Grace South Bay

This conversation is based on the sermon titled, "The Beginning of the End," from Revelation, Chapter One.

“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.

“‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. 4 Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. 5 The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. 6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

1.     What parts of your name or reputation do you rest on?

2.     How can you ‘busily sleepwalk’?

3.     What are the ways you tend to your name and reputation?

4.     Do you experience spiritual complacency? Where/how?

5.     A life of repentance is a life where you are free to struggle.  Does that sound good to you?

6.     Where in your life can you hold fast to Jesus’ name more? Where do you need to trust him that he will hold fast your name?

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.

2 “‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. 3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’

 

1.     Do you think love should need tending to?

2.     Do you identify with the Ephesian church’s strengths?  How do they sound in comparison to love?

3.     Do you ever feel like it’s more important to you to be right rather than kind? 

4.     Do you have a time in your life when you remember having more passion and love for Jesus than you do now?  Describe it.

5.     What loves, fears and needs do you think might be getting in the way of enjoying Jesus’ love?

6.     Do you agree that Jesus can and should be first love in your life?  How would your life look if he was? How can you move in that direction?

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood 6 and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. 7 Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.

8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

9 I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet11 saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”

12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. 14 The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, 15 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. 19 Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this. 20 As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

Questions

1.     Does thinking about the end of the world or apocalypse bring you fear?  Why or why not?

2.     Is the idea that history is all about Jesus--he is driving it and it ends in him--exciting to you or more boring/confusing?

3.     What is your testimony? What would the people closest to you say about the world you live in, it’s truth, values and purpose?

4.     What are you afraid of?

5.     Is Jesus a comfort to you in these fears?

This Q&A conversation is based on the sermon titled "Refuge" from Joshua 20:1-9.

Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel. And they presented themselves before God. And Joshua said to all the people…

“Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods, for it is the LORD our God who brought us and our fathers up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery , and who did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed.”

So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and put in place statutes and rules for them at Shechem. And Joshua wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God. And he took a large stone and set it up there under the terebinth that was by the sanctuary of the LORD. And Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone shall be a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of the LORD that he spoke to us. Therefore it shall be a witness against you, lest you deal falsely with your God.”

After these things Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being 110 years old.

Questions:
1. What are some of the 'monument moments' of your life where you've seen God's faithfulness? 
2. Which 'little g' gods do you seem to worship most often?
3. How does it feel to hold out your hands, receive the sacrifice of Jesus, and say thanks? 
4. Pause right now and pray the Lord's Prayer. Do it again tomorrow morning. 
5. What is the most common defeater of repentance in your life? To whom can you take a baby step of faith repent? 
6. Who can you extend kindness (with no expectation of return) to today?

This Q&A Conversation is based on the sermon titled "The King of Jerusalem" preached on April 7, 2024, based on Joshua 10:22-27.

from Joshua 22
At that time Joshua summoned the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and said to them, “You have kept all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you and have obeyed my voice in all that I have commanded you…” So Joshua blessed them and sent them away, and they went to their tents.

 And when they came to the region of the Jordan that is in the land of Canaan, the people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh built there an altar by the Jordan, an altar of imposing size... And when the people of Israel heard of it, the whole assembly of the people of Israel gathered at Shiloh to make war against them.

Then the people of Israel sent…Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, and with him ten chiefs, one from each of the tribal families of Israel… and they said to them, “Thus says the whole congregation of the Lord, ‘What is this breach of faith that you have committed against the God of Israel in turning away this day from following the Lord by building yourselves an altar this day in rebellion against the Lord?’”

Then the people of Reuben, the people of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh said… “The Mighty One, God, the Lord! The Mighty One, God, the Lord! He knows; and let Israel itself know! If it was in rebellion or in breach of faith against the Lord, do not spare us today for building an altar to turn away from following the Lord. Or if we did so to offer burnt offerings or grain offerings or peace offerings on it, may the Lord himself take vengeance. No, but we did it from fear that in time to come your children might say to our children, ‘What have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel? For the Lord has made the Jordan a boundary between us and you, you people of Reuben and people of Gad. You have no portion in the Lord.’ So your children might make our children cease to worship the Lord. Therefore we said, ‘Let us now build an altar, not for burnt offering, nor sacrifice, but to be a witness between us and you, and between our generations after us, that we do perform the service of the Lord …’ Far be it from us that we should rebel against the Lord and turn away this day from following the Lord by building an altar for burnt offering, grain offering, or sacrifices other than the altar of the Lord our God that stands before his tabernacle!”

 And Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest said… “Today we know that the Lord is in our midst, because you have not committed this breach of faith against the Lord. Now you have delivered the people of Israel from the hand of the Lord.”

[They] called the altar Witness, “For,” they said, “it is a witness between us that the Lord is God.”

Sermon Questions:
1. How are you tempted to believe that it's your story?
2. What happening in your life makes it hard to believe the 4 parts God's story? (creation, fall, redemption, consumation)
3. How can you commemorate and remind yourself of God's story?
4. Spend a few moments telling others (or writing down) God's story worked out in your life.
5. Who have you written out of God's story? What questions could you ask them to see God's story at work in them?

This Q&A conversation is based on the sermon "The Power of the Word" from Joshua 14 - on April 21st 2024.

This Q&A Conversation is based on the Easter Sunday sermon titled "The Emmaus Hitchhiker" from Luke 24:13 - 35.