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LIFE Group Lessons
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Mission Plans: Commitment and Sacrifice |
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LIFE GROUP DISCUSSION GUIDE
Wednesday Night, October 25, 2006
Commitment and Sacrifice
By Mitch Anderson, 10.22.06
Passages from Readings on Commitment and Sacrifice
Mark 8:34-36, Matthew 10:37-38, John 12:25-26, Mark 10:29-31, Romans 8:16-18, Romans 12:1-2a, 2 Corinthians 5:14-20a, Ephesians 5:1-2, Philippians 1:21, Philippians 3:7-11,Philippians 4:12-13, 2 Timothy 1:7-12
Theme Verse—Acts 20:24
“I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.”
Invitation:
God has an invitation for us tonight.
This invitation, this calling, is huge—ginormous if you will—it’s beautiful and it’s awesome. We heard it in the scriptures that were read earlier….
Christ invites us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him. To give up our lives for him and the gospel. And the paradox of all paradoxes is that in so doing we gain life—true, eternal, transformed life. Life to the full. And furthermore we are empowered to share this life with others.
He also invites us to love him more than our own fathers or mothers or sons or daughters or anything we possess. Because, baptized into Christ and into his death and resurrection, we have a new family and a new identity, and that changes everything.
We are God’s dearly loved children, Christ’s ambassadors, ministers of reconciliation.
We are also those who know Christ—the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings—and we want others to know him too.
We want them to know the good news that anyone who is in Christ is a new creation: the old has gone, the new has come.
We want them to know that all things can be done through Him who gives us strength.
To know that in Christ, God gives us not a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline.
Therefore, we are not ashamed to testify about our Lord…
And so now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Olomouc, not knowing what will happen to me there. And we are all called to go where he leads, not knowing what exactly may happen or what hardships we may face. We are called to proclaim the gospel and to live out the gospel wherever we are, because—let me tell you something—the mission field is everywhere. Missions is not something that happens over there, in some foreign land. The mission field is any place where the Kingdom of God has not been fully revealed. It is any place where God’s will is not perfectly done. Therefore, even my heart is a mission field. And so are all of our hearts.
As God continues to work on the mission field of our hearts, may he enable us to say more and more:
“I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.” (Acts 20:22-24)
Yes, God has an invitation for us tonight. His invitation is for us to do what we’re about to sing: Surrender all.
Discussion:
* What does it mean for the mission field to be any place where the Kingdom of God has not been fully revealed (or any place where God’s will is not perfectly done)? How can we together reveal God’s Kingdom?
* Do you agree that each of our hearts, even if we are already Christians, is a mission field? Are there parts of our lives that still need to be reached with the good news, where death and resurrection need to occur (e.g. Mitch’s continual death to social anxiety and resurrection to peace and boldness)? How can we help each other with these struggles; what good news do we have to share with each other? Now, how can we take these struggles and stories and victories—this good news made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus—to our neighbors?
* The scripture readings from Sunday night make unmistakably clear God’s call to commitment and sacrifice, a call which permeates all of scripture, especially the life of Christ and the early church. Philippians 3:7-11 speaks of the fellowship of sharing in Christ’s sufferings. Romans 8:16-18 says that we are heirs if we share in his sufferings that we may also share in his glory. Discuss what this concept of suffering means to you.
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