This Sunday in Doxa we will study Psalm 32.  As we do, we will examine the blessing of forgiveness and honesty towards God and how we can model that in our homes.  Because every single one of us still sins, the topic of how we handle that sin, and the sin of others in our homes, is of extreme importance.

Psalm 32 is known as a Psalm of Understanding or a Skillful Psalm as it instructs in the skills faithful followers of God should develop.  When we travel through this Psalm, we will see some important ideas develop.  First, the believer who is honest before God about their sin receives forgiveness, instruction in godliness and, ultimately, experiences joy in their life.  Second, the believer who attempts to hide their sin before God experiences conviction, spiritual drought and difficult discipline.

Our hope is that through our time in the Word tomorrow, we will be reminded of God’s great forgiveness and his desire to bless and instruct us and fill our lives with joy.  As we study and celebrate these truths, we want to examine how we might demonstrate the some type of honesty with our families that God requires from us.  We also want to learn how to respond to our families in the same way God responds to us when we confess our sin to him.

To prepare further for our time in the Word tomorrow, read 1 John 1:5-10.

Community Group Discussion Question

1. Why do we sometimes struggle to be honest with God about our sin?
2. Psalm 32:2 says that the Lord “counts no iniquity” against the man whose sin is not hidden.  Share your thoughts on the truth that God completely removes the charges of sin against those who believe in Him.
3. Do you remember any times as a child where you were scared to tell your parents the truth?
4. How can we develop our homes into a place where honesty is welcomed?
5. Have you ever experienced a time of deep conviction over sin where you could relate with Psalm 32:3-4?
6. Verse 5 tells us that God forgives when we confess.  This is reiterated in 1 John 1:8-10.  Discuss how God faithfully forgives his followers.
7. How can we be faithful with forgiveness in our homes?
8. Verses 6 and 7 encourage use to come immediately to God when we sin.  God is described as our hiding place and preserver.  How can we develop homes where our families feel as though we are a hiding place and preserver for them?  How do we do this even when we have been wronged by someone in our family?
9. God’s desire is to instruct us in godliness when we sin.  Share how God has done this in your life?  Have you ever been like a mule or a horse that had to be bridled (v.9) when it came to obedience to God?
10. Spend time practicing verse 11 in prayer.  Express gladness and joy in God for the faithful forgiveness he lavishes on all who are honest before him.

This Sunday in Doxa we will look at Psalm 3 and discuss ways that we can be in daily prayer for our families.  Psalm 3 finds David in a very difficult situation.  His son Absalom has been turning the hearts of the people away from his father and toward himself.  Upon seeing that he could over take the throne, he betrays his Father and leads the people in a revolt.

To preserve his life, David flees Jerusalem barefoot and weeping.  Along the way, he is ridiculed by a guy named Shimei.  Shimei throws stones and dust at David while cursing him unrelentingly.  He shouts to David that God is doing all of this to punish him.

David eventually finds a cave in which to hide.  It is there, that the words of Psalm 3 are birthed.  David begins by lamenting his current situation.  He is overwhelmed by the number and power of his foes.  He may even be questioning the presence of God with him.  After a moment of reflection, he remembers God’s protection and purposes.  Overwhelmed by the peace that comes when we turn our focus on God, David lays down to sleep.

When he awakens in the morning, he is emboldened by the realization that God sustained him through the night.  Certainly God has not forsaken him!  Encouraged by the knowledge that his life is spared or taken by God’s discretion alone, he offers up a prayer calling God to battle on his behalf!

This Psalm should be a great encouragement to us.  No matter how great our enemies are or the struggles our families face, we can trust in the protection of our God!  Remembering who he is allows us to rest in his peace.  The knowledge that he is our sustainer urges us to pray that we would trust God to fight our battles for us!  As he does, we proclaim that salvation is only from God alone!

For further understanding of this passage, read 2 Samuel 15 and 16 before Sunday.

