Julie cooked some amazing chili and cornbread. Pretty much everybody had seconds and I even heard rumors of thirds. She is more than happy to cook for us but she does want to make sure everybody knows that they are welcome to do the cooking for any given Tuesday. The same goes for hosting. Just let the group know!
Before delving into Matthew chapter 7, we had a brief discussion on a passage in chapter 5 (vv. 17 - 19) where Jesus seems to say that we are to follow the Law. He says that those breaking even the least of the commandments in the Law will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. We decided that this is something of a sidenote to Jesus' sermon on the mount. He wants to make sure that the crowd understands that what he is saying fulfills the Law, or reinforces the meaning of the Law, so that they don't stop following it altogether. This issue is moot now that we know Jesus is our Lord & Savior and can look to Him (rather than the Law) for an example of how to live righteously.
Something interesting we noticed at the beginning of chapter 7 is how Jesus doesn't tell us not to judge others. Rather, he tells us to expect to be judged in the same way that we judge others. Therefore, we should examine ourselves for the same sin we see in others, especially before confronting them about it. Another neat little statement is that "Do to others what you would have them do to you" sums up the entire Old Testament. Why would Jesus say that? It's something good to meditate on.
Peter had a good comment on verses 7 - 11. Jesus explains "ask and it will be given to you" by saying that a father will not give his child a stone when the child asks for bread. There is a common comment that this obviously isn't always true, because we ask God for things that aren't given to us. Peter pointed out that this isn't so hard to explain if we flip around Jesus' explanation to this: A father will not give his child a stone when the child asks for a stone.
We also spent some time discussing verses 21 - 23. They seem to say that glorifying God is not enough to get into Heaven, but that doing the will of God is the only way. This is a frightening passage for us when we are not confident in our salvation, or our personal relationship with Christ. However, fear of God is healthy and it should motivate us to do His will. Moreover, these verses are part of the closing of Jesus' sermon where He wants to point out that those who have been following the letter of the Law, rather than the meaning of the Law (God's will), will not enter Heaven. Indeed, there are those today who speak scripture intellectually and don't actually have a personal relationship with Christ.
Next week we will discuss Matthew chapter 14 as well as any questions about chapters 8 - 13. Check the calendar to see if we are planning anything else.
God Bless!
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Moving Forward
Last week, we decided to spend the evening in fellowship. We were too tired to play a game, so we browsed Netflix and learned that you should never watch "The Whitest Kids You Know" TV show.
This week, we were again blessed by Julie's cooking and 'Bauer/Powers' hosting. In the conclusion of the T4T material, we discussed the Great Commission at the end of the book of Matthew and how we could adjust our weekend cleanup activity to have a greater focus on outreach. Common ideas were to hand people tracts as a way to start a conversation and to use a questionnaire to get to know people before asking them about God. Let's try doing something different this Saturday to talk to people about God. Maybe it's just opening our mouths!
The lesson in T4T involved reading Luke 1:5-25 using the 4-question approach from 2 Timothy 3:16.
1. What does God want to teach us?
2. How does God rebuke us in this passage?
3. How does God want to correct us in this passage?
4. How does God train us in righteousness in this passage?
The reading was about a man Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth, who were in a situation similar to Abraham and Sarah. Elizabeth was barren and ostracized for it, but the couple was obedient to God and always acted righteously though their prayer for a son was left unanswered. When an angel appears to Zechariah he doubts that God can give them a child, because of how old they are. He is punished for his doubt, being made unable to speak for the 9 months of Elizabeth's pregnancy.
In general, our response to this story was that God rebukes us for our disbelief, wants us to have faith in Him and His promises, and shuts us up so that we can hear His Word. We had a lot of great discussion over how God tolerates us questioning Him. One clear conclusion was that we no longer have to fear God if we question Him, because Jesus has paid the perfect & final price for all of our sins. However, Jesus's sacrifice should be a motivation to glorify God not an excuse to disobey Him.
We all thought that one passage of scripture per week (what T4T prescribes) would be too little for us. So we decided that moving forward, we will all commit to reading 6 chapters a week of the same book and then read and discuss the seventh chapter on Tuesday evenings. We didn't have much time to decide, but for now we have settled on reading through Matthew. This means we should be ready to read and discuss chapter 7 next week (It is not a bad thing to ask what you missed if you didn't do all the reading. This will hold us accountable for actually remembering what we've read!). Please pray about what book God wants us to read through next.
This week, we were again blessed by Julie's cooking and 'Bauer/Powers' hosting. In the conclusion of the T4T material, we discussed the Great Commission at the end of the book of Matthew and how we could adjust our weekend cleanup activity to have a greater focus on outreach. Common ideas were to hand people tracts as a way to start a conversation and to use a questionnaire to get to know people before asking them about God. Let's try doing something different this Saturday to talk to people about God. Maybe it's just opening our mouths!
The lesson in T4T involved reading Luke 1:5-25 using the 4-question approach from 2 Timothy 3:16.
1. What does God want to teach us?
2. How does God rebuke us in this passage?
3. How does God want to correct us in this passage?
4. How does God train us in righteousness in this passage?
The reading was about a man Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth, who were in a situation similar to Abraham and Sarah. Elizabeth was barren and ostracized for it, but the couple was obedient to God and always acted righteously though their prayer for a son was left unanswered. When an angel appears to Zechariah he doubts that God can give them a child, because of how old they are. He is punished for his doubt, being made unable to speak for the 9 months of Elizabeth's pregnancy.
