How to use this guide

This guide is designed to take you deeper into the points of the Sunday morning message and the passage we’re studying each week. The guide is divided into two parts.

Read, Reflect, and Respond guides you through your own personal study of the message text, preferably before you arrive for the service on Sunday morning. This section uses the HEAR journaling method, which is an acronym for highlight, explain, apply, and respond.

Discuss With Others is designed to help you take the things you’ve learned in your personal study and the message and discuss them within the context of your small group.

READ, Reflect, AND Respond

Highlight: Begin your Bible reading time with prayer then highlight verses that stand out to you as you read the passage. Note any words or ideas you want to dive deeper into and pay attention to repeated or emphasized words and phrases. This is the “observation” process – looking at the who, what, when, where of the passage.

Explain: What is the context of the passage and the author’s intended meaning within that context? This is where you can consult a study Bible or commentary. What did the passage mean to the original listeners? Was there something in their context that was being addressed? This step is to understand what the meaning of the passage was then before you seek to understand what the applied principle is today.

Apply: What is the principle to live by today? This is when you turn the focus to your own life, setting, and culture. What is the principle that applies to your own context?

Respond: How will you respond to the application in your relationships and/or situations this week? This recognizes that the Bible is not just a set of truths to know, but is actually a guide to live by.

Discuss with Others

Use your community group time to have some conversation around the message. Start your discussion by inviting someone to read the passage aloud in its entirety.

Consider your pre-regenerate state. In what ways were you in darkness? What were the consequences of living in darkness?

As a new creation in Christ, how have you been brought into the light?

1. 1. What has the light illuminated for you?
      1. For God, who said, “ Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Cor. 4:6
   2. What has the light exposed to you?
      1. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. Psalm 90:8
   3. How has the light guided you? 
      1. Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” John 11:9-10
   4. Have you seen the light divide? 
      1. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. John 1:10-11

Read Isaiah 49:6 and Luke 2:29-30. Consider how physical light – the sun – is necessary for life to flourish. In what ways is the church meant to be spiritual light in a spiritually dark world? In what ways are we failing? How are we succeeding?