Matt Zainea Rockford Campus March 12, 2023
GET IT TOGETHER – Guarding Holiness
SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION GUIDE
REMINDERS
Group Leaders Spring Refresh – March 26 at 10:50am at the Rockford Campus
Leaders! Don’t miss this chance to gather together, be encouraged and equipped to lead your group well. Please RSVP to Kathryn Jones ([email protected])
TOGETHER IN LIFE
Share a story from your life where someone gave you feedback or discipline.
How did the conversation go? What was your response?
Looking back, how do you feel now compared to when it initially happened?
TOGETHER IN THE WORD
THIS WEEK’S KEY PASSAGE: 1 Corinthians 5
Note: We encourage you to read the entire text together as a group out loud.
** Part 8 of our series Get It Together addresses a very real and challenging idea: the need to take holiness seriously.
BIG IDEA: We are called to be the most merciful people in the world AND to take holiness seriously.
DEALING WITH SIN
- Read 1 Cor. 5:1-5
- Read also Hebrews 12:7-11
QUESTIONS:
What sin is Paul specifically addressing in the Corinthian church?
How does Paul call on the church to address it (v2b and 5)?
How does this text line up with what we know is true of God’s character toward our repentance?
(cf 1 John 1:5-2:1 and Heb. 12:7-11)
*Matt says:
Becoming a Christian does not mean we are merely saved from our sins and can go on doing whatever we feel like. We must become transformed daily to be more like Jesus.
Holiness: two basic concepts of holiness:
- Set apart – to be separated for God (from the Hebrew word qadosh, derived from its root ‘to cut off’ or ‘to separate’)
- Moral goodness – to conduct according to the unique status one has with God, a life of purity and goodness
QUESTION:
How does Paul encourage the Corinthians to be holy in Chapter 5?
How are holiness and discipline connected?
When we are ‘born again’, are we then holy? Or are we made holy? Or both?
ARROGANCE vs. MOURNING
- Read 1 Cor. 5:6-8
- Read also Luke 12:1-3, 13:14-20
Paul was specifically addressing the Corinthian church’s arrogance – their unwillingness to directly and redemptively deal with sin, and passively, cowardly not do the right thing.
QUESTION:
What is the sin of “Commission”?
What is the sin of “Omission”?
How do these relate to 1 Cor. 5?
REFLECTION: Think of a time in your life when you knew the right thing you ought to do in the face of sin, but didn’t to do it. Looking back, why do you think you resisted? To go back and do it over again, what would you do differently?
*Matt says: “Sin is a violation of God himself and the key truths of Christian living”
QUESTION:
Why must Christians take sin seriously?
What reasons do we often have for not taking sin seriously?
In what ways do we not take sin seriously?
How does being light on sin keep us from experiencing true Grace and Peace?
How does being KNOWN, PRESENT, and FAITHFUL help us guard against this?
BIG IDEA: WE LIVE IN THE TENSION OF ALREADY/NOT-YET – WE MUST BE MARKED BY GRACE AND PEACE AND WE MUST TAKE SIN AND HOLINESS SERIOUSLY
SIN: IN THE CHURCH
- Read 1 Cor. 5:9-13
- Read also Matthew 9:10-12, John 17:14-19
QUESTION:
How can we live in the world and yet not let ourselves conform to it?
Think of these areas…
- Sexuality
- Affluence and Wealth
- Entertainment
- Technology and Social Media
- Freedom and Justice
- Politics
“What happens in Corinth, stays in Corinth” Paul’s List:
- Sexual Immorality: any sexual expression outside of God’s design (one man, one woman for life inside of the marriage covenant)
- Greed: the constant need for new and more
- Idolatry: seeking affirmation, acceptance and approval from anything other than God
- Reviling: loving hatred of people, contempt for others
- Drunkenness: indulgence of substance or vice to drown out our pain
- Swindling: dishonest pursuit of wealth and power, using deceit and lies to get what we want
*These don’t just happen outside of the church. These happen within our own church family every single week.
QUESTIONS:
How can we lovingly, mercifully hold one another accountable to being Christ-like in our attitudes, words, and deeds?
*MATT SAYS: In a living-giving Christian community all of these are on the table to discuss, to address directly, and to lay down together at the feet of Jesus
REMEMBER: When we confess and repent of our sins in light of the Good News, we are agreeing with God that our sin is as bad as he says it is – that even one of our sins is worthy of the penalty of death. But it is the work of Jesus Christ through his life, death, and resurrection, believing through faith that he has done this for us, that we are saved. Just like the hymn goes: “My sins they are many, his mercy is more”
TOGETHER IN PRAYER
Read Psalm 51:10-14 together pray through this using the prayer structure of:
Adoration: “God you are…”
Confession: “God I’m sorry for…”
Thanksgiving: “God I thank you for…”
Supplication: “God, I need…”
TOGETHER IN ACTION
As a group, listen to the song: “His Mercy Is More”
(for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNkdgILDs0M)
Follow along with the lyrics and reflect upon 1 Corinthians 5 and our call to holiness
What love could remember no wrongs we have done
Omniscient, all knowing, He counts not their sum
Thrown into a sea without bottom or shore
Our sins they are many, His mercy is more
What patience would wait as we constantly roam
What Father, so tender, is calling us home
He welcomes the weakest, the vilest, the poor
Our sins they are many, His mercy is more
Praise the Lord, His mercy is more
Stronger than darkness, new every morn
Our sins they are many, His mercy is more
Praise the Lord, His mercy is more
Stronger than darkness, new every morn
Our sins they are many, His mercy is more
What riches of kindness He lavished on us
His blood was the payment, His life was the cost
We stood ‘neath a debt we could never afford
Our sins they are many, His mercy is more
Praise the Lord, His mercy is more
Stronger than darkness, new every morn
Our sins they are many, His mercy is more
Praise the Lord, His mercy is more
Stronger than darkness, new every morn
Our sins they are many, His mercy is more
Our sins they are many, His mercy is mоre
