2.8.15 | Lavish Love

Dr. Dave Whitaker | Mark 14:1-11

Your relationship with Christ is meant to be based on beauty, not benefit. So where are you in your relationship with Christ? Are you caught up in His beauty? Or are you doing cost/benefit analysis? God poured out His love lavishly the day the veil was torn. That kind of love and beauty will always transform us.

Download or listen to Lavish Love to hear more.

These questions are provided for your further study and application of this message. It is helpful to discuss your answers with others such as your Community Group, family, friends or an accountability partner.

1. What is your take away from this message?
2. How does this woman's action initially strike you? Thoughtful but misguided? Tasteful but extravagant? Wasteful but...?
3. Do you think the perfume could have been better spent? Why? If you had been one of the disciples, what would you have initially said to the woman?
4. What is Jesus really saying when he defends the action of the woman (vv. 6-9)?
5. Why was this the last straw for Judas (vv. 10-11)?
6. How does this inform your own giving? Go back to Mark 12:41-44. How does Jesus' teaching there instruct us?
7. What "beautiful thing" might you do for Jesus that might seem "wasted?" How might this story influence your giving in tithes and offerings?
8. Write out a prayer in response to what the Lord has taught you through this study and what steps in response He might want you to take.

2.1.15 | Watching and Waiting

Dr. Dave Whitaker | Mark 13:24-37

Jesus looks very different in the Second Coming. People often read it symbolically, but Jesus is speaking quite literally. It's physical, and it's personal. Be on guard. Stay awake. This doctrine is vital to the Christian faith.

Download or listen to Watching and Waiting to hear more.

These questions are provided for your further study and application of this message. It is helpful to discuss your answers with others such as your Community Group, family, friends or an accountability partner.

1. What is your take away from this message?
2. How will the Son of Man come (vv. 24-27)?
3. How does the fig tree lesson (vv. 28-29) answer the disciples' questions from v. 4 (Also 11:12-14, 20-21)?
4. What promises does Jesus give in vv. 30-31? How would this comfort (or discomfort) the disciples? What impact do these promises have on you 21 centuries later?
5. Why do you think the Father has kept the time secret (v. 32)? What is the responsibility of believers in the meantime?
6. When you see the forces of evil apparently winning, do you feel like withdrawing from the battle or rolling up your sleeves and getting into the fray? How does this passage encourage you?
7. What is the most exciting thing to you about the Second Coming? The most distressing? What questions would you ask Jesus about it?
8. Specifically, how can you follow and fulfill vv. 34-37?
9. Write out a prayer in response to what the Lord has taught you through this study and what steps in response He might want you to take.

1.25.15 | The Coming Judgment

Dr. Dave Whitaker | Mark 13:1-23

Some people are skeptical of the Second Coming. There will be rumors of war and many will claim to be the Christ. There will be famines and earthquakes; but Jesus says that is only the beginning. Be rooted in the Scriptures. Be on guard.

Download or listen to The Coming Judgment to hear more.

These questions are provided for your further study and application of this message. It is helpful to discuss your answers with others such as your Community Group, family, friends or an accountability partner.

1. What is your take away from this message?
2. Why does Jesus use the discussion about the temple to begin His discourse about the end of the age? What made the temple significant for the Jews? For the disciples?
3. What would its destruction symbolize for them?
4. After hearing this bombshell, what two questions do the disciples ask (v. 4)? What events might deceive them into thinking the end times had come (vv. 5-8)? Of what will these events be a sign?
5. After that, what things will happen to the disciples and the early church (vv. 9-13)? To governors, kinds and all nations?
6. What comfort and advocate will aid them to endure their trials?
7. What dreadful event (v. 14; Daniel 9:26; 11:31; 12:11) will bring days of distress unequalled in human history? What deceptive signs will accompany that distress (vv. 21-22)?
8. What does this teach you about God? About us?
9. Write out a prayer in response to what the Lord has taught you through this study and what steps in response He might want you to take.

1.25.15 | Jesus in Opposition

Dr. Dave Whitaker | Mark 12:35-44

Law vs. Love. The thing that makes a difference in our lives will not be the intellectual arguments or the signs. It will be encountering Jesus, Himself. If we try to save ourselves, will fail. We must rest in Him completely. What's keeping you from trusting Him?

Download or listen to Jesus in Opposition to hear more.

These questions are provided for your further study and application of this message. It is helpful to discuss your answers with others such as your Community Group, family, friends or an accountability partner.

1. What is your take away from this message?
2. What issue lies behind Jesus' question (vv. 35-37)? how will the answer to this question answer all the others directed at Jesus in 11:27-12:34?
3. How would you recognize the "strut" of those teachers of the law (vv. 38-40)? By contrast, what does the "strut" of a Christian leader look like (see 10:42-45)?
4. What is Jesus' point in contrasting their situation with that of the poor widow?
5. When is "more" actually "less?" When is a "little" a "lot?"
6. How do people use religion, especially tithing, to make themselves look good? How have you been tempted to do so?
7. Are you giving to God's work regularly? Why or why not?
8. Consider 2 Corinthians 8-9. What would you need to change to reflect the act and attitude of giving in this passage?
9. Write out a prayer in response to what the Lord has taught you through this study and what steps in response He might want you to take.