Every few months we take a step back from our regular routine of teaching through the books of the Bible and set aside a Sunday service for a "Vision" message to outline our core values, mission statement, and our vision for The Church. We'll talk about our Life Cycle discipleship model (i.e. what it means to KNOW God in Christ, GROW in your faith, and GO where He sends you). This week Mike focuses on what it looks like for us to GROW in our faith.

This Easter message is the finale of the series, "The Way Forward." 

Discussion Questions:

1. Discuss the way Jesus compares his death on the cross to the bronze serpent episode in Numbers 21:4-9.  How are they similar?  How are they different?  What should the differences communicate to us about God’s nature? 

2. What do I mean when I say, “if we try to understand the meaning of the cross apart from the resurrection we trap ourselves into wrong thinking about God?” 

3. How do Christians today try to understand the cross apart from the resurrection? 

4. Discuss the scapegoat ritual in Leviticus 16:20-22.  Is this how you’ve been taught to understand the meaning and significance of Jesus’ death?  If so, how do you respond to my suggestion that such thinking not only ignores the resurrection but tacitly rejects it? 

5. In light of difference between the events of Easter weekend and the scapegoat ritual of Leviticus 16 how should we think about God and how should we think about how God “takes away” human sin?

 

Guest Speaker Derek Moran talks "Real Life," teaching from Matthew (chapters 16 & 28) and Mark (chapters 8 & 16).

This is the sixth message in the series called "The Way Forward" which is a study of the Old Testament books of Leviticus and Numbers. This was a six-week series, but the Easter Sunday message on April 5, 2015 will be the conclusion for this series.

Discussion Questions:

1. Read Numbers 34-36 and review how the various themes that came up throughout this series appear again in these closing chapters.  How are they similar?  How are they different? 

2. I suggested that development is not about arrival but learning to be faithful to the revelation you’ve been given.  What do you think? 

3. I argued throughout this series that God should be compared to a committed parent and the nation of Israel to a growing or developing child.  If that is true how should we approach what Israel wrote and did? 

4. Do you believe you’re being as faithful as you can be to the revelation you’ve been given? 

5. Reflect on the state of the church today.  Do you think the Christian church is being as faithful as it can be to the revelation it’s received in Jesus?  In other words, do you see places where the Christian church espouses beliefs, drafts doctrine, or enacts policy that seem pre-Christian in their depiction of God?

 

The fifth message in a six-week series called, "The Way Forward" which is a study of the Old Testament books of Leviticus and Numbers.

Discussion Questions:

1. In this message I argue that violently eliminating other people groups as perceived threats (as Israel does with Midian) cannot be God’s will for his people even if the Bible says God told them to do it.  What is your response to that statement?  Why? 

2. Discuss the practice of elimination.  Does the felt-need to eliminate perceived outside threats by definition indicate an immaturity on the part of the one doing the eliminating? 

3. I argued that Israel’s foreign policy was anchored in an immature understanding of God?  What specific immature understanding of God did I suggest Israel had?  What do you think? 

4. Why did I suggest God was so vehemently against the making of idols?  How do we construct idols in the church today? 

5. What is God’s actual desire with regard to how his people treat other nations and how do we know for sure? 

 

The fourth message in a six-week series called "The Way Forward" which is a study of the Old Testament books of Leviticus and Numbers.

You can view the diagram referenced HERE.

Discussion Questions:

1. Discuss the inevitability and therefore necessity for generational transition in order for movements to stand the test of time.  Have you been a part of successful or unsuccessful generational transitions?  What made them successful/unsuccessful? 

2. What did I argue is the most important factor influencing successful generational transition?  What burden does this place on 1st generation people?   How do you see this embodied in Israel? 

3. What did I argue is the reason why some movements fail to successfully transition from one generation to the next? 

4. What pattern for generational transition does Leviticus/Numbers establish? 

5. What do episodes like the daughters of Zelophehad in Numbers 27:1-4 and the hand-washing episode in Mark 7 teach us about what’s at stake if we don’t adhere to this pattern?

 

This is the third message in a six-week series called, "The Way Forward" which is a study of the Old Testament books of Leviticus and Numbers.

You can view the diagrams that are reference by clicking the following links:

Diagram 1

Diagram 2

Discussion Questions:

1. How does God respond to Israel’s lack of trust?  How does the author of Numbers “show” this?  Why is it so important that God would respond this way? 

2. What is the first condition necessary to be a blessing to someone else?  How does this relate to what God is trying to do in and through the people of Israel? 

3. What does it mean to “be holy because I am holy?” 

4. What does a life of listening to and obeying God look like according to Leviticus 19? 

5. What is the second condition necessary to be a blessing?  How does this relate to what is trying to do in and through the people of Israel? 

6. What is the significance of Leviticus 19:18?

 

The second message in a six week series called "The Way Forward" which is a study of the Old Testament books of Leviticus and Numbers.

The map referenced can be found by clicking HERE.

Discussion Questions:

1. What are the two halves of ritual life?  Using the metaphor of a developing child (toddler) how does each help protect the people of Israel as well as move them closer to a fuller knowledge of the truth? 

2. Retrace my argument regarding what actually makes a person unclean and how the various purity laws relate.  Were you persuaded?  Why or why not?  Had you ever heard Leviticus taught in this way?  What about Jesus’ life and teaching would lead us to draw these conclusions? 

3. What central issue do all the conflict stories in Numbers 11-20 seem to revolve around? 

4. What does God want and how does He seem to be going about producing it? 

5. What role does Jesus play in God’s ongoing process of producing people who know him, trust him, love him, and live with him as they were designed to?

The first message in a six-week series called "The Way Forward" which is a study of the Old Testament books of Leviticus and Numbers.

Use the following links to view the map and chart referenced in the sermon:

MAP

CHART

Discussion Questions:

1. Discuss the Hebrew worldview that God intended to establish a kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.”  Is this how you’ve been taught to think about God’s ultimate plan?  How have you been accustomed to thinking about the relationship between heaven and earth? 

2. In light of the Hebrew worldview, what is the significance of the law, the ark, and the tabernacle? 

3. What is the purpose of detailing how the Israelites are to camp around, march with, tear down, and set up the tabernacle as they move from Mt Sinai to the promised-land?  What is the author trying to show? 

4. Discuss how both the Bible and archeological evidence from other near-eastern cultures seem to indicate that ritual sacrifice was not something God originally commanded but rather something humans were already doing as a culturally normal expression of religious devotion.  How does that reframe your understanding of the purpose of the sacrificial commands in Leviticus? 

5. What does Paul means when he refers to the law as a tutor or guardian in Galatians 3:24-25? 

6. What is the purpose of the additional Sin and Guilt offerings added in the book the Leviticus to Israel’s already established cultic life? 

7. What does it mean for Jesus to be the true “sacred space?”

 

WCC Youth Developer Mike Strole shares a message today based out of Luke 9 & 10 on loving our neighbors the way Jesus calls us to.

Discussion Questions:

1. Have you ever "reined down fire" on a person or a group of people who hurt or upset you?  What was the outcome?

2. How peaceful and loving would you rate yourself in situations that are hostile?  In what ways could you be better?

3. Is there a person, or group of people that you need to work harder to see their "lovable person"?  How will you do it?