Sermon Response Guide

Sermon Response Guide En Español

PRIMARY SCRIPTURE: Luke 2:19 (see Luke 1:26 – 56)

Key Points

• We come home to love when:
  1) We treasure and ponder God’s love for us
  2) We realize God first loved us
  3) We see how God treasures and ponders God’s love for us
  4) We look at Jesus
  5) We respond to God’s love in obedience

Memory Verse

Ask God to write this word on your heart this week:

“God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us,”
-1 John 4:16 – 17 MSG

Questions for Reflection

Take time to reflect and respond to these questions on your own in the presence of the Holy Spirit, or with trusted friends or family members:
 
1: Before today, what would have been the first word you thought of to describe Mary? What about now? Who is the Mary we read about in the Bible?
 
2: How has your view of Mary changed today, and why?
 
3: How has your view of God changed today, and why?
 
4: After being greeted by the angel, Gabriel, and being called “beautiful with God’s beauty, beautiful inside and out,” the Message says Mary “was thoroughly shaken, wondering what was behind a greeting like that,” (Luke 1:28 – 29). Why do you think Mary initially struggled to receive such a greeting?
 
5: What about you? God is saying the same thing about you today, and every day. You are dearly loved and chosen by God. What is your initial response? Why might you struggle to initially receive the truth of God’s great love for you, too?
 
6: Why do you think it was so important for Mary to treasure and ponder God’s love for her? Because she received and believed God’s love for her, what was Mary enabled to do?

7: What is God showing you or teaching you through Mary’s example this Christmas?

8: How will you respond to what God is teaching you in obedience?

Pray

Lord, your love for us is so great. We talk about it all the time, but so often we miss it. Don’t let us move through this week of Christmas without stopping to treasure and ponder your great love for us in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. So many Christmases ago, you sent your Son to bring us home to love. You are love – the greatest love of all. We are coming home to you, this Christmas. We are coming home to love.