February 16: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

---

Love

Teaching Text: Mark 4: 35-41

That day when evening came, He said to His disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took Him along, just as He was, in the boat. There were also other boats with Him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, don’t You care if we drown?”

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

He said to His disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey Him!”

---

Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• Friends of God | The Kingdom of God Moving Along Lines of Friendship in the Life of Jesus

• Napping God - The Miracle of Jesus’ Presence and Peace Speaking in the Midst of a Storm

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• Read the text a couple of times.

• What stands out to you about the account of Jesus in the storm?

• Here, crossing the sea of Galilee. This was their territory, their area of expertise. They know storms could come up quickly on the water.

• Squalls were part of life on the Sea of Galilee. But one comes up that is more than they can handle.

  • They were fishermen... this was their territor

• Jesus was asleep.

• God in this case was napping.

• But God not acting as they hoped or expected in this situation as understandable as it might have been to think that was not a sign that He didn’t care.

  • It was just a sign that He saw the moment from a different perspective. He knew more than they knew. He wasn’t worried in the same way.

• And as much as we may have moments where we want God to be freaking out with us, aren’t you ultimately glad that He doesn’t.

• He rebukes the storm and His disciples - it wasn’t a kind word.

• And He says to them - “Where is your faith?”

• It’s a very raw moment. We can empathize with their fear. But Jesus is like “Hey don’t forget what story we are in here.”

  • “Don’t forget who I am.”

• And the wild thing is, the disciples are more terrified once Jesus has calmed the storm than they were when they thought they were going to drown.

• What do you think they wanted Jesus to do when they woke him?

• Why are they more afraid after Jesus calms the storm?

• You will need resources beyond you momentary interpretation of what’s happening. You will need faith in who God is and the larger story He is telling.

• Mark is using language that is very similar and parallel to the story of Jonah...

  • Both Jesus and Jonah are out on the sea in a boat.

  • Both Jesus and Jonah's boat are overtaken by a storm - the description of the storm is almost identical

  • Both Jesus and Jonah are asleep in the storm

  • The sailors come to the sleeper and they say “we are perishing” - its the exact same word in the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures and what we find in Mark. - The Sailors say do somethin

  • There is a miraculous intervention by God and the seas is calmed

  • In both stories the sailors are even more terrified than they were before the storm is calmed

• So we have these almost identical stories except the obvious one major difference – Jonah in the midst of the storm, says to the sailors, "there is only one thing to do, throw me in."

  • If I die, you will live.

• In Matthew 12, there is this rather cryptic moment where some authorities are demanding Jesus give them a sign, and Jesus says no sign will be given except the sign of Jonah.

• There is more than one thing to take from this story.

  • One is... YOU WILL GO THROUGH STORMS - YOU WILL NOT BE ABANDONED IN THE STORMS

    • We often don't know how the storm fits into the timeline of our lives

    • We are invited to an ultimate trust of Christ that goes beyond how we can interpret a given moment out of our resources.

    • The storms of life sometimes cause people to say I don't want God anymore. But the reality is even if you don't believe, you still have the storms. You may just be ignoring that there is someone who loves you in the middle of the storm with you.

• "I don't believe in God, but I miss him" - Julian Barnes

  • Two..CHRIST HAS GONE INTO THE STORM TO BRING US PEACE

    • If God is not acting how you hoped God would act in a storm in your life. Take heart.

    • You are not alone.

Ask your children

• “Why could Jesus sleep when everyone else was fearful?”

• “What does it mean that the storm stopped when Jesus spoke to it?”
  

---

February 9: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

---

Love

Teaching Text: John 6: 60-69

On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”

Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before!The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.

Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

---

Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• Friends of God | The Kingdom of God Moving Along Lines of Friendship in the Life of Jesus

• Peter and the Moment of Many Departures

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• What has changed about you since having a relationship with Jesus?

• What was the most difficult thing?  

• You cannot encounter Jesus and not be faced with a call for personal transformation.
  

• H. G. Wells said…  “after two millennia, a historian like myself, who doesn’t even call himself a Christian, finds the picture centering irresistibly around the life and character of this most significant man…. The historian’s test of an individual’s greatness is “What did he leave to grow?” Did he start men to thinking along fresh lines with a vigor that persisted after him? By this test Jesus stands first.”
  

