Give each person an opportunity to share prayer requests.
Everlasting Father
Find Your Story in God’s Story
This week we’re learning about God’s everlasting care. We’re learning how God’s love restores and renews and redeems us, and how He invites us into His everlasting life.
Share Your Story Begin by praying together. This should be a brief, simple prayer in which you invite God to give you insight as you study. You can pray for specific requests at the end of your time together or stop momentarily to pray if a particular situation comes up during your discussion. Then begin your time together by discussing the following questions. • What’s the longest-lasting or oldest thing in your life? • What makes things last longer? What causes shorter lives? • What are things you’re doing to try to make your life last longer? WATCH THE VIDEO
NorthlandChurch.net/Studies Afterward have someone read the discussion questions in the “Hear God’s Story” section and start the conversation.
Hear God’s Story and Create a New Story READ ISAIAH 40:27-31 (NIV) Read the passages together, and then discuss the following questions. • Verse 28 describes God as “everlasting.” What does “everlasting” mean? What do verses 29-31 tell us about God’s eternal nature? • Ecclesiastes 3 was turned into the song “Turn, Turn, Turn.” It talks about the seasons of life people go through. How is that different from the nature of God we see described in Isaiah 40? • What happens to those who hope in the Lord, according to verse 31? • What are places where the world tells us to invest our lives? Which of those things are most lasting? Which are everlasting? • When has life’s impermanence worn you down? When is a time that God’s everlasting nature renewed your strength?
If you feel God is nudging you to go deeper, take some time between now and our next discussion to dig into His Word. Explore the Bible passages related to this session’s theme on your own, jotting your reflections in a journal or in this study guide. Want to go deeper? Select a few verses and try paraphrasing them: writing them in your own words. If you like, share them with the group the next time you meet. How has God’s invitation into an eternal life changed your perspective on day-today living?
• Who in your life needs the everlasting God to help him or her through tough times? How can you serve that person this week?
Everlasting Father
READ JOHN 3:16-21 (NIV) • According to Jesus, who is speaking in this passage, how can we experience God’s everlasting and eternal life?
• According to verse 16, God sent Jesus to save the world because God loved us first, even before we loved Him. Who are some people whom you could love first, as God has done with us?
• What are some differences between “sin-dead lives” and the lives we have when we’re “made … alive in Christ”? (Looking for biblical examples? Read 1 Corinthians 13.) • I n Matthew 6:19-20, Jesus says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal” (NIV). What are the things the world offers for us? Why won’t those things last?
• What are specific ways you can invite others to experience God’s everlasting love?
Looking for more questions and reflections so you can keep digging deeper? There’s even more to this week’s study available on Northland’s apps or at NorthlandChurch.net/Studies.
Let’s worship God together!
The mission of Northland, A Church Distributed is to respond to God for the benefit of others. Our vision is to see people coming to Christ and to be transformed together as we link locally and globally to worship and serve everywhere, every day. Join us!
Our website has hundreds of archived worship services, stories about the great work God is doing and ways for YOU to be the church everywhere, every day. NorthlandChurch.net
READ EPHESIANS 2:1-10 (THE MESSAGE)
• E phesians 2:10 reads, “He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing” (MSG). What is the work we see Jesus doing in the Bible? What work is God calling us to join in now?
Welcome
Connect & Grow
• In The Message translation, verse 16 ends, “by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.” What’s the difference between a whole life and an incomplete life? What’s the difference between a lasting life and a life that doesn’t last?
• How can we lead meaningful lives if everything we’re creating is temporary? • How has God used the people in your group or community to be His vessels of renewal or hope?
Light has a Name
DECEMBER 16-18, 2017
DIGGING DEEPER
Isaiah 9:2-7 (NIV)
For more information or to get involved as a volunteer, email Hello@NorthlandChurch.net or call 407-949-4000. We are located at 530 Dog Track Road, Longwood, FL 32750.