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

Pigs & Pearls & Dogs & Logs

Discussion Questions

Do Not Judge

Matthew 7:1-3

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

 

Grant Osborne, Matthew: Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament

In this context [to judge] does not mean a court trial or administration. It cannot refer to discerning or evaluating right and wrong…It means looking down on a person with a superior attitude, criticizing or condemning them without a loving concern.

How do you think our culture handles the idea of judging and being judged?

What kind of circumstances or situations tempt you to behave as if you are superior to others?

Have you ever felt unjustly judged by someone? How have those experiences affected your ability to be empathetic toward others?

Specks & Logs

Matthew 7:3-5

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Carrie Stephens, Jesus, Love, & Tacos

Being the hands and feet of Jesus is supposed to be about showing God’s love, not proving we’re right about everything….Like the proverbial church members who became enemies after debating the decision to recarpet the sanctuary, we are the most lost to one another when we are certain we are the most right before God.

 

What do Jesus’s words here in Matthew say about our willingness to face our own weaknesses, vulnerability, and sin?

Who are the people you trust to help you see yourself clearly?

How can building healthy relationships with trustworthy people help us become more right before God?

Pigs & Pearls & Dogs

Matthew 7:6,12

Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces…. So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets

 

In the sermon, Pastor Morgan related the “sacred” and “pearls” referenced in Matthew 7 to truths people cannot hear or process rightly. 

What is one of the best (sacred, pearl-like) truths you know about God’s love? 

Why do you think we sometimes struggle to accept or consume the gospel of the Kingdom of God?

How does doing unto others as you’d have them do unto you align with Jesus’s original command not to judge others in a way we wouldn’t want to be judged?

Closing Thought

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.

 

Take some time to share any prayer requests you might have and pray for one another, specifically asking God to illuminate our spiritual hearts to a greater revelation about his grace.