Small Group Notes for 26th April 2026
N.B. Sermon can be heard via our website and YouTube channel and the Paper Service version is on our website: https://parishofmedsteadandfourmarks.co.uk/online-church/paper-services/
Read and Reflect: James 1:9-18 and Matthew 6:5-15
Questions:
- Having encouraged us to remain steadfast during the many trials of life, James, gives us an example of one these ‘many trials’, poverty and wealth.
- Do we think of both poverty and wealth as trials?
- In what way is wealth a trial, a test?
- And, how do we stay clear of the pitfalls of wealth?
- Temptations are among the trials that beset us, and there are severe consequences for failure.
- What disciplines have we got, could we have, to avoid the pitfalls of temptations we face?
- James points us to a glorious vision of God as one response to temptation. What vision of God have we got and how can we both maintain and expand this?
- James then reminds us that those who persevere will receive the ‘crown’ of life.’ Additionally, and in contrast to the withering flowers, James tells us that we will be a ‘kind of first fruits’, that is set apart, and holy. James regularly, like Jesus’ direct teaching, reminds us to have a clear and healthy vision of all that’s ahead of us. (See Matthew 6:33 and Hebrews 12:1-3, as just couple of examples).
- How do we maintain this clear and healthy future perspective in a here and now obsessed world?