Sermon Discussion Guide 11-9-25

Sermon Discussion Guide
The Book of John | John 11:17-37

Gathering Question:
What is one way you’ve experienced God in your life this week?

Gathering Prayer
Father, by Your Spirit, would You guide us into all truth. Help us to hear and be attentive to Your voice as we work through this study. In the name of Jesus, Your Son, we pray, Amen.

Opening Questions

• What stood out to you in the sermon? 
• What insights did you gain? 
• What questions did it raise?

Read John 11:17-37

God with us

• How do you see the incarnation (Jesus is fully God, fully man) expressed in John 11? 
• How does knowing that God experiences human sorrow change the way you think about his presence in suffering?
• Was there a time in your life that you sensed God’s nearness most clearly through pain rather than through ease?
• Read Hebrews 4:14-16. How do Jesus’ tears in John 11 give you confidence to come to Him with your own grief, fear, or failure? What keeps people from honestly bringing these things before Him?

The furious love of Jesus

• “Standing before the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus is outraged. Why? Evil is not normal. The world was created good and beautiful. But now he has entered his Father’s world that had become ruined and broken. And his reaction? He was furious. Jesus wept at the pain and sorrow caused by the enemy invasion that had devastated his beautiful creation” (Nancy Pearcey, Love Thy Body). How does this perspective change the way you think about Jesus’ emotions in John 11:35?
• How does it change your view of God to know that He hates death and evil, instead of just tolerating them?
• In what ways do you see this same “furious love” leading Jesus to the cross?
• How might this kind of love shape how we respond to the brokenness of the world — injustice, suffering, or sin?
• How does Jesus’ anger at death give you hope when you face loss, disappointment, or fear?

Closing Prayer