Christ's Church of Oronogo Classes & Bible Studies

Teaching by Michael DeFazio

Teaching by Chad Ragsdale

Teaching by Elijah Dally

Week 6: The Dividing Message of Jesus - Luke 10-13:9

---

Luke 2:34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother:
"This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too."

---

1. The Kingdom Demands Response
- A Powerful Message Luke 10:1-24
- A Provocative Message Luke 10:25-37
- A Personal Message Luke 10:38-42
- A Prayerful Response Luke 11:1-13

2. The Kingdom Exposes Hearts
- A Jealous Heart Luke 11:14-28
- A Doubtful Heart Luke 11:29-32
- An Understanding Heart Luke 11:33-36
- A Performative Heart Luke 11:37-54

3. The Kingdom Reveals Allegiances
- Fear God, Not Man Luke 12:1-12
- Trust God, Not Money Luke 12:13-34
- Serve God, Not Yourself Luke 12:35-48
- Choose God, Not Relationships Luke 12:49-53

4. The Dividing Message of Jesus
- Recognize the Time Luke 12:54-59
- Repent While There Is Time Luke 13:1-9

Wisdom from Paul on Walking with God
Week 5: Interlude - Pause for Guided Reflection

Link here if you would like to print to fill out!

---

Before you begin

This week we stop adding and start absorbing. For three weeks we have laid the first pillar, the gospel framework that grounds and guards our effort. Today you spend one hour letting it sink in.

You need a Bible, a pen, paper, and a quiet place. Work alone, or alone first and then with your table. Write your answers down. Thinking a thought is not the same as putting it on paper where you have to look at it.

You will not finish every question. That is fine. When one lands, stay there and let the rest go.

Time Movement Text
5 min - Settle and remember
15 min - God's abundant blessing - Ephesians 1:3-14
15 min - Christ seated at God's right hand - Colossians 3:1-4
15 min - God's providential guarantee - Romans 8:28-29
10 min - Gather it up

---

Settle and remember (5 minutes)

Sit quietly for one full minute. Ask God to show you what is true about him and about you.

Then, first without looking at your notes and then using them as needed, write down:

1. Our four pillars. Which one have we been building, and why does it come first?

2. The three themes inside that first pillar.

3. What have you learned in this class that you most hope you don't forget?

Now return to the question we asked on day one: what kind of person do you think God wants you to become? Answer it in a sentence or two, as specifically as you can. Keep that sentence in front of you for the rest of the hour.

---

Movement 1: God's abundant blessing (15 minutes)

Read Ephesians 1:3-14 slowly, out loud if you can. In Greek it is one long sentence of praise. Let it run over you before you analyze it.

Remember. All of God has been working through all of time to save all of you. You are a constant recipient of abundant divine goodness.

Receive. Choose one or two.

1. List the blessings Paul names in this passage. Put a mark by the one you find hardest to believe is true of you. Why that one?

2. What in your past or present leads you to doubt or question God's goodness to you? Name it plainly. God is not threatened by your honesty.

3. Move from "I agree" to "I will re-see myself in this light." Write five sentences that begin "I am..." using only what this passage says. Read them back out loud.

Go deeper: anger and the victim story. We said in class that knowing ourselves as people who constantly receive God's goodness undercuts things like anger or a victim mentality. Test that claim on your own life.

4. Where are you angry right now, or quietly resentful? Toward whom, and about what?

5. Beneath most anger is a sense of being owed. What do you believe you were owed and did not get?

6. Is there a story you tell about your life in which you are mainly the person things were done to? Who hears that story most often?

7. Set that story next to Ephesians 1. What does the passage say you have been given that no person and no circumstance can take? How does the debt you are holding look beside it?

8. How might this re-narrate your past? How might it reframe one situation you are in this week?

A word of care. Some of you have been truly wronged, and nothing here asks you to pretend otherwise. Being sinned against is real. The question is narrower: is the wrong done to you the truest and largest thing about you, or is Ephesians 1?

Respond. Paul learned to pray from the Psalms. Turn your list from question 1 into a prayer of thanks, one line per blessing, or pray Psalm 145.

---

Movement 2: Christ seated at God's right hand (15 minutes)

Read Colossians 3:1-4 twice. The second time, stop on every "with Christ" and every "above."

Remember. Mindset precedes behavioral change. Paul's first practical instruction is to fix our attention on Christ where he now is: seated. Seated because his work is finished, and seated on the throne because he rules.