Community Group Questions

1. Read Psalm 3.  What are some “foes” that today’s family faces?  Do you believe that the family is under constant attack?  If so, why is the family under attack?
2. The word “foe” literally means straights, narrows or distress.  Understanding the term in this way, what are some things that can make family life difficult?
3. Discuss this statement: “The world is your enemy when it’s good things keep you from God’s best things.”  What are some of the good things of the world that have kept you/your family from the best things of God?
4. In verse 3, David refers to God as “a shield about (him).”  The Hebrew word for “about” means “completely around on all sides.”  How have you experienced God as a shield in your life?
5. Discuss this statement: “We have absolutely no control over what happens to us while we sleep.”
6. In the midst of the great adversity David is facing, the truth of who God is, allows his to sleep!  Share times of distress in your life where you experienced the gracious peace of God.
7. When David awakes, he states that he will not fear the many thousands who are against him.  Read and discuss Matthew 10:28.  Also discuss this statement: “Scripture makes no promises that we won’t have enemies, but does instruct us not to fear them.”  Why?  Who, instead, should our fear focused on?  What does it mean to fear God?
8. Discuss this statement: “Our lives can only be spared or taken at God’s discretion.”
9. David prays that God would strike the cheek and break the teeth of his enemies.  What’s your reaction to this prayer?  Do you think it’s harsh?  Why is David able to pray this way?
10. Using David’s prayer as a model, spend some time in prayer over the families in your Community Group.  Claim the truth that salvation belongs to the Lord.  Release your struggles and battles to God for Him to fight.

This morning in Doxa we examined Psalm 127 and 128 to study what it looks like to build your heritage in your home.  These chapters gave us 2 key foundational elements for us to understand and apply into our lives if we desire to leave the legacy God wants for us.  First, we must understand and submit to the truth that God is completely sovereign.  He makes our work beneficial and true security only comes through him.  Second, we must have a proper fear of God that leads us to live lives of faithful obedience.  When we do that, we view and treat our jobs, spouses and children in the right way.

Community Group Discussion Questions

1. What does it mean to leave a legacy or build a heritage?  How does our culture teach us that this is done?
2. Read Psalm 127 and 128.  What does it mean that unless God builds our home, we labor in vain?  Should we not labor at all?  What is the balance between laboring and trusting?
3. Discuss this statement: “Sometimes we rob our sleep to pay for our desires.”  How has this been true in your own life?
4. Discuss this truth: “God gives rest to his beloved.”  What does this mean?  Does it mean actual sleep or something more profound?
5. Psalm 127:3 tells us that children are a heritage from the Lord.  What does this mean?  In light of this, how should we view our children?
6. Discuss this statement: “The families we have are determined by God.”
7. The following is taken from Dr. Roger Freeman’s weekly devotional.  Consider the following statements based on Psalm 127:4-5:

Children are likened to arrows.  What must we do to build “straight arrows” in our children?

* An arrow must be straightened-”Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it. “Proverbs 22:6

* An arrow must be sanded- “Chasten your son while there is hope, And do not set your heart on his destruction.^[” Proverbs 19:18

* An arrow must be sharpened- “As iron sharpens iron, So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.” Proverbs 27:17

* An arrow must be aimed in the right direction-”" Proverbs 3:5-6

* An arrow must be propelled at the target- “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” Mark 8:36;  Matthew 6:33

Mother’s Day is an international holiday that is celebrated on various dates through out the year all around the world.  In other countries, the celebration can be traced back to ancient Greek or Roman festivals.  This is not the case in the U.S., though, as our version of Mother’s Day can find it’s origin in the late 1800′s when Julia Ward Howe wrote a piece titled “The Mother’s Day Proclamation.”   This proclamation was a response to the carnage of the American Civil War and stated that women had a responsibility to shape society at the political level.

Now, my mom was never involved in the political scene on a national level, but she definitely set the law at home!

