J-Curve Session 11: (Pastor Matt Carter, Chapter 11 Revisited)

Class Description: Session 11, Chapter 11

Chapter 11: A Cascade of Love: Weaving J Curve Together

Those of you who were with us last week may remember that we really never made it to our chapter. We got into some fairly deep discussion regarding what the people in our class are wrestling through.

This week we jump back into chapter 11. In chapter 10 PM showed us past J Curves and also introduced us to three different kinds of present J Curves: the suffering J Curve, the love J Curve, and the repentance J Curve.

This week we’ll begin to see, through the life of Joni Eareckson Tada, how we can be experiencing multiple J Curves at the same time, and how one J Curve can spill over into another and by so doing can real help and resurrection.

Class Notes:

J Curve Session #10

·      Is there any suffering you’ve intentionally embraced recently because you recognized an opportunity to be united to Christ in it? Share if you’re able.

·      Were you able this week to identify any particular kinds of present day J Curves (suffering, love, repentance)?

·      Were you able to rejoice in your J Curve?

·      What did resurrection look like? How convinced are you that resurrections always follow J Curves?

·      Was it helpful to think about justification being your foundation as you suffered?

Chapter 11: A Cascade of Love: Weaving J Curve Together

In chapter 10 PM showed us past J Curves and also introduced us to three different kinds of present J Curves: the suffering J Curve, the love J Curve, and the repentance J Curve.  This week we’ll begin to see, through the life of Joni Eareckson Tada, how we can be experiencing multiple J Curves at the same time, and how one J Curve can spill over into another and by so doing can real help and resurrection. 

1.     P. 94 “Breakthrough came...” two paragraphs:

a.     We are loath to equate our suffering with those of the apostle Paul or with Joni, but what chains or wheelchairs belong to us?

b.     How has Joni become like the gospel through her suffering?   What does this look like in practice?

2.     P. 94-95 Connecting paragraph PM describes how Joni’s suffering J Curve led to a repentance J Curve.  He mentions that our suffering J Curves often necessarily need to lead to repentance J Curves.  What is this dynamic?  How and why does this work in this way?

3.     P. 95 Excerpt.  It took Joni significant time to get to the point where she could call her wheelchair, “mine.”  The fact that we’re discussing the J Curve each Sunday doesn’t necessarily make embracing suffering an easy thing to do.  Are there any sufferings in your life right now that you find yourself pushing away?

a.     Physical trials?

b.     Financial?

c.      Relational?

d.     Sin?

e.     Vocational?

f.      Situational?

4.     P. 96 “What we love...”

a.     How did Joni’s selling of Tumbleweed put to death the bad desire that was driving her toward anger and fantasy?  Discuss this dynamic.

5.     P. 96 Last paragraph. 

a.     PM is arguing here that Tumbleweed had to go.  Why?

b.     Do we struggle theologically with ‘destroying idols’?

6.     P. 97 “The resurrection...” (two paragraphs)

a.     Do you recognize here how Suffering led to Repentance which led to Love J Curves in Joni’s story?

7.     P. 98 Read 2 Cor. 1:3-7  Then read “In a love J Curve...” and look at diagram.

a.     Clearly, you and I receive comfort through Jesus’ suffering b/c his death, burial, resurrection and ascension overflow in comfort by purchasing for us forgiveness, righteousness, and the assurance of eternal life.

b.     Have you ever received help or comfort as a result of someone else’s suffering?

c.      Is there any suffering you’ve experienced that you believe has overflowed as comfort or life to someone else?

8.     P. 99 “Suffering isn’t strange for Paul.  He isn’t merely enduring suffering, coping with it, or even learning from it - he’s celebrating a life that re-enacts the cross and the empty tomb.”

a.     How is a life that re-enacts the cross and the empty tomb so much richer than one that simply endures, copes with or learns from suffering?

9.     P. 99 “Embracing the J Curve as a way of life frees our inner self from a life of waiting for the other shoe to drop.  In the same way that justification by faith frees our conscience, entering the dying and rising of Jesus liberates our spirit.”

a.     How does embracing J Curve living fee us from waiting for the other shoe to drop?

b.     How does J Curve living liberate our spirits?

