Category Archives: CG Discussion Guide

“The Prayer” (Mercy Upon Mercy)

Scripture: Jonah 1:17-2:10

Sermon Summary: 

Many people know that they should pray but the problem is that they don’t know how to pray. This is especially true during times of suffering and difficulty. We know we should pray but we simply can’t find the words to articulate. When Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, he was in a very dark and depressing place. And yet he managed to pray. How? A close examination of Jonah’s prayers reveal that none of his prayers were original. They were all adaptions and modifications of various psalms. Every verse of Jonah’s prayer can be traced back to prayer in a psalm. 

God gave us the psalms so that his words could become our words, especially when otherwise all we would have are groans. God gives us the psalms as a provision, as an act of grace, so that we can express our heart back to him in an intelligible way. The psalms help us express our frustrations and our fears, our doubts and our distress in God-approved ways. In order to grow in prayer, it will be incredibly helpful to grow in your familiarity, understanding, meditation, and memorization of the psalms. This will give you better access to the language of God that you can use to pray back to God. 

Our comfort as Christians though does not come simply from the command – pray the psalms like Jonah. Our hope comes from the gospel. When Jesus likened his death and resurrection to Jonah’s experience in the fish, Jesus was identifying himself as the greater Jonah. But as the fulfillment of a greater Jonah, Jesus also prayed the psalms in his own suffering and despair. As he hung on the cross for our sins, Jesus was reduced to borrowing the words of the psalms. By doing this, Jesus was experiencing in himself the fullest sting and greatest agony of the the psalms. Jesus took on every experience and emotion that the psalmist articulates so that it would have no more power over us. This means when we experience these things in our lives, they can not ultimately drown us. We have new hope and new strength. 

Group Discussion Questions

1. As a group, summarize the sermon together into a few sentences. 
2. Share an experience where you wanted to pray but couldn’t find the words to pray. Were you eventually able to pray through it? What helped? 
3. What is your general view and attitude of the psalms? Is it a book that you love to read or do you have a hard time enjoying it? Why? 
4. Do you have a favorite psalm? Share it and tells others why. What about it resonates with you? How has it ministered to you and helped you pray? (Or take a favorite psalm of yours and try to turn it into a prayer to borrow)
5. Express how this sermon helps you understand, appreciate and worship Jesus more. In what ways has the gospel become more alive to you having read this passage and heard this message? 
6. Everybody should formulate a one sentence prayer response and request to everything heard and discussed. Have a few people share what they came up with.

“Hope in Heavenly Things”

Scripture: Colossians 3:1-2

Group Discussion Questions

1. The gospel rests on the pillars of the death and resurrection of Jesus. List some of the benefits that Christ’s resurrection hope provides for the Christian. Which of these do you look forward to most? Share how it would impact your life. 
2. Has hope found on the horizon/things below on earth ever disappointed you? In what was have you experienced the frailty, fragility, futility and finitude of earthly hope? How would heavenly, resurrection hope be any different?
3. Express how this sermon helps you understand, appreciate and worship Jesus more. In what ways has the gospel become more alive to you having read this passage and heard this message? 
4. Everybody should formulate a one sentence prayer response and request to everything heard and discussed. Have a few people share what they came up with. 

“The Weightier Matters”

Scripture: Matthew 23:23-24

Group Discussion Questions

1. As a group, summarize the sermon together into a few sentences. 
2. Why do you think the Pharisees and scribes gave so much attention to tithing their spices but neglected the weightier matters? What are some matters of the law you pay more attention to than the weightier ones (justice, mercy and faithfulness)?
3. How should Christian/gospel-centered mercy and justice differ from the agenda of mercy and justice set and pushed by the world? How can you make mercy and justice a “big rock” in your life?
4. Express how this sermon helps you understand, appreciate and worship Jesus more. In what ways has the gospel become more alive to you having read this passage and heard this message? 
5. Everybody should formulate a one sentence prayer response and request to everything heard and discussed. Have a few people share what they came up with. 

“The Contradiction”

Scripture: Jonah 1:7-9

Group Discussion Questions

1. As a group, summarize the sermon together into a few sentences. 
2. In what areas has the Lord revealed or is revealing contradictions in your life between your profession and your practice? 
3. What are some ways you can personally come to embrace more of the value of global missions in your own life? What has helped in the past? 
4. List as many prayer topics about global missions that you can. Consider what kinds of things churches and Christians should be praying for. 
5. Express how this sermon helps you understand, appreciate and worship Jesus more. In what ways has the gospel become more alive to you having read this passage and heard this message? 
6. Everybody should formulate a one sentence prayer response and request to everything heard and discussed. Have a few people share what they came up with. 

