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Each week a discussion guide is published for the latest sermon at North Coast Church (northcoastchurch.com). The discussion guides are based on the study questions that are available for each sermon. We hope these guides help facilitate the discussion for your group.
In the middle of the book of Romans,
there's this big, long guided tour
of God's grand plan for bringing the
people of Israel back into the fold.
Starts off with God hardening their
hearts so that the gospel might then go
out to the Gentiles, who in turn might
make the Jewish people jealous of the
Gentiles' relationship with God so that
they can then come back to God, too.
This whole argument takes several
chapters, and it ends with Paul singing
a song about it because it's such
a cool plan and he is so into it.
Then Romans twelve happens.
It's the big therefore
that we were hearing about.
The whole first couple verses are
just one big conjunction between that
grand plan and what's coming up next.
And this time, I noticed
something that I hadn't noticed
before in Romans chapter twelve.
Paul starts off with the therefore,
and then he goes on to say,
"Therefore, brothers and sisters,"
he's like y'all, "Therefore y'all
present yourselves," plural, "as
a," singular, "living sacrifice."
What I think is interesting and different
about this is not the idea that each one
of us is supposed to present ourselves as
a living sacrifice, but that we ourselves
collectively are also a living sacrifice.
You know, it's kinda like when your
kid gets in trouble at school, and
your wife comes in and says, "Do you
know what your son has done this time?"
Eh, no, he's our son.
This is our living sacrifice,
not just mine, ours.
Let's dive in for this week.
Hey, leaders and hosts.
Welcome to week four.
I'm your host, James Browning, the Global
Adult Ministries pastor here at North
Coast, and this is week two of me being
one of the voices on our way to group.
So you're gonna be hearing a few
more in the next couple weeks.
I'm gonna be rounding
up a few extra people.
We'll be adding it on to the end, so
if you don't want to hear from other
groups' pastors or some all-star
group leaders, you don't have to.
You can just straight get the goods.
But there's gonna be some interesting
stories coming up, so stay tuned.
This episode is going to be roughly
the same shape as last week.
A quick tour of the questions that are
in the guide, a l- little bit of a deep
dive into going further because, you
know, your group probably has about
two hours versus the forty-five minutes
or so of the sermon that we heard,
and three moments to be ready for.
And then we've got a little bit of a
mailbag this week, which actually has
some things in it that will be helpful.
So let's start off with the tour.
This week, Chris took a timeout
from the Book of Matthew.
We're about seventy-plus weeks in,
and this weekend, we stepped out
of the book for one week to ask
whether we actually get surrender.
We've explored it from almost every
angle, so sometimes it's good and
helpful to take a big step back.
The passage is Romans 12.
The whole chapter, verses one through
21, are great to read in your group.
We didn't preach on the whole chapter
this week, but I would recommend
reading it out loud as a group.
I think you're gonna get a
lot out of it if you do so.
The warm-up is pretty light.
What's something you love doing
when you want to that feels
totally different when you have to?
For me, that is working on my bike.
I love cycling.
I love cycling so much that, uh, I even
broke my wrist this week on my bike,
but we'll get back to that in a second.
But I love working on my bike.
I love doing tune-ups on my bike.
Uh, but I would not want to
be a bike mechanic full-time.
It's one thing to go through and upgrade
my bike or work on it myself, but to have
to go through yours or everybody else's,
that doesn't sound as much like a hobby
So then what's one small area of your life
that you really like being in control of?
You like to do it when you like to
do it and not on another schedule.
So maybe that's tidying up,
maybe it is going on vacation.
Uh, whatever it is for you
guys, no judgment here.
This is just the warm-up question.
And then, of course, what stuck out
with the sermon for you this weekend?
go ahead and tell people it's okay if
this sermon caused you to go through
a rabbit trail about something else.
This is something that I used
to feel guilty about, but also
I learned so much when the Holy
Spirit just kind of nudges me down a
different direction during a sermon.
