Facing Temptation

Today we are going to be talking about temptation and as part of that discussion we are going to be talking about the devil.  Now we are doing that because he is one of the two main characters in the Bible story that we will be looking at today.  But I know that some of you are not comfortable with a lot of talk about the devil.  Also, in a

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group of this size, there likely several of you who do not even believe that the devil exists as a real person.  But what I am hoping that we can have a conversation, and what I am concerned about is that, if you don’t believe that the devil exists as a person, you will automatically dismiss everything that I have to say and you won’t get any benefit out of the words that I will be sharing today. So can we agree that there is evil in the world?  Let’s list some things that are evil:  Hitler – evil, cancer – evil, suicide bombers – evil, Boston Bruins – evil?  Totally evil!  So if we can agree that there is evil in the world, perhaps we can think about the way that evil influences people and draws them in and that, after all, is what temptation is really all about.  And what I hope to do today is share with you the Good News that Jesus can help you when you are facing temptation.

King’s Cross by Timothy Keller – Introduction & Chapter 1 – The Dance

Opening prayer

Opening Question What do you hope to gain from studying this book?

Small Group Covenant

Read  the italicized passages of Scripture in Chapter 1.

Questions

1. Mark starts off his gospel with, “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  What is the significance of those words?
2. What difference does it make if the Gospel of Mark “…is almost certainly the eyewitness testimony of Peter” (p. xiii)?
3. Do you think that the Bible is a book that understands you?  If yes, how? (see pp. xv-xvi)
4. How does Mark’s account of the Baptism of Jesus point back to the creation of the world?
5. Author Tim Keller notes that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are all present both at creation, and Jesus’ Baptism (which is the beginning of God’s project of redeeming the world).  Then he asks “But why is it important that creation and redemption are both products of a Trinity, one God in three persons?” (p. 5)  How would you answer his question?
6. “You’re glorifying something when you find it beautiful for what it is in itself.  Its beauty compels you to adore it, to have your imagination captured by it….  And when it’s a person you find beautiful in that way, you want to serve them unconditionally.” (pp. 6-7) What is the difference between serving someone unconditionally and serving someone because you get some benefit from it or because it meets a need you have?
7. Describe the relationship the Father, the Son and the Spirit have with each other.  (see pp. 7-8)
8. Who God is has huge implications for the meaning and purpose of human life.  What difference does it make to the meaning and purpose of life to have a God of three persons dancing around each other in mutual self-giving love? (see pp. 9-10)
9. If we enter the divine dance with the Trinity, we immediately enter a battleground.  Describe that battleground.
10. Adam and Eve did not obey God about the tree.  Jesus did. What difference does that make to us in our battleground?

Closing Prayer

King’s Cross by Timothy Keller – Chapter 2 – The Call

Opening prayer

Read  the italicized passages of Scripture in Chapter 2.

Questions

1. In verse 15, Jesus says, “Repent and believe the good news!”  What does it mean to repent?
2. What does the term “gospel” mean?
3. Timothy Keller writes, “The essence of other religions is advice; Christianity is essentially news” (p. 15).  What is the significance for us of that distinction?
4. What is the good news of the kingdom of God (pp. 16-17)?
5. In the diagram below, the horizontal axis refers to how people understand Christianity, as advice or good news.  The vertical axis refers to the fervency with which one believes.  What is the difference between being in the top left corner of the top left quadrant and being in the top right corner of the top right quadrant?
6. In the diagram above, where does Jesus call his followers to be?
7. Where does the world want us to be on the vertical axis?
8. How was Jesus’ authority different from that of other teachers?
9. Describe what effect Jesus’ authority had on his listeners.
10. Timothy Keller writes, “The path Jesus takes you on may look like it’s taking you to one dead end after another.  Nevertheless, the thread does not work in reverse.  If you just obey Jesus and follow it forward, it will do its work” (p. 24).  Can you think of a time in your own life when you experienced this?
11. In closing, read the last paragraph of the chapter (pp. 24-25).

