August 28, 2022

Matthew 27:27-31

Pastor Matt Cobb

Read the passage together and pray.

1.  When these passages regarding the journey to the cross come up in your daily Bible reading, what is your response?  Are you tempted to skim them, to take them for granted, to not ruminate about the details?

2.  What about the setting is unsettling?  The place?  The people?

3.  How did the soldiers demonstrate their contempt for Jesus?

4.  Pastor Matt remarked regarding this passage and Romans 1:30, in which unrighteous humans are called "inventors of evil", that "we've come up with new ways to reject and ridicule the righteous rule of Jesus."  In what area are you rejecting and ridiculing His rule?  For what are you desperately in need of grace?

5.   "The arrogance of man is met with the humility of Jesus." Is your humility growing? How can it grow? Consider an excerpt from a Puritan prayer "Paradoxes" from The Valley of Vision, by Arthur Bennett: 

O Lord,
I have a wild heart
And cannot stand before thee;
I am like a bird before a man.
How little I love thy truth and ways!
I neglect prayer,
By thinking I have prayed enough and earnestly,
By knowing thou hast saved my soul.
Of all hypocrites, grant that I may not be an evangelical hypocrite,
Who sins more safely because grace abounds,
Who tells his lusts that Christ’s blood cleanseth them,
Who reasons that God cannot cast him into hell, for his is saved,
Who loves evangelical preaching, churches, Christians, but lives
Unholily.
My mind is a bucket without a bottom,
With no spiritual understanding,
No desire for the Lord’s Day,
Ever learning but never reaching the truth,
Always at the gospel-well but never holding water.
My conscience is without conviction or contrition,
With nothing to repent of.
My will is without power of decision or resolution.
My heart is without affection, and full of leaks.
My memory has no retention,
So I forget so easily the lessons learned,
And thy truths seep away.
Give me a broken heart that yet carries home the water of grace."

6.  How does pondering over verses such as Hebrews 1:8 and Daniel 7:13-14, grow your delight in Jesus' rescuing work?

7.  Are you familiar with the Apostles Creed that Pastor Matt shared with us?  When was the last time you thought about or spoke or read the Apostles Creed?  How can it help us remember and be gladdened by the Gospel?

8.  Share with your group that person who you would like to share the Gospel with this fall.  What is keeping that conversation from happening?

***

The Apostles Creed

"I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell; The third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; The Holy catholic Church, the Communion of Saints; The Forgiveness of sins; The Resurrection of the body, And the Life everlasting. Amen."