Small Group Guide“The Delight of the Church”

1 Timothy 4:1-5

Message Summary

In 1 Timothy 4:1-5, Paul calls the church to be a distinctively thankful people. As we consider the idea of joy and delight, we remember that:

Our God is a happy God. The birth of Jesus signaled the arrival of great joy for all the people. The hallmarks of the Kingdom of God are righteousness, peace, and joy. Our message to the world is good news.

As 1 Timothy 4:1-5 demonstrates, there are enemies of delight, which we must guard against, and in the context of Ephesus, which was the church Timothy pastored at the time of Paul’s writing, asceticism had been added to the gospel. False teachers in the Ephesian church were encouraging the avoidance of pleasure, particularly the pleasures of food and of marriage, in order to be “more holy,” and, therefore, they were rejecting good gifts that God gives for our enjoyment.

The ultimate enemy of our delight is sin, which is a deceptive, temporary delight that blocks our view of Christ. However, sin is deceptive and often makes us feel as though God does not want us to be happy. But Jesus did not come to take our joy away. He came to take our sin away and to give us true life, abundant life. God is not anti-pleasure, but He is against deceptive, sinful pleasure.

In light of these truths, we should discern the doctrine of creation and understand that our desires and appetites are distorted by sin. What God declared good in Genesis 1 has been affected by the Fall, and we must examine Scripture and discern how to rightly enjoy His creation. We should also guard the grace of the gospel and not become more spiritual than the Bible, and lastly, we should receive God’s gifts with thankfulness. It brings God glory when we delight in His gifts with gratitude for the One Who created them.

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Discussion & Application Questions

After briefly reviewing the message summary, use these questions to further examine the sermon and to discuss how these truths apply to daily life, so we can “be doers of the word, and not hearers only” (Jas. 1:22). Based on your knowledge of the people in your small group, select the questions that will best help you frame the group’s discussion of this sermon and sermon text.

A Biblical Primer on Joy and Delight

1. How do you see the joy of God evident in His creation?2. Read Zephaniah 3:17. How can you apply the truth of this passage, that the God of the

universe rejoices over His people with singing, to your life today? How should it shape the way we interact as Christ-followers with each other and with the world?

3. If people in your home or at work were asked to describe you, would the word “joy” come up? Why or why not?

4. How can a life marked by joy be an effective witness to those without Christ? 5. Is it possible to have joy in the midst of depression or hardship? How so? Will you share

an example from your personal experience?6. How can delight in Christ be eclipsed by a delight in our own efforts? How can you fight

against this tendency in your life?7. Application: Passages like Psalm 16 are helpful when preaching the gospel to yourself

or when rejoicing in the character of God. Pick a passage to memorize this week, and be prepared to report back to the group how God used meditating on that passage to grow your joy in Him.

The Enemies of Delight

8. How can adding extra commands to Scripture be just as dangerous as disobeying its commands?

9. What is asceticism, and how does it oppose the truth of the gospel? What could it look like practically in your life?

10. How does a wrong view of God’s gifts lead to idolatry?11. Application: Can you identify what it is with which you struggle to keep submitted to the

Lordship of Christ? Ask a member of the group to keep you accountable in fighting to keep that item or area from being an idol this week. Share with them the next steps you will take to exalt God over that idol in your life this week.

12. What does discontentment around what God has not given us reveal about our hearts? What does it say about what we really believe we deserve or what we believe about the extent of God’s goodness?

13. How do we thoughtfully discern whether or not our desires and emotions are in line with what God has deemed good for us to enjoy? What should we do when they are out of line with what God has said is good and true?

14. How is sin the ultimate enemy of your joy?15. How has sin robbed you of your joy in Christ?16. Application: How will you fight sin and pursue joy in Christ this week? Ask someone in

your group to keep you accountable in this. Pray for joy in Christ instead of seeking temporary pleasure in that sin.

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The Friends of Delight

17. Why do you think people tend to view Christianity as a joyless religion? How would you respond to that view?

18. How does our attitude towards what God has created open doors to reveal His character to the world? How can our response when God takes things away from us be a witness to the world?

19. How do your God-given talents and abilities provide you with an opportunity to reflect the image of God?

20. How can we see and rejoice in the character of God in art, music, and nature?21. How can expressing joy in what God has created be used as a springboard into gospel

conversations?22. Application: Use a conversation about the good gifts God has given you or how He has

worked in your life as an opportunity to share the goodness of God with a lost coworker, friend, etc.

23. Can you think of some examples of an unnecessary rejection of good gifts that God has created for us to enjoy? What does that communicate about what we believe about God or about our relationship with Him?

24. From Scripture, what does God delight in? How can we follow Him by delighting in those things?

25. Application: Part of delighting in God is delighting in what He delights in. Now, think about the local and global church. Are you delighting in God’s people by serving God’s people? If not, prayerfully consider where you can begin to serve locally or globally. Then share with your group those next steps you are prayerfully considering!

Things to Consider

If you have people in your group who did not hear the sermon, read the sermon text (1 Timothy 4:1-5) together and briefly summarize the main points of the sermon. Recapping the sermon text and sermon outline can also be a helpful way to start the group, even if everyone did hear the sermon.

In Romans 1:25, Paul reminds us that, without Christ, our sinful hearts are inclined to reject the Creator and to worship His creation instead. This is the core of idolatry - that we would worship ourselves or the created objects of this world instead of the God Who made them. As believers, we have the opportunity show the world that the good gifts of creation we experience on this earth actually point to God, and doing this brings God great glory.

With this in mind, as a group list list good gifts that God has given us to enjoy. Discuss what that gift teaches us about God or how it causes us to worship God. Examples include:

The church (participation in God’s mission, both locally and globally) Relationships (marriage, singleness, friends, family, children, etc.) Provisions (work, money, house, etc.) Music/Art Spiritual gifts or talents

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Next, discuss how our hearts tend to make an idol out of those gifts or how we tend to find our identity in them. Ask the group how can we take steps towards obeying and worshiping God this week by rightfully enjoying His gifts (maybe identify one gift in particular to do this with)? How can we use that gift to relate to the lost world around us? Direct the group to focus on practical steps that can be followed up on next week during group time.

Finally, spend some in prayer, exalting God for evidences of His grace in the lives of your group members. Praise Him for what He has given and what He has taken away. Pray for a renewed mind towards delighting in Him and for opportunities to point an unbelieving world towards the Creator.

Weekly Prayer Focus

Pray for Our Church: Praise God for all of the many gifts He has given us to delight in. Ask God to develop within each of us a greater joy found in Him. Pray our happiness in God will serve to challenge the standards of happiness in our

world and will point others to the ultimate delight that can be found in God alone.

Pray for Our City: Pray for the International Friendship Partner Program, a community partnership through

which Brook Hills members and others in the community can be paired with international students at local colleges and universities to extend hospitality and engage in a friendly cultural exchange.

Pray for Iron City Church and Pastor Kameron Pugh.

Pray for Our World: Pray for Brook Hills field partners in Northern India, whom we have been strategically

partnering with to reach the thousands of unreached people groups living in urgent physical and spiritual need.

Praise God that we are seeing fruit across the northern plains of India as people are believing and churches are being planted.

Pray for the continual spread of the gospel and that people will continue to turn to Christ in India.

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