DISCUSSION GUIDES
Looking for older discussion guides? Head over to our messages page to find guides posted with each message.
We all need help in various ways, but often we don’t want anyone to tell us what to do. In today’s passage, Jesus identifies himself as the singular answer to life’s ultimate questions. How will we respond to his claims?
We all need some kind of healing, whether physical, emotional or spiritual. But how do we get it? The strategies we try often don’t work, or at least they don’t work long-term. In this story of Jesus healing a disabled man, we see three significant truths about finding healing, and we get a taste of God’s long term plans to make everything new.
In the Gospel accounts, Jesus is generous in displaying the power of God over the natural world through signs and wonders. Often we can become obsessed with seeing the miraculous or we long for miracles for our own benefit. In our passage today, we will see that Jesus uses signs and wonders to encourage us toward a proper response and that is faith.
Our lives are formed by the choices we make. So, do you know how to make great decisions? If you want to have an awesome life, you've got to get wisdom. But it doesn't happen automatically.
Jesus’ resurrection is unremarkable to believers and unreasonable to skeptics. Yet it is at the heart of Christianity, impacting more people than any other movement in history. On this Easter Sunday we’ll try to see it with fresh vision and answer some very basic questions. Does belief in the resurrection matter? Is it reasonable? Is it helpful?
There are so many things that we strive after in life, thinking that they will quench our thirst and satisfy our hunger, but they don’t work. In the story of the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, we see the truth that only Jesus can satisfy, and that our souls will keep longing and our bodies keep striving until we have the courage to listen to him and invite him to be our King.
Internal competition severely limits the potential of any group or team and it’s no different in the Kingdom. In today’s passage, John the Baptist’s response to his eager followers provides the key to avoiding competition within the family of Christ.
In this account, the rabbi Nicodemus approaches a "new teacher", seeking a deeper understanding of the signs of God. To his surprise, he is presented with a completely new way of knowing God, found through a relationship with God's son, Jesus. To accept this invitation to a relationship with Jesus, Nicodemus must wrestle through his view of God's love and grace for himself and the world.
Are you stressed about money? How do we move towards thriving in the areas of finances? In the middle of a long talk about money, Jesus tells us to stop worrying, and invites us into practices that we can choose and God can use to transform our lives for the better.
In the well-known story of Jesus flipping tables in the temple lobby, we are challenged to rethink our softened view of Jesus and to consider where he may want to flip some tables in our churches or our personal lives. As we dig into this significant moment in the Gospel of John, we’ll get a glimpse of the truth that Jesus will do more than clean the temple; he will completely replace it.