So it's okay if they deviate from
the actual topic of the sermon
because maybe the Holy Spirit is
doing something in their lives, and
feel free to be sensitive to that
The know it section has your
group read all 21 verses out loud.
Don't make one person read the
whole chapter unless you have
someone who's really into that.
Um, maybe your group has someone
who is a voiceover actor or actress.
Maybe you have a professional
orator in your group.
If no one wants to read it or no
one's, like, thrilled to read it, uh,
then go ahead and spread it around.
But if you've got someone who's
like, "Oh, yeah, this is my time to
shine," go ahead, let them read it
Okay, the three questions.
Why does mercy have to
come before surrender?
Which of these instructions are
impossible without other Christians?
And then lastly, the big one, the
six steps in the North Coast app.
Attend, decide, baptism,
life groups, serving, giving.
How is surrender part of each one,
and how does each step help the whole
body, not just the person taking it?
Hang on to that one.
We'll come back to it.
In the share it section, it gets personal.
Have you ever given something up to
God, fully expecting to lose it, and
then found freedom on the other side?
And which step are you most grateful
for, and who helped you take it?
I think that part is one of the most
revealing, is that we find most people
have had, uh, others used by God to nudge
them along as they take their steps.
And that's really kind of the
big point of life groups, is that
we often hear God speak through
other spirit-filled believers.
That's just how God loves to
work, by bringing us all together.
Live it asks what your next step is
right now and how your group could help.
And then what would it look like to be
a group that knows each other's next
steps and actually celebrates them?
That's one of the big things about
building community is learning
to celebrate what you value.
So if this is something you actually
value, how do you celebrate it?
And then the optional kinship question
is back, right under the warm-up.
Who in your life really knows
you, not just knows about
you, and how did that happen?
How did they get there?
Still a bonus and still not homework.
If you try it out, let
me know what you think.
There's a link in the guide,
or you can email me directly,
jbrowning at northcoastchurch.com.
Okay, so now's our chance to go down
the rabbit hole that I went down this
week, and I already kinda told you a
little bit about one in the cold open.
So let's go further down it.
That therefore in verse one, the old
Bible study rule is that when you see
a therefore, ask what it's there for.
Usually, it's pointing
back a verse or two.
This one is pointing
back at the whole letter.
Eleven chapters of what God has done.
Everybody has fallen short.
Jesus died for us.
We are made right by His grace.
No condemnation.
Eleven chapters of what God did
before one word about what we do,
and that's not just a Paul thing.
Before God gives the Ten Commandments,
the first thing He says is, "I am the Lord
your God who brought you out of Egypt."
Rescue first, then instructions.
That's the order with God
just about every time.
One asks why mercy has to come
before surrender, that's your answer.
It's the order of the whole Bible.
Okay, now the grammar thing.
I said in the open that the sacrifice
is ours and not just mine, bodies,
plural, sacrifice, singular.
It's not a hundred little sacrifices
on a hundred little altars.
It's one, and it takes
all of us to make it.
If you wanna go deeper on
this, , Augustine of Hippo, St.
Augustine, wrote a book that honestly
impacted a lot of Western thought
and philosophy called City of God.
He makes a big case for this chapter
being a corporate sacrifice, meaning,
like, one big sacrifice as a whole, as
the body, as the church, because as you
Speaker 4: read in verse five, "We're
one body, and each member
belongs to all the others."
So your group isn't the place you
go to work out your own surrender.
Your group is where you go
to work out our surrender.
If you're all, uh, being sacrificed to
the volcano, you're going in together.
No one goes to the volcano alone.
Uh, maybe I might have watched Joe
Versus the Volcano one too many times.
Could be a b- terrible analogy,
but you get what I mean.
This also answers know it too, by the way.
Which of these instructions are
impossible without other Christians?
Go read verses nine through sixteen
and try to do any of them by yourself.
Be devoted to one another.
Honor one another.
Rejoice with those who rejoice.
That's something you can't
do alone in your car.
Now, here's what gets me, though.
A living sacrifice makes no sense.
Every sacrifice Paul's readers
had ever seen ended with
something dead on the altar.
