Identity & Belonging- Where Do You Belong?

Discussion Questions:

• Why is the topic of belonging so important to our generation?
• Think about when you have felt a desire to belong, or felt you had no place you fit. What prompted it? What feelings caused/were the result of not feeling like you belonged?

Related Scriptures:

• Leviticus 25:54-55a
  • “Even if someone is not redeemed in any of these ways, they and their children are to be released in the Year of Jubilee, for the Israelites belong to me as servants…”
• 1 Kings 8:41-43
  • “As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your name- For they will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm- when they come and pray toward his temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name.”
• Malachi 2:15a
  • “Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit.”
• John 8:31-36
  • “To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’
    They answered him, ‘We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?’
    Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.'” 
• Romans 1:6
  • “And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ”
• Romans 14:8 (What it means to belong to the Lord)
  • “If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we love or die, we belong to the Lord.”
• Mark 9:41
  • “Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward”
• Mark 13:13 (How the world reacts to belonging to the Lord)
  • “Everyone will hate you because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”
• In belonging to God, we therefore belong to no person
• 1 Corinthians 9:19
  • “Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible”
• Romans 12:3-5 (How we act out belonging; what belonging really means)
  • “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many parts, these parts do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”
• 1 Corinthians 12:14-16
  • “Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
    Now if the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body.”

Further Discussion:

• What do you think it means to be a part of the Body of Christ as Paul describes it?
• Consider subcultures in the Millennial age, where every person can find a group of people with their exact interests to “belong” to. How does the concept of a body of different parts working together in their unique functions to create a functional whole compare with this approach?
• How does the popular Christian Millennial approach to selecting a church jive with this idea?
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT70cA-7qMk
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2FrYWub95o
• What expectations or responsibilities are inherent in belonging to the family of God?
• What are the rewards or benefits of belonging to the family of God?