Daniel is a story about four friends who are far from home, in a foreign place with different values and priorities. The Bible shows us that this is our story too: all of us are exiles, navigating life in a place different than our true home. Daniel teaches us to live lives of steady confidence in God, looking to serve the city around us without losing our identity as God’s people. We can do that because our true citizenship is in God’s own kingdom, which will outlast every other city. One day we will find our true home there. 

Application Questions: 

1. How have you experienced life as an exile in Los Angeles (or anywhere else)? 

2. How has the culture of the city exerted pressure on you, and how have you dealt with it? 

3. What might a steady confidence in God and his kingdom look like in your life in LA?

It's safe to say that all Christians should be motivated to grow. We want to grow and be able to obey God for the rest of our lives, but sometimes we get stuck in our walk with Him. We've tried so many things and we're still stuck. If you find yourself struggling in your Christian life, my hope is that you'll realize that there's a better way to grow and obey God.

Application Questions:

1. If Christ came to empower you to obey through His Spirit, why do you keep trying to obey in your own strength?

2. Why will obedience out of obligation or fear eventually shut you down?

3. If Christ obeyed the law for us, why do we still have to obey it?

4. What is Spirit-empowered obedience?

5. Explain how obedience through the Spirit motivates you to obey more?

6. Why is love the best reason to motivate our obedience?

Last week we looked at Jesus' call to lose our life that we might save it. This week we look at his call to lose our life to save others. The mission of the church is to be Christ's ambassadors on earth. And as it did for our Savior, that will inevitably involve suffering.

Application Questions: 

1. Why did Jesus come to earth?

2. What is the mission of the church?

3. Why do we have to suffer as we strive to fulfill his mission?

4. What fears hold you back from living your life for the sake of the gospel?

5. How might God be calling you to step toward suffering (big or small) for the sake of the spread of the gospel?

There are times that Christians embrace suffering that they could have tried to avoid. What explains that impulse? Jesus' conversation with Peter and his disciples in Mark 8 shows us why Jesus moves toward suffering, and why following him means we do the same. 

Application Questions: 

1. Why does Jesus insist so strongly that he “must” suffer on the cross? How does this contrast with the way people normally think about the good life? 

2. Do you have any experience moving toward suffering and not away from it? What were your motivations and what was the result? 

3. What scares you the most about moving toward suffering and not away from it? How does the gospel encourage you in those fears?

God is the ultimate source of consolation and comfort. But how do we experience that comfort when he is invisible and intangible? Scripture teaches us how to truly bring God's comfort into one another's lives by being a means of his comfort, and a reminder that God alone is the only true source of the comfort we need.

Application Questions: 

1. Where, other than God, are you tempted to look for comfort?  

2. How have you experience God's comfort over the past few weeks?

3. How might God want to use the comfort you have received in providing comfort to those around you?

4. Who around you might need God's comfort delivered through you?

5. What is one practical way you can provide that comfort this week?

The world is chasing after the ability to be resilient in the face of suffering. But, what does true resilience entail? And how does the eternal hope we have in Christ both produce resilience and give us something even greater?

Application Questions: 

1. How does remembering your inheritance change your view of the future?

2. How does your view of the future shape how you are experiencing suffering now?

3. How might your view of suffering change if you were looking for God's glory in the midst of it?

4. How might your view of God change if you were remembering his love, promises, and goodness both in and through your seasons of suffering?

Typically in the midst of suffering, we can't stop thinking about what has been taken from us. But God shows us in James 1 what He can produce in us in the midst of trials.

Application Questions: 

1. How are trials in your life always a "loss"?

2. What is counterintuitive about God producing something in us in the midst of trials?

3. How does wisdom guide you in the midst of suffering?

4. How does an eternal perspective bring hope in the midst of suffering?

How do we make sense of our suffering? Pain and difficulty can be completely disorienting and seemingly pointless. But God pulls back the curtain just enough to give us a glimpse of the glorious work he is doing through our suffering. And when we catch that glimpse, it changes everything.

Application Questions: 

1. In what ways do you try to make sense of your suffering with observational truth instead of insightful truth? 

2. How comfortable are you with the idea of rejoicing in the midst of suffering?

3. Can you think of a time you’ve seen God use suffering to produce endurance in your life? Describe it.

4. Can you think of a time you’ve seen God produce an enduring character in you? Describe it.

5. How does the work God is doing in your life through suffering give you hope?

Having established the theological pillars we need to understand suffering in our world, we now turn to explore what it looks like to walk through suffering on the ground. Scripture gives us a vocabulary for our suffering we can't find anywhere else in the world. And that vocabulary begins with understanding the sweet gift of lament.

Application Questions: 

1. What is the difference between complaining and lament? Which is the more common way you respond to suffering?

2. Is lament a regular discipline in your prayer life? If not, why not?

3. How does God's love for you in Christ invite you into lament?

4. What do you have to lament to God about right now?

How do we make sense of a God who allows suffering despite being good and in control of all things? Far from being a problem, God’s sovereignty gives us deep resources to face suffering. Only a sovereign God can take all things and work them for good, even when we don’t yet see how. What’s more, God uses his sovereignty to take on more suffering than we will ever experience in Christ. This shows us the depth of his love and how trustworthy he is even in the midst of deep suffering in our own lives.

Application Questions: 

1. How have you struggled with God’s sovereignty over suffering? 

2. How can looking up, looking back, and looking forward anchor you in times of suffering? 

3. God used his sovereignty to willingly suffer on the cross in the person of Jesus Christ. How might that give you comfort in the trials of life?