J-Curve Session 12: (Pastor Matt Carter, Chapter 12)

Class Description: Session 12, Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Life at the Bottom of the J Curve: Making Sense of Persistent Evil

It’d be easy to assume that once a resurrection has taken place following some particular suffering, that the suffering has served its purpose and should be removed. So often that is not the case. Let’s consider today how we should be thinking when the suffering simply continues.

Class Notes:

J Curve Session #12

·      Think about our cascade of love from last week.  Did you see any J Curves weaving together throughout this past week?

Chapter 12: Life at the Bottom of the J Curve: Making Sense of Persistent Evil

It’d be easy to assume that once a resurrection has taken place following some particular suffering, that the suffering has served its purpose and should be removed.  So often that is not the case.  Let’s consider today how we should be thinking when the suffering simply continues.

1.     Pp. 100-101 Read entire section entitled ‘Paul’s Flesh’.

a.     Did these paragraphs spark an ‘aha moment’ for any of us?  “This exact thing has happened to me!”

b.     Often when we’re experiencing our sin nature in this way, it’s tempting to think that our experience is unique - that other Christians are moving beyond their battle with sin in ways that we’re not.  That said, these insightful paragraphs provide us with a few helpful ways of thinking:

i.     The reassurance that our experience is in fact not unique.  The tidy-looking Christians around us experience this same relentless battle with their own sin on a daily basis.  We haven’t been singled out, and we need not experience shame in our ongoing battle!  How many of us have thought when we’ve experienced this dynamic, “I should be further along in my sanctification than this.”?

ii.     When we begin to understand that this is how the sin nature, and our battle with the sin nature looks, it has the potential to change how we view the layout of the battlefield.  Our expectations begin to align with reality.

2.     Before working through this next section of the J Curve, let’s open in our Bibles to feel the scope of where PM is about to take us.  2 Cor. 12:1-10. 

a.     Read P. 102 “Jesus is saying... - God pours out his power.”

i.     Let’s do business with the first paragraph in that section...  What would you and I need to believe in order to actually embrace the thorns that the Lord sends into our lives.

ii.     “Down low, at the bottom of the J Curve, pride is stripped from Paul.  As he cries out for grace, he becomes like Jesus, who can’t do life on his own (John 5:19).”  Do we actually believe this about our Savior?  Do we actually believe that he lived a life of obedience by faith?  (consider Heb. 2:11-18 & 4:14-16) 

iii.     “Paul’s poverty of spirit, then, becomes the launching pad for the power of Jesus in his life, and he experiences the real-time resurrection.”  Have you ever entered some ministry completely poured out and weak?  In those instances, have you ever cried out in prayer for God’s help and seen him show up in ways he likely wouldn’t have if you’d have been feeling strong?

3.     P. 102 Look below at the 2 Cor. excerpt and the diagram on p 103.  Describe Paul’s resurrection here.

4.     Pp. 103-4 Connecting paragraph. 

a.     Do you remember when Covid began a year ago?  Do you remember people speculating that it would last a few weeks or months?  Have you heard recently any reports on how long we should expect to be dealing with the virus?  Have you noticed how trials in your life seem to often linger much, much longer than you thought they would?

b.     PM uses an extraordinary phrase in this paragraph...  “ongoing miracle of a humble heart...”  A humble heart hardly seems miraculous, but I think PM is on to something here.  Why is a consistently humble heart far from commonplace?

5.     P. 104 “But God gave us a harmed baby...” through end of paragraph. 

a.     Why was prideful independence more dangerous than Kim’s disability?

6.     P. 104 “With the map of the J Curve, Paul doesn’t get lost in suffering.  The narrative of the cross captures evil and puts it to work in resurrection.”

a.     How is this working in our lives these days?  Are we learning how not to get stuck at the bottom of our J Curves by anticipating resurrection?

7.     P. 105 “A wheelchair is an....”

a.     Do you have any difficulties in your life that you’re struggling to identify as thorns? 

8.     P. 106 Final paragraph.  “As important as faith is, unless we are actively reenacting Jesus’s life, pride with regrow.  Boasting is removed in principle at the cross; in practice, it is removed as we re-enact the cross.  To see Jesus, we must do Jesus.” - This quote makes me think of Philippians 3:7-11.

9.     P. 107 top paragraph.

a.     What did resurrection look like for PM in this incident where he didn’t get the credit for his work? 

