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

The Beatitudes

Discussion Questions

Matthew 5:1-11, 17

Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.

He said:

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
    for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 

The Beauty of the Beatitudes

Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son

Jesus makes it clear that the way to God is the same as the way to a new childhood. The innocence that is reached through conscious choices. The Beatitudes offer me the simplest route for the journey home, back into the house of my Father. And along this route I will discover the joys of the second childhood: comfort, mercy, and an ever clearer vision of God. It’s a place where I can live in freedom without obsessions and compulsions.

 

John Stott

The Sermon on the Mount represents a manifesto for a new kind of kingdom, one characterized by humility, mercy, and love.

 

How would your home, school, work, or neighborhood be different if everyone lived the beatitudes?

How are the beatitudes a pathway back to a new kind of childhood in the house of our Heavenly Father?

What kinds of experiences in life most often cultivate greater humility, mercy, and love in our lives?

The Offense of the Beatitudes

Dr. Virginia Stem Owens

At this point [when my students responded negatively to the Sermon on the Mount], I began to be encouraged. There is something exquisitely innocent about not realizing you shouldn’t call Jesus stupid. This was the real thing, a pristine response to the gospel, unfiltered through a two-millennia cultural haze.

I find it strangely heartening that, except for the young man who found the Sermon on the Mount a guide to good manners, the Bible remains offensive to honest, ignorant ears, just as it was in the first century.

N.T. Wright

The Sermon on the Mount is an invitation to a way of life that is at odds with the dominant values and priorities of our society.

What kinds of characteristics and traits does our culture consider worthy of calling blessed?

How is embodying the Sermon on the Mount potentially costly?

What practices or perpectives can help us interact with the Beatitudes in a fresh way, letting it confront or even rebuke the ways we fail to live it earnestly?

The Hero of the Beatitudes

Iain Duguid, The Hero of Heroes

Through the whole Bible, the word blessed means to be favored and envied. People who were blessed were people like David or people like Joshua, people who have God’s favor and therefore were envied because they were God’s heroes and were emulated.

And suddenly, when you get to the Beatitudes, this profile should be that of a hero, of somebody we emulate or aspire to be like. But this is a strange hero. Poor in spirit? Mourning? Meek? Hungering and Thirsting? It is strange until you realize they are talking about a hero.

But before the Beatitudes describe you and me, it describes…Him.

 

Matthew 5:17

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

Richard Rohr

The Sermon on the Mount is not an isolated set of teachings. It is the essence of Jesus’ whole message and mission.

 

How was Jesus poor in spirit, meek, righteous, merciful, and a peacemaker during his life on earth?

How can the people in this community group help each other grow more faithful in living out the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount?

Which blessing highlighted in the beatitudes do you most need from Jesus in your current season of life?

Closing Thought

Matthew 5:43-48

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

 

Share any prayer requests you might have and then lift one another’s needs to God. Be sure to also pray for God to help you love others well, particualrly those who are difficult to love.