• You cannot encounter Jesus and not be faced with a call for personal transformation.

• You cannot be transformed by Jesus without somehow wanting to see your public world transformed as well.  
  

• What happens when you encounter Jesus?

• More personally:

  • What will happen to me if I encounter Him?  

  • What would God say to you if you could just hear hHm speak right now?
    
    

• Jesus feeds the 5000 with 12 baskets full left over

• He walks on water and meets the same crowd on the other side of the lake

• They want more signs from Him… but only because He fed them. 

• They recall manna in the wilderness as God’s provision and think Jesus is doing the same 

  • I do want to satisfy you but not in the way you think… and not by the means you prefer.

• Jesus says I’m giving you something better: spiritual bread from heaven. 

• They ask for this bread

• He says that He is the living bread. 

• They are disappointed by this and leave Him behind

• He asks His closest disciples if they want to leave as well

  • They respond, “where will we go, for you have the words of life”

• Very often, we want the benefits of the kingdom without wanting the authority of the kingdom or the process of the kingdom. 

• Thus, it should be evident that discipleship in John is far more than a matter of saying the right words or belonging to a group. It is a matter of obediently following Jesus

  – Gerald L. Borchert,
  
  

• The way of the disciple is the way of Jesus

• Maybe a good measure at the end of our day is: ”Where did I have to die a little bit to myself today?”

  • All these deaths require trust. 

• What does trust look like? 

  • Trust that what Jesus is saying is true

  • Trust that He will make good on His promises

  • Trust that ordering your life around the promise of the kingdom is worth it.

• Trusting in God is a choice to believe in God's promise, character, and ability, even when your feelings, circumstances, or other voices want to lead you to believe otherwise. 

• Take stock of your anxieties, fears or other stand-out emotions.

  • What circumstance, person or situation brings you anxiety/worry?

  • What fears are active in your mind? 

  • What thoughts dominate your thought life? 

• Pick one of those situations and ask God to speak to you about it. 

  • What does He want to say to you?

  • What does He require of you in this situation? 

  • What does trusting Him look like regarding: 

    • His promises in the situation, 

    • His ability to redeem it

    • The price you need to pay to trust him?
      

---

February 2: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

---

Love

Teaching Text: Luke 19: 1-10

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

---

Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• Friends of God | The Kingdom of God Moving Along Lines of Friendship in the Life of Jesus

• Tax Collectors and Sinners - The Miracle of a God Who Eats with the Outsider - Zacchaeus

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• When did you obey Jesus/scripture and the result did not look like you thought it would or wanted it to? 

• How did you feel when you obeyed, and it didn’t work out the way you thought? 

• Jesus was accused of being a Friend of Sinners

• He keeps getting in trouble for eating and talking and welcoming and being welcomed by types of people that religious people in the day thought he should have known better than to be friends with
  

• Zacchaeus in the text tells us was a chief tax collector. So the bad guys reported to him. They got their share, and he no doubt exponentially got his share.

• He was a wealthy man. He was a powerful man. He was a hated man.

• In Luke 19, he is also a desperate man.

  • Yes, he is short and he urgently wants a view of Jesus, but why would a powerful and wealthy man climb a tree.

  • Zacchaeus is willing to compromise his dignity and suffer embarrassment to get even a glimpse of Jesus. 
    
    

• In your own personal expectation: Is experiencing Jesus worth being embarrassed for? 

• What have you done that may be embarrassing in order to experience Jesus? 

• What shapes your understanding of the reputation of Jesus?

  • Is it what Christ himself does or those who insist on making themselves better than others?

• Zacchaeus climbs a tree in broad daylight. He seems to be beyond caring about his reputation compared to the chance to see this Jesus?

• What had he heard about Jesus?

  • Maybe he had heard that Jesus had a tax collector in his close group of followers. His disciples.

  • Maybe he had heard of the many times Jesus seems to welcome someone who others thought should have been run off, or judged, or not welcomed.

