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

Making a Mosaic

Today’s Topic

What Does it Mean to Be Saved

Discussion Questions

Hemming People In

Exodus 14:1-3, 11-14

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon.

Pharaoh will think, ‘The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.’ 

They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”

Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

 

Morgan Stephens

Vulnerability is always the position from which God’s people win. 

What happened to the Israelites minds and hearts when they became vulnerable by the Red Sea?

How do you typically respond to situations that make you vulnerable?

How does vulnerability help connect us to God?

Luring Evil Out

Exodus 14:4-7,10

And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.” So the Israelites did this.

When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, “What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!” So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. He took six hundred of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them. 

As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. 

 

JRR Tolkien, The Return of the King

One tiny Hobbit against all the evil the world could muster. A sane being would have given up, but Samwise burned with a magnificent madness, a glowing obsession to surmount every obstacle, to find Frodo, destroy the Ring, and cleanse Middle Earth of its festering malignancy. He knew he would try again. Fail, perhaps. And try once more. A thousand, thousand times if need be, but he would not give up the quest.

What do you imagine it was like for the Israelites to face Pharaoh and his army by the Red Sea?

How does remembering stories of how God defeated evil in the past help shape our future?

How can this story about the Red Sea help us respond as people of faith when evil arises in the world?

Stretching Someone Over

Exodus 14:15-32

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen.”

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

 

What potential leadership lesson is hidden in the way God held Moses accountable for the Israelites’ lack of character and faith?

On the cross, how did God hold himself similarly accountable for our lack of character and faith?

What spiritual practices help you connect with God’s salvation and rescue in your daily life?

Closing Time

Tim Keller

At the cross, we see the worst that sin can do, as humanity – of which each one of us is a part – crucified the Lord. But at the cross, we also see that the most that sin can do cannot thwart God’s salvation.

In the final moments of your time together, pray for people in need of salvation of some kind, both in the group and in your families, workplaces, and communities.