Receive: the finished work. "I want to be better" is a good but dangerous moment. It is dangerous because we can turn the wanting into a way of earning or doing on our own.

1. In your past, in what ways have you tried to prove your worth or earn your place before God?

2. Everyone seeks to be justified, to hear the verdict "you are in the right, you are enough." Where do you go looking for that verdict? Circle any that fit, and add your own: being right, being needed, being productive, being a good parent, being more disciplined than others, being liked, being seen as spiritual.

3. Think of the last time you got defensive, or replayed an argument in your head, or needed someone to know you were not at fault. What verdict were you fighting for? From whom?

4. What happens in you when that court rules against you: when you fail, are criticized, or are overlooked?

5. Paul says your life is hidden with Christ in God. The verdict is already in, and it was not won by you. If you believed that on Monday morning, what would you stop doing? What would you be free to do?

Receive: the throne. Every action makes an argument about what matters most.

6. Look at last week's calendar, spending, and screen time as evidence. If a stranger had only that evidence, who or what would they say sits atop your hierarchy of values?

7. In what ways does your actual life not align with Christ's lordship? Name one area, not ten.

Respond.

8. How close to mind do you want to keep Christ seated at God's right hand? Why?

9. How close to mind will you keep him there? How, exactly? Pick one concrete trigger for this week: a time of day, a doorway, a phone alarm, a verse on the dashboard.

---

Movement 3: God's providential guarantee (15 minutes)

Read Romans 8:28-29. Do not stop at verse 28. Verse 29 tells you what "good" means.

Remember. Only God rules the world. His sovereignty does not mean that he scripts every event or that "everything happens for a reason." It means his ultimate purposes will be accomplished no matter what, and so anything can be redeemed. The good he guarantees is specific: that we be conformed to the image of his Son.

Receive.

1. Where did God simply not enter your thinking this week (Psalm 10:4)? A decision, a worry, a conflict you handled as if he were not in the room?

2. Name the hardest thing in your life right now. Write it down in one line.

3. Be honest about the "good" you have been asking God for in it. Is it the good of verse 29, or a different one: relief, vindication, things going back to how they were?

4. Suppose God never explains this hard thing but does use it to make you more like Jesus. What specifically might He be forming in you through it: patience, humility, compassion, courage?

5. Is there something in your past you have filed as wasted or beyond repair? What would it mean to believe that even that can be redeemed?

6. Which is harder for you to trust in practice: God's power, his love, or his wisdom? What does that tell you?

Go deeper: the long view. Read 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.

7. Paul calls his troubles light and momentary. He was not minimizing them (see 2 Corinthians 11:23-28). What was he comparing them to?

8. What is one worry you are carrying that shrinks when you set it against eternity? What is one thing you are neglecting that grows?

Respond. Take the line you wrote for question 2 and pray it back to God in this form: "Father, I do not know why. I ask you to use it to make me like your Son."

---

Gather it up (10 minutes)

Read back over what you wrote. Look for the place where you felt the most resistance or the most relief. That is probably where God is at work.

1. Of the three truths, which do you most need right now: that you are abundantly blessed, that Christ is seated, or that God will use everything to make you like his Son? Why that one?

2. Go back to the sentence you wrote at the start about who God wants you to become. How badly do you want that change? How hard are you intentionally working toward it?

3. Now the framework's question: are you working toward it from blessing, a settled verdict, and a guaranteed outcome, or working for them?

4. Finish this sentence: "Because God has ___, this week I will ___."

5. Who will you tell? Name one person and tell them before next Sunday.

If you are with your table, share your answer to question 1 or 4, then pray for the person on your left.

Bring with you on October 18: your one sentence from question 4. We will start there before turning to our second pillar, the hopeful vision.

---

Closing prayer

Father, you have blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. Christ is seated at your right hand, his work finished and his rule secure. You are at work in all things to make us like him. Teach us to live from what you have done. Amen.