• Zacchaeus is willing to humble himself to the point of risking his dignity and reputation to really see Jesus.

• Seeing Jesus for who He really is still often requires this. You will need to humble yourself to get a real look, whatever you have heard. 
  

• What happens when we seek Jesus in this manner? 

  • Jesus calls him by name.

  • We get a picture of salvation. 

  • Goodness flows into the world.
    

• What do people learn about Jesus by looking at my life?
  
  

• “I have a word for you. I know your whole life story. I know every skeleton in your closet. I know every moment of sin, shame, dishonesty and degraded love that has darkened your past. Right now I know your shallow faith, your feeble prayer life, your inconsistent discipleship. And my word is this: I dare you to trust that I love you just as you are, and not as you should be.”

  – Brennan Manning
  
  

• Zacchaeus gives us A PICTURE OF SALVATION 

  • There is an invitation 

  • There is a glad response 

  • There is a new life 
    
    

parents:

• How can people see who Jesus is by looking at your life?

• How do I change when I see Jesus’s kindness to me?
  

---

January 26: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

---

Love

Teaching Text:  John 3: 1-21

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we knowthat you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.

“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

---

Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• Friends of God | The Kingdom of God Moving Along Lines of Friendship in the Life of Jesus

• Seekers - The Miracle of Rebirth in the Secret Conversation with Nicodemus

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• How do people respond to knowing you are a believer in God? 

•  “If 20 years ago people were worried that belief in God would make them an idiot, today I run a across a mentality that belief in God will make me a bad person.  If 20 years ago people thought I might wish I could believe in God, but I would have to check my brain at the door. Now its something like I might be curious about God, but I could never let myself become like.  And so the conversation has shifted some. I find people leading with moral objections to Christianity as often or more than intellectual ones.”

• Quite often the unwillingness of our hearts and minds to find life in God is not just an information problem. It’s intended to remain a control problem.

•  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

  • This famous verse that gives us the Gospel in one sentence and tells us of the great love of God and how far God is willing to go to share His love is found in a conversation between Jesus an influential religious leader of His time.

  • it answers for us some crucial questions. Among them…

    • How one might come to God

    • How you can know God

    • How God shows us His Heart 
      

• How One Might Come to God

  • People come to Jesus in all manner of conditions and circumstances and timing in the Gospels and each of these is instructive for us because it shows us ways that we might come to God.

  • And Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night

    • By "at night” I mean…

      • Curious but unsure, intrigued but unconvinced, questioning but reluctant 

      • I’ve seen something things but I don’t know how to explain them

      • In a posture of negotiation - keeping your dignity and offering terms

  • Jesus has been doing miracles - showing the power of God, but Nicodemus puts Him in a category he can understand….

    • “He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” 

    • He is ready for Jesus to be a teacher.  Give us the instructions.  We will take what we can use and it may make our lives better.

• Do you feel shame or reticence to engage with Jesus because of how you come to him?

  • Jesus was ok with Nicodemus coming the way he did. 

  • And later, he is willing to acknowledge his change in perspective publicly. 

  • But Jesus answers in a totally different way. Nicodemus says we’ve seen some good things out of you. Jesus says you can’t see anything unless you find a new way to be alive…

    • “Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’” 

    • Nicodemus comes to negotiate with Jesus and he starts by saying he we can admit you are a great teacher… 

• I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

  – C.S. Lewis

• Nicodemus says we think you can lead some good devotionals. Jesus says you are going to need a whole new life.

• How you can know God | Be Born Again

  • “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” 

    Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” 

    – John 3: 4-8

  • The tragedy of the fall of humanity in Genesis 3 is that we all come equipped with starting place of false gods, either ourselves or some other substitute…

    • We are born physically but we need to made alive spiritually

  • “We are not begotten by God, we are only made by Him: in our natural state we are not sons of God, only (so to speak) statues. We have not got Zoe or spiritual life: only Bios or biological life which is presently going to run down and die. Now the whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share in the life of Christ. If we do, we shall then be sharing a life which was begotten, not made, which always has existed and always will exist. Christ is the Son of God. If we share in this kind of life we also shall be sons of God. We shall love the Father as He does and the Holy Ghost will arise in us. He came to this world and became a man to spread to other[s] the kind of life He has…Every Christian is to become a little Christ.