“The Runaway”

Scripture: Jonah 1:3

Group Discussion Questions

1. As a group, summarize the sermon together into a few sentences. 
2. Share something you found either interesting, memorable, convicting, confusing or challenging about the passage/sermon.  
3. How did you tend to think of/view sin before this sermon? What difference does it make when sin is understood as running away from God? How does it change the way you view sin in yourself and sin in others? How does it change the way you preach the gospel to yourself and share it with others? 
4. Can you share a personal example of a time you chased after a god-substitute and found that it left you empty, unsatisfied and discontent? What was that experience like? How were you awakened from your disillusionment? 
5. Express how this sermon helps you understand, appreciate and worship Jesus more. In what ways has the gospel become more alive to you having read this passage and heard this message? 
6. Everybody should formulate a one sentence prayer response and request to everything heard and discussed. Have a few people share what they came up with. 

“The Lesson”

Scripture: Jonah 1-4

Group Discussion Questions

1. As a group, summarize the sermon together into a few sentences. 
2. Share something you found either interesting, memorable, convicting, confusing or challenging about the passage/sermon.  
3. Is it easier to see yourself as a person in need of mercy or others as more in need of mercy? Explain. Do you see yourself as one of the “bad guys” – immoral, irreligious, disobedient – or as one of the “good guys” – moral, religious, obedient? What does it mean to you that nobody is beyond the reach of God’s mercy and nobody is beyond the need for God’s mercy? What hope or comfort does that offer to you or others? 
4. List the three highlighted aspects of “the spirit of Jonah.” Which do you sense in yourself most? What other things can you add to this list? Can you share an example of how self-righteousness has manifested itself in your life? 
5. Express how this sermon helps you understand, appreciate and worship Jesus more. In what ways has the gospel become more alive to you having read this passage and heard this message? 
6. Everybody should formulate a one sentence prayer response and request to everything heard and discussed. Have a few people share what they came up with. 

“Worship Under the Sun”

Scripture: Ecclesiastes 5:1-7

Sermon Summary

The purpose of our weekly gatherings is to worship God. So in what ways do we ready ourselves to worship him? The Preacher says to “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God” (5:1) which means we need to prepare our hearts as we enter into God’s presence. When we come to worship God, we are entering the Holy of Holies through Christ who has torn the veil separating us from God. In coming before him verse 1 tells us that God doesn’t want mere empty religious formalism (“the sacrifice of fools”) but he wants our hearts (“to draw near to listen”). We cannot afford to gain the applause of man but lose the audience of God. Remember the words of God in 1 Samuel that “man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” So we should prioritize preparing our hearts to worship God. 

A humble worshipper who recognizes what’s taking place in worship will let their words be few. They won’t be chatty or babbling in God’s presence because they recognize and realize that in worship, earthly man communes with heavenly God. The Infinite One and the finite share a moment in space and time. The Holy One stoops to be with the sinful. We must remember that God is in heaven and we are on earth in order to understand and feel the reverence with which we approach God. This formality doesn’t kill intimacy with God but seeks to preserve it. God allows us to call him Abba Father but he also calls himself a consuming fire. We worship on the terms that God allows, not on the terms that we insist. 

God also detests unfaithful worshippers who come before him making all kinds of propositions and promises and fail to keep their vows. In fact, God says it’s better not to even make the vows because he’s never asked for them in the first place! Those who come to worship God and make vows in the hopes that God will do something for them are engaged in religion-centered worship. This is different than gospel-centered worship which is worship always in response to what God has already. God has kept his vow by sending his Son into the world in order to bridge the chasm between God in heaven and us on earth caused by our sin. The gospel says God came from heaven to earth to die so that we could go from earth to heaven to live. And in response to God’s sacrifice, we respond with our utmost worship. We take worship seriously because we take God’s sacrifice seriously. 

Group Discussion Questions

1. Share something you found either interesting, memorable, convicting, confusing or challenging about the passage/sermon.  
2. How can you “guard your steps” in coming into Sunday service? What distracts or prevents you most from preparing your heart to worship God? 
3. What have you found helpful in your preparation for worship? 
4. Do you often think about coming before God in fear and reverence or are you more concerned with something else? What helps stir and sustain reverence for God in worship?
5. Is it difficult or easy to have an attitude and approach of reverence in coming to worship? What contributes to that? 

“Wisdom Under the Sun”

Scripture: Ecclesiastes 1:12-18

Sermon Summary

The main point of our passage is summed up in this verse, “For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow” (1:18). This is an interesting sentiment the Preacher introduces because it stands so opposed to what the book of Proverbs tells us. There we are told, “Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding” (3:13). How are we supposed to reconcile this seeming contradiction in the Bible?

Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are both books belonging to the genre of wisdom. Together they offer a balanced view of life. Proverbs tells us how the world is supposed to be and how God designed it to be good. Ecclesiastes tells us what the world is actually like now that it’s under the curse of sin. If Proverbs tells us all the rules of the world, Ecclesiastes tells us all the exceptions to the rules and the exceptions to the exceptions. Both perspectives together remind us that we live in a time between the world as it presently is and the world as God is making it. This is life under the sun. 