A sacrifice that stays
alive is a strange idea.
There's an old preacher's line that
the trouble with a living sacrifice
is that it keeps crawling off the
altar, which is honestly probably
a pretty common sentiment among
those of us who are trying to live
out our living sacrifices together.
All right, two more.
The word transformed in
verse two is metamorpho.
Yes, metamorphosis, and I'm not gonna
get too much into it in this podcast,
but I do wanna say that it's the same
word that Matthew uses when Jesus
is transfigured on the mountain,
and his face shines like the sun.
And in Romans 12, it's
passive and it's ongoing.
Keep being transformed.
You don't do it yourself.
You keep putting yourself where God can
do it, where you can be transfigured like
Christ and the others on the mountain
All right, last one for this section.
Verse thirteen says,
"Practice hospitality."
And the verb there actually
means to pursue, to chase after.
Then verse fourteen says, "Bless
those who persecute you," and it's
the same verb, the people chasing you.
So back to back, Paul says, "Chase
down strangers with kindness, and
bless the ones who are chasing you."
Same word, both directions.
I thought that was a little interesting.
Okay, so here's three
moments to be ready for.
The I knew it question about the
six steps is a good question.
It's also the easiest place in the whole
guide for someone to feel a little graded.
One person has one step
lit up and feels behind.
Another person doesn't use the app at all.
Maybe they share an email with their
spouse, maybe they don't have a
smartphone, maybe they just don't
want another app, and that's fine.
So "It's okay if you don't have the app,"
the steps are an invitation,
not a report card.
An unlit step isn't a
grade from your church.
It's a question.
Is God inviting me here?
If your group is brand new, don't
ask people to pull up their profiles.
Just talk about why
each step is important.
If your group has been together for years
and you trust these people with a key
to your house the code on your garage,
pull up your next steps and celebrate.
One practical thing, if someone came
to faith or got baptized before they
came to North Coast, they can add those
dates themselves in under My Account.
I am relatively new to North Coast myself,
and believe it or not, I'm still missing
my groups badge and my service badge.
So I will be joining you
in getting those lit up.
Okay, next.
Share at One asks whether you've
ever surrendered something and
found freedom on the other side.
Most people have a good story for that.
But somebody in your group is going
to think about a kid who walked away
or a marriage or a dream that died,
and their honest answer is, "I'm
still waiting for that freedom part."
Let not yet be a complete answer.
If someone names something
really big, that's good.
That's important for you
to help them carry it.
Don't let the room try to fix it,
and if it's more than a group can
carry, loop in your campus pastor.
That's what we're here for, or
your groups pastor Third, the
veteran with every step lit.
Live it one says everyone has a next
step, no matter how long you follow Jesus.
Your longtime believers may decide
that question is for the new people.
So go first.
Name your own real next step.
Make it specific.
Be more patient is not a next step.
Call my brother back is a next step.
If somebody says, "I've
done all six, now what?"
Paul's got you.
Don't worry.
Decades into following Jesus, he
writes, "Not that I've already
obtained all this, but I press on."
Ask them, what's their next
step that no app could track?
Doesn't matter how
tech-savvy or whatever it is.
No app has to track that.
But your group is there to be one
body, to sacrifice together, to
help you in taking that next step.
And if somebody says, "I've actually
never been baptized," or even, "I
don't know that I've ever really
decided," don't make it awkward.
That's the best thing that could
happen in your living room all year.
Celebrate it.
Talk with them this week.
And for what it's worth, the next
baptisms are November seventh and eighth.
So there's a real date to point to.
And let me know.
I would love to come celebrate
your group's baptism.
Genuinely, email me,
jbrowning@northcoastchurch.com.
I wanna celebrate y'all.
Okay, your turn.
This is the mailbag.
Last week, I asked you to
send things in, and you did.
We had a couple come in this week, and
I'm keeping both anonymous because I
haven't had time to follow up and get
their permission to share their names.
But, uh, I will say a leader
whose group has been together
for more than three years did try
the kinship question last week.