    – C.S. Lewis

• How God Shows Us His Heart | Rescuing Love

  • God loves giving life 

  • God loves removing condemnation 

  • God loves things being seen for what they really are (truth)

  • Very often, we believe that what will bring us closer to God is just a few small behavioral changes. 

    • How often do you believe this? 

    • How true is this thinking? 

Parents:

• Consider what language you use to describe a relationship with Jesus. 

• Does it lean towards a moral construct that leads to eternal life? 

• How can you help your kids know that it’s not about being good, but about accepting an invitation to friendship from Jesus?

---

January 19: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

---

Love

Teaching Text:  John 2: 1-12

On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

“Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.

Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.

Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom asideand said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.

---

Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• Friends of God | The Kingdom of God Moving Along Lines of Friendship in the Life of Jesus

• Neighbors - The miracle of the Abundance and Specific Provision at the Wedding of Cana

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• John tells us … What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which He revealed His glory; and His disciples believed in Him. 

• This is Jesus’ opening sign.

• Context can help us see.

  • The stress of the moment

  • The scandal in the solution 

  • The abundance of the miracle

• The Stress of the Moment

  • Why is this His opener?

    • Jesus often works in ways that are initially unexpected and this story is no different. He keeps showing us that the Kingdom of God is something different than you have seen before.

  • “My hour has not yet come”.

    • My hour in John’s Gospel doesn’t mean miracle time. IT means the hour of Jesus death.

  • IN ISRAEL’s most famous miracle water was turned to blood to begin the rescue of God’s people.

  • Jesus is going to hand a cup to His friends in the upper room before His arrest and say this cup of wine is My blood shed for you.

  • Jesus is feeling a weight, some stress.

• The scandal in the solution

  • The water He uses - He uses the water that people wash in before they go into the presence of God

  • The Hands He passes it through - the master of the banquet and the bridegroom have no idea what has happened with the water and the wine

    • Maybe if they knew where it came from they would be more hesitant to drink it 

  • The miracle is passed through the hands of the servants

    • God passes the revelation of his Kingdom through the servants who know the true lack

  • The credit received - The bridegroom is out and the bridegroom gets credit for what Jesus has done 

  • This is a picture of how Jesus’ salvation works.

• The abundance of the miracle

  • This is between 150-180 gallons of wine.

  • God is not just meeting the need. He is being extravagant in His generous provision. 

  • His care is about our lives big and small.

  • John tells us this took place on the third day

  • You and I are meant to be brought into union with God

  • Admit you are out 

  • Receive credit for what Christ has done 

  • We are invited to taste and see - this is not mere cognition, this is experience 

  • Being filled with the spirit is compared to being intoxicated 

  • God cares about our shame

  • The glory of God is reveals - His friends believe

  • The Character of God shows through in this story in a particular way.

    • Christ is willing for His hour to come so you can be invited to the feast of abundance

---

January 12: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

---

Love

Teaching Text:  Matthew 11: 1-20

After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee.

When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”

As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written:

“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
    who will prepare your way before you.’

Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. Whoever has ears, let them hear.

“To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:

“‘We played the pipe for you,
    and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
    and you did not mourn.’

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”

Then Jesus began to denounce the towns in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent.

---

Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• Friends of God | The Kingdom of God Moving Along Lines of Friendship in the Life of Jesus

• John the Baptist - the miracle of descent and faith filled questions in the cousin of Jesus

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• When did you obey Jesus/scripture and the result did not look like you thought it would or wanted it to? 

• How did you feel when you obeyed and it didn’t work out the way you thought? 

• "Are you the one who is to come or should we expect someone else?”

• Have you ever had a question like that for God?

  • God is this pain really part of the plan?

  • Is this disappointment, this diagnosis, this delay really what you want for my life right now?

  • Or how about this, “God, you see whats going on in the world. Is this really your response?” 

  • Are you not going to do more? Are you not going to show up? Are you not going to change things?

  • What did I get into this faith thing for in the first place? What can I count on God for?

  • Do I still believe?
    

