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 begin our series titled Stories: Everybody’s Got One, in which we examine how to make sense of our own world without God’s story. Who are we? Where do we fit? How can we see ourselves in it and connect to it in a way that actually changes our lives for the better? Join us for a four-week look at four incredible stories of people who found their lives swept up in a story much larger than their own lives.

Today’s Topic

The Story of Abraham and Lot

Discussion Questions

Genesis 13:1-18

So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him. Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold.

From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the Lord.

Now Lot, who was moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together. And quarreling arose between Abram’s herders and Lot’s. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land at that time.

So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herders and mine, for we are close relatives. Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.”

Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company: Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom. Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord.

The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.”

So Abram went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he pitched his tents. There he built an altar to the Lord.

Skye Jethani

Very often, what gets Christians into trouble is not holding to God’s commands, but stridently holding to the assumptions we’ve inferred from God’s commands.

Tim Keller

The gospel has supernatural versatility to address the particular hopes, fears, and idols of every culture and every person.

Were you raised with more of a traditional* cultural lens or a more modern* cultural lens? 

What cultural messages have most impacted you, positively or negatively?

How does the gospel’s call to personal repentance as a part of a collective spiritual family challenge both traditional and modern cultural ideologies?

*A traditional perspective involves individuals understanding and deriving their identity/value/lifepath from the larger collective community; whereas in a modern perspective, individuals exist to discover or create their own identity/value/lifepath apart from their broader community context.

Abraham’s Faithful Story

Hebrews 11:8-10

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

Wendell Berry

It may be that when we no longer know which way to go that we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.

 

How did Abraham’s faith in God help him obey God faithfully, despite the risks involved?

Have you ever felt called by God to take a risk that might result in what your culture considers to be failure?

What practices or perspectives help you find your way when you’re stepping out in faith to obey God?

God’s Promised Story

Dallas Willard

God’s care for humanity was so great that he sent his unique Son among us, so that those who count on him might not lead a futile and failing existence, but have the undying life of God Himself. (JOHN 3:16)

 

Ann Voskamp

The greatest function of humanity is to not merely exist, to not merely exist for self, to not merely exist for enjoyment, the greatest function of humanity is to exalt the God who exists, who births stars and everything into existence, and make all of existence about the beauty of enjoying Him.

 

What story did God promise to give to Abraham for himself and his descendants in Genesis 13:14-17?

How can we know that Abraham’s individual story was part of the story God had planned for all of us?

How do our individual stories impact and shape the story God promised to give us collectively?

Closing Thought

Mary Oliver

Oh, feed me today, Holy spirit, with

the fragrance of the fields and the

freshness of the oceans which you have

made, and help me to hear and to hold

in all dearness those exacting and wonderful

words of our Lord Christ Jesus, saying:

Follow me.

Spend the last few minutes of your time together sharing one moment, interaction, or sight from the past week that helped you feel the nearness of the Holy Spirit.