19 Nov Discussion Guide: Living Out of a Living Hope Week 6
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 from 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Living Out of a Living Hope. In life’s ups and downs, the frailty of our human bodies, and with the time that we have each day, the resurrection of Jesus offers us what it offered for the early church in Thessalonica: a living hope.
Today’s Topic
Guarding Our Hearts
This week’s message touched on the tender topic of sex and sexuality, so thanks for coming to the group today, even if the message made you feel uncomfortable or the thought of being here made you uncomfortable as well.
In our time together this week, Pastor Morgan would like us to focus on the last section of the message about guarding our hearts.
He’s asked the community group leaders to read this short message from him before we begin the discussion, so here goes:
“Hi everyone. I realize we all come to the table in the areas of sex and sexuality with varying experiences and even traumas—whether from our personal past, from our church past, or as a result of cultural pressure.
In Sunday’s sermon, I labored to communicate something scriptural, contextual, and empathetic regarding Christianity and sex. However, it’s possible that given our diverse experiences and backgrounds, I may have failed or fallen short in one of those endeavors. If so, I ask for your forgiveness.
All that being said, I think the need I feel to ask for forgiveness only underscores the weightiness of the how our beliefs about God intersect with our beliefs/experiences regarding sex.
For the Christian, we bear a responsibility to wrestle with texts like 1 Thessalonians 4 as a part of our active pursuit of spiritual growth and maturity. Shying away from passages like this one inhibits and diminshes our attempts to relate properly to God. That said, our community groups might not be the best place to process the delicate topic of sex.
So, would you do me, your group, and Mosaic Church a favor tonight? Could we all take a deep breath and focus on a specific part of this passage, and Sunday’s message? That last bit that Paul gives us really is the key to it all, and a key to life: the part about guarding our hearts.
Tonight, let’s discuss how guarding our hearts keeps us aimed at pleasing God with our minds, with our words, and certainly with our bodies, which matter a lot to him (that’s a good thing!).
So, again, thanks for being here. And thank your group leader for being here. They probably tried to get out of leading you tonight when they heard the message (of course I’m kidding!).
And now, let’s all pray this out loud together:
Jesus, would you help us to see you more, love you more, and love our neighbor more as a result of our time tonight? Help us to hear your Holy Spirit, and hear one another, in Jesus’ name, Amen.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-8
As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit.
Pleasing God
This passage places a premium on pleasing God:
1 Thessalonians 4:1-2
As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more.
As Christians, we’re saved by grace through faith, so why do our actions and behavior matter to God?
How might considering how God feels about something influence our choices?
What spiritual practices help connect you with God as Lord of All?
On Holiness
This passage urges us to remember we are called “to live a holy life” and we are given “the Holy Spirit.”
1 Thessalonians 4:3-6
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister.
How have you misheard, mis-thought, or been mis-taught about holiness?
Since holiness is defined as “set apart for God’s purposes,” how did Jesus express holiness with his life and choices?
Has there ever been a time God opened your eyes to an area in which you needed to live a more “holy life”?
Guarding Our Hearts
Guarding our hearts is the key to victory with how we handle our bodies.
In the message on Sunday, Pastor Morgan talked about seeing a pool at the center of Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden in Cape Town, South Africa. The small pool gives life to an enormous, unique, and beautiful ecosystem. The pool is fed by two small underground springs. A wall protects the spring along with a sign that warns visitors of this potential peril: if someone were to step on one of those springs, it would permanently damage the spring and cripple all the life within the garden.
Pastor Morgan then shared the Scripture that the pool and springs brought to mind:
Proverbs 4:23
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
How is this spring’s delicate need for tending and its sign of caution a metaphorical picture of our hearts?
What kinds of perspectives and choices are involved in guarding one’s heart?
How does guarding our heart inform what we choose to do with our bodies?
How does meditating on the central message of the gospel—that Jesus loved us and died for us— help us to guard our hearts?