God Has A Plan!

 

If you missed it, here's a link to the Sermon: God has a plan!

Reading: John 12:12-19

1. What do you think of when you think about Palm Sunday?
2. What was the reason for so many people went out to meet Jesus, what were they wanting from Him?
3. Discuss the prophecies in Zech. 9:9 and Daniel 9:20-27. What does this tell us about God's plan?
4. What does verse 16 tell us about how we should understand God's plan? And also how we should approach situations that we find bewildering in our personal lives?
5.  Pray for us as a church, as housegroups and as individuals that we may faithfully seek to live in obedience to Christ.

Extravagant Love

If you missed it, here's a link to the Sermon: Extravagant Love


Reading: John 12:1-11

1. As a group, take a quick recap through the first half of John and remind each other what the focus of the next half is.
2. Why wasn't Jesus arrested when He turned up in Bethany?
3. It's difficult to do, but think about the different thoughts people might have had as Mary did what she did.
4. What does Jesus mean in verse 8?
5. Discus what we know about God's extravagant love, and how we might and should love extravagantly.

Angelic, yeah right!

Do you find the idea that there are invisible supernatural beings around and amongst a bit hard to swallow?

I mean all the fantasy books and films you’ve read and seen paint a funny old picture of elves and fairies and super spiritual beings, but really!?

And if you’ve got an angel on your Christmas tree, the chances are it’s looking like a Scandinavian girl with wings or a chubby looking baby thing.

I wonder what answers you might give if you were asked what you know about angels? Maybe if you’ve been watching some old films you might say “every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings.” Well that’s a line from “Its a Wonderful Life” not the Bible.

Good old C.S. Lewis wrote plenty about angels (you could check out  the Eldila in his Space Trilogy, Mere Christianity, or maybe try the Screwtape Letters)

Here’s an excerpt from Screwtape Letters: It should be (but it is not) unnecessary to add that a belief in angels, whether good or evil, does not mean a belief in either as they are represented in art and literature. Devils are depicted with bats’ wings and good angels with birds’ wings, not because anyone holds that moral deterioration would be likely to turn feathers into membrane, but because most men like birds better than bats. They are given wings at all in order to suggest the swiftness of unimpeded intellectual energy. They are given human form because man is the only rational creature we know....

Of Course, Lewis is spot on, we only have to read the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel to find some pretty terrifying angelic appearances (Luke 1:11-20, 26-38, 2:8-14).

But does it matter if we bother too much about angels? Do we really have to believe in them? And what’s happened to them since all that stuff in the bible? And what is it they do, and where do demons fit in?

Well if you missed our crash course on January 4th 2015 when we looked at this as we introduced our verse for the year:

2 Corinthians 4:18 –  “So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.”
then pick it up here - sermon link

Some references mentioned in the sermon:

• Angels bring GOD’S MESSAGES. (Matt. 1:20; 2:13,19; Luke 1:19,26-27).
• They provide REVELATION, dreams, and understanding. (Dan. 8:15-19; Rev. 1:1).
• Angels give GUIDANCE and DIRECTION. (Acts 8:26; Gen. 24:7).
• They RESCUE. (See Is. 37:36; 2 Kings 19:35).
• Angels PROTECT. They guard little children, have charge over and protect believers, ‘camp’ around those who fear God. (Matt. 18:10; Ps. 34:7; 91:11-12).
• Angels provide supernatural STRENGTH. (Matt. 4:11; Luke 22:42; Dan. 10:16).
• They minister to God through PRAISE AND WORSHIP. (Luke 2:14; Rev. 5:11-12).
• Angels are warriors of WAR. (Gen. 32:1-2; Dan. 10:13; Rev. 12:7).
• Angels meet out God’s JUDGMENTS. (Gen. 19:11; Ex. 12:21-23; Rev. 16:17).