Growth Group Homework for Week of Oct 28th

Sunday’s sermon focused on one of Jesus’ most amazing yet perplexing teachings – that we should love our enemies.

1. What insight, principle, or observation from this weekend’s message did you find to be most helpful, eye-opening, or troubling? Explain.

• Read Luke 6:27-36

2. What does Jesus reveal in verses 27-28 about the kind of love He expects of His disciples for their enemies? How does this challenge you?

3. Verses 29-30 help us understand that the kind of “enemies” Jesus has in mind are those relationships we have with others that become adversarial. We learned on Sunday that Jesus provides two examples here of the way people act as our enemies. The first set of examples in verse 29 shows that our enemies are those who assault our honor and encroach upon our “rights”. In the second set of examples in verse 30, we learn that our enemies are those who take advantage of our generosity and trust. When was the last time you felt treated this way by someone? How do these verses teach that we are to let go of self-interest and an attachment to our things for the sake of confronting our enemies and pursuing what is ultimately best for them?

4. Read Romans 12:17-21. How does Paul’s teaching expand on Jesus’ instruction in Luke 6?

5. Read Romans 5:6-8 along with Jesus’ statements about the character of the Father in Luke 6:35-36. Based on these texts, how it is possible for us to have love for our enemies?

Prosperity Doctrine In Focus

In this past Sunday's sermon, I referenced the teachings of what is known as "prosperity doctrine" aka, the "health and wealth gospel". I have been concerned for some time over the pervasive influence of this teaching (and its various manifestations) in the hearts and minds of so many. I am convinced that this is a false Gospel and leaves many people disillusioned when "success" doesn't come their way as promised. Teachers and preachers from this doctrinal perspective include high-profile names like Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, TD Jakes, and others. Below I have listed a few links I highly recommend for further reading and consideration:

• Prosperity Preaching: Deceitful and Deadly
• Become a Better You: Reflections on Joel Osteen's Latest Book
• ‘Staying in His Lane’ — Joel Osteen’s Gospel of Affirmation Without Salvation
• Prosperity Gospel
• What Is The Prosperity Gospel?
• Are You Equipped to Respond to the Prosperity Gospel?
• An African Prophet Standing Against the Prosperity Gospel
• Tim Tebow Cancels Speech at Event Organized by Prosperity Gospel Preacher

Community Is Not an Activity

"Those first Christians of Acts 2 were not devoting themselves to social activities but to a relationship — a relationship that consisted of sharing together the very life of God through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. They understood that they had entered this relationship by faith in Jesus Christ, not by joining an organization. And they realized that their fellowship with God logically brought them into fellowship with one another. Through their union with Christ, they were formed into a spiritually organic community. They were living stones being built into a spiritual house (see 1 Peter 2: 5), fellow members of the body of Christ. As William Hendriksen said, 'Koinonia, then, is basically a community-relationship.' It is not primarily an activity; it is a relationship. 

"It is this spiritually organic relationship that forms the basis of true Christian community. It is not the fact that we are united in common goals or purposes that makes us a community. Rather, it is the fact that we share a common life in Christ. There are many organizations, both secular and Christian, whose members work together to pursue common goals.

"Some of these groups may call themselves communities. But biblical community goes much deeper than sharing common goals, though it ultimately involves that. Biblical community is first of all the sharing of a common life in Christ. It is when we grasp this truth that we are in a position to begin to understand true community."

Jerry Bridges True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia (Kindle Locations 102-113). Navpress. Kindle Edition. 

Growth Group Homework for Oct 21

Jesus’ sermon in Luke 6 explains what it truly means to follow Him and how radical a shift a believer makes in becoming His disciple. Here in the opening of His teaching, Jesus turns conventional thinking upside-down as he explains who is truly blessed and who is not. For disciples today, it is important that we understand and pursue a life that is truly blessed. 

• Read Luke 6:20-26

1. What insight, principle, or observation from this weekend’s message did you find to be most helpful, eye-opening, or troubling? Explain.
2. When was the last time you felt that God was truly blessing you? How do you think most people think about what it means to be “blessed”?
3. What do you think the disciples found surprising in Jesus’ teaching about the true nature of blessedness? How does Jesus’ teaching contrast itself against contemporary misconceptions about what it means to live a blessed life?
4. Luke 6 isn’t the only time Jesus talks about the nature of true blessing. Examine the following passages and summarize what they teach about who is “blessed” and why:
• Luke 7:23
• Luke 10:23-24
• Luke 11:27-28
• Luke 12:35-40
• Luke 14:12-14
• Luke 24:50-53
5. To be blessed is to know the reality of God’s total commitment to those who joyfully trust Him with their present lives and future hope. In what ways does this passage show that has God fully committed Himself to His people?

"Heavenly Identity" Powerful Spoken Word Video

Heavenly Identity from The Branch Corvallis on Vimeo.

Killing Sin through Prayer?

"The activity by which the Christian directly secures the mortification of his sins is prayer," wrote J. I. Packer in his book A Quest For Godliness. But what does this practice of putting sin to death through personal prayer look like?  https://vimeo.com/43983757

The Past Sounds Like the Present

Luke 9:23: And he said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." (ESV)

And is this the doctrine of Christianity? Is not the Christian world then asleep? If not, whence so much self-righteousness, whence the self-indulgence, whence the reigning love of riches which we every where meet with? Above all, whence that predominant greediness after sensual pleasure, that has so over-run this sinful nation, that was a pious stranger to come amongst us, he would be tempted to think some heathen Venus was worshipped here, and that temples were dedicated to her service. But we have the authority of an inspired apostle to affirm, that they who live in a round of pleasure, “are dead while they live.” Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, “Awake thou that sleepeth, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” But the power of raising the spiritually dead belongeth only unto God. Do thou therefore, O Holy Jesus, who by thy almighty word commandest Lazarus to come forth, though he had lain in the grave some days, speak also as effectually to these spiritually dead souls, whom Satan for many years hath so fast bound by sensual pleasures, that they are not so much as able to lift up their eyes or hearts to heaven.

George Whitefield (1714-1770), from a sermon published in 1771-1772 on Luke 9:23 entitled "The Extent and Reasonableness of Self-Denial"