DISCUSSION GUIDES

1. Read Psalm 27 incarnationally. Where do you find yourself in this text?
2. How does Psalm 27 encourage you in fear? How does it call you to trust more fully?
3. In just a few words describe the “wicked, enemies, and armies that besiege you?”
4. Practically, how do you seek His face?
5. When you think about the face of God, what do you think about?
6. In what ways do you find yourself waiting to “see God?”
7. Why are the “pure in heart” blessed?
8. How does one become pure in heart?
9. Read Psalm 24.3-4. Describe the religious tension in internal purity (pure heart) and external purity (clean hands).
10. How do you resist the temptation in focusing your attention on the external practices of religion, vs. the internal practices of faith?
11. Whom in your life do you consider to be “pure in heart?”
12. Read Jeremiah 17.9, and then Hebrews 9.11-4. How do you see God at work in giving us pure hearts?
13. Read and reflect on Wesley’s quote regarding the “pure in heart.”
“The pure in heart” are they whose hearts God has “purified even as he is pure”; who are purified, through faith in the blood of Jesus, from every unholy affection; who, being “cleansed from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfect holiness in the” loving “fear of God.” They are, through the power of his grace, purified from pride, by the deepest poverty of spirit; from anger, from every unkind or turbulent passion, by meekness and gentleness; from every desire but to please and enjoy God, to know and love him more and more, by that hunger and thirst after righteousness which now engrosses their whole soul: so that now they love the Lord their God with all their heart, and with all their soul, and mind, and strength.
14. Where do you see God most clearly? What do you see?
15. Is it possible to see God in the darkness? If so, how so.
16. Jesus says Luke 4.16-19
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
How is the mission of Jesus being lived out today? Where does it begin?
17. Ask God for eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to love. Ask Him for a pure heart so you will see God.

1. Read Matthew 5.1-12 incarnationally. Where do you find yourself in this text?
2. Where have you experienced mercy most recently?
3. Describe the last time you extended mercy?
4. What’s the difference between justice and mercy?
5. Read and reflect on Titus 3.4-5; 1 Peer 1.3-4; Ephesians 2.4-5. How does Scripture describe God’s character?
6. For some, it is hard to believe God to be merciful. Many see God as judgmental, even angry. How do are you currently experiencing God’s mercy? Give a practical example.
7. How does receiving God’s mercy enable you to be merciful?
8. Read the story referenced on Sunday in Luke 7.36-50. The story includes this statement. “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
9. What does this truth look like in your life? How, and why are you motivated to forgive? Do you forgive little or much? How so?
10. “Mercy has the power to change the world. God’s mercy has the power to change the world, and your world.” Do you agree with this statement? How are you seeing this truth at work in your life?
11. Read Matthew 6.14-15. What is the implication of these words of Jesus? Where is this truth most difficult for you to live out today?
12. What’s the difference between a person who is “meek” and one who is “merciful.”
13. On Sunday we watched a scene from the movie Les Miserables. What’s another scene that helps you see the power of mercy at work? What’s the most personal story of mercy at work in your own life?
14. Read Psalm 103 and give God praise for His mercy and grace.

1. What is something you have learned or experienced recently that has caused you to think differently about something you already knew?
2. How have you experienced the comfort of God that Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 in your life? What does it mean to you that God is a “God of all comfort?”
3. Matthew 5:4 says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” What have you understood these words to mean in the past?
4. In reference to the second Beatitude, John Stott writes, “It is not the sorrow of bereavement to which Christ refers, but the sorrow of repentance.” How does this challenge your understanding of what Jesus is saying?
5. How does James 4:8-10 encourage us to respond to the sin in our lives? When was the last time that you wept and mourned over sin in your life?
6. How do you resonate with the story of the adulterous woman in John 8:3-11?
7. How do you fight the temptation to view sin in your life as not as bad as the sin of other people? Does our God view sin on a sliding scale from really bad, to not so bad?
8. At its core, sin separates. How is God inviting you to grieve and mourn the sin in your life that is resulting in separation from God?
9. True repentance of our sin, separates us from our sin so that God can obliterate our sin and restore us to a right relationship with Him. How does it encourage you to remember that God obliterates our sin, not us?
10. Jesus says that those who mourn will be comforted. How have you experienced the comfort of forgiveness for sin in your life?
11. Is there any sin in your life that God is inviting you to mourn and repent of? Spend some time in prayer repenting of the sin in your life, and then rejoice over the forgiveness that you have received (1 John 1:9).
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1. Read Matthew 5.1-12 incarnationally. Where do you find yourself in this text?
2. What exactly are the Beatitudes? Are we to try and live them out, take on these specific characteristics, or is there something more here that Jesus is saying? If so, what is it?
3. What was so magnetic about Jesus that large “crowds” were following Him? Give some specific examples.
4. Why do you follow Jesus? Why do you get up and attend church, come to studies, or get involved in groups? What is it that causes you to engage even in this study today?
5. Anytime Jesus saw “crowds” He was compassionate toward them. How have you personally experienced the compassion and tenderness of Jesus?
6. In your own words describe the “kingdom of heaven” that Jesus is inviting us into.
7. The best translation for the word, “blessed” is “oh, how happy.” Is the goal of Jesus that we become happy? Is there are broader invitation here? What is Jesus saying? What does His blessing mean to you?
8. Read and respond to the comments of Donald Hagner. He writes, “. . . the kingdom is presupposed as something given by God. The kingdom is declared as a reality apart from any human achievement. Thus, the beatitudes are, above all, predicated upon the experience of the grace of God. The recipients are just that, those who receive the good news.
9. Because they are poor and oppressed, they make no claim upon God for their achievements. They don’t merit God’s kingdom; they but await His mercy.”
10. According to Hagner how do we experience and live in His blessing?
11. In your own words define “poor in spirit.”
Dallas Willard and Eugene Peterson both paraphrase Matthew 5.3. Willard says, “Blessed are the spiritual zeros – the spiritually bankrupt, deprived and deficient, the spiritual beggars, those without a wisp of ‘religion – when the kingdom of the heavens comes upon them.”
Eugene Peterson paraphrases the verse this way, “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you, there is more of God and his rule.”
12. Describe a time when you have been “poor in spirit.”
13. In his book, The Reason for God Tim Keller writes,
The Christian Gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself or less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less. In what ways does this truth resonate with you? How are Keller’s words both a comfort and a challenge?
14. Father Greg Boyle wrote, “Tenderness is the highest form of spiritual maturity…The incarnation was necessary because God’s love needed to become to tender.” What, if any, is the correlation between those who are “poor in spirit” and tenderness? Describe a person in your life who is tender? How do you sense a growing tenderness in your relationship with Christ?
15. Jesus made a way for all people to be blessed, including the sinners and the saints. Many were uncomfortable with this dramatic inclusion of the kingdom. Read Luke 15.1-2 (for a deeper dive read all of Luke 15). Why did the religious have a problem with Jesus eating with “sinners?” Why is the Gospel of inclusion so challenging in our day?
16. Read 1 Corinthians 6.8-10. How do these verses challenge you, or comfort you? Now read verse 11. Where do you find yourself in this text?
17. What is one way we as a church can move toward the “hopeless blessable?” How can you personally move toward someone who feels far off from the Jesus inaugurated Kingdom?