10.  Throughout the balance of p. 107 PM is talking about dying events that seem disconnected from resurrection events.  He talks about learning to see the connections between them.  Does this section make sense to you?  Can you see how the plane ride to Florida with Kim was disconnected, and yet produced a resurrection in PM at the conference - a disconnected event?

J-Curve Session 13: (Pastor Matt Carter, Chapter 13)

Class Description: Session 13, Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Living in the Borderland: How to Thrive in a Broken World

On the one hand, we’re born in Adam and bear the imprint of his rebellion in our lives.  On the other hand, we’re reborn in Christ Jesus so even our small acts of love and obedience bear his imprint. There’s a certain madness about living in the borderland as a true citizen of the heavenly kingdom, but not yet having stepped into that good land.  In this chapter we’ll explore how to live sanely in this world of “already, not yet, and right now.”

Class Notes:

1.     Throughout the first several pages of this chapter PM works to help us recognize a number of differing worldviews as regards the relationship between the self and ego, or the self and pride.  On p. 110 PM gives us a couple fairly helpful summary statements...  Here are a few of them....

a.     So both Greeks and Buddhists jettisoned the human body.  Getting rid of their bodies freed them from their sin natures.

b.     This understanding let the Jews distinguish between the self and the ego, between the person and the pride, making it logically possible to separate sin from self.  So repentance, the forsaking of the ego, was a real possibility.

c.      The Jews didn’t want to be lifted above the mess or dissolved into the impersonal All; they looked to an infinite-personal God to invade and transform their world.

i.     Assuming PM’s explanation of the merging of the self and ego (pride) within Greek and Buddhist thought...  Why does this merging leave no hope for the redemption/resurrection of the body?

ii.     How does the separation of the self and the ego (pride) open the door to that hope?

2.     P. 108 “In Figure 13A...”  And corresponding diagram on p. 109

a.     Does PM’s description here help us understand how pride can be separated from self so that resurrection can take place?

b.     Are we reminded here of how a suffering J curve can often lead to a repentance J curve?

c.      What kinds of soul-thrilling fruits accompany resurrections after pride has been put to death?  What are you delighted to find your heart full of in those moments (fleeting though they may be)?

3.     To get a fuller sense of what PM is about to launch into over the next several pages, it would be worth it for us to read through Romans 5:12-21.

a.     P. 112 read first paragraph.

i.     I love the first sentence of this paragraph.  Notice that the exit strategy is not something that you and I do, it’s something that Jesus has already done.  Why is that so significant?

ii.     Re-read the end of the paragraph beginning w. “Every time we submit...”

1.     Do we actually believe that when we live in this way we’re re-enacting Jesus’s dying love?

2.     How conscious are we of re-enacting Jesus’s dying love when we’re entering someone else’s mess?

3.     How would being conscious of that reality change the way we think about those little sufferings?

4.     P. 112 read final two paragraphs.

a.     Discuss life on the ridge between victory and defeat...

b.     Pp. 112-13 2 Cor. 1:8-10 excerpt and discuss.

5.     P. 114 Read entire section entitled Linking the Past and Present.

a.     How do you encourage yourself that you actually do bear the imprint of your Savior when you’re tempted to doubt it?

b.     “In order for love to be formed in me in the present, I must put to death what is earthly in me (Col. 3:5).  So I conquer impatience not merely be repenting, but by committing to love people who are slow, tiresome, or inefficient.”

i.     How does loving people who are slow, tiresome or inefficient act to actually conquer impatience?  How does this work?

c.      “Without the J curve, without a present participation in Jesus’s journey, I’ll merely dabble in the world of Jesus; but his world resists dabbling.  In fact, I’ll coast, growing less like him as I age.”

i.     This is a scary statement because I think many of us, myself included, are far too often content to dabble.  How will resisting our J curves keep us in the realm of dabbling?

6.     P. 115

a.     #2 How can recoiling from sadness yield a fragile , jittery self?

b.     #3 This paragraph was worth the price of the book by itself.  Please tell me that someone else in this room what as helped by this paragraph as I was!

c.      #4 “We would rather stay in death than be disappointed my hope, so we shut down our hearts from the enjoyment of even small resurrections. Fear of hope disappointing us leads us to denigrated hope, which feeds a culture of cynicism - always doubting the good.”  When we’re living in this cycle, what are our lives proclaiming about God?

d.     #6 How does this principle help us to battle well?