Closing Prayer

King’s Cross by Timothy Keller – Chapter 3 – The Healing

Opening prayer

Read  the italicized passages of Scripture in Chapter 3.

Questions

1. On p. 28, Timothy Keller writes “If someone says to you, ‘The main problem in your life is not what’s happened to you, not what people have done to you; your main problem is the way you’ve responded to that’—ironically that’s empowering.” Why is that empowering?
2. What is the main problem of the paralyzed man in chapter 2 of Mark’s Gospel?
3. Keller writes that the following statement from Cynthia Heimel took his breath away: “I think when God wants to play a really rotten practical joke on you, he grants your deepest wish” (p. 29). What is your response to that statement?
4. According to the Bible, what is our real problem (p. 30)?  What does that look like?
5. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C. S. Lewis describes how a selfish, mean boy named Eustace discovers a dragon’s treasure and becomes one himself.  Not until he allows the great lion Aslan to use his claws to remove the dragon scales was Eustace able to successfully shed his dragonish nature and become a boy again.  If Aslan is Jesus and we are Eustace, what is Lewis describing?
6. When Jesus forgave the paralyzed man’s sins, the teachers of the law became upset and said to themselves, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?”  Were they right?  Please explain your answer.
7. Jesus asks the question, “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take up your mat, and walk’?”  How would you answer that question? Why?
8. Does Jesus have the power to give us what we want?
9. What does he give us instead?
10. Read the last two paragraphs of chapter 3.  What do we really need?

Closing Prayer

King’s Cross by Timothy Keller – Chapter 4 – The Rest

Opening prayer

Read the italicized passages of Scripture in Chapter 4.

Questions

1. On p. 37, Timothy Keller writes “Jesus declares not that he has come to reform religion but that he’s here to end religion and replace it with himself.”  What thoughts went through your mind when you first read that passage?
2. When Jesus encountered a man with a shrivelled hand in the synagogue on the Sabbath, why did Jesus become angry with the religious leaders?
3. Keller describes religion as relating to God by being good.  What are some of the various ways that religions say we can draw close to God (p. 39)?
4. For Keller, the main difference between religion and Christianity is that religion is advice (about what you can do to get closer to God) and Christianity is news (what Jesus has already done to bring you close to God).  As a result, there is big difference between how religion and Christianity view the law (p. 41).  In your own words, how would you describe that difference?
5. How is Jesus our Sabbath (pp. 42-43)?
6. What is the significance of Jesus referring to himself as “I am”?  How was Jesus’ teaching centred in his identity?
7. Timothy Keller includes this quote from N. T. Wright: [Christianity] is either the most devastating discourse of the deepest reality of the world, or it is a sham, a nonsense, a bit of deceitful playacting. Most of us, unable to cope with saying either of those things, condemn ourselves to live in the shallow world in between” (p. 45). Which of these three options describes the world in which you live?
8. How is the gospel of Jesus Christ an offense to both religion and moralism, on the one hand, and irreligion and relativism, on the other (p. 46)?
9. Why don’t “righteous” people need Jesus?
10. How does Jesus make it possible for us to rest from religion forever?

Closing Prayer

King’s Cross by Timothy Keller – Chapter 5 – The Power

Opening prayer

Read the italicized passages of Scripture in Chapter 5.

