16/10/17 CORNERSTONE VISION SERIES WEEK 1 – GOSPEL-CENTRED PART 1

COMMUNITY GROUP/FAMILY AND DAILY STUDIES BASED UPON OUR VISION SERIES AT COMMUNITY CHURCH PUTNEY

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES AND OUR VISION AT CCP

GOING UP TOGETHER

At Community Church Putney we have a vision of ‘Going up together’. Inspired from God’s interaction with Moses in Exodus 33 about ‘going up’ with God, as a nation, into the Promised Land. God is with us and desires us to ‘go up together’ – growing in love, faith, knowledge, action, seeing people become Christians etc. becoming like the Acts 2 church.

WE NEED TO ‘GO UP TOGETHER’

For your joy you need to ‘go up’ in your relationship with God! For the welfare of your friends, marriage, children, you need to ‘go up’, allowing God to use you to bring Him into those relationships. This city, nation and world needs churches that ‘go up’; that are loving Him, Loving His people and loving those who so desperately need to come to salvation and join such a community. Let God’s Spirit inspire us to ‘go up together’.

GOSPEL CENTRED, UP, IN AND OUT

In the bible we see that God wants to build a church that is:

1.    GOSPEL–CENTRED: a church where the gospel to shapes everything

2.    UP: Seeking to live a ‘God-first’ life of worship

3.    IN: loving each other as Christ loves us

4.    OUT: Every person a missionary

These, our core values, shaped by God’s word, will help us to keep, ‘Going up together’. I invite you to build God’s church with fresh vision.

LET’S BUILD ON THE CORNERSTONE – ON JESUS

During this 8-week vision series we will be mainly using 1 Peter 2 to teach us about how to build on great foundations. Peter likens Jesus to the cornerstone of a building. A cornerstone’s size, shape and direction give shape, scale and direction to the building; likewise, building on Jesus will build the kind of church that He wants and that reflects Him.

GROUP STUDY 1 – GOSPEL CENTRED (PART 1)

THOSE BUILT ON THE ‘CORNERSTONE’ ARE GOSPEL–CENTRED

As we are built upon Jesus, the Cornerstone, we are transformed in every way! The message of the gospel has power to change us. How can one be joined to the omnipotent King of Kings and not be changed! (1 Peter 1:3).

What is the gospel? Gospel means ‘good news’. Good news about what? Good news about salvation through Jesus. It’s a message that, if believed has power to save and transform (Romans 1:16).

The gospel message could be put this way:

• Who is Jesus? Incarnation – Jesus is God and man
• Why did Jesus die? Substitution for restoration  (justification, sanctification and glorification)
• Response? Repentance – turn to God for salvation and follow Him

It’s broader than forgiveness so that we can go to heaven. Salvation includes the restoration, the undoing of everything damaged by Adam’s sin!

THOSE BUILT ON CHRIST HAVE ‘TASTED HIS GOODNESS’

Peter speaks of Christians as those having ‘tasted His goodness’ (2:3). The gospel (good news) is that God has saved those who deserve nothing. God’s goodness is most clearly seen in the cross. Our sin put us under God’s wrath, but now, through Christ, as our substitute, we have peace – more than that, God loves us and has adopted us into His family – amazing!

Let’s see what Peter teaches us about Jesus’ goodness to us:

• How was Jesus (the eternal God!) treated on our behalf? (2:4, 7, 23)
• How was the punishment for our sin dealt with? (2:22-25, 3:18)
• What must one do to have a restored relationship with God? (2:6, 7)

APPLICATION – LET’S LEARN TO TASTE HIS GOODNESS MORE

• Meditation – What is the response of those who ‘taste that the Lord is good’ (2:9)? How would meditation on the gospel affect your joy?
• Wield faith – God’s mercy and forgiveness is not a feeling, it is an objective fact, based upon the cross. Sometimes, for many reasons, we can feel that God doesn’t love us and doubt His goodness. At such time ‘wield faith’ like a sword, trust and ‘taste’ His goodness no matter what.

DAILY BIBLE DEVOTIONAL IN 1 PETER

Each day I’ve provided a text from the book of 1 Peter so that by the end of this series you will have read and prayed through the whole book. Each day has a brief note that has been arranged around the Gospel-Centred (GC), Up, In and out themes. I hope you find this useful. 

