Key Thought: “Quit waiting for people to fully understand you.Live your life, and be grateful for those who try to walk your path with you.” – Pastor Bil Cornelius
Start talking. Find a conversation starter for your group.
● Name some of the hardest temptations we have to overcome in our society.
● What major differences are there between being on a good versus a bad team?
● Name some of the best teams you can think of. What makes them great in your eyes?
● Who is a friend or family member you can always count on?
Start thinking. Ask a thoughtful question.
● Pastor Bil said, “No one will go farther than you will on your own path.” How does this change your expectation of others to fully understand what you’re going through?
● What did Pastor Bil mean by “Never look to the pain, look through the pain?”
● Why is it important to have a reliable support system?
● Take a moment and examine your current life, is there an area where you’re taking your eyes off Jesus and putting them on another person instead? How can you change that?
Start sharing. Choose questions that create openness.
● If you focus through your agony, what might God have for you on the other side of that pain?
● In what areas of your life have you acted in fear and not faith? How can you begin to act in faith?
● Have you walked through anything difficult that you can now look back and see how God used it for good? How does this encourage you for future hard times?
● Share a time when you went through something all alone, then discuss how you think it might have been different if you had a team around you when it happened.
Start praying. Be bold, and pray with power.
Dear Jesus, thank you for taking a crushing in our place. You were thinking of us in the garden and on the cross, and for that we are thankful. You were thinking of us in the garden and on the cross, and we are thankful. Help us to live in faith and not focus on the agony, but through the agony. We know you have a plan for us, and we believe that the suffering of today is nothing compared to what you have for us in the future. In your precious name. Amen.
Start doing. Commit to a step and live it out this week.
● Commit to getting at least one person in your life into a LifeGroup now, before they go through something alone.
● Take time to list out your “Group of Twelve,” and let them know what they mean to you. Share how they have been your “team” in the hard times of life.
● Pray for each other in your LifeGroup to focus through your agony rather than on it. Our agony can be used by God to prepare us for something greater.
● Write out the area where you have focused too much on the agony and too little on Jesus and then, as a group, pray over that area each morning for the next week.
Scriptures
Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Matthew 26:36-38 NIV
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matthew 26:39-41 NIV
He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. Matthew 26:42-44 NIV
And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Luke 22:44 KJV
Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!” Matthew 26:45-46 NIV
“...the Son of Man…came to give his life as the price for setting many people free.” Mark 10:45 NIrV
But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:5 ESV
