Unity in Adversity Phil 1:28-30

This week we looked at the idea that adversity and challenges within the church community can be a catalyst for disunity and failure or for unity and growth.

What areas in your personal Spiritual walk do you feel elements of adversity? What challenges do you see as they relate to the Soma Church community?

How do you/ or could you contribute to unity in the church community and help rise beyond those challenges?

A Good Citizen

This week we studied Philippians 1:27 and offered the translation that says, "Live as a good citizen (of God's Kingdom) that is worthy of the good news that Jesus is Lord".

What are the rhythms of your own life that provide you with opportunities to represent God's Kingdom as a worthy representative (or citizen)?

Who are the people that you are drawn to?

How do you contribute or take away from the unity of Christians that Paul later calls for in describing "good citizens"?

A Bigger Jesus

This week we read Philippians 1:19-21. We looked at Paul's desire to "exalt" Christ in his body. The Greek word here can mean to enlarge or magnify Christ, making Jesus bigger and us smaller.

How can you make Jesus bigger in your own life?

What types of things do you feel give you meaning/ purpose in life?

Like Paul, do you have a focused desire to make Christ bigger in life and in death?

Prophecy Fulfilled

Who has believed what we have heard?

And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

Is. 53:2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,

and like a root out of dry ground;

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

Is. 53:3 He was despised and rejected by others;

a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;

and as one from whom others hide their faces

he was despised, and we held him of no account.

Is. 53:4 ¶ Surely he has borne our infirmities

and carried our diseases;

yet we accounted him stricken,

struck down by God, and afflicted.

Is. 53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions,

crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the punishment that made us whole,

and by his bruises we are healed.

Is. 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have all turned to our own way,

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

Is. 53:7 ¶ He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he did not open his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he did not open his mouth.

Is. 53:8 By a perversion of justice he was taken away.

Who could have imagined his future?

For he was cut off from the land of the living,

stricken for the transgression of my people.

Is. 53:9 They made his grave with the wicked

and his tomb with the rich,

although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Is. 53:10 ¶ Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him with pain.

When you make his life an offering for sin,

he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days;

through him the will of the LORD shall prosper.

Is. 53:11 Out of his anguish he shall see light;

he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.

The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,

and he shall bear their iniquities.

Is. 53:12 Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,

and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;

because he poured out himself to death,

and was numbered with the transgressors;

yet he bore the sin of many,

and made intercession for the transgressors.

How do you think Jesus' first followers felt as they read this passage from Isaiah after His death and Resurrection?

What do you think about these verses in light of Easter? Does this strengthen your beliefs, weaken them, or are they neutral?

Enter the King

This week we looked at the idea of Jesus, the Messiah, entering Jerusalem on the day many celebrate as Palm Sunday. Notice the symbolism of the palm branches in Roman times that signified victory and even the donkey that often symbolized royalty.

The whole even echoes the prophecies of Zechariah that say,

" Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!

Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!

Lo, your king comes to you;

triumphant and victorious is he,

humble and riding on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Zech. 9:10 He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim

and the war horse from Jerusalem;

and the battle bow shall be cut off,

and he shall command peace to the nations;

his dominion shall be from sea to sea,

and from the River to the ends of the earth."

What do you think were the range of emotions and beliefs surrounding the people during that day?

In thinking of these events, what do you think about this moment (emotionally and intellectually)?