Teaching by Elijah Dally

Week 5: Who is Jesus? - Luke 8:22-9:62

---

1. The Authority of Jesus 8:22-9:17
- Authority over Physical Reality 8:22-25
- Authority over Spiritual Reality 8:26-39
- Authority over Sickness and Death 8:46-56
- Authority Given to Disciples 9:1-9
- Authority Demonstrated to Disciples 9:10-17

2. The Identity of Jesus 9:18-36
- The Christ 9:18-27
- The Suffering Son of Man 9:21-27
- The Glorious Son 9:28-36

3. The Confusion about Jesus 9:37-51
- Confused about His Power 9:37-43
- Confused about His Mission 9:43-45
- Confused about His Values 9:46-48
- Confused about His Kingdom 9:49-50
- Confused about His Strategy 9:51-56
- Confused about His Calling 9:57-62

Teaching by Chad Ragsdale

Teaching by Michael DeFazio

Wisdom from Paul on Walking with God - Week 4
Gospel Framework: God's Providential Guarantee (Rom 8:28-29)

---

Opening Thoughts

Checking in (at your tables) …
- How was your week? How are you doing today?
- What have you learned in this class that you hope you don't forget?

Interrupt forgetting…
- What is the first of our four pillars? Why?
- What (in this first pillar) have we covered so far?
  - God's ___________ Blessing/_______________
  - Christ ___________ at God's ___________ _______________
- Today: God's providential guarantee (Romans 8:28-29)

Starting (again) with God

As we walk with God, we must not stop ___________________ God (see Ps 10:4)

Reflecting on Divine Sovereignty
- Sovereignty speaks of _______________ authority and effective power.
- Sovereignty in five words: ___________ God ___________ the world.
  - God executes successful plans because of his superior power.
  - God's sovereignty does not imply meticulous control of every detail (1 Tim 2:4; 2 Pet 3:9; Romans 8:28)
  - God's sovereignty manifests and implies God's superior power, love, and wisdom.
- For contemplating divine sovereignty in Paul, consider Rom 9:14-24, 11:33-36, 13:1; 1 Cor 15:24-28; Eph 1:11, 20-22; Phil 2:9-11; Col 1:16-18; 1 Tim 1:17, 6:15-16; Heb 2:8, 6:13-18

From Sovereignty to Providence
- What is "providence" as distinct from "sovereignty"?
- God's providence is the outworking of His sovereignty in time…
- For contemplating divine providence in Paul, consider Rom 1:10, 8:28, 11:25-32, 15:32; 1 Cor 4:19, 10:13, 16:7; 2 Cor 9:8-10, 12:7-9; Gal 1:15-16, 4:4; Eph 1:11; Phil 1:12-18, 2:13, 4:19; Col 1:17; 1 Tim 6:13, 17; 2 Tim 4:17-18; Phlm 15; Heb 1:3, 12:5-11, 13:5-6; see also Acts 14:15-17, 17:24-28

What does all this have to do with Romans 8:28-29?

Divine Providence in Daily Life

What is God's providential guarantee?

What to do with this:
- Maintain an…
- Cultivate a…

Teaching by Drake Holderman

Teaching by Elijah Dally

Week 4: Jesus Restores the Outsider - Luke 6:17-8:21

---

1. A Sermon to the Insider for the Outsider 6:17-49
- Blessings and Woes 17-26
- Loving the Enemy 27-36
- Judging 37-42
- Trusting and Obeying 43-49

2. The Restoring of the Outsider 7:1-50
- The Centurion 1-10
- Widow's Son 11-17
- John the Baptist 18-35
- A Sinful Woman 36-50

3. The Challenge to the Listener 8:1-21
- The Soil and Seed 1-15
- The Challenge to Listen 16-18
- The Family of God 19-21

Teaching by Michael DeFazio

Wisdom from Paul on Walking with God - Week 3
Gospel Framework: Christ Seated at God's Right Hand (Col 3:1-4)

---

Opening Thoughts

Quiz yourself…
- How much do you remember of our four pillars?
  - _______________ _______________
  - Hopeful _______________
  - Simple _______________
  - Embodied _______________
- And what was our theme last week?
- Next up: Christ…
- How often do you think about Christ seated at God's right hand? Why not more?
- What do you know about the significance of Christ seated at God's right hand?
- Today's focal text is Colossians 3:1-4. Let's reflect on its placement in the letter.

Col 3:1-4 – Getting Practical (sort of)

Step One: focus on Christ, seated at God's right hand.
- Note well: _______________ precedes behavioral change
- Note our focus. Surprising?

Why start here? What does that mean?
- Formation begins with Christ's _______________ _______________
- Formation begins with Christ on _______________ _______________

Hearing the Word

The facts of Christ seated at God's right hand:
- In what ways do you try to prove your worth / earn your place before God?
- In what ways does your actual life not align with Christ's Lordship?

Your focus on Christ seated at God's right hand:
- How close to mind do you want to keep Christ seated at God's right hand? WHY?
- How close to mind will you keep Christ seated at God's right hand? HOW?