Sermon Discussion Guide 4-27-25
Sermon Discussion Guide
The Gospel of John | John 1:1-5
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
John 1:1-5, Genesis 1:1-4
CS Lewis: “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.” (Mere Christianity)
Justin Brierly: “Science can tell you how the universe arose, but not why it is there. Science can tell you what you consist of, but not what you are worth. Science can generate solutions to poverty, but not the compassion to implement them. Science can make you money, but not purchase a meaningful existence.
Most especially, it won’t inform us about what things we should value.. We can use it to create a cure for cancer or to create an atomic bomb. Science won’t tell us which of those options is the right thing to do. That’s a value judgment that must ultimately be derived from somewhere beyond science.” (The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God)
Light and Life
Closing Prayer
The Gospel of John | John 1:1-5
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?
John 1:1-5, Genesis 1:1-4
- Name all the similarities you can between these two passages.
- What do these similarities teach us about Jesus?
- What do these connections teach about who Jesus is and why He came?
CS Lewis: “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.” (Mere Christianity)
- How is it more comfortable for people to see Jesus as a great moral teacher rather than the Lord?
Justin Brierly: “Science can tell you how the universe arose, but not why it is there. Science can tell you what you consist of, but not what you are worth. Science can generate solutions to poverty, but not the compassion to implement them. Science can make you money, but not purchase a meaningful existence.
Most especially, it won’t inform us about what things we should value.. We can use it to create a cure for cancer or to create an atomic bomb. Science won’t tell us which of those options is the right thing to do. That’s a value judgment that must ultimately be derived from somewhere beyond science.” (The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God)
- Have you ever seen people put their trust in science or progress alone to fix the world’s problems?
- What are the limits of that approach and how does Jesus offer something deeper?
Light and Life
- Read: John 6:35, John 10:10, John 11:25, John 14:6. What does Jesus mean by the word “life”?
- How would you explain the promise of life to someone who doesn’t believe?
- How have you experienced the “life” promised by Jesus?
Closing Prayer
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