Jesus the Preacher // February 9, 2025

read: Luke 4:14-30

1. What about the sermon most impacted you or left you with questions? 

2. Luke 4:14 is the start of a new section in the gospel of Luke that kicks off Jesus’ “debut” into ministry, and we see that Jesus goes to the synagogue to… Preach. 

a. Is it surprising that at the start of Jesus’ ministry, his primary focus was to preach? Would you have expected something else? Why or why not? b. Why do you think it is signficant that Jesus chose to define His mini as a preacher firs 

3. This passage is the only example of Jesus preaching from a text in the Bible. Jesus intentionally picked this specific Old Testament passage (from Isai 61:1-2). It is a passage all about good news. Good News is “an announcement of something that has happened or is happening.” 

a. Using Luke 4:18-19, how would you put into your own words what Jesus is proclaiming has happened or is happening? (Keeping in mind that the poverty, captivity and blindness Jesus speaks of are both literal and spiritual). 

b. Why do non-Christians sometimes struggle to feel/experience Jesus and the Christian faith mainly as good news? What about Christians? 

4. News is a daily part of our lives. What we choose to hear greatly impacts our lives. If our diet of bad news far outweighs our diet of the Good News of what Jesus preached to us, we will largely be filled with fear, anger or anxiet 

a. Good news vs. bad news. What kind of bad news are you taking into your life? Would you say you are addicted to bad news? How does a steady diet of bad news affect you emotionally and spiritually? What might it look like to hear the bad news (which we can’t and shouldn’t ignore completely or escape) in light of the good news Jesus proclaimed? 

b. Good news vs. good advice. Do you struggle with approaching Jesus mainly as someone teaching good advice on what you should do to get God’s favor vs. someone preaching good news that God’s favor has come through him to those who believe? 

5. Jesus is also a preacher of hard truth. In verse 23, Jesus preaches on a proverb and provokes the listeners by pressing in. “Jesus names the thoughts and intentions that barricade hearts from a proper understanding of God’s grace” (James Edwards). A barricade is anything we think gives us a claim or status to God’s favor over others. 

a. What are some of the “barricades” we build—both personally and collectively—that prevent us from fully understanding and receiving the gospel of grace? 

b. Why were the people so angry at Jesus? What might our own anger tell us about our own barricades? 

6. Jesus preached with authority (v. 32, 36). His actual sermon is just one sentence. “Today as you listen, this Scripture has been fulfilled.” (v. 21) He  saying everything in Isaiah 61:1-2 is happening and will happen (“is/will be fulfilled”) in Him. 

In a world where authority is often questioned or undermined, we struggle to give anyone’s words authority over us. But this is what made Jesus’ teaching so different and so powerful. He spoke, and it was fulfilled! Things happened. 

a. What word or words (really) do you give the most authority in your life and daily thoughts and decisions? 

b. Why should we give Jesus’ preaching the greatest authority?

c. What would change for you if you believed, on Jesus authority, that “today” the good news He proclaimed is true for you?

The Way Through Temptation // February 1, 2025

Read: Luke 4:1-11

1. What about the sermon most impacted you or left you with questions? 

2. Do you agree that our culture tends to trivialize the concepts of “tempt” or “temptation” How have you seen this? What effect does it have on us? 

3. “Temptation is humanity’s most serious threat to being who we are meant to be and doing what we are meant to do.” This temptation reminds us of the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve were tempted by the devil and as a result, humanity lost what we were meant to be as God’s image bearers. In contrast, Jesus came out of these forty days in the desert more firm, more stable and more convinced of his ministry and purpose. 

a. What was the effect on humanity as the result of Adam and Eve succumbing to the threat of temptation in the Garden of Eden? 

b. What do you think Jesus experienced for those 40 days? What did this prepare him for? 

4. Based on John Owen’s definition, temptation is “any circumstance or influence that draws us away from trusting obedience to God.” This is a much broader concept than we often think, involving not just obvious sins but good things (bread) at the wrong time; good ends (Jesus’ reigning) using the wrong means; good ideas (quote from Scripture) wrongly applied. 

a. How do you think this deeper understanding of temptation impacts your daily life? In what areas of your life are you being tempted? 

5. In the original language, the word “tempt” can also be translated as “test.” While the devil tempts to cause us to fail, God uses testing for a different purpose – to  strengthen and prepare us. 

a. What kind of Christ followers would we be if our faith were never tested? Have you experienced a season of testing? How did God use it to shape you into who  you are meant to be and equip you for doing what you are meant to do? 

6. Jesus was tempted by the devil – diabolos, which comes from the verb that means “falsely accuse.” In other words, the devil is the "misrepresenter" or "slanderer" of God.

a. How do you think the devil misrepresents God’s character or His plans in our culture today? 

b. How are you being tempted to misrepresent God? 

7. In Jesus’ baptism, we saw His full humanity and that he has joined Team Humanity as our Captain and Champion. Adam, humanity’s first captain, failed. The Israelites in the wilderness wandered for 40 years and also failed to create a new humanity in a new land. But Jesus –the Son of God, the son of Adam, in the wilderness for 40 days – was tempted by the devil and won! We can be on Jesus’ team by believing in faith; by trusting him; entrusting our life to him. 

a. Do you struggle to believe that our Captain has already won for us by having faced the greatest threat and making a way for us? 

b. How does knowing that Jesus is our champion, who has already won victory over temptation, give you strength in your own weaknesses and temptations? 

8. As Jesus countered each temptation with Scripture, one place to start for us practically is to meditate and memorize Scripture. To move through temptation to stronger faith, we need to know “what is written” – the full authority of God and there is no hope without it. 

a. Read and meditate on Psalm 119: 9-11. 

i. 9 How can a young man keep his way pure? 

