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 main 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 of messages leading us through the Advent Season up to the celebration of the coming of Jesus…Christmas. It is a season of expectation, but what are we supposed to be expecting? Gifts? Stress? Loneliness? Family drama? Over the next few weeks, we will rediscover the Biblical Truths behind the birth of the Christ and what His coming is meant to accomplish in our hearts and lives.

Discussion Questions

How would you define Truth?

Oprah Winfrey

“Whatever your secret, live your own truth; life is too short.”

Our culture tends to define truth a little bit differently  than the Bible does (insert emoji with eye brow raised). Why do you think that is?

What is the corrolation between fear and the denial of truth?

1 John 4:13-19

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.”

How does fear affect our ability to believe God’s Word when it comes to our identity (who God says we are)?

What things tend to contribute to that fear regarding our identity?

How does fear affect our ability to trust God’s Word when it comes to our forgiving others for the hurt they have caused us?

What’s your greatest fear about forgiving that person you need to forgive?

Psalms 139:13-14,17

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!”

John 1:12-14

“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

What does God’s word say about your identity? Forgiveness?

How doe we know God’s Word is Truth in these areas?

What is it about the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that gives us the ability to trust these Truths we find in Scripture?

Closing Thought