Life Groups // Winter 2024 // Week 3
Posted January 26, 2024 — Lincoln Berean
A Recipe for Flourishing // Exodus 18:1-27
Make plans with your Life Group to join us at the Life Groups Winter Party! Cost is $5/person ($15 family max).
Space is limited, register online or in the LBC App to reserve your spot!
Introduction
Chapter 18 of Exodus gives us a reunion of Moses with his father-in-law Jethro. Moses tells Jethro of all that God has done for him and for Israel and Jethro gives Moses some good advice.
To think through the main ideas in the sermon and prepare for your discussion together, we invite you to look over all the questions on the following pages and write your thoughts down before you meet with your group. Due to preferences over a wide range of groups, we do not expect you will cover every question each week.
Warm Up (Suggested time: 30 min)
1) Who is someone in your life that gives good advice? Share a bit about that person.
2) What outside influences have had the greatest influences on your life or your family’s life?
Getting Started
1) Open group discussion with prayer. Here are a few potential prayer items:
a. For the Spirit of God to lead you in truth
b. For the fruit of the Spirit to be cultivated in your lives
c. For grace to hear and apply what the Spirit says to you
2) Choose someone to read the passage aloud for the group.
Study Questions (Suggested time: 40 min)
1) What is one idea that stuck with you from Pastor Bryan’s sermon this past weekend?
2) Look again at Exodus 18:1-12 and the interaction between Moses and his father-in-law Jethro. Compare Jethro’s response to all that God has done for Moses and Israel to that of the Egyptians and/or the Amalekites.
How is Jethro’s response (vv. 9-12) a fulfillment of one of God’s purposes of the Exodus? (See Exodus 8:27 & 9:13-16)
What in your life or the lives of those around you has caused you to say, “Now I know, that the Lord is greater than all other gods”?
3) Who is someone in your life to whom you could begin talking about how the Lord has delivered you?
What is preventing you from starting that conversation?
Take a moment as a group to pray together for the various people that you desire to come to know that “the Lord is greater than all other Gods”.
4) In Exodus 18:13-27, we find the advice that Jethro gave to Moses about helping the people settle their disputes. As we look at this passage, we need to remember that these people do not know how to live as a nation having been slaves the last 400 years. Pastor Bryan reminded us that this situation occurs before the Law is given at Mount Sinai which will happen in a few chapters. How would the giving of the law affect this situation?
In our day, the culture of our world tends to throw off the idea that there is an absolute standard of right and wrong. How does this result in a similar situation to what Moses and the Israelites are facing?
Jethro indicates that if Moses follows his advice (if God so commands) it will result in peace (Shalom = flourishing) for the people. The ultimate purpose of the law is also to lead to flourishing. Without absolute standards of right & wrong, human nature tends to look out for itself, not the flourishing of the community. How have you seen this tendency in your own life?
What is one thing you could do this week to seek the flourishing of our community instead of just your own flourishing? (community could be defined in many ways, i.e. your family, your Life Group, our church, our city)
Personal Spiritual Exercises
Just like physical exercises help strengthen and stretch our bodies for healthy living, these spiritual exercises are meant to move us spiritually in ways that may be new so we might experience inner growth. Since God longs for us to experience Him with our whole selves—mind, body, spirit—we invite you along each week to strengthen your souls with suggestions and prompts. Next week in Life Group, take a few moments to share how the Lord may have used this exercise in your life.
Prayer Focus: This week pray each day for the person you identified above who does not know the Lord.
Pray for them to be open to the Lord.
Pray for the Holy Spirit to soften their heart.
Pray for God to orchestrate circumstances to draw them to Himself.
Pray for an opportunity to share what the Lord has done for you.
Scripture Focus: Psalm 119 refers to the value of God’s law (Word, statutes, precepts, commands, etc.) in almost every verse. Take time over this week (and maybe part of next week) to meditatively read all of Psalm 119. It is naturally broken into 8 verse segments. Each morning, read a segment and listen for what the Holy Spirit wants to speak to you.
Prayer (Suggested time: 20 min)
A significant part of “coming together” is being open and honest with our lives. Sitting in a group of people for prayer may be new or it may be familiar to you. If you would rather not pray aloud when it is your turn, feel free to pray silently and then say “Amen” aloud signaling the next person in the group to pray. Whether or not you choose to verbalize your prayer, everyone is a participant in sharing this time before God together.
Take a few moments to prepare a prayer request. What did the message, working through the above questions or the discussion cause you to notice about your own relationship with Jesus? Would you be willing to share your prayer request with the group?