Greetings! Below you will find questions which reference the sermon preached on Sunday, November 9th, 2014 at The Park. This week we studied Chapter 6 of Amos. Have someone in your group read this section of scripture.
Each week new questions are posted to track along with the sermons. Work hard to facilitate discussion. Listen to the hearts around the room and close with prayer.
Intro to Amos:
Amos was from Tekoa, a small town in Judah about 6 miles south of Bethlehem and 11 miles from Jerusalem. He was not a man of the court like Isaiah, or a member of a priestly family like Jeremiah and Ezekiel. He earned his living from the flock and the sycamore-fig grove. Whether he owned the flocks and groves or only worked as a hired hand is not known. His skill with words and the strikingly broad range of his general knowledge of history and the world preclude his being an ignorant peasant. Though his home was in Judah, he was sent to announce God’s judgment on the northern kingdom (Israel). He probably ministered for the most part at Bethel, Israel’s main religious sanctuary, where the upper echelons of the northern kingdom worshiped.
The book brings his prophecies together in a carefully organized form intended to be read as a unit. It offers few, if any, clues as to the chronological order of his spoken messages—he may have repeated them on many occasions to reach everyone who came to worship. The book is ultimately addressed to all Israel (hence the references to Judah and Jerusalem).
- Pride is sickness, it’s symptoms are: ignoring the contributions of others, ignoring God’s hand in your life, refusing to learn from failure. This is as old as the garden of Eden…pride looks at the things of life and says, “I did it & I’m due it, by the power of my own hands.” Do you struggle with pride today? In what way?
- The pride of man wants to build tributes to God when God just wants us to surrender to him. Why do you think surrender is difficult for most people to do? What does surrender look like for you today?
- Everyone has “blind spots”. Israel and Judah did at this time in their history and Amos has been called up to call them out. If there are blind spots in your life, how do you see them or become aware of them? What does Christian community offer when it comes to our “blind spots”?
- Read Galatians 5:13-25. Galatians assumes a that we will have a dynamic relationship with the Spirit that will result in you living like Jesus. How would you characterize your relationship with Holy Spirit today? Is it dynamic and alive or seemingly dead? Somewhere in the middle?
- Meditate on Galatians 5:25 and close in prayer together.