By 1912, the celebration was a National Holiday and given the official title of “Mother’s Day.”  There was discussion on where the apostrophe should be placed (to denote between singular and plural possessive), but Anna Jarvis, the founder of the Mother’s Day International Association and President Woodrow Wilson made the Singular Possessive title official.  The call was for each individual family to honor their mother.

We want to encourage all of you today to honor your mothers.  In fact, it’s a biblical mandate that you do so (Exodus 20:12)!  Consider the blessing that your mother was/is to you and thank and bless God for this gift in your life.

As you look for ways to honor your Mother today, consider these words from a Pastor friend of mine, Ken Parker:

So, let me ask you . . . those of you raised in a home with a Christian mother: Is your commitment to Jesus the kind that honors your mother? Is your commitment to your family the kind that honors your mother? Is your commitment to the church the kind that honors your mother? I hope you can say “Yes” to all these questions, but I hope if you can’t, you’ll do something about it. Godly Moms just have a way of helping us “flesh out” our faith. And that doesn’t change when they get to Heaven. Sometimes the memory of my mom is what will prompt me to say (or not to say) certain things.

We pray you have a wonderful time with your families today!

Community Group Discussion Questions

1. Read Psalm 84.  Discuss ways that you can lead your family to embrace the truth in verse 10 (“A day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere).
2. How can local church involvement strengthen the family?
3. How can your family involved in the local church strengthen THE Church (notice the capital “C”)?  How could God use the family structure to strengthen the world-wide Church?
4. Psalm 84:3 speaks of a swallow laying her young at the alter of the Lord.  How does this verse challenge you?  What do you think it means to lay your children/family on the alter of the Lord?  Is this always easy to do?  Consider the story of Abraham and Isaac when God called Abraham to sacrifice his son on an alter.
5. How does the sacrificial death of God’s Son bring us comfort and peace when God calls us to lay our family on the alter?  Can we trust God with our family?  Why?
6. It’s clear that the family is under tremendous spiritual attack.  Why do you think this is so?  What can Satan accomplish by destroying the family?
7. Spend time in prayer that the families in your group will love the Church.  Pray for strength to lay your families on God’s alter.  Also, pray for spiritual protection over each of the families.

Community Group Discussion Questions – May 1, 2011

1. Discuss your thoughts on this statement: “There is a level of spiritual passion that exists in other parts of the world that doesn’t exist here.”
2. How would your faith be tested if you were placed in an environment where persecution against the Church was the norm?
3. Luke 24:16 tells us that “their eyes were kept from recognizing [Jesus].”  Share times when God was active in your life, but you didn’t realize it until later.
4. In verse 21, the disciple says that he had “hoped [Jesus] was the one to redeem Israel.”  Jesus did redeem Israel but not in the way they anticipated.  Share times when God worked in ways in your life you did not expect.
5. Discuss the following aspects of the Gospel: It’s God-Ordained, God-Initiated, God-Accomplished and God-Focused.
6. Many times we look for Jesus in the “big” events of life.  What are some “small” everyday ways that you recognize him at work? (Luke 24:30)
7. Read Luke 24:32.  What is it that awakens your heart?  Intense Bible Study? Worship? Ministry?
8. What does it practically look like to live a life on God’s Mission?

This morning in Doxa we examined Luke 24:1-12 and looked at 2 major questions that arose from the text.  First, what all did Easter change?  And second, why should we marvel at the resurrection?  We want these 2 questions to guide your Community Group Discussion Time this week.

1.  The English Standard Version begins Luke 24:3 with the words “but when…” to mark the transition from expecting to see Christ’s dead body to the realization that he is alive.  With this verse (and these 2 words) all of history changed!  We discussed in Doxa that before the Resurrection, Death Defined Us and True Life Evaded Us.  After the Resurrection, though, we can be brought from Death to Life because of Jesus.  In your groups, spend time discussing the changes that have occurred in members’ lives because of the Resurrection.  Share with each other your “but when” moment when you moved from death to life.

