Christ Community Downtown
Joy in Selflessness- 9 & 10:45am & ON-DEMAND
CONVERSATION STARTERS
Conversation Starters help us dig deeper, connecting Sunday’s sermons with our Monday lives. These prompts have been designed to help Community Groups grow in their relationship with God, with one another, and with their neighbors. Please know that these questions are meant to be a resource to you. You do not have to follow them verbatim or get through them all. We trust you to know your group and to ask the questions based on your group needs.
1. What stood out to you from the sermon?
2. Paul says joy is found in selflessness (Philippians. 2:3-4). What’s your gut reaction to the statement that joy is found in selflessness?
3. In Philippians. 2:2, Paul asks the local church at Philippi to ‘complete [his] joy’ by being and doing particular things. What stands out to you about the things he names and why?
4. Out of a desire to participate with the Spirit (Philippians 2:1), how can you embody this call to serve others in your house, workplace, and community group?
PRAYER PROMPT
Pray that the Holy Spirit would give us conviction, and that we would courageously partner with God's Spirit, to give up our rights and serve those in our lives this week.
Philippians 2:1-11 ESV
Title: Joy in Selflessness
Scripture: Philippians 2:1-11
Speaker: Gabe Coyle, GabeC@ChristCommunityKC.org
Bucket #1: You cannot be full of joy and full of self.
"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
- C.S. Lewis, Four Loves
Bucket #2: Emptying yourself for others’ joy is the way to be full of joy.
“The real humiliation of the incarnation and the cross is that who was himself God, and who never during the whole process stopped being God, could embrace such a vocation.” - N.T. Wright
“The implication is not that Christ, by becoming incarnate, exchanged the form of God for the form of a slave, but that he manifested the form of God in the form of a slave.” - FF Bruce
“The concern is divine selflessness: God is not… grasping and seizing, but self-giving for the sake of others.” - Gordon Fee