PERSONAL BIBLE STUDIES WEEK 1 – 1 PETER 1:1-1:11

MONDAY: CHOSEN BY GRACE

1 Peter 1:1-2 "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance."

1.    GC – In God’s grace we are ‘elect’, we have been ‘chosen’. He brought you to new birth and faith through the ‘sanctifying work of the Spirit’. Our salvation was only made possible by the ‘sprinkled blood’ – His substitutionary death for our sin. We are truly those who have been shown ‘grace’, we have ‘peace’ with God in ‘abundance’

2.    UP – Our lifestyle is a part of Worship. Who does the Spirit now cause us to obey?

3.    IN – God is our Father, what does this mean for our attitude to the church?

4.    Out – God has ‘chosen’ others. Let this give you boldness in speaking about Jesus.

TUESDAY: GOD IS FATHER

1 Peter 1:3-4 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you.

1.    GC – What has God’s ‘great mercy’ done in us and how has Jesus made this possible? What great ‘inheritance’ awaits us and how should this vision fill us with joy?

2.    UP – Follow Peter’s example in praising the Father because of the truths in this text.

3.    IN – God is your ‘Father’, the church are God’s children and your family. Pray to the Father that the church would know the joy of the truths in this text.

4.    OUT– God has saved us ‘in His great mercy’. Pray that you and the church would have Spirit-inspired mercy toward our community.

WEDNESDAY: HIS COMING IS OUR HOPE

1 Peter 1:5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

1.    GC – Christians cannot lose their salvation. The gospel hope is of His return for His people at the end of history. Let’s fix our eyes on our great hope.

2.    UP – Do you trust God’s ‘shielding power’? Meditate on this text and let the Spirit convince you of the Father’s faithfulness and power.

3.    IN – Pray for protection for the church. God’s promises are to be prayed.

4.    OUT – Ask for God to show mercy in to our friends, family, city and nation as we see the end coming. Jesus’ coming will be our great joy but final judgement for the world.

THURSDAY: WE MAY SUFFER WHILST WAITING FOR OUR HOPE

1 Peter 1:6-7 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.

1.    GC – Jesus’ death and resurrection gives us complete assurance of enjoying future glory with God – You can ‘greatly rejoice’! Trials come. These and can shake our faith; but even through these, God is improving us.

2.    UP – We look to a great future! But let’s also give ‘praise, glory and honour’ to Jesus, whilst waiting, even in trials.

3.    IN – You will have friends who are going through ‘fiery’ trial. Ask the Father to fill them with trust in God’s love. How can God use you to strengthen them?

4.    OUT – Jesus Christ will be ‘revealed’ at the end of history when He comes again. Ask God to use you to ‘reveal’ Him, even today, as go about your day.

FRIDAY: THOUGH YOU HAVE NOT SEEN HIM YOU LOVE HIM

1 Peter 1:8-9 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

1.    GC – Peter says that ‘the salvation of our souls’ is the ‘result of our faith’. It’s through faith that we enter into all the promises of the gospel: justification (forgiveness), regeneration (new birth), sanctification (made more like Jesus), and, final glorification (the main focus of this passage).

2.    UP – Christians, although they ‘have not seen Him, love Him’. Let your love for Jesus overflow in praise.

3.    IN – Seek God for the church to grow in their love and confidence that He will complete the salvation that He has begun in us.

4.    OUT – Anyone who loves God will be grieved by the unbelief around them. Let your love for God motivate you in sharing with others about Jesus. 

SATURDAY: THE SPIRIT STILL SPEAKS OF CHRIST

1 Peter 1:10-11 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. 

1.    GC – The Old Testament Prophets pointed to Jesus as they were led by God. Isaiah for example (Isaiah 53:6) spoke of a suffering Saviour. We can see, even more clearly than the great prophets about Jesus, God and man, suffering, dying, rising for us. 

2.    UP – The ‘Spirit of Christ in them’ is still at work in us to point us to Jesus and the glory of His grace. Let the Spirit inspire you now in worship to our glorious Saviour.

3.    IN – The prophets spoke of ‘grace that was to come to you’; Jesus has brought ‘grace and truth’ (Jn. 1:17). Are you someone, like a prophet, who encourages the church family to see the grace of Jesus?

4. OUT – The Spirit is working in the world to reveal Jesus. Let God use you. Be mindful and ready to respond to God’s work in people ­– you may be one link of many in their journey to faith.