• We are going to take these 8 weeks after Epiphany and look at friendship in the life of Jesus.
  

• Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?

• Jesus response : 

  • “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”   

    – Matthew 11: 4-6

  • He tells John’s disciples how the Kingdom of God is breaking in.

• What would the Kingdom of God look like coming on earth as it is in heaven?

• But Jesus tells John these signs of the kingdom - what Dallas Willard calls “the range of God’s effective will” a glimpse of where what God wants to happen is clearly realized.

  • Blind see, Lame Walk. Sick are cleansed. Deaf hear. Dead Raised. Good news is announced to the poor.

    • This looks a lot like the list from Isaiah that Jesus reads in Luke 4, which says that today, this has been fulfilled in your hearing.

• But Jesus leaves a crucial one out – Freedom for the prisoners.

• Interestingly:

  • John is not getting out of prison.

  • In fact he is going be killed because of a child’s dance recital in the royal court.

    • Herod’s niece danced and Herod was taken by it and offered her anything. Her mom told her to ask for the head of John the Baptist on a plate.

    • This is the ignominious end for one of the greatest prophets in history.

    • One whom Jesus said was more than a prophet.

    • His last recorded question for Jesus was…

      • "Are you the one who is to come or should we expect someone else?”
        
        

• John was Jesus friend.

  • He was Jesus cousin. 

  • He was a prophet.

  • He did the right thing privately and publicly. 

  • And he loses his influence, his freedom, and his head.

• So why follow God?  Why trust Jesus?  
  

• There are a few implications we need to wrestle with from John’s story….

  • A life of faith and obedience to God can still have tremendous disappointment, doubt, and questions.

  • God may not act how we expect God to act.

  • “The way of Jesus is the way of weakness and the Cross. That is where the power of the resurrection flows”

    – Pete Scazzaro 

  • God’s presence is our reward 
    

Parents:

• Think about what your children need to see about what “successful faith” might look like. 

• Ask your children 

  • “Why do we obey Jesus?”

  • “What will happen when they obey Jesus?”

---

January 5: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

---

Love

Teaching Text:  Matthew 2: 1-23

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod,Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

“‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
    who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with giftsof gold, frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.“Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt,where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

“A voice is heard in Ramah,
    weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
    and refusing to be comforted,
    because they are no more.”

After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egyptand said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”

So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.

---

Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

• Friends of God | The Kingdom of God Moving Along Lines of Friendship in the Life of Jesus

---

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

• If you were alive in 2000 - what was your picture of what 2025 would be like?

• What are you inspired by recently?

• What is a challenge or worry or grief your mind returns to a lot these days?

• What are one or two things you hope for next year?

• You do not have to be good.

  You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

– Mary Oliver

• Jesus was born into the real world

  • Whatever you are facing today, let that be a comfort to you.

• Let us to go for a moment or two with our imagination into the experience of these people we meet in this story.
  

• The Magi

  • There is much we don’t know for certain about them but we can make some very educated guesses.

    • An Ancient Priesthood of the Medes

    • The Supreme Priestly Caste of the Persian Empire

  • Magi were involved in choosing royal succession for the Parthians. 

  • Almost certainly traveled with an Entourage – all the pomp of a royal procession and a heavy guard for their valuables and as a statement

  • Asked who was “Born King of the Jews” – a direct insult to Herod

  • Posed a specific threat to Herod

  • Came Bearing expensive gifts

    • No gifts mentioned for Herod

  • There is a reasonable chance the process of looking for this child’s birth had been passed down among their ranks since the time of Daniel’s exile to Babylon.

  • We know the Prophet Daniel was given the Title of Chief Magi by King Darius

  • We can imagine the difficulty of the journey…

    • How many times did they lay awake, camping in the mountains, doubting the sign that started their journey?

    • How many times did they want to give up, head back to Babylon, where they were known and respected?

    • How many times did they wonder if they were losing it, or if it would all even be worth it if they made it?

    • If they might face danger.

    • Sometimes, God works a miracle:  We take the whole journey in a single moment (shepherds).

  • God accelerates His work in our midst.

