Leader Resources
EXERCISES
- Review memory verse of the week and discuss how it relates to the TRUTH section
SUGGESTED DISCUSSION
- TRUTH – Your goal this week is to help your JG understand the relevance of the Holy Spirit’s work to Christian living. You should try to emphasize these points:
- The Holy Spirit manifests the active presence of God. The Father’s work and the Son’s work are directly applied to our lives by the actions of the Holy Spirit. Without His work we would have no knowledge of God, there would be no salvation from God, and no life of God in us. Review Spirit-filled living and the need to be filled with the Spirit.
- The Holy Spirit is active in Christians individually and in the Church corporately.
- The Holy Spirit is a missional Spirit empowering Christians and the Church in the gospel mission.
- TRUTH – In pursuit of the goal of emphasizing the Holy Spirit’s relevance to Christian living, you can discuss the TO SUMMARIZE section, and any of the IN BIBLE questions. But don’t take the time to go over all of these, in order to allow adequate time to discuss the EQUIPPING section. Here are some tips on some of the passages.
- PSALM 139:1-12 – Verse 7 shows that God’s omnipresent Spirit is the manifestation of His presence, and there is nowhere one could escape from His presence.
- MARK 1:8 & EPHESIANS 1:13-14 – The important point here is that the gift of the Holy Spirit is the central promise of the gospel, because the Holy Spirit represents the communing presence of God in one’s life. Before conversion we were without hope and without God. The sign that this hopeless estate has changed is the gift of God’s Spirit residing in our lives. Through the Holy Spirit we have communion with God, and through this communion we receive assurance that we are accepted, and our souls are eternally safe.
- EPHESIANS 2:18-22 – This passage describes the Holy Spirit’s role in building a unified, redeemed humanity – a temple, so to speak – where God will dwell and receive true, spiritual worship. The Holy Spirit indwells both Jews and Gentiles who become followers of Jesus, thus creating a spiritual union between them and Christ.
- EQUIPPING – Ask one or two people to share their answer to the 1st question, and then involve the whole group in a discussion of the 3rd question. Try to help your JG avoid the errors of thinking of Spirit-filled living as purely mystical, or as having a performance-oriented mindset.
- ACCOUNTABILITY – Allow time for smaller groups of 2 or 3 to ask accountability questions and pray for one another.
- MISSION – Continue planning and discussing your upcoming mission service project. It is vital that you emphasize the purpose of this project as an exercise in developing a missional life. Discuss the gospel as the motivation for living a missional life, and how that applies to your service project.
