Kingdom Longings
Exploring how God meets the longings of people in scripture.
Discussion
▸ How would you describe longings? What are a few things you long for today?
Big Idea: Sin
Every week, we will touch on a big idea that will lead our discussion for our time together. Today we will talk about our longings and how sin is connected to it.
Longings exist because there is a gap between the Kingdom of God and our current reality. The bigger the gap is, the bigger the longing (see Fig. A).
Our coping mechanisms to meet these longings are what we traditionally think of as “sin behavior.” However, our sin behavior is actually meeting our legitimate needs or longings in an illegitimate way. We must dig deeper to understand our sin and longings. Simply put, sin is finding life where there is no life.
▸ How does this definition of sin change how you think about sin?
When the first humans ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it resulted in two major consequences.
First, the natural consequence of eating the fruit is death which was resolved when Jesus defeated sin and death on the cross.
The second consequence came as a result of
the type of fruit that they ate - the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. With this, they became judges in their own minds, deciding what was right and wrong and what was best for their own lives. As a result, they began to find life where there is no life.
Sin is not simply missing the mark of perfection, but is a symptom of a bigger problem. It’s not just about the sin behavior, but the root issue that leads to that behavior.
If we were to compare our sin to a tree (Fig. B), the roots are what we worship, the trunk are the lies that we believe, the branches are where we find life where there is no life, and the fruit is the sin behavior. Therefore sin behavior is only what we see at the surface, but much deeper are lies that we believe, finding life where there is no life, and worshiping things we were never meant to worship.
Focusing on sin behavior can leave us feeling guilty and hopeless.
The solution isn’t simply focusing on the behavior that makes us believe God to be a stodgy old man with a list of rules, but rather, addressing the lies that we believe and replacing them with what God says is true, this requires us to trust God as the judge rather than ourselves. This is called faith and it completely undoes the second problem.
Activity
Today we will look at a story in the Bible and walk through a few questions that will help us practice seeing the world through this lens of longing and kingdom. See the next page for an example passage.
▸ Read Chosen Passage
LONGING
We want to understand what the person longs for, but the text might not come right out and say it. We must look at the clues.
▸ What are some clues that might point to the person’s longings?
▸ Their longings are probably complex, but if you could sum up their longings in one word, what word would you pick?
LIES
▸ What are the lies that the person believes about themselves, about other people, or about God that causes them to find life where there
is no life?
COPING MECHANISM
▸ How do they cope?
KINGDOM SOLUTION
▸ What is the truth and good news that Jesus reveals to them that meets their longings? The good news needs to match the longing.
▸ What change do we see in the person’s life as a result of believing this truth?
PERSONAL REFLECTION
▸ How do you relate with this person’s longings?
Next Week
▸ Pick a movie as a group and watch it before next week’s discussion.
Choose a movie with good character development. Consider movies that have deeply impacted someone in the group, or a movie someone has been wanting to watch!