Irresistible | Week 4

Week 4 Who Is My Neighbor?

Life Group Discussion Guide

Note to the Leaders: 

This discussion guide is a help for you to engage and steer the conversation within your group.  

You do not have to read every question; this is just resources for you to move the main idea forward. 

Do your best to make the story come to life by asking questions that will spur your group conversations that make this story play come alive and become applicable to their lives.   

Key Verse: 1 John 3:16,

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

Getting Started:

·      Have you ever unfriended someone on social media because they had a different political view than you?

·      If so, why did that political affiliation lead you to unfriend them?

·      Do you believe you were able to teach them a lesson or value the relationship?

·      Should differences between us determine our love for one another?

Digging In:

Read Luke 10:25-29

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it? He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[c]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.() “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

1.     Is it always easier to love others just like us?

·      For Jews during the time of Jesus, other Jews were their “neighbors”.

·      If that was all that Jesus meant by this verse it would be less complicated.

·      Jesus answers with a story…

Read Luke 10:30-32

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side

·      Assuming that because this man was coming from Jerusalem and a Samaritan wouldn’t be caught dead in Jerusalem, we can be fairly confident that the beaten man was a Jew.

1.     How did the Priest and the Levite fail to follow the basic law of “loving their Jewish neighbor”?

2.     Who qualifies someone as a person we would consider “like us”?

3.     How do we fail to love those like us?  

Read Luke 10:33-35

But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.” He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the in-keeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.

·      Jews looked at Samaritans as half-breeds that were trying to sneak in on the Jewish blessings

·      Needless to say, there was a wall built between them and they refused to even talk to each other.

·      This whole story that Jesus is telling is borderline ridiculous for those listening.

Read Luke 10:36-37

Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” Luke “The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him. Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

4.     Although the answer to the question was obvious, the implication of the answer was “Who loved their neighbor as themselves?”.

·      The fact that the man answered Jesus out loud, he knew he was now accountable for loving those who were not like him.

·      He couldn’t even mention the man as a Samaritan, just “the other man”. 

In one moment, Jesus redefined “neighbor” for everybody forever.

5.     How does Jesus in this story redefine and shift our thinking on how we see others?

6.     How does seeing others like God see’s them help us to love them authentically?

·      Love is not limited to ethnicity but extends beyond borders even our own prejudice. 

Read 1 John 3:16

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives (Our opinions our prejudice) for our brothers and sisters.

Next Step:

·      Is there someone or a group of people you are withholding God’s love from because they are different than you?

·      Our opinion of others must be solely based on who Christ say they are, not us.

Remember:

·      Jesus Liked People who were Nothing Like Him.

·      Jesus Invited Unbelieving, Misbehaving, Troublemaking Men and Women to Follow Him and to Embrace Something New, and they Accepted His Invitation. 

·      And this made Him irresistible to others.