LIFE GROUP STUDY
September 13th-19th
Key Thought:
Being a child of God involves both actively taking hold of Jesus and entrusting our lives to him. Embracing this identity, empowers us to walk in light, fully alive.
Take time tonight to explore John 3 and John 1 (in that order). Resist the temptation to rush ahead to the parts of John 3 that are familiar. Do your best to put yourself in Nicodemus’ shoes (sandals).
Ice Breakers:
1. What’s your favorite late night snack food?
2. Did you ever pull an all-nighter for school? What were the results?
3. When it the last time you lost track of time when friends were over and ended up talking way longer than you’d planned? What helped you get lost in the conversation?
4. What’s the difference between something that GETS you up at night vs. something that KEEPS you up at night?
Lesson:
3 Questions on Identity from the book Switch by Chip & Dan Heath
Who am I?
What kind of situation am I in?
What does a person like me do?
How are these questions impacted when your identity is rooted in being a follower of Jesus, a child of God? Talk about how you practically enable identity to leak into situations and your response to the world and people around you.
John 3:1-2
1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.” 3 In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.’” 4 “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”
1. Put yourself in Nicodemus’ shoes (Sandals). Why are you coming to Jesus at night?
2. What about your experience as a “highly religious” person would be in tension with Jesus?
3. Do you read Nicodemus’ words as skeptical of Jesus or leaning towards belief?
4. Jesus says we can’t see the Kingdom of God unless we are born again. Why continues to complicate our view even once we are followers of Jesus?
John 1:1-9
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
6 There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
9 The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.
12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
1. Why do you think it was so hard for people to recognize Jesus?
2. If you are honest with yourself, what keeps you from recognizing Jesus and the work of the Spirit around you?
3. This passage talks about both receiving and believing…of taking hold and entrusting yourself in faith. Talk with your group about how this control, and lack of control, shapes our identity as children of God.
Try praying this prayer as a group or on your own. Then just sit with the silence and see how God responds or directs you.
“God…Here I am, I’m taking hold of you. Now, what can you do with me?”