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The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.
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Love
Teaching Text: John 14:14–18
You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
2 Corinthians 3:17–18
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his imagewith ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
A Living Communion
The Invitation to Experience Communion – Friendship with God and Each Other
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
Sermon Summary
“Is the spiritual world real?”
Not just real. God shapes and defines reality. That’s why we’re here.
All fall we’re looking at: a living communion. Friendship with the risen Jesus as the lifeblood of our faith. Fr. Charbel Abernethy calls it:
“The terrifying and beautiful possibility of becoming wholly alive in God.”
The problem? For most of us, it gets compartmentalized. One box in a busy life. Pressure, distraction, busyness. Not outright rebellion. Just life.
But what we look at matters. We become what we behold.
The resistance is real. Scripture names three kinds: flesh, world, devil.
Personal. Our inner habits. Living as our own gods. Meeting our deepest needs from our own resources. Called sin.
Systemic. Evil ingrained in culture until we just call it life. Radical individualism. Economies built on exploitation. Porn out-earning medicine. More on bombs than education.
Spiritual. Real forces. Deception, temptation, accusation. The see-saw: “It’s no big deal, you deserve it, who will know” … then “What kind of person are you? You’ll never change.”
It doesn’t look the same everywhere. Friends on the Tibetan frontier, in the slums of India after the tsunami: spiritual attack was a given. Moving back from Western China, the contrast was stark. We in the developed world just don’t expect it.
The cost of not living in communion is real, too. Growing up I was warned about shows, music, movies. Didn’t take it seriously. Then: massive anxiety attacks in college. Years of rethinking. Gentle with myself, but I made changes. My mentor took me to Philippians 4:8 — whatever is true, noble, pure, lovely, excellent, think on these things. More worship music. More care in what I watched and read. And it helped. Not legalism. Like breathing fresh air.
The Gospel in two texts.
First move: Jesus shows us what God is like. Michael Ramsey: “God is Christlike, and in him is no un-Christlikeness at all.”
Second move: Jesus is leaving, and the disciples are shaken. He says: “I will not leave you as orphans.” Then the shocker: “It is for your good that I am going away.” Good?! Yes. The Spirit comes. The Spirit always lifts up Jesus.
“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled faces, contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image.”
We look at Jesus. By the Spirit, we are transformed.
Attention shapes life. Prayer is attention on God. Can’t focus? Start where you are. Pray how you can, not how you can’t.
This week: “He rescued me because he delighted in me” (Ps 18:19). Do you think of God that way?
Three implications:
Look to Jesus to know what God is like, especially when you forget. When the enemy whispers “Is God really like that?” When delay feels like cruelty. When you’re defined by your failure. The Son is the exact representation of God (Heb 1:3). The Cross: love crucified. “It is finished.” Not “it’s nearly done. Good luck. Be better.” The veil is torn. Look with unveiled faces.
Worship is lifting our gaze. Gratitude leads to worship. Worship leads to gratitude. Body and soul together. Romans 12: offer your bodies as a living sacrifice; be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then you can know and approve God’s will.
Prayer is the gift of attention, yours and God’s. Where does your mind go most? Can it come back to God each day? You can reset a day at any moment. The most important opportunity of every day: communion with God.
Can’t see him? Ask. Look in the Gospels. Have a friend pray for you. Ask for a filling of the Holy Spirit.
Direct Quotes
“Modern civilization, at least in much of the developed world, increasingly wages war upon the inner life itself. Attention fragments continually. Silence disappears. The imagination becomes saturated with images. The nervous system remains overstimulated. The person exists in a state of continual distraction and reaction. This warfare often appears invisible because it has become normalized culturally.”
— Fr. Charbel Abernethy
“[Fallen humanity] exists in a state of dispersion. The mind scatters outwardly through the passions. Attention fragments continually. Desire becomes unstable. The heart loses inward unity. Modern civilization intensifies this condition dramatically because technology now externalizes distraction on a civilizational scale.”
— Fr. Charbel Abernethy
“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”
— John Piper, Desiring God (1986)
“Pray with your body at certain times each day, and your soul eventually catches up.”
— Tish Harrison Warren
“Act your gratitude; pantomime your thanks; you will become that which you do.”
— Eugene Peterson
Three Questions for Personal Application
Where does my attention go most often? Think about the last 24 hours: what filled your mind, your eyes, your ears? Ask Jesus to show you what’s been shaping you, without shame, and what one small change might feel like fresh air.
What do I really believe God is like? When you’re tired, behind, or ashamed, whose voice do you hear: Christ’s, or the see-saw of rationalization and shame? Bring the picture in your head to Jesus and ask him to show you the Father as he truly is.
How can I lift my gaze today? Worship might be gratitude, a posture, a prayer with your body at a set time. What is one simple, doable way to come back to God when the day scatters you? Pray how you can, not how you can’t.
“And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
— 2 Corinthians 3:18