Questions

1. How is the “irrelevant detail” in Mark’s Gospel (like when he mentions that there are other boats nearby the boat that Jesus is in and that Jesus is asleep on a cushion) serve as evidence that Mark is giving us Peter’s first-hand account of those actual events (pp. 49-50)?
2. When Jesus commanded the storm to be still, he did not call upon the name of a higher power.  He simply commanded the storm himself.  What does this say about Jesus and power?
3. Why is it comforting for us to know that Jesus is the Lord of the storm (p. 52)?
4. Do we, like the disciples, sometimes think that if God really loved me he wouldn’t allow me to go through this storm? What is the truth about God, his love and the storms we experience?
5. Why were the disciples more terrified in the calm than they were in the storm (pp. 53-54)?
6. Timothy Keller includes this quote from Elisabeth Elliot, “God is God, and since he is God, he is worthy of my worship and my service.  I will find rest nowhere else but in his will, and that will is necessarily infinitely, immeasurably, unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what he is up to” (54).  How does being in God’s will comfort us when we are in the middle of a storm?
7. Timothy Keller writes “People who believe more must not be hard on those who believe less.”   What reason does he give?  If we applied his statement to our lives, what would that look like?
8. Where do we go for faith?
9. How does the account of Jesus and the storm parallel the account of Jonah and the storm?
10. When we are facing our own personal storms, how does it help to have the image of Jesus facing the ultimate storm on the cross burned into the core of our being?

Closing Prayer

King’s Cross by Timothy Keller – Chapter 6 – The Waiting

Opening prayer

Read the italicized passages of Scripture in Chapter 6.

Questions

1. Has there ever been a time when you had to wait a long time for something?  What was that like for you?
2. How would you define patience?  How do we learn patience?
3. What feelings and thoughts were likely running through Jairus’s mind as he approached Jesus?  How do you think he felt when Jesus agreed to go with him to see his dying daughter?
4. Why is Jesus so concerned about finding out who touched him?
5. Timothy Keller writes “If you go to Jesus, he may ask of you more than you originally planned to give, but he can give to you infinitely more than you dared ask or think.”  What does he mean by that statement?  What do you think of that statement?
6. What do you think happened to Jairus’s thoughts and emotions when Jesus stopped to talk to the woman?
7. Why do we get anxious when God’s timing is different than ours?  Can you think of an experience in the past when God’s timing was different from yours?  What was the end result?
8. Why does Jesus say that Jairus’s daughter, who is dead, is just sleeping?  What does the way that Jesus approached Jairus’s daughter mean for us in our lives?
9. How does trusting Jesus help us to wait for his timing?
10. Close by reading the last four paragraphs of Chapter 6 (pp. 68-69).

Closing Prayer

King’s Cross by Timothy Keller – Chapter 7 – The Stain

Opening prayer

Read the italicized passages of Scripture in Chapter 7.

Questions

1. What was the idea behind the cleanliness laws (p. 71)?
2. Timothy Keller writes “Jesus couldn’t have agreed more with the religious leaders about the fact that we are unclean before God, unfit for the presence of God.  But he disagreed with them about the source of the uncleanness, and about how to address it” (p. 72). According to Jesus, what is the source of our uncleanness and how does it need to be addressed?
3. Timothy Keller describes our world today when he says, “… we live in a world now where we don’t believe in judgment, we don’t believe in sin, and yet we still feel that there’s something wrong with us” (p. 73).  Why do we have this lingering feeling that there is something wrong with us come from?
4. Have you ever felt that feeling?  What are some ways that we try to overcome that feeling?
5. What is the source of our uncleanness (pp. 74-76)?
6. Jesus says that trying to address that sense of uncleanness through external measure is impossible (p. 76).  What are some examples of that futility?  Describe how we sometimes see this happening even in Christian ministry.
7. What were some of the preparations that the High Priest went through before and during the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, so that he would be clean as he represents the people to God?
8. Zechariah 3:1-4b reads, “¹Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. ² The LORD said to Satan, “The LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?” ³ Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. ⁴ The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.”  What does the Lord’s vision to Zechariah say about us?
9. In verses 4b, 8b and 9b the Lord says to Joshua,  “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put fine garments on you.”… I am going to bring my servant, the Branch… ‘and I will remove the sin of this land in a single day.  How did God do this through a second Joshua?  What kind of a reversal of fortune did he experience to take away our stain?
10. In closing, read the last two paragraphs of the chapter.