2. Peter’s response to the empty tomb was one of amazement and astonishment.  Discuss the reasons given in Doxa for why we should marvel at the empty tomb (It’s Physically Amazing, It Changes How We View Death, It Validates Everything Jesus Said, It Defines our Faith, It Determines our Future).  Discuss any other reasons why the empty tomb should amaze us.

3. Spend time in prayer asking God to help keep the astonishment of the Resurrection fresh in your hearts and minds throughout the year.

This week in Doxa we will be in Luke 14:25-33 which contains some pretty straightforward teaching on what it takes to be a true Disciple of Jesus Christ.  If you are not familiar with the passage, I encourage you to take a second and read it.

Verse 25 tells us that a large crowd was following Jesus.  It’s safe to assume that this crowd could have numbered close to 20,000 people.  In Luke 9 we read of how Jesus fed a crowd that contained 5,000 men.  If you take their wives and children into consideration, the amount of people was probably around 20,000.  Luke 12:1 tells us that the crowd following Jesus was so massive that the people were trampling each other.  In the world’s eyes, Jesus was a success!  He was doing amazing things and people were drawn to his teaching.  They were following him from town to town to see what he would do or say next!  This is what makes what Jesus said next, so… wierd.

In Luke 14:26, Jesus turns to this massive crowd and tells them that if they wish to truly follow him, they would need to do 3 things: Hate their Family, Hate their Own Life and Give Up everyting they Own. 

Alright, let’s be honest.  With these statements, Jesus destroyed all momentum he had going with the crown.  I mean, could you imaging being present?  You’re following Jesus and all of the sudden he stops and turns to the crowd.  A murmer arises all around you: “What’s Jesus going to do?”  “Is he about to heal some lame outcast?”  “Are we going to see some more demon-possessed pigs jump into the sea?”  “Maybe we’re about to get fed again!”

And then he opens his mouth and tells you that if you want to continue following him you need to hate your family, your life and your stuff.  Wait, what?  Jesus appearently didn’t read the latest book on Church Growth Strategies.  In fact, it almost seems like he is trying to talk people out of following him.  So, if it’s all about growing a big crowd, shouldn’t Jesus have just performed another miracle?  I mean, the crowd loved that kind of stuff!

This is one of those times in Scripture that Jesus makes a statement that doesn’t quite sit right with us.  It’s statements like this one, and the one in Luke 12:49-53, that give us great insight, though, into the type of attitude Jesus expects from his disciples.

I hope you will join with us on Sunday as we unpack this passage further to see what Jesus really expects of us.  Spend time in prayer asking God to cultivate the soil of your heart to recieve his teaching.  Pray that, as a local body of believers, we would have a clearer understanding of what our commitment to God should look like.

Community Group Discussion Questions:

1. Reread Luke 14:25-33.
2. Is it possible to be a Christian and not a Disciple, or, is a Disciple just  a more Radical Christian?
3. What are your initial thoughts after reading Luke 14:26?
4. Discuss the idea that the words “love” and “hate” are a hebraism – a unique way the Jews would describe their preference for someone or something over someone or something else.
5. How do we demonstrate our preference for God over family?
6. How do we demonstrate our preference for God over our life?  To what extent are we to love Jesus more than we love our own lives?  What does it mean to “bear your own cross?”
7. How do we demonstrate our preference for God over possessions?  Discuss the following statement: “True disciples understand that they are stewards of everything but owners of nothing.”
8. How might God call us to use our possessions: home, car, bank account, etc…?
9. Verses 28-33 encourages us to “count the cost” before surrendering our lives to Christ.  What’s the cost?
10. Revisit question number 1.  Discuss that in order to follow Christ, you not only have to have the right knowledge (Jesus is Savior – died for sins, rose from the grave; We must confess and repent; etc…) but also the right attitude (Jesus is Lord – He reigns in our life, He is our King, We submit all control to Him).

Hit the link to see our church’s schedule during Holy Week this year.

