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

The Gospel of the Kingdom

Jesus’s Kingdom, as He himself taught, is not of this world. While His Kingdom influences and transforms people and structures, fundamentally, it does not belong to an individual or ideology. His is the kingdom and the power and the glory, as he taught us to remember in prayer.

Today’s Topic

Following Jesus

Discussion Questions

Confronting God’s Will

Matthew 16:21-23

From that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

 

Lysa TerKeurst, It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way 

If the enemy can isolate us, he can influence us. And his favorite entry point of all is through our disappointments.

Why did Peter confront Jesus so aggressively in Matthew 16?

What helps you navigate seasons when God’s will doesn’t seem to mirror your own?

What can disappointment teach us about trusting God?

Facing Self-Denial

Matthew 16:24-27

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us. Once more, all that self-denial can say is: “He leads the way, keep close to him.”

 

How did Jesus model self-denial for his followers? 

What does self-denial look like in our modern context?

How does denying our own temporary comfort open us up to deeper spiritual growth?

Formed By Faithfulness

Matthew 16:28

Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.

 

Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

The ragamuffin who sees his life as a voyage of discovery and runs the risk of failure has a better feel for faithfulness than the timid man who hides behind the law and never finds out who he is at all.

How did Peter’s passionate rebuke of Jesus in Matthew 16 (and other places) form his life?

What does daily faithfulness to God look like in your life?

What are you willing to risk to become more like Christ?

Closing Thought

Ruth Haley Barton, Sacred Rhythms 

Your desire for more of God than you have right now, your longing for love, your need for deeper levels of spiritual transformation than you have experienced so far is the truest thing about you. You might think that your woundedness or your sinfulness is the truest thing about you or that your giftedness or your personality type or your job title or your identity as husband or wife, mother or father, somehow defines you. But, in reality, it is your desire for God and your capacity to reach for more of God than you have right now that is the deepest essence of who you are.

Take some time to pray for any specific needs and ask God to fill each person with more of himself.