With a focus on God’s wrath a week ago, we now move into God’s atonement for this week. From early on in Genesis we are made aware of its necessity as the thing that allows God’s people to actually be his people. The story of atonement is a story of a great cost paid by God to make right what we have made wrong.

The wrath of God is one of the most consistent themes throughout Scripture. And yet, it is a theme which is mostly ignored when we think about or teach on God’s nature. But if we are to worship him in truth and understand the depths of his grace for his people, then meditating upon God’s wrath becomes a necessary exercise for us.

In this Sunday’s sermon, we explored the theme of fellowship that runs throughout the entire storyline of Scripture. The big idea of the sermon was that, “fellowship with God is the foundation of our fellowship with one another.” Here are a handful of questions to help you and your life group discuss and apply this sermon to your own lives:

We have been created to worship God. And so, naturally, it is a theme that we see woven throughout the scriptures. Within this grand narrative we see our hearts turn from God at the fall, his great provision for us at the cross, and a picture of his people in the end worshiping him eternally before the throne.

The greatest gift that God can give to us is his presence and, in creation, we see that we were made to enjoy him forever. While his presence is our highest joy, sin has created our greatest tragedy by removing him from us. The Bible tells us the ongoing story of how he has, and will ultimately, restore his presence with us.

In this second week of our series, we look at the idea of covenant and its place throughout the entirety of the scriptures. What we see is the crucial role that it plays in God’s working out of his people’s redemption and the way in which he relates to us up to this day.

This week we begin a new series: Know the Story. Each week we’ll be taking one of the major themes of the Bible and tracing it from Genesis to Revelation. The point of doing this isn’t just to know more about the Bible, but to understand that the Bible is a story, a true story, about what God is doing to redeem a special people for himself. The only way we can make sense of our lives, is to find our place in the story. This week, we look at the theme of Kingdom: God’s rule and reign over his people.

We have finally made it. The end of the book of Acts. The last two chapters of the book are filled with a very detailed chronicle of the journey, harrowing events, and a seemingly underwhelming journey that serves as an open door for the gospel to continue to spread.

Similar to last week, Paul is in custody and is placed in a position to defend the faith before powerful people. His insistence on being tried in Roman courts was keeping him safe from the dangers of Jerusalem but detained for the foreseeable future. The proclamation of a gospel with a resurrected Jesus and the inclusion of the Gentiles was scandalous and would carry him all the way to the great city of Rome.

After the events in Jerusalem that got Paul placed into custody, Paul remains under lock and key with threats on his life from the outside. In Acts 23:12-24:27 we have a series of events that bring Paul out of Jerusalem and headed toward Rome. And though we don’t see anything directly supernatural happen in this passage, it is a demonstration of God’s providential work to bring the gospel to the nations.