Small group comments

Some notes from an email to my small group...
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Matt Chandler has a great sermon series on the cross, more practical than the things that we talked about yesterday. It helped me to do a lot of introspection, ask myself hard question that helped me to understand where I am in my walk with God.
The Cross Part 1 - Glory Thieves
The Cross Part 2 - A Response to Thievery
The Cross Part 3 - A Second Response to Thievery
The Cross Part 4 - Vocabulary of the Cross
The Cross Part 5 - Of First Importance
The Cross Part 6 - Standing

- Dig Deeper:
We got into some complex topics yesterday, and I think it is good that we are opening our eyes to who God is, what Jesus work, life, death and resurrection means, and hopefully understand that there is more to God that we can ever comprehend in our mortal life. My purpose was not to teach you or pretend that you were going to understand a lot of what I talked (I am still learning and understanding), but to put it out in the table to hopefully awaken the curiosity in you to want to know more about these topics. The following are some resources that might help you out.

Jesus died to reveal God
Death by Love

There are many more good resources on the doctrines of Atonement, Propitiation, Regeneration, Penal Substitution, Ransom and ultimately that Jesus died to reveal to us God. The Cross is a beautiful Joule with many sides! Let me know if you want me to point you to some of these resources.

- Tough Questions: "Does God really send people to hell?"
We also touched a topic on Predestination even though I was not planning to head there. This is a topic that I am not trained to talk about (though I am for predestination) but I know that it need not divide churches or Christians, but need to be treated as discussion topic and a secondary issue. The next are different sermons on predestination and a small book by C.J. Mahaney on Election, the one I like the most is the Mark Driscoll one because he does a great introduction on the history and the different views of this doctrine.

Mark Driscoll
Predestination: Duck, Duck, Damned? (mp3)
Notes from Vox pop network (Website)

John Piper
Called according to His purpose (mp3)

Duane Smets
Suffering and the Glory of God - Part VI(Need iTunes)

C.J. Mahaney
Sovereign Grace and the Glorious Mystery of Election (14 Page Free Book PDF)