26 Mar Discussion Guide Zoë Week 7
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 Zoë, in which we study Jesus’s incredible claim that he came to bring us abundant life, even in the midst of our spiking cultural anxiety and fragmentation. We will explore how the life Jesus lived is the best way to tap into that promise as we seek to establish specific rhythms and practices to cultivate a life marked by a gospel-centered abundance of strength, health, and vitality.
Today’s Topic
Full of Life
Discussion Questions
What habit or practice is helping you access more of God’s abundant life in your current season?
Full of God’s Word
Ann Voskamp, A Dare to Love Fully, Right Where You Are
[God] does have surprising, secret purposes. I open a Bible, and His plans, startling, lie there barefaced. It’s hard to believe it, when I read it, and I have to come back to it many times, feel long across those words, make sure they are real. His love letter forever silences any doubts: “His secret purpose framed from the very beginning [is] to bring us to our full glory” (1 Corinthians 2:7 NEB).
What kinds of doubts, difficulties, or worries have sent you to God’s word for hope and guidance in the past?
Is there a Bible story or passage you continually return to for the comfort, joy, wisdom, or encouragement it offers you?
How could God be working in this season of your life to bring you “into your full glory?”
Full of Awe
Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words
The great Protestant theologian Karl Barth says that reading the Bible is like looking out of the window and seeing everybody on the street shading their eyes with their hands and gazing up into the sky toward something hidden from us by the roof. They are pointing up. They are speaking strange words. They are very excited. Something is happening that we can’t see happening. Or something is about to happen. Something beyond our comprehension has caught them up and is seeking to lead them on “from land to land for strange, intense, uncertain, and yet mysteriously well-planned service.”
To read the Bible is to try to read the expression on their faces. To listen to the words of the Bible is to try to catch the sound of the queer, dangerous, and compelling word they seem to hear.
Abraham and Sarah with tears of incredulous laughter running down their ancient cheeks when God tells them that he is going to keep his promise and give them the son they have always wanted. King David, all but naked as the day he was born, dancing for joy in front of the ark. Paul struck dumb on the road to Damascus. Jesus of Nazareth stretched out between two crooks, with dried Roman spit on his face. They are all of them looking up. And listening.
What truth about or attribute of God excites and invigorates you most?
How does our knowledge of God’s word connect us with greater knowledge of God himself?
Did this Buechner quote bring to mind any particular Bible story that causes you to look up and see or hear God a little better?
Closing Thought
John 10:7-11
Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life,and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
Spend some time as a group discussing what you’ve learned about abundant life in the last few weeks. As a group, ask God to continue to lead you in his word, fill you with his light, and shape you in his likeness.