Who in your life are
you becoming more like?
And everyone answered, "All of them."
And what he said was basically, "We
learned more about each other in that
one question that we had in a long time."
It opened up something
three-plus years in.
So if you skipped it because your
group is past that, you never know.
Give it a shot.
Okay, second one, and
this was a great catch.
A leader who helps with two groups,
a men's group and a couple's group,
ran the week three question, "If
Jesus said, 'I don't know you,'
on what grounds would you object?"
And in both groups, he
got the same answer.
"Well, if Jesus said it, it must be true."
Which, fair, nobody wins an argument with
Jesus, but also ended the conversation.
He also noticed that the question
didn't say the same thing everywhere.
The guide said, "If Jesus saidâ¦"
On the podcast, I said,
"If someone saidâ¦"
That actually wasn't a slip.
I changed it while I was reading it
because I had the same itch that he did.
If Jesus actually said, "I don't
know you," then I'm in big trouble,
and there's no objecting to that.
The only thing I can do is ask God
for his mercy, which Paul clearly
states that Jesus is offering to
everyone my confidence isn't that
I'm secure in my salvation, it's
that Jesus is secure in my salvation.
He's the one doing the saving.
So I get to have doubts on Tuesday.
He doesn't ever have doubts on Tuesday.
And here's how I'd word it
if you want to run it again.
If someone told you Jesus
doesn't know you, how would
you answer them from scripture?
Now you're allowed to argue, and
the argument isn't about you.
It's about him.
And just like you couldn't
argue with Jesus last week, they
can't argue with him this week.
He also asked about the new section
I mentioned that never showed
up in this group's homework.
That's the kinship question.
It lives in the leader guide,
not the member guide, which is
why your group didn't see him.
It's yours to bring into the
room So keep these coming.
Questions, wins, weird group stories,
struggles, and tell on your people.
Who in your group is killing it?
Who in your group is amazing?
Who needs a shout-out?
Every message gets answered, although
slowly, because as I mentioned, I broke
my wrist this week, and I'm getting
further and further behind on my emails.
I'm doing my best, but I promise
I will get back to you eventually
You are definitely not being ignored.
You are definitely not being ignored.
You're being answered, which
right now on the podcast is
easier and faster than me typing.
We'll see you next week.
Have a great week with your group
The link's at the bottom
of last week's guide.
The link's at the bottom of the
show notes for this and in theâ¦
The link's at the bottom of the show
notes for this if you just want to fill
out the form, or you can just email me,
again, jbrowning@north- or you can just
email me, jbrowning@northcoastchurch.com
And one tiny practical thing, bring
a note card and pen to your group.
When people share their next steps in Live
It, write them down with their permission.
Then the following week,
open by asking them.
That one move might do more than
anything else in the guide, and don't
forget to pray over it this week.
Last thing, and this one
is about you in particular.
We're four weeks in, and somewhere
around week four, leading a
group starts to feel like a job.
You love these people, and you also have
to read the guide and buy the snacks
and clear the laundry off the couch.
Verse 11 says, "Never be lacking in
zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor."
That word for fervor
literally means boiling.
Keep your spirit boiling.
Now, a pot doesn't boil
because it tries harder.
It boils because it's sitting on the fire.
So before you prep anything
this week, go sit by the fire.
Go back to verse one, "In view of God's
mercy," remember what He's done for
you, and let the rest come from there.
And remember the thing from the cold open,
the sacrifice is ours, not just yours.
You're not carrying your
group's surrender by yourself.
You're part of it, and so are they.
Invite them to sit on the fire with you.
If your jobs get burdensome
for groups, share them.
It's part of discipleship.
I personally, I loveâ¦
I think it's Henri Nouwen's definition
of discipleship, which is, uh, learning
to obey God in areas you'd rather not.
Give people the opportunity to obey God.
That's what we're doing here,
is we're discipling one another.
Thanks for loving your people.
If this helped, send it
to your co-leader or host.
They can also subscribe to the Leader
website, and we'll see you next week