Identity in Ephesians: You are Loved
Ephesians 3:14-21
Connect:
Share how you have seen God in the Highs and Lows of your week.
Discuss how resolutions made last week in “growing more like Jesus” worked themselves out— what did God do in and through you (Phil 2:13)? Celebrate those together!
Prayer:
Pray that God would lead your discussion time and bring fresh insight, conviction, and hope through your time together.
Review:
We are launching into a new series on our identity in Christ as presented in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. There are 14 things that God says we are. We are “Blessed”, “Rooted”, “Alive”, “Reconciled”, and now “Called”! See if your group can summarize the main idea in the previous ones!
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?
Reflect:
Share about a time when someone encouraged you by expressing God’s love to you at a time/ in a way that was deeply meaningful to you.
Read Ephesians 3:1.4-17
o What are the “Riches of His Glory”? (Eph 2:7, 3:8)
o Read Exodus 33:19-23, 34:6. How does God describe Himself in this passage— what is characteristic about HIS kind of love?
o Read v17 again: How can we cooperate with God in becoming “rooted and established” in love? (Eph 1:13,14, John 14:21,23)
Read Ephesians 3:18
o Talk about each aspect of the scale of God’s love: wide, long, high, deep. Share how you have seen this in your life.
o How wide is God’s love: read Luke 14:13,14; Romans 5:8. Discuss
o How long is God’s love: Read John 3:16-18; Hebrews 13:5; Eph 1:3,4. How do these verses help unpack this idea?
o How High is God’s love: There are many things that cause us to feel disconnected from the buzz of life around us. How does God’s love meet us there?
o How Deep: Read Luke 7:47; 1 Cor 1:26-31. How does this help us to think about God’s love?
Read Ephesians 3:19-21
o Discuss the phrase, “[God’s] love is going to take you places you would not go without it.”
o What does it mean to be ‘filled to all the fullness of God’?
o Read 2 Cor 3:18. What does it mean to be “transformed into His likeness?”
Respond:
o We finished the message this weekend with a prayer that we would know the love of God in all it’s scale, and that His love, His glory, would radiate through us to those around us. Close in prayer together with this theme in mind!
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