    • BUT often, God calls us to walk a journey:  It Involves risk, doubt, hard questions, setbacks, and disappointment…what is required is to keep putting one foot in front of the other because the hope that pushed your first step is real and is worth it.

  • 2025 will be a year of single days. There will one moments of inspiration. There will be dark nights?

  • Can you keep the vision God has given you in community and take one step at a time?

  • When they see Jesus they 

    • humble themselves 

    • They bowed down and worshipped Him

    • They offered their gifts to him - the gold for a king, frankescence for a priest, and the myrrh to prophesy his death

    • Then they returned another way - they put their allegiance to Jesus above anything they has seen before

• Herod

  • Herod has a long protected rise to power that involved lots of violence to secure his place

  • But in a crucial moment of that journey he had appealed to Rome for help and apparently Ceasar Augustus had a favorable impression of Herod and so he named him King of the Jews.

  • The highest political and military power in the world had called Herod King, but he still had to come back and violently win his place 

  • And he was never secure. He was a maniacal and paranoid leader. Always afraid of losing what he had. 

  • His life is a testimony to us that the world is not enough.

  • We are not made to be satisfied with an identity less than one we have received from God.

  • But play this out for a minute. Herod believed enough in the story that he called together the priests and wisemen.

  • He asked where Messiah was going to be born. He seemed to know this was God and yet he was so entrenched in his own kingdom that he could only squirm and howl and strike out.

  • What has your heart today?

    • Can you imagine Herod pacing late at night in this palace, in his silk robes, a plaque from Ceasar on his wall?

      • And nothing but fear.

  • “Because here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship - is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.

If you worship money and things-if they are where you tap real meaning in life-then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already-it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story.

The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power-you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart-you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.”

– David Foster Wallace

• • Herod wreaked havoc in the world and eventually was eaten alive from the inside by a stomach disease.

    • But his story confronts us with the question WHAT HAS YOUR HEART?
      

• Mary and Joseph 

  • Mary and Joseph were on the run. And you have to wonder…

    • After all that happened around Jesus birth could they now be having to leave all they knew?

    • Did Mary wonder why Jospeh received the dream to flee after she had been visited by the angel?

    • Did they argue or debate?

    • Did they have a plan? How did they show up in a new city with their young child and no family support?

    • Can you imagine them standing in line, back aching, questions in their mind, wondering how they ended up here.

    • God had spoken in a dream. Was that enough?

  • Here is the thing about the dream of God though 

    • God had a long range plan to bring redemption to the world.

    • God was speaking to those who would listen. 

    • The wise ones were seeking Jesus

  • NT Wright summarizes the arch of the story Matthew is telling us…

    • “There is another way as well in which this story points ahead to the climax of the gospel. Jesus will finally come face to face with the representative of the world’s greatest king—Pilate, Caesar’s subordinate. Pilate will have rather different gifts to give him, though he, too, is warned by a dream not to do anything to him. His soldiers are the first Gentiles since the Magi to call Jesus ‘king of the Jews’, but the crown they give him is made of thorns, and his throne is a cross. At that moment, instead of a bright star, there will be an unearthly darkness, out of which we shall hear a single Gentile voice: yes, he really was God’s son.

      Listen to the whole story, Matthew is saying. Think about what it meant for Jesus to be the true king of the Jews. And then—come to him, by whatever route you can, and with the best gifts you can find.”

      – NT Wright
      

• Begin this year coming to Jesus. He has come to you.

• Keep taking steps even when the way is challenged.

• Bring your gifts and open them to God - they may be used to point to the deep reality of the world’s story 

• Watch if you heart has been captured by another god - you can return home today

• Make a plan to come to the feet of Jesus every day in 2025. If you miss one. Begin again.

• We want to help and walk with you. We have Groups, Reading Plans, Prayer Resources, places to serve, 

• We have the Seconds Course starting this month. A course on how to follow Jesus in practices.

• Join us in following Jesus. This baby born to turn the world upside down , the redeem and heal it.

• Pray 
  
  

Parents:

• Ask your kids what that are scared of right now?

• Ask them what they hope for this year and direct their thought towards, relationships, experiences, growth. 

• Pray with them and offer the year up to

---