SERIES TITLE
Down To Earth Week 2
series overview
No matter who you are, what you’ve lived through, or where you’ve come from, the story of how God relentlessly pursues us has the power to change our lives. He chose to come down to our messy, broken world, to prove His great love. Rather than us reaching up to heaven, heaven came down to earth.
sermon TITLE
The Carpenter of Nazareth
Sermon Summary
Gene emphasizes the deep-rooted human desire to achieve extraordinary feats, contrasting it with the extraordinary humility of God, who chose to become an ordinary human through Jesus’ birth. By living a mundane life as a carpenter, Jesus intimately experienced the struggles and realities of daily life, allowing Him to truly relate to our burdens and challenges. As such, Jesus not only identifies with our daily experiences but also understands the pressures of work, the complexities of relationships, and the pain of rejection. Ultimately, he calls us to recognize that this extraordinary God values our companionship and desires a personal relationship with each of us.
ice breaker
Today’s study is about the Incarnation. With that in mind, If you could become any animal, real or fictional, what would it be? What do you think that experience would be like?
DISCUSSion
Select 3-4 questions from the list below to guide your discussion time.
- Reflect again on John 1:14. What does it mean to you that the extraordinary God chose to become an ordinary human being, even becoming a carpenter in Nazareth? Can you think of a time when someone’s ordinary actions or presence made a big difference in your life? How do you think that impacted the first followers of Jesus as they discovered his real identity?
- Read the startling verse recorded as Hebrews 4:15 in the New Testament. In what ways do you think Jesus identifies with the everyday struggles and realities of our lives? Are there any limits to the things Jesus might have been tempted by? How do you think he remained “without sin” during it all?
- Matthew 13:54-55 mentions how people questioned Jesus by referring to Him as ‘the carpenter’s son.’ Why do you think that was significant? A Mosaic was recently discovered in a town just 15 miles from Nazareth (read about it here). It is dated 230 AD, and declares that Jesus is God, almost 100 years before Rome gathered Christian leaders to form the Nicene Creed that declares Christ as God. Soon after Jesus was on the earth, the region around where he grew up believed he was God in the flesh. How did many of them miss it when he was with them? Have you ever overlooked the extraordinary just because it was it came in the form of something familiar?
- Gene emphasized that Jesus spent many years as a carpenter, understanding the pressures and frustrations of working life. What are some specific challenges in your workplace that you feel Jesus can relate to, and how might that change your attitude toward those challenges?
- What does it mean to you that Jesus, as a ‘man of sorrows,’ understands deep personal pain and rejection? Have you experienced a situation where you felt pain or rejection? How might knowing that Jesus understands that pain help you in moving forward?
WRAP UP & PRAYER
Please share any prayer requests you might have.
- Ask for any prayer requests from the group.
- Pray for the strength to see the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life.
- Ask God to help everyone follow Jesus’ example in dealing with daily struggles.
- Pray for an opportunity to be Jesus to someone else this week as Christmas approaches.