Once & Future

December 10: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.


Love

Teaching Text: Isaiah‬ ‭9‬:‭ 1-7

Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan—

The people walking in darkness
    have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
    a light has dawned.
You have enlarged the nation
    and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you
    as people rejoice at the harvest,
as warriors rejoice
    when dividing the plunder.
For as in the day of Midian’s defeat,
    you have shattered
the yoke that burdens them,
    the bar across their shoulders,
    the rod of their oppressor.
Every warrior’s boot used in battle
    and every garment rolled in blood
will be destined for burning,
    will be fuel for the fire.
For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace
    there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
    and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
    with justice and righteousness
    from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
    will accomplish this.


Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

  • Peace


Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

  • ADVENT: Arrival

    Often regarding the arrival of a moment or a person. 

    In the church calendar, it refers to the arrival of Jesus. 

    Advent season is the season of waiting for the arrival of our Savior.  

  • Advent is a season where we look at the darkness of the world, maybe even the darkness of our present lives or circumstances in the face and say HOPE IS STILL A PRESENT REALITY. 

  • Peace: SHALOM - not just the absence of conflict but the presence of well-being and thriving.

    • How would others describe you if they were to say if you are a glass-half-full or half-empty person?

    • Do you think their perceptions are accurate? 

  • Isaiah in this text, offers a prophetic poem into the tension of the day…

  • And he sets it up by saying, you know the places that have already fallen, our neighbors who the Assyrians have already gobbled up. EVEN THEIR GOD’S STORY IS NOT FINISHED.

  • In fact, they will be some of the first places to see God’s intervention and redemption

  • “Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations by the Way of the Sea beyond the Jordan” – Isaiah 9 v 1

  • The prophet is giving them another way to see a story they think they know….

  • Isaiah’s words to the people in this desperate time takes them back to moments in the past, it takes them forward to moments in the future and reminds them that what they see surrounding them is not everything….

  • Alec Moyer, the revered Isaiah scholar, helps us…

    “As always, the people of God must decide what reading of their experiences they will live by. Are they to look at the darkness, the hopelessness, the dreams shattered and conclude that God has forgotten them? Or are they to recall his past mercies, to remember his present promises, and to make great affirmations of faith? 

    [The prophet] insists that hope is a present reality, part of the constitution of the ‘now’. The darkness is true but it is not the whole truth and certainly not the fundamental truth.”

    – J. Alec Motyer

  • And so Isaiah is an advent prophet.

  • HOPE - It is part of the constitution of NOW. The darkness is true, but it is not the whole truth and certainly not the fundamental truth.

  • We might be in one particular valley or one particular mountain top but the prophet is helping us to see the whole range, the peaks stretching behind us and out in front of us, so we do not give in to the TYRANNY OF OUR PRESENT MOMENT, or THE URGENCY OF OUR PRESENT MOOD.

    • What do you do when experiencing the tyranny of the present mood? 

    • Are you able to see a reality beyond what you feel? 

    • On a scale from 0-10 how much do your current feelings dictate your life? 

  • In This text we see 

    • PEACE IS A PERSON

    • THIS PERSON CAN BE KNOWN IN FULLNESS BY NAME

    • SHALOM IS A PASSION FOR GOD

  • Isaiah gives them a poem about a baby on the eve of the battle to shake them awake

  • What you're longing for cannot be accomplished this way. SOMETHING NEW MUST BE BORN IN THE WORLD

  • PEACE is a person. 

    • It is not just an idea or a state of being. A person who has faced death and come back carries peace and offers into all of us in love 

  • “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”  – Colossians 1 v 19-20

  • LEARN THE NAMES OF GOD - WE CAN KNOW MESSIAH IN THIS FULLNESS

    • Wonderful Counselor - a God who can give us supernatural wisdom in our real life

    • Mighty God  - who is strong enough to keep promises even if they don’t track exactly long the lines of our expectations, moods, or circumstances

    • Everlasting Father - who loves us in the gracious covenant way of family and holds us in tender care

    • Prince of Peace - and who can make true of us what is true of him. Who can bring our lives and the world to Shalom.

  • How do you find your practice of unburdening your heart to God? 

  • Are you comfortable asking God to be powerful in areas where you are not able to effect change? 

