Snapshots of Heaven (Week 1)
In this Easter series, we’re exploring the implications of Jesus’s four predictions of His death in Matthew. Each of Jesus’s predictions offers us a unique window – a snapshot – not just of the crucifixion but also the also the Kingdom of Heaven!
Warm-Up: What is a time in your life when you thought you were right, or you were almost completely right, but you were in fact wrong?
Read Matthew 16:13-20
1. How is Peter only mostly right here?
2. Why do you think Jesus ordered his disciples not to tell anyone he was the Messiah in verse 20?
Read Matthew 16:21-23
3. How does Jesus’s rebuke of Peter here reflect Peter’s (and, most likely, the others disciples’) misunderstanding of Jesus’s identity?
Read Matthew 16:24-27
4. What does it look like for you to “deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus”?
5. In his sermon, Shawn said that “if you want to be content in life, if you want fulfillment, if you want your soul to be full, you find it by sacrifice.” How is this antithetical to the way of the world?
6. How can you, as a follower of Jesus, model this upside-down way of being in the context of your life? How can you help each other in this?
(*Video available after Sunday services)
