01 Dec
2019

Sore Afraid

Passage: Matthew 1:18-25

Speaker: Patrick King

Advent is four weeks set aside for reflecting on the first coming of Jesus, as a baby born into the reality of the human condition. It is also a season of anticipation as we celebrate Jesus’s arrival as the newborn King and are filled with hope for the second advent, when the wrongs of this world will be made right. In Advent we remember the deep and costly peace God has come near to give to us as a gift. Join us this season for our Advent sermon series Wonder Full.

Community Group Discussion:

Opening Question

When is a time you have felt filled with wonder?

Read Matthew 1:18-25

  1. From the Scripture passage share something that surprises, encourages, or confuses you.
  2. What are some of the fears that Joseph and Mary may have had at the first Christmas? How did they each respond?
  3. Read the following poem by Madeline L’engle: The Birth of Wonder. How are you entering into Advent this year? What are your hopes, fears, expectations? In what ways are you intentionally remembering “an infant’s power on a cold December”?
  4. In what ways do Mary and Joseph teach us to celebrate Advent?
  5. In his poem, This twittering word, T.S. Eliot wrote that people are, “distracted from distraction by distraction.” John Ortberg wrote in The Life You’ve Always Wanted, “For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them.” How have you experienced or witnessed what these authors are expressing? How does a greater fear of the LORD break into our distracted lives? How can we pray for and encourage one another to resist distraction, particularly this Advent?