Announcements
Students! Santi is teaching a college class on Prayer every Sundays at 10:00, during our 2nd service! The class meets in the Center for Contemporary Arts.
Also, if you are interested in attending the Dominican Republic trip this summer, the sign-up has been extended to Monday 28 @3:00pm! Contact [email protected] for more information!
We have a baptism Sunday coming up February 10th! If you are interested in getting baptized or learning more, sign up on the app!
We are having a new member class starting next Sunday, Feb. 3rd and ending the following Sunday Feb. 10th. If you are interested in learning more about The Well’s covenant membership agreement, we would love to see you in the center for contemporary arts at 10:00 am.
Theme
Drawing on content from the passages and the sermon, this week’s guide will focus on
-understanding the demands of the law
-the importance of Christ’s fulfillment of the law
-our means of attaining the righteousness that Christ prescribes in vs. 20
Key Passage
Matthew 5:17-20
Summary
In this passage, Jesus is finishing up his introduction of The Sermon on the Mount- which describes what Kingdom life looks like for his disciples. But before he dives deep into how the Messianic Kingdom can be understood in relation to the Mosaic Law, he wants to set his disciples up to understand that Jesus’ understanding of righteousness will never deviate from what was written about the Old Testament. In fact, Jesus explains that he didn’t come to do away with the law, but that the law still must be fulfilled! So he warns against his disciples diluting in any way the high demands for righteousness in the Law. Instead, he teaches exactly what the Old Testament did: that something still needs to fulfill every bit of those demands for perfect righteousness.
We will continue to see throughout the Gospel of Matthew that Jesus is the perfect fulfillment of the impossible demands of the law! Because we need perfect righteousness to be made right with God, we need Jesus’s own righteousness! We are given his own righteousness upon ourselves through the working of the Holy Spirit, because of what Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection accomplished.
Discussion Questions
Leaders, these questions are a primer for your discussion. Feel free to
- Read Galatians 3:19-22 – What was the role of the Law for the people of God? What does it mean that the “Scripture imprisoned everything under sin”? In what ways do you feel imprisoned under sin?
- Why would Jesus be accused of abolishing the law?
- Why is it necessary for the law to be fulfilled and how does Jesus fulfill it?
- How
can can we ever have a righteousness that “exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees”? (Matt. 5:20) How does Jesus enable us to obey the law? - In what ways do you tend to rely on your own works and not in Jesus’?
Responding to the Scripture
Consider suggesting some of the following ways that your group can respond to the passage:
- Pray for the Lord to transform our hearts for obedience to be delightful.
- Pray for the Spirit to soften our hearts to learn to trust in Jesus.
- Ask the Lord to renew your understanding of His Word, therefore increasing your desire to abide in it.
- Spend some time thinking about ways you try to earn your own righteousness instead of depending on Jesus. Speak to someone in the group about how you can change.
- Spend some time in prayer repenting of the ways you take Christ’s righteousness for granted. Ask the Lord to give you a heart for pursuing righteousness as a response to the good news of Christ’s work in you.