Announcements
- Membership Class- We have a membership class starting on April 28th for those interested in becoming covenant members of The Well. The class will be meeting in the CCA @ 10am. https://thewellabilene.ccbchurch.com/goto/forms/66/responses/new
- Senior Sendoff- If you are a college senior!!! We will be having a senior send-off May 5th at 6:30 pm. Let us celebrate your time in college and in our church by sending you off with some tacos and some fun! Please fill out the form on the app so we know how many students will be attending: https://thewellabilene.ccbchurch.com/goto/forms/65/responses/new
Objectives
- Examining the different implications of Christ’s authority as the Messiah.
- Reflecting on Jesus’ healing power over the consequences of sin.
Key Passages
Matthew 7:28 – 8:4
Summary
The sentence after Jesus famous Sermon on The Mount explains that the crowd’s reaction was amazement, particularly because Jesus’s teaching seemed to have an authority that their religious teachers and leaders did not.
Jesus’ first miracle following The Sermon on The Mount was the healing of a leper. Although crowds followed Jesus down the mountain, Jesus told the leper not to tell anyone how he had been healed. Instead, Jesus said that the leper’s proof would be his offering of “the gift that Moses commanded.”
Helpful Resources for Leaders
This passage is the beginning of the theme of Christ’s authority from God that the author of Matthew will continue to address in the following verses:
Matthew 8:9; 9:6, 8; 10:1; 21:23-24, 27; 28:18
Sample Questions
Feel free to use or reword the questions below that you think will be most helpful to meet the objectives above. Remember, these questions should ultimately cultivate discussion of ways to respond to or apply what the Holy Spirit has revealed to us through Scripture.
- How were Jesus’ message and delivery different than the Jewiish scribes?
- How will our witness to Jesus change if we know him as the Messiah rather than just another religious teacher? (hint: how did Jesus actually fulfill the Scriptures?)
- What areas of your life do you need to acknowledge Christ as having complete authority over?
- What earthly “authorities” are you most tempted to submit to above Christ?
- How do you desire to submit your life more fully to his authority alone?
- How do the social and physical results of leprosy show a glimpse of the consequences of all sin?
- Reflect on and share ways that Jesus has reached out to heal and cleanse you of pain in your life that socially ostracised you.
- Likewise, how are we to witness to Jesus’ healing power amidst the brokenness of humanity?
Sample Responses
Either in smaller groups or as a whole GC:
- Read the following verses as a group discussing Jesus’ authority throughout the rest of Matthew, and respond in prayer of repentance and worship:
- Matthew 8:9; 9:6, 8; 10:1; 21:23-24, 27; 28:18