Home for Christmas: The Road Home

Selected Scripture

Connect:

• Share how you have seen God in the Highs and Lows of your week.

Prayer:

Pray that God would lead your discussion time and bring fresh insight, conviction, and hope through your time together.

Review:

Christmas is the story of coming home. Through Scripture, we’ll see how God pursues us even when we wander, fulfills His promises in unexpected ways, and opens the door for every heart to be restored. No matter how far you’ve been, God is ready to bring you back where you belong. This week we looked at how God sometimes leads us down unexpected roads…

The Grand Tour of the message: Thinking back on what you heard this Sunday…

o What did you learn about God?

o What did you learn about people?

o What did you learn about yourself?

o What do you want to commit to putting into practice?

Reflection:

Personal Experience:

• Share about a time where your ‘best laid plans’ fell apart and you found yourself in a situation you did not expect.

  • What was happening, how did it feel, what were you thinking in the moment?

  • How did God work in that situation? What did you learn about Him through that time?

• Reflective Discussion (Remember to look at the context of the verses as you are reading!):

  • Discuss the character and work of God in unexpected situations in light of the following passages: Proverbs 16:9, Ps 37:23-24, Is 30:21, Romans 8:28, Ps 66:10-12, Lam 3:31-33, James 1:2-4).

  • Hard moments where we do not understand reveal our character. Read Matthew 1:18-25 and Luke 1:26-38. Discuss and reflect on the following questions:

    • Hard moments exercise character. How does character show up in Joseph’s encounter? In Mary’s?

    • The choice between fear and obedience is ultimately a question of lordship. Read the following passages where God tells His people not to fear; is that a command or a comfort… or are those 2 somehow connected? (Matt 1:20, Luke 1:30, Josh 1:9, Is 41:10, John 14:27, 2 Tim 1:7, Rom 8:15).

    • BOTH Mary and Joseph taking an active step of obedience, and it led them to a donkey ride in the last months of pregnancy that ended with a child born literally in a cow stall. Read the following passages and discuss how God works even in the moments of stories we would never write for ourselves (Luke 1:39-56, Matt 2:1-15).

Application: 

What is a specific step of trusting obedience that God is asking you to take next?

Prayer:

Spend some time in prayer committing yourself to taking that step of obedience.

____________________________________

Get more resources to go deeper through Commentaries and Bible Study helps HERE