NOTE: If you missed this week’s message, click here to listen or watch.
Talk about your experience on Sunday morning.
- How did God speak to you during worship and/or teaching this week?
- What have you been reflecting on and/or praying about in response to this week’s service?
Opener…
- Talk about a time in your life when you felt excluded, unwanted, or shunned. How did that make you feel?
Now read Mark 1:40-45 together.
- Think about the man with leprosy (a condition that caused physical, social and spiritual suffering causing people to be shunned and isolated). With his condition in mind, what makes this story so interesting?
- The leper begged Jesus to heal and cleanse him, allowing his need to make him desperate for Jesus. What often prevents us from desperately begging Jesus to meet our needs?
- Think of a need in your life right now. In what ways could this need cause you to become more desperate for Jesus?
- The leper demonstrated great faith in saying that he knew Jesus “can” heal him, but wondered if Jesus was willing (and ultimately whether or not he was ‘worth it’ to Jesus).
- Why is it that (for many of us) we struggle to have faith that Jesus can still heal, cleanse, and do miracles in our hearts and lives today?
- What does it look like to have faith that Jesus can still do all these things today?
- In what ways does our insecurity and sense of worth impact our relationship with God and what we expect to Jesus do in and through us?
- When Jesus saw the man he had compassion on him, knowing that this was not the kind of life he had created mankind for.
- What does Jesus’ compassion show us about Jesus?
- Jesus reached out, touched the man and told him that he was “willing” to heal and cleanse him.
- What does Jesus’ willingness reveal to us about his character? What does it reveal to us about the Gospel?
- The invitation of Jesus is to come as we are, where he promises to meet our needs and to cleanse and heal us. What often prevents us from coming as we are?
- What next steps do you need to take, attitudes do you need to adjust, or beliefs do you need to change in response to this teaching?
Spend some time in prayer together as a group.
