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 Clean Consience Controversy

Discussion Questions

Matthew 15:1-2, 10-20

Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”

Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”

He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides.[d] If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.”

“Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

Our Traditions

Matthew 15:1-2

Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

Grant Osborne, Matthew

This particular rule does not come from the written Torah but apparently originated in the Pharisaic desire to extend the ritual required by priests [in the Temple] to the ordinary family at meals.

What are some traditions your family and friends keep faithfully?

What are some religious/faith-centered traditions you keep faithfully in your personal life or community?

Why do you/your community keep these traditions?

Our Guilt

Matthew 15:10-11

Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”

 

What negative or positive purpose can guilt serve in a human’s life?

How are humanity’s religious rituals an attempt to deal with our outward guilt?

Our Human Solutions

In the sermon, Morgan shared that we often use pop culture, our personal culture, and these collective cultural views to solve our “clean conscience controversy:”

1. Care/harm

2. Fairness/cheating

3. Loyalty/betrayal

4. Authority/subversion

5. Sanctity/degradation

6. Liberty/oppression

What are some specific examples of these human solutions?

Why do you think people seek a way to solve their guilt themselves?

What is the end result of human attempts to absolve ourselves of guilt?

Jesus’s Solution

Matthew 15:16-20

Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body?But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

 

When did you first encounter Jesus as your Savior?

How does the gospel cleanse us of our guilt and sin?

Closing Thought

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.

 

Take some time to pray for your friends and neighbors who don’t know God. Pray for opportunities to share God’s cleansing grace and mercy with them.