Nov 11-18, 2018

Take about 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.

1. If God has kept all of his promises in the past, why do we still have anxiety about Him fulfilling his promises for the future?
2. Read 2 Peter 3:9. “As some count slowness,” Why does waiting cause us great fear and temptation to “go back?”  What has helped you in the past to wait on the Lord?
3. These are the characteristics that mark a life of trusting God’s promises: patience, assurance, endurance, confidence. Which one do you struggle with the most and why?  Which one gives you the most comfort and how have you come to that point in your walk?
4. Pastor Wes challenged us with the question, “What is your anchor? Read Hebrews 12:27-29.  What “shakable things” have you placed your anchor in?  What are the consequences of placing your anchor in shakable things?  Why are we so quick to place our trust in temporary anchors?
5. Read the following quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, on his decision whether or not to stay in the comforts of the United States or return to his suffering brothers and sisters in Germany. How does one come to this conclusion and how can we prepare ourselves for the same conviction should we ever have to make this gut-wrenching call?

“I have had the time to think and to pray about my situation and that of my nation and to have God’s will for me clarified.  I have come to the conclusion that I have made a mistake in coming to America.  I must live through this difficult period of our national history with the Christian people of Germany.  I shall have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.  My brothers in the Confessing Synod wanted me to go.  They may not have been right in urging me to do so; but I was wrong in going. Such a decision each man must make for himself.  Christians in Germany will face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive, or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying our civilization.  I know which of these alternatives I must choose, but I cannot make that choice in security.”   Metaxas, Eric., Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. Pg 409.