Kingdomtide: The Desert Week 7

Kingdomtide: The Desert, Week 7

In this teaching series, Kingdomtide, we examine how to embody the Holy Spirit in our lives to bring about His Kingdom here on Earth as it is in Heaven. We have been discussing walking through a desert season, and we are in Week 7 of our Kingdomtide: Desert series. On Sunday Pastor Tim examines passages in Exodus for his message titled: Living water in the dead desert. 

We cover one main point today: Receiving God’s Anticipatory, Prevenient, Initiating Grace in the Desert

Listen or watch with us!

Scroll down to see our discussion guide for Community Groups. If you would like to join a community groups, you can do so HERE.

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. CLICK HERE for ice breaker questions ideas.

Scriptures from Sunday:

Exodus 15:22-27

22 Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. 23 When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.[f]) 24 So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?”

25 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink. There the Lord issued a ruling and instruction for them and put them to the test. 26 He said, “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.”

27 Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there near the water.

 

Exodus 17:1-6

The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 So they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.”

Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?”

3 But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”

4 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.” 5 The Lord answered Moses, “Go out in front of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. 

 

Nehemiah 9:15, 19-20

In their hunger you gave them bread from heaven, and in their thirst you brought them water from the rock . . . Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the desert. By day the pillar of cloud did not cease to guide them on their path, nor the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take. You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst 

 

John 4:7-15

Jesus passes through Samaria and meets a Samaritan woman at the well…

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])

10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

 

John 7:37-39– 

On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”[c] 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

 

Ephesians 2:4-10 (NIV)

4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions (sin and brokeness)—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. (God’s prevenient, anticipatory, initiated grace) 10For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

 

Jeremiah 2:13– 

“My people have committed two sins:

They have forsaken me,

the spring of living water,

and have dug their own cisterns,

broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

 

STEP 2- Take Time For Learning through Observation, Reflection & Discussion

(Group Leader Note: These are set questions meant to spur conversation. It may be helpful to watch/listen to the message together if people did not have a chance to listen on their own time.)

Read through the main scripture together from Sunday’s message.

• What stuck out to you as meaningful, confusing, impactful and/or important?
• What might this message and portion of scripture relate to in your life or our cultural moment?

STEP 3- Take Time To Process

• Is anyone willing to share some thoughts, questions or curiosities about what you sense God speaking to you about through the message and scripture? 
• Is there a need for deeper reflection or observation? What might be some ways to dig deeper, if necessary?

STEP 4- Work Towards Application

• What area of life is God working in through this? (Inner, Outer & Other Life Map)
• What might God be asking of me in this? What is my response?
• What might be a practical application or action step to take over this next week?

STEP 5- Prayer 

Please don’t skip prayer!! Cut the discussion short if needed to pray for one another. Try one of these options, don’t be afraid to mix it up.

• Have people split into groups of 2-3 to share prayer needs and pray for each other.
• Share requests as a group and pray for one another. Assign requests to people that are comfortable with praying and go around the circle praying for each others needs.
• Meditation with silence and stillness- A short scripture, word or phrase to focus your group. A time of silence and stillness, set a timer for 5 minutes if you want. Close the time with a prayer for your group.
• Develop someone in your group as the Prayer Coordinator. Have them write down prayer needs, ask them to pray for those needs during the week, have them send a list to the group to keep in prayer, go through the list regularly to celebrate answered prayers and check off or add on prayers.