as a secular pursuit. However, we love and serve a diverse God (being three unique persons himself) who taught us to love those we tend to have a hard time loving: outsiders, enemies, foreigners, the poor, and the weak. We hope this series inspires you to love and be loved more courageously as we forge a path together into a more redemptive future.
Today’s Topic
A Light in the Darkness
An important note about the format for this series
We have provided two discussion group formats for our Friendship Can Save the World Series. For groups with access to a computer or television, our video discussion guide offers a vibrant exploration of the concepts each week. All you have to do is press play (and pause for about five minutes for each discussion question)! The same content has been rearranged and included in the discussion guide below for our groups that meet in noisy, public spaces or who don’t have access to a computer or television. All you have to do is read aloud, as usual!
Please choose either the video or the written format, given what works best for your group.
Boaz & Bethlehem
The book of Ruth isn’t merely a story about individual lives. The stories of Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz reveal how the choices and stories of individual people create a collective framework to support God’s grander tale of redemption and rescue. In the final chapter of Ruth, as the narrative hurtles toward its incredible climax, it’s time for our main characters to step back for a moment, so the townspeople of Bethlehem can step up, take center stage, and play their part.
In Ruth 4, Boaz has appeared at the town gate, asking the city leaders to weigh in on the possibility of his being the kinsman redeemer for Elimelech’s family by marrying Ruth. This proposal created a tricky spot and sticky space for the people of Bethlehem. Approving his marriage to a Jewish widow would be one thing. But bringing a racial, cultural, and religious outsider from their enemy nation of Moab into the center of their people asked a lot of them. When pressed to make this decision, the people of Bethlehem looked to the past and gave their ancestors a seat at the decision-making table:
Ruth 4:11-12
All the people who were in the court, and the elders, said, “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built the house of Israel…Through the offspring the Lord gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.”
When the townspeople of Bethlehem considered bringing Ruth into their community, they looked back at Leah, Rachel, and Tamar and spoke a blessing over Ruth: May Ruth become a hero who shapes and impacts our nation. In a crucial moment, the people of Bethlehem affirmed the need for a kind of multigenerational wisdom to help inform their decision in the present, and they said yes to Ruth, naming the stories of three women in their history, allowing their nation’s past to shape their future.
Question 1
What details from Leah’s, Rachel’s, and Tamar’s painful stories from the past might have made the Bethlehemites want to do better in the present?
Looking to the Past
Like Ruth’s story, the stories of Leah, Rachel, and Tamar are complicated tales of people living in an unjust, imperfect world. On the day Boaz requested the blessing of his town, the people of Bethlehem stood on the shoulders of women who weren’t seen as valuable or worthy of respect by the people in their lives at the time. However, God clung to them, weaving himself into their lives and weaving their lives into his redemptive will for the world. By picking up these ancient women’s stories, and remembering how they were once mistreated in the past, the people of Bethlehem said yes to Boaz’s request and made space for Ruth to belong with them and be treated well in the present.
All of this points us to this truth: Acknowledging our past helps us find a better future.
Friendship Can Save The World:
“Looking at and talking about the past to help us understand what to do in the present isn’t left-wing or right-wing; it isn’t woke or anti-woke; it’s simply wise and biblical. Remembering the failures of the past helps us do better now, in the present. God ultimately honored Bethlehem for pursuing justice, hitting shuffle to let their past generations shape their present choices, and embracing a vulnerable woman as a future hero.
God chose Bethlehem to be the birthplace of the legendary King David…and when God chose his Son’s birthplace, he led Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem. Spiritually, anyone who calls on the name of Jesus gleans from Bethlehem’s gracious generosity towards outsiders.”
Question 2
What story from your own past makes you want to do better in the present?
Gospel Friendship
In Matthew 25, Jesus says that those who feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, clothe the naked, invite in the stranger, and care for the sick are ministering directly to Him.
Question 3
Why do you think the God of the Bible and the Christian Scriptures focus on caring for the poor, the needy, and the outsider?
Share Your Perspective
Let’s take a minute and examine how generational diversity can help strengthen our communities. How has a friendship (or familial relationship) with someone older or younger than you helped you grow and thrive in life?
Life Application
Before you conclude your group today, revisit your plan from week 1 to take a risk and actively love a neighbor. How has it gone? Take a moment to share any testimonies about how consistently praying for one another impacted your lives. When your group meets again, continue to foster your friendships and remain connected to the need the world has for friends who cling, sacrifice, and offer rest to one another as we join God in his redemptive plan for the world.