Sunday, February 10, 2013
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Speaker: Pastor Philip Hatter
Discussion Questions for City Groups
Some of our City Groups are not meeting this week due to Valentine’s Day, but below are several question for you to work through on your own as you reflect on this week’s passage from the end of Genesis 37.
May God grant you deep and abiding Joy in Christ Jesus as you face trials in your life. And may he give us all a sense of love and compassion for those around us that are suffering.
Genesis 37:12-36
- Due to life in a fallen world, there is a base line of suffering and trouble that we all experience every day. In Genesis 3, we see the outcome of man’s sin is enmity, pain, competing desires, toil, and thistles. What is your experience of this kind of daily struggle? Have you ordered your life in such a way that you avoid pain and problems at all costs?
- God is never mentioned in Genesis 37, but we see from other places in Scripture that God was orchestrating even Joseph’s painful experience at the hands of his brothers to fulfill His plans. What was really going on behind the scenes? (Read Genesis 45:5, and 50:20 and Psalm 105:16-19)
- How do we see Jesus in the suffering of Joseph? (John 1:11, Matt. 26:14,15, John 19:23)
- There is no evil in God, but in His Soverein purposes, God will use and even ordain suffering and evil to fulfill his plan of salvation. Read the following passages: Genesis 15:13, Psalm 105:16, Isaiah 45:6,7, Isaiah 53:10. How do these passages rub against your understanding of how God works in this world?
- The Bible contains a pattern that goes like this: suffering comes before glorification, humility comes before exaltation, death comes before resurrection. How do we see this pattern even in Creation? How does this pattern help you make sense of your own life?
- Paul tells disciples in Acts 14:22 that “through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God.” Did anyone ever tell you this when you first became a believer? Why do think Paul says this? Read 1 Peter 4:12-13, and verse 19.
- Jesus tells his disciples in John 16:33 that they (and we) will experience tribulation in this world, but we should all take heart because he has overcome the world. Are you able to rest in Jesus’ love and presence in the midst of the trials you are facing even now?