Holy Week Schedule

This morning in Doxa we were humbled and blessed to have Dr. Russell Moore deliver God’s Word.  Dr. Moore is the Dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and was here today to encourage us as we recognized International Orphan Sunday and our church’s Adoption Ministry.

Our time in the Word this morning centered on Matthew 3:13-4:11; Jesus’ baptism and subsequent temptation in the wilderness.  Upon God’s declaration that Jesus is his Son, Satan immediately began to question God’s love for Jesus.  In the wilderness,  Satan calls into question four areas of God’s fatherhood.  He challenged Jesus’ Identity and Inheritance as God’s Son and God’s Provision and Protection as Jesus’ Father.

Our instruction is to fully rely on God’s Word when Satan attempts to cause us to doubt any of these four things in our own life.  We are told multiple times in the Bible that believers are God’s sons and daughters.  We are children who have been adopted into his family.  Our response then is to believe it and trust God as our perfect Father – even when life is difficult and doesn’t make sense.

Community Group Discussion Questions:

1. Part of our earthly identity comes from our parents and ancestors.  Spend some time sharing with your group unique attributes (they can be positive or negative) that you have as a result of your family tree.
2. Our identity as believers comes from God being our Heavenly Father.  What are some identifying characteristics this gives to us?
3. Discuss the fact that God only disciplines His children.  How have you experienced this in your own life?
4. In what ways are we tempted to judge God’s Word by our experiences?  How instead should we judge God’s Word? (or should we judge it at all?) How are we to respond to His Word?
5. Discuss the following statements: “God lets us hunger so that He might feed us” and “You do not have any desires or wants that God did not in some way place within you and that He wants to provide for you.”
6. Why aren’t we supposed to test God? (Because if God has spoken a word, you can believe it).
7. Discuss the fact that it’s God’s protection of us that allows us to take up our cross and follow Him.
8. Why was Satan willing to give Jesus full authority and control over all kingdoms?
9. Discuss this statement: “Satan is fine with you being a moral church-goer who gets emotional during worship.”

To begin our time of response this week in Doxa, we will be singing the modern hymn, “How Deep the Father’s Love For Us”, a song which speaks of the great loss of God the Father (the sacrifice of His Son) so that we could be redeemed.  Check out what the author, Stuart Townend, reveals as he tells us the story behind this great song:

Writing this song was an unusual experience for me. I’d already written quite a few songs for worship, but all in a more contemporary worship style, drawing from my own musical background. But I distinctly remember getting this feeling one day that I was going to write a hymn! Now, like most people, I am familiar with hymns – they form part of my church background, and I love the truth contained in many of them. But I don’t go home at the end of a busy day and put on a hymns album! So I don’t think of hymns as where I’m at musically at all!

Nevertheless, I’d been meditating on the cross, and in particular what it cost the Father to give up his beloved Son to a torturous death on a cross. And what was my part in it? Not only was it my sin that put him there, but if I’d lived at that time, it would probably have been me in that crowd, shouting with everyone else ‘crucify him’. It just makes his sacrifice all the more personal, all the more amazing, and all the more humbling.

As I was thinking through this, I just began to sing the melody, and it flowed in the sort of way that makes you think you’ve pinched it from somewhere! So the melody was pretty instant, but the words took quite a bit of time, reworking things, trying to make every line as strong as I could.

After it was finished, I remember playing it to Dave Fellingham a few minutes before a time of worship. I was worried it was perhaps too twee, too predictable. Dave, in his typical demonstrative and over-enthusiastic way, shrugged his shoulders and said, “yeah, it’s good”, and that was that. It was only when I began to use it in worship, and all sorts of people of different ages and backgrounds responded to it so positively, that I thought that it might be a useful resource to the church at large.

Now I’m finding it gets used all over the world, by all sorts of churches; it seems to be as accessible to a traditional church as it is to a house church, and I’m excited by that. But it has perhaps branded me as an old man before my time. It was fed back to me that at a conference a couple who loved the song were surprised to hear I was still alive…

Stuart