  • How convinced are you of the idea that God is always loving and will not change or let you down? 

  • Do you believe God can settle areas of conflict where you have not been able to? 

  • “Shalom is one of the richest words in the Bible. You can no more define it by looking up its meaning in the dictionary than you can define a person by his or her social security number. It gathers all aspects of wholeness that result from God’s will being completed in us. It is the work of God then that, when complete, releases streams of living water in us and pulsates with eternal life. Every time Jesus healed, forgave or called someone, we have a demonstration of shalom.” – Eugene Peterson

  • Which aspect of the character of God and his names do you want him to show you? 


December 3: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.


Love

Teaching Texts: Isaiah‬ ‭9‬:‭2

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.

John‬ ‭1‬:‭4‬-‭5

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.


Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

  • Hope


Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

  • ADVENT: Arrival

    • Often regarding the arrival of a moment or a person. 

    • In the church calendar it refers to the arrival of Jesus. 

    • Advent season is the season of waiting for the arrival of our Savior.  

  • Hope 

    • Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Hope: To trust in, wait for, look for, or desire something or someone; or to expect something beneficial in the future. 

  • It is often said that the most repeated command in scripture is to not fear - a close second would be “remember”

  • So much of Jewish scripture, especially the Psalms, is them reminding each other of the things that God has done and of the character of God. Psalm 136 retells the story of the Exodus and has the repeated refrain “His mercy endures forever”

  • The feasts of the Jewish calendar were set for the purpose of remembering. 

  • The story that we are invited to sit in and give remembrance to every Advent starts in a world where God is or at least appears to be silent.

  • Starting our year in darkness, helps us to remember that the darkness comes before the light.  We get to remember not just the bright shiny moments of triumph but also the darkness that preceded those moments. 

  • And it’s a helpful rhythm, because ultimately we are a people defined by waiting.  More than victories, more than triumphs, we are a people that waits in those in between spaces. 

  • For the people of God, there’s a lot of waiting.

    • And then there’s us, the church, the bride of Christ.  We are waiting for our Bridegroom, for Jesus to return just as He said He would and for His Kingdom to come in its fullness.

  • The relationship/intimacy between the bride and bridegroom:

    • “At its core lives hope: the anticipation of coming good based on the character or nature of another”

    • “At the core of a bride’s greatest and most defining act is waiting. This waiting has the power either to define her or to diminish her.” 

  • As followers of Christ, we feel this intensely: the reality of a kingdom that has come, but is also coming.  Of a King and Savior who has come and is also coming. And we’re not just waiting for the world to become good and beautiful and kind, but waiting for ourselves to become good and beautiful and kind.

  • Excerpt from TIRED by Langston Hughes

    • I am so tired of waiting,

      Aren’t you,

      For the world to become good

      And beautiful and kind?

  • Fortunately for us, this hope is not dependent on our faithfulness, but is completely reliant on God’s.

  • We can expect GOOD because of God’s ability to fulfill His promises

  • In which areas of your life is hope running low right now? 

  • But the waiting can become difficult.

  • Waiting can either:

    • Builds appetite v. dulls senses

    • Deepens love v. inflates fragility

    • Reveals our deepest hope or illuminates our fears

  • “How we wait and what we do with it, where we set our gaze and our hope in it will determine the type of intimacy and goodness we know as we wait.”

  • It matters how you wait.

    • How do you respond in seasons where you are required to wait? 

    • What do you do in those seasons?

    • How do you feel in those seasons? 

    • How is your faith affected by waiting? 

  • “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” – Romans‬ ‭5‬:‭5‬ ‭NIV

  • And our advent hope is that on the other side of death is life.  You will feel like you are passing through the valley of the shadow of death, but our good shepherd who walks with us through the valley promises to transform it into a door of hope. He chooses to live inside of us by the Holy Spirit so that we can be formed more and more into his image and likeness until there is an unmistakable family resemblance. 

  • Because of Jesus and by the Spirit, we also have become light:

    • For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.” – ‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭5‬:‭8‬ ‭NIV‬‬

  • How do we wait with hope?

    • Hope is a discipline 

  • Keep telling the story

    • Gather

    • Remember God’s character and goodness

    • Fix your eyes on Him 

  • Be honest in prayer 

  • Pray for the coming kingdom and the coming King