Greetings Church,
As we wrap up our series Reconciled, we are asking this question “How can I be a neighbor?”
Questions for Small Groups:
To start your group, have everyone share one way they have seen God at work in their life this week.
Read the Good Samaritan story in Luke 10:25-37.
1. The lawyer (expert in the Old Testament Law) asked the most important question we can ask- “How can I have eternal life?” But notice he asks “what must I DO…
Have you wrestled with your own eternal destiny? Do you have eternal life?
When the lawyer asks what he must DO to have eternal life he is proposing a works based salvation. Why can’t we work our way to eternal life? To God? Why must we receive it, not earn it?
2. Look at Luke 10:29. The Lawyer wanted to justify himself. He wanted to show that he was worthy of eternal life by his own value or efforts. What are some ways that you try to justify yourself? Even if you are a Christian- how do you try to show how you are worthy or more righteous than others?
3. Jesus’ parable about the Good Samaritan shows that the Lawyer was asking the wrong question. Rather than asking “Who is my neighbor?” (an attempt to limit his responsibility under the law). He should have been asking “How can I be a good neighbor?”
In what ways have you or have we as a church been asking the wrong question? Are you trying to lessen our responsibility or are we open to loving and caring for everyone in our community?
Is it some other church’s responsibility to care for the poor, the oppressed, the refugee, the homeless, the special needs family, the other ethnicities, the elderly, the young? Or is it our responsibility to be a neighbor to all?
4. The gospel shows us that we are each the badly beaten man left for dead in the story. Why is it so crucial that we see ourselves this way and see Jesus as our Good Samaritan that rescued us?
Why is it impossible to love and serve others LIKE the Good Samaritan until we realize that we NEED the Good Samaritan?
5. This week is Grace Gives- how can your group be a good neighbor this week of Grace Gives?
Practice saying the Fighter Verse with one another: 1 John 3:18. Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
