Overcome the World

Jesus sees the world differently than we do: somehow, even in the face of difficulties, Jesus claimed that he had “overcome” the world. What would believing that look like in our lives? How would tying ourselves to Jesus’ victory change our perspective on our current challenging circumstances? In this first week of our 4-week series, we’ll kick off the fall by looking at how one of Jesus’ disciples, John, was inspired by Jesus to live a life fully committed to overcoming and teaches us to do the same.

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Discussion Guide

To view a .docx version of this guide, click here.

Before we begin, let’s take a quiet moment and pray for God’s direction of our time together. Then we’ll take a couple of minutes to go around and share where we’ve seen God at work in our lives this week.

Introduction

As we begin the Fall season, many of us are already faced with challenges. Life is like that! It can feel intimidating, uncertain, and sometimes even scary. We face things at work, at home, in relationships, with our finances, and in our own thoughts that can leave us wondering, How am I going to get through this?

Fear can make our problems look bigger and ourselves look smaller. Sometimes it even convinces us that we’re defeated before we’ve begun.

Jesus offers us a different way to see our circumstances. He never promises that life will be easy or that we won’t experience fear, disappointment, or pain. Instead, he tells us something much more powerful: “Take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Connect

Let’s start our discussion time with some “get-to-know-you” questions.

What difficult thing did you learn to do that once seemed impossible?