14 Aug Discussion Guide: (IN) BREAKING Week 2
Prayer
Take the first 10 minutes of your time together to listen to what God is doing in one another’s lives and pray for any specific needs people in your group may have.
Today we continue our new series titled (IN) BREAKING. We will be working through the gospel of Matthew and learning how God desires to have His Kingdom come, and His will be done, in our lives as in Heaven. God wants to break into our hearts, our emotions, our actions, our existence so that we might know Him, and be known by Him, in ways that we will never be the same.
Discussion Questions
Matthew 1:18-23
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).”
What is the most bizarre, or impossible to believe, story you have ever heard someone tell?
What would you say is the most bizarre, or impossible to believe, claim the Bible makes about Jesus?
What is the theological significance of God becoming a man?
The theological significance is that if God became a man, then that man is Lord over all creation. It also means that God can sympathize with us in our weaknesses, he is familiar with our pain and our struggles, He gets us. And, if he was a man without sin, then it also means He can help us in our weakness and lead us out of temptation. And, if he died for our sins as a man, then it means He has qualified to be our substitute, to deliver us from the power of sin and death.
What are the personal implications of Jesus’ divinity on your own life?
Again, if Jesus is God then He is Lord. And if you want to receive the gift of His substitutionary atonement the price tag is submission to Him as Lord. In short it means this, if Jesus the man is also Jesus the Lord then you cannot benefit from his life saving sacrifice without also surrendering to His life altering Lordship.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“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.”
What possible options do we have when it comes to believing the Bible’s claim that Jesus is God?
The only possible options as laid out by Lewis are these; Jesus was either lying when He claimed to be God, or He was a crazed madman who really believed Himself to be God even though He was not, or Jesus really is who He claimed to be, God come in the flesh, the Lord of the World. There is no room to say Jesus was just a prophet. There is no room to say He was just a good, moral teacher. There is no way to say He was just another Rabbi. Scripture clearly claims Jesus to be God come in the flesh. Jesus clearly believed Himself to be God come in the flesh. Either He is or He is not. There is no in between.
What are the potential implications of each of those options?
Why do you think someone would push back against, or even resent, the idea that Jesus is God come in the flesh to save us from our sins?
There is resistance because if Jesus is God then He has a claim on your life. If He is God and said the sort of things He said about the purpose of life, good and evil, and sin, then we cannot just live any old way we want to. The divinity of Christ means we are not free to do whatever we want but rather there is an expectation and an accountability regarding what we do with the gift of life He has given us. And that, my friends, is not a popular claim. People don’t want to be told what they have to do. As Americans we want to be “free” to live our lives however we see fit. People want to feel good about the sinful choices they make and the divinity of Jesus flies in the face of that desire.
What does that reveal about the human heart?
If you are a Christian, are there any areas in your own life that might be inconsistent with your belief that Jesus is God?
What does that reveal about your own heart?
Hudson Taylor, Missionary to China in the late 1800’s
“I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize that He is able to carry out His will for me. It does not matter where He places me, or how. That is for Him to consider, not me, for in the easiest positions He will give me grace, and in the most difficult ones His grace is sufficient.”
What does it take to not just be o.k. with, but to actually rejoice in, God taking the steering wheel of your life?
How does God taking on flesh enable us to be the kind of people who pray, “Lord, not my will but Your will be done?
Closing Thought
The Jesus Storybook Bible
The Bible isn’t a book of rules, or a book of heroes. The Bible is most of all a Story. It’s an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne—everything—to rescue the one he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life.”
What is your favorite fairy tale story? Why?
How does the Gospel bring that aspect of fantasy rushing into our present day reality?
How can we make that aspect of fantasy a reality for the world around us?