Closing Prayer

King’s Cross by Timothy Keller – Chapter 8 – The Approach

Opening prayer

Read the italicized passages of Scripture in Chapter 8.

Questions

1. Think of a time when you met someone very important.  How did you approach that person?
2. When the Syrophoenecian woman begs Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter, he replies, “First let the children eat all they want for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”  According to Timothy Keller (p. 87) what is Jesus doing and saying here?
3. The woman replies, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”  What is she doing and saying here (pp. 88-89)?  How would you describe the way that she is approaching Jesus?
4. Biblical scholar James Edwards says, “…the woman is the first person in Mark to hear and understand a parable of Jesus….  That she answers Jesus from “within” the parable, that is, in the terms by which Jesus addressed her, indicates that she is the first person in the Gospel to hear  the word of Jesus to her” (p. 89).  What message is God trying to communicate to us when an unclean foreigner “gets” Jesus’ message before his disciples and God’s chosen people do?
5. Who are we in Jesus’ parable, the children or the puppies?  Why?
6. Timothy Keller makes the point that it is just as much a rejection of God’s love to refuse his mercy because your sins are so great as it is to refuse his mercy because you think you don’t need it (p. 90).  What do you think?
7. There are other times when a personal encounter with Jesus seems accidental.  And yet Jesus still shows love and mercy.  How do Jesus’ actions communicate that he identifies with the deaf and mute man?  How does Jesus identify with us?
8. The word Mark uses to describe “deaf and hardly talk” refers us to Isaiah 35.  How does Jesus come with the divine retribution described in Isaiah 35?
9. Keeping Isaiah 35 in mind, when Jesus heals the deaf and the blind, what does that indicate?
10. Close by reading the last paragraph of the chapter and Isaiah 35.

¹ The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, ² it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the LORD,
the splendor of our God.

³ Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;
⁴ say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you.”

⁵ Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
⁶ Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.
⁷ The burning sand will become a pool,
the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

⁸ And a highway will be there;
it will be called the Way of Holiness;
it will be for those who walk on that Way.
The unclean will not journey on it;
wicked fools will not go about on it.
⁹ No lion will be there,
nor any ravenous beast;
they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there,
¹⁰ and those the LORD has rescued will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Closing Prayer

King’s Cross by Timothy Keller – Chapter 9 – The Turn

Opening prayer

Read the italicized passages of Scripture in Chapter 9.

Questions

1. According to Timothy Keller, what are the two things that Jesus says in Chapter 8 of Mark’s Gospel?
2. The Jews of the first century were expecting the Messiah to come, but a Messiah who came to suffer was not only unexpected, it was hard to comprehend.  Why did Jesus’ followers not understand when he said that he must suffer and die?
3. Timothy Keller speaks of a personal necessity, a legal necessity and a cosmic necessity that moved Jesus to willingly suffer and die.  In your own words, what is the personal necessity for Jesus’ suffering and death (pp. 98-100)?
4. How does the security of Jesus’ love enable us to need less and love more?
5. What is the legal necessity for Jesus’ suffering and death (p. 100-101)?
6. How does what Jesus did for us on the cross move us to “pay the price” we need to pay to forgive others?
7. What was the cosmic necessity for Jesus’ suffering and death (pp. 101-103)?
8. How does Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross take away our fear of death?  What difference does that make in our lives?
9. Timothy Keller writes “Once you see the Son of God loving you like that, [suffering and dying on the cross,] once you are moved by that viscerally and existentially, you begin to get a strength, an assurance, a sense of your own value and distinctiveness that is not based on what you are doing or whether somebody loves you, whether you’ve lost weight or how much money you’ve got.  You’re free—the old approach to identity is gone” (p. 105).  In your own words, describe how our identity becomes rooted in Christ instead of performance or people-pleasing.
10. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34).  Describe the cross that we pick up as we begin life in the kingdom of God.
11. Close by reading the last 2 paragraphs of Chapter 9.

Closing Prayer