Election Direction: The New Party
Selected Scriptures
Connect:
Share how you have seen God in the Highs and Lows of your week.
Prayer:
Pray that God would lead your discussion time and bring fresh insight, conviction, and hope through your time together.
Review:
We are moving into a series called “Election Direction” where we are looking at Biblical teaching and principles that help to ground us as believers in a deeply fragmented nation moving into election season. This week, our focus is on “The New Party” where we talk about how political divisions can affect the church… and what we are to do to prevent that.
The Grand Tour of the message: Thinking back on what you heard this Sunday…
o What did you learn about God?
o What did you learn about people?
o What did you learn about yourself?
o What do you want to commit to putting into practice?
Reflection:
Personal Experience:
Have you travelled or lived overseas for any length of time? Describe what it feels like to be in a place where you are a foreigner. What do you think/feel, what are new fears or concerns, what are some new opportunities you’ve never had, how does it feel to meet someone from your country of origin…?
Group Discussion:
Read Ephesians 4:1-6: What characteristics are believers encouraged to embody to maintain unity?
Discuss what it means to “make every effort… through the bond of peace”. What exactly is this “bond of peace” and how does this help us here, now?
Discuss how having the “same hope” makes believers “one”.
Read Philippians 3:17-20, what does Paul say about our citizenship and how should it influence our behavior?
Discuss how we recognize those whose “minds are set on earthly things”— what is the fruit in their lives, why are they “enemies of Christ”?
How do descriptors like, “their god is their stomach, their glory is in their shame” help us to identify them (as well as those tendencies in ourselves!)?
How does our “eagerly awaiting a Savior” from our place of citizenship help to nurture Christian unity?
Read 1 Peter 5:6-8. How does this describe the tactics of the enemy, and what are believers instructed to do in response?
Why begin with “humble yourselves”?
How does anxiety make us vulnerable to the devil’s attacks?
How does being “alert and sober minded” help us when the Devil is out to destroy God’s work and God’s people?
Read John 17:20-23
What is it that makes unity worth the cost— to our time, our energy, our pride…?
What does it mean to be one as the Body of Christ" as the Father and Son are one? Is that socially, spiritually…?
The goal is “brought to complete unity”; a very high goal! Why is the goal set so high, and could we ever actually reach that goal? What is the idea here?
Response:
Our unity can be a witness to a world that needs Jesus! Make this your prayer this evening that what people see when they look at us would be so different, so literally supernatural, that they would stop and take notice that we, like the early disciples are “Jesus people”! Pray for our nation during this time as well as beyond the election, and pray for the leaders of our nation to have godly wisdom, discernment, courage and conviction.
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