In general, our response to this story was that God rebukes us for our disbelief, wants us to have faith in Him and His promises, and shuts us up so that we can hear His Word. We had a lot of great discussion over how God tolerates us questioning Him. One clear conclusion was that we no longer have to fear God if we question Him, because Jesus has paid the perfect & final price for all of our sins. However, Jesus's sacrifice should be a motivation to glorify God not an excuse to disobey Him.
We all thought that one passage of scripture per week (what T4T prescribes) would be too little for us. So we decided that moving forward, we will all commit to reading 6 chapters a week of the same book and then read and discuss the seventh chapter on Tuesday evenings. We didn't have much time to decide, but for now we have settled on reading through Matthew. This means we should be ready to read and discuss chapter 7 next week (It is not a bad thing to ask what you missed if you didn't do all the reading. This will hold us accountable for actually remembering what we've read!). Please pray about what book God wants us to read through next.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
God's Will for Us
We started the night with more amazing food from Julie. We are so blessed to have her with us (for more than just the food, ha). After dinner, we moved into our next T4T lesson which emphasized the fact that God has a plan for us. He is not finished with us after we are adopted into His family. This week's lesson sparked a whole lot of discussion.
The lesson started with a few stories of how God saved people and immediately used them to save their families and/or friends. This included Noah, Rahab, Cornelius, etc. It occurred to us how strange several of these passages were in that once the head of a household had faith in God, there was no mention of any amount of time or prodding necessary to bring the family to faith in God as well. This launched us into an awesome discussion about family structure and how wrong it is in the American culture that we encourage everyone to be independent. Of course this makes it seem strange that a household could have one member to whom everybody submits!
We will soon have four young couples in our group and we are all committing to create a culture in our family that follows God's design. We are convinced that creating a correct culture in the family is the best way to affect the culture of the nation at large. We will submit to God - the Head of our heavenly household - for wisdom in this undertaking.
I reminded the group that, as a part of the T4T lessons, we are to challenge ourselves to share our testimony with five people every week and then use the T4T materials to help disciple any who accept God's adoption. This might seem overwhelming, but the Spirit will lead us through it if we are obedient. There were also some pretty clear confessions that we are not all spending daily time in God's Word. Thus, we have added another challenge: to read the Bible every day. We are thinking about perhaps reading the same stuff every week for a future study we could do.
Finally, God provided a mission for us this week. We will be cleaning up Norwalk on Saturday morning! See the calendar for details. Next week will be some more T4T.
God Bless!
The lesson started with a few stories of how God saved people and immediately used them to save their families and/or friends. This included Noah, Rahab, Cornelius, etc. It occurred to us how strange several of these passages were in that once the head of a household had faith in God, there was no mention of any amount of time or prodding necessary to bring the family to faith in God as well. This launched us into an awesome discussion about family structure and how wrong it is in the American culture that we encourage everyone to be independent. Of course this makes it seem strange that a household could have one member to whom everybody submits!
We will soon have four young couples in our group and we are all committing to create a culture in our family that follows God's design. We are convinced that creating a correct culture in the family is the best way to affect the culture of the nation at large. We will submit to God - the Head of our heavenly household - for wisdom in this undertaking.
I reminded the group that, as a part of the T4T lessons, we are to challenge ourselves to share our testimony with five people every week and then use the T4T materials to help disciple any who accept God's adoption. This might seem overwhelming, but the Spirit will lead us through it if we are obedient. There were also some pretty clear confessions that we are not all spending daily time in God's Word. Thus, we have added another challenge: to read the Bible every day. We are thinking about perhaps reading the same stuff every week for a future study we could do.
Finally, God provided a mission for us this week. We will be cleaning up Norwalk on Saturday morning! See the calendar for details. Next week will be some more T4T.
God Bless!
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Our Mission Statement
This week's meeting was graced by the presence of my beautiful fiance Julie McKee, who has just returned from her 16-month mission in West Africa. She was kind enough to cook some amazing stir fry for our dinner. Also, thanks to Brandon for being willing to host.
We had great attendance this week, so we had much livelier discussion on what our new focus should be for the group. We were once again unanimous on the following points: our overarching mission is to do all for the glory of God and make disciples of all nations AND we need to continue meeting weekly for dinner, fellowship, and the strengthening of our faith through God's Word.
After throwing around a lot of ideas and some excessive details, we all felt pulled to the following mission statement (verse highly recommended by Mr. Jason Frick):
God Bless!
We had great attendance this week, so we had much livelier discussion on what our new focus should be for the group. We were once again unanimous on the following points: our overarching mission is to do all for the glory of God and make disciples of all nations AND we need to continue meeting weekly for dinner, fellowship, and the strengthening of our faith through God's Word.
After throwing around a lot of ideas and some excessive details, we all felt pulled to the following mission statement (verse highly recommended by Mr. Jason Frick):
Whatever we do = ____________________
"So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." --1 Corinthians 10:31
We plan to fill in the blank with one of the following acts of service OR something else God lays on our hearts this week. Next week we will share what we hear God telling us. Please be praying (and listening!)
- Working with the Victory Baptist Food Pantry
- Troubleshooting technical problems for members of the community
- Helping renovate the building purchased for House of Hope
God Bless!
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