Lenten Bible Study

Week 1

Welcome!

Monday, February 15

Thanks for joining us today.

Let's start our time together with a prayer:

Merciful God, we embrace this season of Lent as we prepare again to walk with Jesus to the cross. Speak to us, we pray, the solemn truth of Christ's passion. Remind us that there is no life without death, no communion without separation, no glory without suffering. Give us courage and faith to receive these difficult truths and to align our hearts and lives with them. May we choose to lose our lives so that we may gain them; to endure the pain of separation that we might enjoy the fellowship of all your saints; to enter Christ's suffering by entering the suffering of your children on earth that we may one day share in your eternal glory. For the sake of Christ, we pray. Amen.

We will now turn our attention to this week's video.

(As you watch, use the outline on pages 12-14 of your Study Guide to record any thoughts or concepts that stand out to you.

GROUP DISCUSSION

First, read today's scripture passages.

Then click on today's Group Discussion questions and share your thoughts with the group!

Matthew 1:20-25

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

Then Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

Read Philippians 2:6-7

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.