Aug 5-10, 2019

Take about 45 minutes during your missional community gathering to discuss what God is teaching you and how he is leading you in light of the weekend sermon.

Connecting:

Choosing affections for powerless and hopeless gods over the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Exodus 20:4-5) causes many grave consequences.  Each one of these consequences has the power to cause you great harm.  Define the consequences in each of these 4 areas.

1. It restricts God
2. It reduces God
3. It redefines God
4. It replaces God

• Why are we so quick to “make and worship” false Gods (Exodus 20:4-5) which have no power and why are we drawn to the flawed creature vs. the perfect creator (Romans 1:21-25)?  How have these consequences caused great pain in your own life?  What caused you to turn to the one True God? 
• Counterfeit idols are so dangerous because you are deceived into thinking you’re singing to the one true God when really you’re just blowing into a paper bag.  When this fails, as it inevitably will with powerless, hopeless, temporary, idols, all hope is seemingly lost.  How can one protect oneself from this grand deception?
• What does it mean to “put to death” earthly idols (Colossians 3:5-7) and why is accountability so important in accomplishing this?

Application: 

1. Remind ourselves daily that we are saved by grace and not by works. How will this cause us to stay the course?
2. Your purpose is in God’s plan; not in your ability to understand it. Deuteronomy 29:29 says, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.  Why does God choose not to reveal these things to us?
3. In traveling light, consider 2 Corinthians 4:16-18. "So we do not lose heart.  Though our outer selfis wasting away, our inner self  is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

   How can we cause ourselves to have the attitude of “light and momentary” trials rather than “the end of the world as we know it?” and why is the reminder so constantly needed? 

4. Read Matthew 16:24-26. How does this text keep us from the grand deception of powerless, hopeless and temporary idols?  “Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself andtake up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his lifewill lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”