10th October 2010

Cell Questions

Keep Feeding It

We are continuing our series on Finding Freedom looking at Jesus’ final journey travelling from Galilee to his execution in Jerusalem. This final journey in Luke’s Gospel is called the Travel narrative and in it Jesus tells some of his key stories, teaching on how we can grow into the children of God who will be trained to rule and reign in the new heavens and earth.

We have looked in the past weeks about how we need to learn to love our neighbour, whoever it is and to see that God is not a remote being who doesn’t want to listen to us; last week we looked at how possessions can take a hold over us and stop our “soul growth”.

This week we looked at a more subtle influence on us. When some people come and tell Jesus about an atrocity that Pilate has perpetrated they expect Jesus to condemn Pilate and then go and say something about the coming Kingdom that will kick out the Roman occupation and restore true worship. He doesn’t.

Jesus tackles them to look behind the headlines. To look at their own hearts, not that Pilate is good or right (he wasn’t), but that it’s easy to want to get rid of the irritant facing us. The problem is that very often the problem lies with us and our attitudes. So he tells them a parable.

There is a contrast between the man who wants to dig up the unfruitful tree and the gardener who says it needs help (manure) to assist it to grow. This mimics our own view of problems all too often. We can find it all too easy to want direct action to solve a problem rather than helping to change the environment. So we may often want to avoid people who we find difficult to get on with, or we leave a cell group or even church because of someone’s behaviour towards us. Jesus says instead of looking to cut down the relationship look to fertilize it. Invest in looking at the person and valuing them and seeing the best in them. When you do you will often find that it’s your own outlook that is the problem!

Read Luke 13:1-9

1. What most struck you about the sermon or the reading?

2. How do you react to a problem? Are you the type who just wants to “sort it” or the type of person who puts it in the bottom drawer? What are the dangers of both these reactions?

3. Have you had experience of an “unfruitful” ministry in church? What happened to it? What is the risk of just continuing a ministry that is unfruitful?

4. Will talked about VDP’s (standing for Very Difficult Person) and how we deal with them. Do you have a “favourite” VDP? How do you deal with them? How is God challenging you to deal with them and how do you believe that you could deal with them better?

5. What fruit would you like to see being produced in your life in the coming year?