Teaching 4: Numbers 6:22-27 (7/29/12-7/30/12)

A Blessing for the Wilderness
For this night's lesson, I recapped the basic content of my sermon from Sunday morning. What are things to keep in mind about this blessing from God?
1) It is for rebels. The story of the people of God, and our own stories, make this point evident. We are people that God is leading from Slavery to Rest, and this blessing is made for redeemed rebels wandering in the wilderness of life.
2) It is not possible to earn this blessing, individually or together. This is something the Lord is giving to us at His own initiative, sustaining -despite us- by His own grace, and bringing about through us by His own power.
3) It is aimed at changing our hearts. This blessing provides what we need to change and grow as people made in the image of God. It understands the reality at work in and around us: "Things are a mess and they shouldn't be." The hope of anyone who places faith in Jesus and His work is that God is faithfully changing and working on His Creation to bring it to ultimate perfection.
4) This blessing, because the world is not the way it should be and God is just, comes at a great cost. The cost is the cursing, crushing, shameful, and sin-bearing death of Jesus Christ. He takes upon himself the opposite of this very blessing. Praise the Lord! By the mercy of Jesus, we are not getting what we deserve.
After this quick recap, we broke up for a time of discussion and prayer. Here are the questions that guided that time of discussion:

What is most difficult about your life right now?

What would you change? What would you leave the same?

What do you want God to change or do for you? Why?

Does this blessing promise or give you the things that you want? What are those things?

What does this blessing give us?

How has Christ provided/paid for this blessing for us?

What should change about our lives because of what Christ has provided?

Resource:

This link will direct you to a 5-part series that David Powlison has on the topic of panic attacks. He guides you through a case study on Ann, and brings to bear the relevance of the gospel working in and through honest relationships. I encourage you to download it and listen to it:

http://www.ccef.org/search/luceneapi_node/panic%20attack


Blessings,
Dagan Mayfield
dmayfield@cornerstonepca.org
803.224.3148