2/10/17 CCP SERIES STUDY WEEK 15 – GOD IS...WITH US

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

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COMMUNITY GROUP/FAMILY STUDY

One can think of the attributes of God like mighty mountains: they magnificent in beauty but distant. As much as God is ‘Holy’ (which means to be separate), He is also imminent, that is, He is close and lovingly active. 

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR GOD TO BE WITH US

Read Matthew 1:22-23 and discuss:

Ø What does Gabriel promise that Jesus will do?

Ø What does Jesus’ death achieve in regard to God’s presence? (v.23)

There are a number of metaphors that point of God’s loving relationship with His people; the Good Shepherd is an outstanding example. 

Read Psalm 23 and discuss:

Ø What does David conclude because God is His shepherd? (23:1)

Ø What is the inner condition of those who know God in this way? (23:2)

Ø What is the outcome for those who allow God to shepherd them? (23:3)

Ø What could ‘dark valleys’ represent and how does knowing God as shepherd help? Do you have any personal examples to share? (23:4-5)

Ø How do God’s sheep view this life and death? (23:6)

Read John 10:11-16 and discuss:

Ø Linked to Ps. 23:1, what does Jesus’ claim say about His divinity? (10:11)

Ø What does Jesus say He will do for His sheep? (10:11)

Ø What does He say about the Pharisees in contrast with Himself? (10:12)

Ø What does Jesus say about true sheep, contrasting them with the Pharisees and those who would not accept Him? (10:14-15)

Ø What part does Jesus play in our evangelism and what promise does He make about those who are His lost sheep? (10:16)

LET’S RESPOND TO WHO GOD IS

Ø How aware are you each day of Jesus being with you to guide and protect? How can one live in the awareness of His ever present help?

Ø True sheep listen to Jesus’ voice. Christians desire His word and listen to the Spirit’s promptings. How are you doing at listening to God’s voice?

Ø Are we like our good shepherd who loves sacrificially, or like the Pharisees who run away when things are difficult? How is your whole-hearted devotion to your local church going?

GOING DEEPER PERSONAL DAILY STUDIES

God is with us. Throughout scriptures we see His choosing, protecting, providing, leading, disciplining, as he walks with His people.

Monday: Jesus is the good shepherd

The bible often uses the metaphor of God being a shepherd in relation to His people. Jesus calls himself  ‘The Good Shepherd’, contrasting Himself with the unloving leadership of His day. Jesus speaks of Himself as taking genuine care for His people.

Matthew 18:12-14 “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?  And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off.  In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.”

We also are to be good shepherds: This care often happens through church leaders (pastors - another name for shepherd) who, led by the Spirit of Christ, are prepared to lay themselves down for the good of God’s people. But as mothers, fathers, friends, siblings etc. we are all called to be like Jesus, the good shepherd.

Tuesday: Good shepherd to lost sheep

Jesus is not only a good shepherd to His church, He is also concerned for the ‘lost sheep’ (the elect of God) who currently wandering and astray. Jesus speaks to these lost sheep through you and me.

John 10:26-30 (See 10:16 also) But you do not believe because you are not my sheep.  My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

Jesus’ sheep respond to the gospel and follow Jesus in a life of obedience. To such Jesus promises protection and that they can never be lost – salvation cannot be lost! God’s Almighty ‘hands’ have hold of us!

Wednesday: God is mother hen

The bible is replete with metaphors for God that speak of His loving presence everyday.

Hen is an interesting metaphor for God’s attributes. God has feminine attributes. God is motherly in His care and desire to care for us. A child is (I know this is not always the case) brought up in a home with a mother and father with their differing roles and attributes. Similarly, God is overwhelmingly presented as male, but we must also see His motherly attributes also. 

Matthew 23:37 "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.”

God wants to ‘mother’ you. To pour affection upon you. To cover you with His kisses. Many in Jesus’ day rejected Jesus and God’s love and this with grievous to Him. Let’s allow God to love us. 

Thursday: God is husband

God is presented as the husband of His people who are His bride. Again this speaks of His desire for intimacy with us. It’s a relationship in which we have been chosen (as men take the initiative in relationships!). As ‘husband’ He protects, provides and leads, in sacrificial love. 

Isaiah 54:5 For your Maker is your husband— the Lord Almighty is his name – the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth.

Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

2 Corinthians 11:2 I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him.

Let’s be a great bride to Christ. Let’s respond to His loving leadership. Let’s seek to obey Him. Let’s seek loving friendship by spending time in prayer with Him. 

Friday: God is Father

God is the Father of the church. Again this speaks of how we are to relate to Him in love. As a good father He is not distant and incommunicative.  God, as a good Father, leads us lovingly, but like any relationship, we can rebel and refuse Him. 

Deuteronomy 32:6 Is this the way you repay the Lord, you foolish and unwise people? Is he not your Father, your Creator, who made you and formed you?

Psalm 103:13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.

1 John 3:1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

Saturday: God is shepherd to the poor in heart

A healthy relationship with God has a balance of distance and intimacy; God is to be feared (highly respected in awe), but He is also comes close to shepherd us in intimate love. As Isaiah says,

Isaiah 57:15 For this is what the high and exalted One says – he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.

A Christian can be confident of God’s intimate, loving presence because they are ‘lowly in spirit’. They know that they have sinned and can only be saved by God; they know that they need God’s wisdom and Spirit to live in this world. If this is a portrait of you, rejoice in your weakness for it is an invitation for God’s presence in your life.