By guarding it according to your word. 

10With my whole heart I seek you; 

let me not wander from your commandments! 

11 I have stored up your word in my heart, 

that I might not sin against you. 

b. What does this passage say about the way through temptation? What specific steps can you take this week to “store up” God’s word in your heart?

Wrestling for Worth // October 27, 2024

Read: Genesis 29:30-30:24

1. What about the sermon most impacted you or left you with questions?  

2. Do you agree that one of the most important things about people is that we all share a common longing for worth? How do the main characters in this passage all display a common longing for worth?  

3. How important are the following questions to you:  

• Do I matter to someone?  

• Does what I do with my life matter to others?  

4. Where did Leah look for her worth? How did it turn out for her? Can you relate to her? Where did Rachel look for her worth? How did it turn out for her? Can you relate to her?  

5. How do Rachel’s words in 30:1 provide us with a test to find out where we are really looking for our worth?  

6. Discuss this except from the sermon:  

“When we are looking to our spouse (or someone) to give us our sense of worth or to our children (their behavior, achievement) to give us our sense of worth, it will never be enough. We will put too much pressure on the relationship, on our kids, on the person  and instead of building our worth and the worth of our spouse/kids/the other person)  we will become “transmitters of shame”. This is what happens in Jacob’s family (from  Isaac > to Jacob > to his wives > to his sons).  

Do you see this dynamic playing out in your story? How might this passage disrupt this pattern and chart you on a new course?  

7. How does not having a solid sense of self-worth lead to living lives caught up in envy and comparison?  

8. How does the gospel provide us with a solid and secure sense of self-worth?  How can we know how much we are worth to God? That we matter to him that what we do with our life matters?  

9. What might it look like for you to move away from the world’s pattern of transmitting shame to being a transmitter of worth? What might it look like for a church to be known as a place of restoring the worth of all people made in  God’s image? 

Wrestling for Love // October 24, 2024

READ: Genesis 29:1-30

1. What about the sermon most impacted you or left you with questions?

2. What most shocks you about Jacob’s “love story”? What can you most relate to?

3. In the message it was said that the “pull of love” (i.e. romantic attraction) is a good thing designed by God to move us toward the blessing of God’s gift of marriage. As such it is meant to pull us out of selfishness and create a partnership of blessing for the world. Do you agree? Is this what we are thinking and feeling while under the pull or spell of “love”? If no, what are we thinking/feeling?

4. This “love story” is meant to be read in tandem and in contrast to Jacob’s dad’s love story found in Chapter 24. The main contrast is that God and prayer are entirely missing in Chapter 29. What are the results of this in Jacob’s story? What are the results of this in your own experience of the “pull of love”? What role should prayer play in someone’s pursuit of love?

5. The peril of love (that love doesn’t advertise) is that love will show us who we really are. How does this happen to Jacob?

6. How have you handled the inevitable disappointments of love in your life? What has God taught in you in these? How has your experience with the pull of romantic love or in marriage shown you who you really are?

7. Often in the disappointment and difficulties of love, we can blame the other person or just give up. The Bible offers us a different way to discover the purpose of love:

In John 4, we find another encounter of a man and woman at well that has to do with love. It’s known as the story of the “Woman at the Well”. Read the story in John 4:1-42.

a. Why does Jesus bring up her “love stories”? How would you describe her love story? (stay with what we can glean from the text) Can you relate to her?

b. Jesus is presented her as greater than Jacob (the greater Jacob, the true Husband) How? He comes to the well to give – not to take or grasp; he comes to the well to not to meet his need but to serve, he doesn’t come looking at the surface but looking deep within, he isn’t driven away by the ugliness, but it draws him close.

In meeting Jesus, this woman discovered the living water she was looking for. What difference would it make in our struggles with love – if we knew we were loved by Jesus in the same way he loved this woman?

Wrestling for Blessing // October 6, 2024

READ: Genesis 28:10-22

1. What about the sermon most impacted you or left you with questions?

2. This passage tells the story of a major turning point in Jacob’s life. What did God reveal to Jacob that would have led him to pray, worship and make a promise to God – when we have no indication he did any of that before?

3. Do agree with the statement, “What Jacob was searching for his whole life up until this point (from the womb!) was blessing?” How would you – in your own words – define what blessing is according to the book of Genesis. (See Gen. 1:26-31 and Gen. 12:1-3 for some help)

4. Do you think it’s accurate to say, “All our lives what we have really been looking for is blessing”? How might this describe your life/story?

5. Have you ever achieved or gotten what you worked so hard to achieve or acquire only to find it wasn’t the blessing you thought it would be? How did you handle this?

6. When God appears to and speaks to Jacob he essentially says, “The blessing you are searching for, Jacob, only comes from me”. How would you summarize the blessing God promises Jacob in verses 13-15?

7. How would you life be different if you 100% believed that God promised you, “Wherever you go, I’ll be there. I’ll guide you to where I want you to be and I’ll never leave you?”

8. The vision of the stairway from heaven reveals how God gives blessing to Jacob – and to us. How can God give sinful, selfish, deceiving Jacob his blessing? See John 1:47-51 for help. 

Which of these takeaways do you most need to apply to your life today? 

• Tear Down All Your Stairways – ways you are striving and trying to get the blessing on your own. 

• Stop Dressing up to be someone you’re not to get the blessing. Jacob pretended to be Esau to get the blessing, here God gives it to him, alone, as he is in all his sin and brokenness. 

• Look for God Where You Least Expect Him. Do you feel like you are in a nowhere place, in the dark with nothing? This might just be the place where God can get his grace through to you and you say, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it!”