When it comes to pursuing wisdom and gaining understanding, we should not reject it but recognize its limitations. There are so many things to be informed about and new things to learn and it seems so unending. But will wisdom and understanding really make our lives better? Does it give meaning to our suffering? Does it fix the problem of sin in our hearts? Despite all the wisdom, learning and discoveries of man, we cannot reverse the curse of sin in the world. Wisdom derived from under the sun can never adequately address the problems of life under the sun. Earthly wisdom must give way to eternal wisdom, wisdom that comes from beyond the sun. And this is where the gospel holds forth the good news for us.

1 Corinthians 1:24 tells us that Christ is the wisdom of God. Jesus does not just have wisdom but he is wisdom itself. Therefore the wisdom that can fix the world is not a possession to have but a person to trust in. God’s wisdom came from beyond the sun to us in the Son. And he looked like foolishness to the world when he died on the cross. But his death was how Jesus broke the power of sin over the world. He endured the weight of sin’s curse in order to lift the curse off the world and begin to fix it. Since only Jesus can heal the world, we should not strive after the earthly wisdom but pursue eternal wisdom in Christ. We must look to the wisdom of the Son and not to wisdom under the sun. 

Group Discussion Questions

1. Share something you found either interesting, memorable, convicting, confusing or challenging about the passage/sermon.  
2. Are you drawn more to the message of Proverbs or Ecclesiastes? How does the message of both wisdom books give you the most balanced, honest view of the world?
3. About what kind of things do you feel the pressure to be up to date and informed about? Have you ever pursued wisdom, knowledge and understanding  only to conclude that it led to vexation and sorrow? 
4. What are some things about which people hope the wisdom under the sun is the answer for? Share some examples where the eternal wisdom of Christ is the answer and the earthly wisdom of man is not.  

“Rest and Faith’s Expression”

Scripture: Mark 4:35-41

Sermon Summary

Sometimes it’s difficult to enjoy and experience the God-given gift of sleep and the rest God intends to give us in it. When the Bible speaks to this issue, it does not offer us sleep techniques but it seeks to get to our hearts. What we learn is that sleep is ultimately an expression of faith. Sleep is a defiance on the one hand and a submission on the other. It’s a defiance against our own self-sufficient, autonomous nature and it’s an act of submission to the sovereign hand of God. 

When Jesus calmed the storm in Mark 4 it was in the evening, a time when everybody should have been asleep. However because of the storm, sleep eluded the disciples and they were kept from resting that night. Fear filled their hearts as water filled the boat. Jesus rebukes the storm and turns to ask them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” He wasn’t downplaying the terror of the storm but questioning why they didn’t trust in him after all they had seen him do and heard him teach. Their sleeplessness was due to struggling faith. 

Often we are kept up in our anxieties and worries because like a balance scale, the reasons we have to fear outweigh the reasons to trust God. When we begin to follow the trail of “what if’s” in our heads, we go down a dangerous path. We add speculation upon speculation. In the end what’s really going in our hearts is that we are doubting the goodness, the wisdom and the power of God. Like the disciples, we wonder if God cares about us at all. But something begins to happen when you replace the “what if’s” with the definitive truth of “what happened.”

So what happened? Mark 4 is contrasted against Mark 14. In Mark 4 the disciples rebuke Jesus for sleeping in the boat but in Mark 14 Jesus rebukes the disciples for sleeping in Gethsemane. In Mark 4 Jesus slept as the disciples faced the storm and cried out but in Mark 14 the disciples slept as Jesus faced the cross and cried out. Jesus slept in the storm but trembled at the cross because he knew weather and water were not to be feared. It was God’s wrath against our sin that was truly dreadful. But Jesus took that for us. He died in our place on the cross and removes greatest reason to be afraid. Now through his sacrificial death he also gives us the greatest reason to trust him. He mercifully and unconditionally loves us.

When we preach the gospel to ourselves, we remember that because of Christ’s sacrifice on Golgotha’s cross we can experience sleep in Galilee’s seas. So our displays of faith in God are not just through extraordinary acts of obedience but can be evidenced in the everyday ordinary act of going to bed. We sleep trusting that God is working all things for our eternal good and his endless glory. 

Although sleeplessness can be a sign of lack of faith in God, so can loving and cherishing sleep too much. Sometimes faith in God can be replaced with faith in sleep where we look to sleep to escape our worries and our fears. Sleep then turns into an idol. When we long for our beds in order to give us rest from the hassles and hardships of life, we are looking to sleep to give us something only God can give us. Faith needs to be shifted again to God. 

Group Discussion Questions

1. Share something you found either interesting, memorable, convicting, confusing or challenging about the passage/sermon.  
2. Which tends to be your greater struggle: experiencing sleeplessness/restlessness or loving/enjoying sleep too much? What kinds of things give you anxiety and keep you up at night? What kinds of things do you want to escape from in sleep? 
3. What other beliefs do you have in your heart when you feel afraid, anxious and worried? In those moments, what are you believing about yourself and what are you not believing about God? 
4. Share what you learned from this series on “The Best Rest” or any testimony of your experience of rest as a result of this series. Have you developed any new insights or perspectives?