The Beautiful Union

GATHERING TOGETHER

Welcome one another, catch up with one another and share personal stories to encourage, strengthen, and support at a time of isolation and discouragement.

PRAYING TOGETHER

Pray for our congregation and community (spiritual, emotional, physical) well-being.

IN THE WORD TOGETHER

Let’s focus our attention on this new year on Christ’s faithfulness to us amid this challenging season of life.

SERVING TOGETHER

Identify a service project to participate in together.

REVIEW QUESTION

Quickly review the definition, paradigm, and practices of apprenticeship.

STARTER QUESTION

Our starting place to think about the concept of union is God himself. He is the “perfect community of love” in the trinity (Father, Son & Holy Spirit). What aspect of God’s triune nature speaks most to your heart?

IN THE BOOK

Below there are three different types of questions, so we encourage you to seek a balance if possible. In addition, there is a Leader Study Notes section for further study!

  1. The Understanding questions are designed to refresh your group's memory about the text. These can be answered fairly briefly without a need for a longer discussion.

  2. Application questions are structured to draw out the ways the text, as preached, calls us to live. You should make a strong effort in your group to point people to Scripture as they’re discussing these.

  3. We’ve built out Personal Sharing questions that connect with the sermon but make a more conscious effort to allow the members of your group to know each other better. These help to build a sense of trust by giving people a chance to share their lived experiences.

We pray that as you consider which of these questions work best for your group that God blesses your time together so that the Word of Christ “dwells in you more richly” and you become “knit together in love” as a community.

UNION = The True Vine

READ: John 15:1-22

UNDERSTANDING:

What is our condition BEFORE Union with Christ? [See notes]

What are three Biblical examples of our union with Christ? [See notes]

vv. 4-5 - What do these verses illustrate is shared between the vine and vinedresser?

What evidence exists that demonstrates a believer is abiding in Christ?

What is promised to those who are grafted into Christ?

APPLICATION:

The fundamental reality of our salvation is our union with Jesus. How does God’s blessing flow from our union with Him?

What aspects of adoption demonstrate the concept of union? How do these illustrate the difference in the way a child lives after being adopted?

If the ultimate blessing of union is God Himself, how do our lives reflect that?

PERSONAL SHARING:

Marriage is the most profound example of union with the apostle Paul using it as an example to describe Christ’s relationship with the church (Ephesians 5:31-32). How have you seen this in your life, through your marriage or observing the marriage of someone close to you?

Faith is a God-given gift that allows us to say “yes” to God, who’s already said “yes” to us. What are some moments in life where you’ve been gifted with faith?

IMAGING = Looking Straight Into the Sun

READ: 2 Peter 1:3-11

UNDERSTANDING:

v. 2 - What kind of knowledge is Peter referring to?

Identify the places you see the paradigm of apprenticeship in this passage (UNION​ → ​ABIDING & OBEYING​ → IMAGING).

APPLICATION:

What do the practices of abiding look like? Why do you think there are both individual and relational components to them?

Why do calls to “try harder,” “do better,” and “perform” rob the Gospel of its joyous center?

PERSONAL SHARING:

Where do you see the riches of Christ’s gift to us in your own life? What about sharing in these riches humbles you the most?

LEADER NOTES


Quotable Quote: “God is the perfect community of love. He is love all the way down--through and through self-giving, other-blessing, joyful love that ever was and ever will be.”


What is our condition before UNION with Christ? - The big, ugly problem is that at the fall, we have broken relationship with this God who is love. Severed union. We have separated. We have chosen divorce & division. Humanity has rejected God—chosen to trust another voice —lie, deception, ruin & death. So, humanity broke itself off of the living tree of life, so to speak: pulled away from flourishing, thrown itself on the ground, & been a withering dying since. We separated, disconnected, broke ourselves off from the love that is our flourishing.


This is the great divorce, the great problem of the human condition: DIS-UNION with God. Distrust of him. Denial of his goodness. The solution to the great human plight of sin is UNION with God. But HOW? How is man united with God? This is what the Bible is all about — how will God dwell with a rebellious people. How is this disunion healed? Something radical must happen—a gardener must do a miraculous graft and reconnect that branch to the living tree. A RADICAL RE-UNION MUST HAPPEN. This needed UNION is what we call salvation. This is the work and the person of Jesus, the Son of God, bringing us back to God and uniting us to Him through the life-giving Spirit of Christ flowing through our veins.


Quotable Quote: “The primary, central, and fundamental reality of salvation is our union with Jesus--a union through which all the blessings of the Savior flow to us.”


What are three Biblical illustrations of union with Christ?

  • Marriage - Marriage is a union of love that includes a new identity and participation in the blessings of one another. The marriage partners become partakers of the life and blessings (and hardships and suffering) of one another.

  • Adoption - In adoption, children are united to parents--legally, emotionally, practically, physically--into a new family identity. They are loved and accepted, and they participate in the blessings of their parents’ love and care and food and shelter, and family culture. They become partakers of and participants in the life of their parents.

  • Vine & Branches - See John 15:1-22 for a description of the reality of branches onto the vine as an illustration of union with Christ.


Quotable Quote: “The ultimate blessing of union with the Triune God is the Triune God himself … Union is the glorious gift of being drawn into and sharing in the eternal love and the mutual delight between the Father and the Son.”

ONE ANOTHERING:

Whether you are meeting together or not, check in with one another to make sure that everyone is cared for and has what they need. Does someone in your group need help with grocery shopping, childcare, or caring for themselves? Keep a list of the ways you can provide care as a comGroup.

Remember that the Benevolence Ministry is a resource for our comGroups.

  • How can we love or serve one another this week?