Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Commonwealth

This series is all about how we can better live into spiritual empowerment made accessible to us, through Jesus.

In our teaching this week in Commonwealth we discuss Sharing in the Commonwealth of God’s Spirit. We’re excited for you to listen along with us! If you want to talk through this message with a group of people join a community group- www.societychurch.com/groups. We will be discussing the questions listed below.

_

Community Group Discussion Guide:

STEP 1- Ice Breaker:

Help people to loosen up and share. It will be helpful if someone is new to go around and do names and have each person share about a question and share a bit about themselves.

(Group Leader Note: Use the Learning/Living Circle to guide your discussion and application of the content. Try your best to keep the “learning” and “living” focus balanced.)

Step 2- Learning- Observe, Reflect, Discuss

(Group Leader Note: Don’t feel the need to go through every scripture, point or question. Pick and choose what you feel will be most impactful for your group. If you are not sure where to start, just ask your group what stuck out to them about the message most and start with that.)

Point 1- Sharing in the Commonwealth of God’s Spirit through Reconciliation & Representation

Read Hebrews 9:11-15 MSG- 11-15 But when the Messiah arrived, high priest of the superior things of this new covenant, he bypassed the old tent and its trappings in this created world and went straight into heaven’s “tent”—the true Holy Place—once and for all. He also bypassed the sacrifices consisting of goat and calf blood, instead using his own blood as the price to set us free once and for all. If that animal blood and the other rituals of purification were effective in cleaning up certain matters of our religion and behavior, think how much more the blood of Christ cleans up our whole lives, inside and out. Through the Spirit, Christ offered himself as an unblemished sacrifice, freeing us from all those dead-end efforts to make ourselves respectable, so that we can live all out for God.

• Anything that jumps out to you as important, helpful or interesting in this scripture?
• How would you describe reconciliation to someone who doesn’t know what it means?
• What does it mean for you that Jesus represents you to the Father?
• What does it mean for you that Jesus has made a way for you to have a restored ongoing friendship with God through all of life?

Point 2- Sharing in the Commonwealth of God’s Spirit through Comfort amidst adversity

Read Matthew 5:4- “Blessed are those who mourn or grieve, for they will be comforted.”

• Anything that jumps out to you as important, helpful or interesting?
• What is some adversity, challenge, loss or grief that you are facing right now?
• What does it mean that God comforts us in our loss and troubles in this scripture?
• How have you experienced this in your own life?

Point 3- Sharing in the Commonwealth of God’s Spirit through Joy in all of life

Read Luke 2:10 together “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.”

• Anything that jumps out to you as important, helpful or interesting in this scripture?
• How might the gospel (good news) produce joy in our lives?
• What is the difference between happiness and joy?
• How might the gospel produce a foundation of life fertile to produce joy in us?

STEP 3- Living- Planning, Accountability, Action

Point 1- Reconciliation & Representation

Read 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 “17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors/representatives, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

• Who has God placed in your life for you to be a representative of Christ to?
• How do you go about allowing God to “make his appeal through you (v20)?”

Point 2- Comfort in Adversity

Read 2 Corinthians 1:3-7- “3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. 4 He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. 5 For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ. 6 Even when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer. 7 We are confident that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in the comfort God gives us.”

• How can we both experience and share God’s comfort in our everyday lives?
• How has that looked in your life? How could it look in your life?

Point 3- Joy in all of life

Read James 1:2-4 (NLT) “2 Dear brothers and sisters,[a] when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”

• How might choosing joy impact our attitude amidst the troubles of life?
• How can we choose Joy without dismissing other feelings and not being or coming across as fake?
• What would genuine joy look like for you this week?

STEP 4- Prayer And/Or Meditation:

Try one of these options, don’t be afraid to mix it up.

• Share requests and pray for one another.
• Inner, Other & Outer life prayer needs
• Meditation with silence and stillness- A word or phrase to focus your group. A time of silence and stillness, set a timer for 5 minutes if you want.