PART 1. WHAT IS THE BIBLE ABOUT AND WHY I SHOULD TRUST IT?
7. The Kingdom
Opener: Start by asking your group think about the phrase: Fixed point of reference.
Question: What comes to mind when you hear it? What does it look like, what is it?
Answer: Something fixed. A sailor navigating the seas, he uses the North Star as a navigation point.
Terry said, “Everyone lives with confidence in someone/something, often it is self or current trends.”
Question: Can you think of some examples you’ve seen of people who’ve lived like this? How has it worked out? What were the consequences?
Question: Why is it important that we have a fixed point of reference?
Answer: Without a fixed point of reference what we have is what we have seen so far this year:
Shame, broken relationship with God, relational disorder, broken relationship with one another, national disorder…widespread brokenness.
Remember and remind your members of the Goal for 2019:
Confidence—Regarding Scripture as the God-breathed book.
This confidence will help us to navigate life from a fixed point of reference.
–It speaks to all aspects of our lives in terms of giving us the foundational pillars that we can build everything else on.
Summary Statement:
The characters of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings remind us that God does not regard human appearance or strength the way we so often do. Both books are a character studies. The books show us how the people turned the potential utopia into a perpetual dystopia through cycles of rebellion, despair, rescue, and back to rebellion again.
Passage:
1 Sam. 8:4-9 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.” But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. And the LORD told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do.”
1 Sam. 10:17 Samuel summoned the people of Israel to the LORD at Mizpah 18 and said to them, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I brought Israel up out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the power of Egypt and all the kingdoms that oppressed you.’ 19 But you have now rejected your God, who saves you out of all your calamities and distresses. And you have said, ‘No, set a king over us.’Question: Was there a problem with the people asking for a King? Why did Samuel get mad? What was God’s response to Samuel?
Answer: They believed a king would succeed where God had failed them. They believed their king would be their permanent deliverer, no more cycles of defeat but just permanent prosperity. They failed to attribute the cycles of trouble to their own failure but rather they attributed it to the failure of God. They want a king who would allow them to do whatever they want and yet prosper. They were not concerned with following God…only about not having difficult times again.
Key Point: A common reason people struggle with their faith or fall away completely is because they were pursuing God primarily because they believed he would make them happy in ways they demanded to be made happy
Read Jer. 2:13: “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own wells, broken wells that cannot hold water.
Question: In what ways are we the same?
Answer: We believe physical health, sexual pleasure, the accumulation of wealth, or of things, the number of people who know us (about us), whether we are perceived of as being smart, or lovely, or hip, or spiritual…there are endless ways of stating this. The core is the same…the heart of idolatry is looking anywhere other than to God to find life.
Application / Personalize it: The curse of Idolatry & the gift of repentance.
We can be no different than the people we read about. We need to rely on God’s strength and the encouragement of each other to keep from turning away from the path of life. Think back to Terry’s sermon; think back to Saul, David, and the split kingdom. Remember why this came about.
Question: Think back to King David… Why was he different than all the others, didn’t he fail in a terrible way?
Answer: David lived out repentance. (Psa. 51:1-12)
What Idol has captured your heart?
Will you repent of this idolatry and find joy and freedom?
Will you receive the gift of repentance…Jesus offers it to you now?
Romans 2:4 “… God’s kindness leads you to repentance…”