SESSION 1

* * *

He Chose to Be One of Us

God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin's control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins.

Romans 8:3 NLT

You alone are the God for us — because you alone are the God who has been one of us. You felt what we feel, you touched the death that we know, you came to us as Immanuel: God with us.

Ann Voskamp, aholyexperience.com

WELCOME

Welcome to session 1 of He Chose the Nails. If this is your first time together as a group, take a moment to introduce yourselves to one another before watching the video. Then let's begin!

VIDEO: HE CHOSE TO BE ONE OF US (14 MINUTES)

Play the video segment for session 1. As you watch, use the outline provided to follow along or to take additional notes on anything that stands out to you.

Notes

The gifts of Easter are the most precious gifts any person could ever receive because they cost God so much to give.

God's greatest gift of all — his greatest act of love for us — was sending Jesus into our world.

Jesus gave up:

Timelessness: Jesus swapped eternity for calendars. The Bible tells us God is "beyond our understanding! The number of his years is past finding out" (Job 36:26). There is no moment when God was not God, for he is eternal.

Boundlessness: Jesus gave up being a spirit to live in a body. One moment he was a boundless spirit; the next moment he was flesh and bones.

Sinlessness: Jesus became sin for us. An object that symbolizes the consequences of sin in humanity's heart is a thornbush (see Genesis 3:17-18; Numbers 33:55; Proverbs 22:5; Matthew 7:16). The thorny crown on Christ's brow is a picture of the fruit of our sin that pierced his heart.

We are "by nature children of wrath" (Ephesians 2:3 NASB). Though we have been made in God's image, we're corrupt at the core. The sinless One took on the face of a sinner so that we sinners could take on the face of a saint.

Jesus never knew the fruits of sin until he became sin for us (see 2 Corinthians 5:21). When he was crucified, he cried out in a loud voice, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). Those are not the words of a saint but the cry of a sinner.

The crown of thorns could have been made — and should have been worn — by every one of us. But it was not, thanks to the greatest gift of all.

Why did God give us this gift? "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

God did it for us — just for us — because he loves us.

GROUP DISCUSSION (44 MINUTES)

Take a few minutes to talk about what you just watched.

1. What part of the teaching had the most impact on you?

Receiving the Gifts of Easter

2. Imagine for a moment that you have decided to do a random act of kindness for a stranger by leaving a $100 bill in a public place (such as a park, a lobby, or a store aisle). After placing the cash where it can be easily spotted, you hide nearby to see who will find it. As you wait, you begin to think about who might receive your gift.

• What kind of person do you most hope will and will not find your gift? For instance, you might hope a struggling single parent will find it, and that a compulsive gambler will not find it Identify three or four kinds of people you would consider deserving recipients and three or four you would consider less than deserving.

• If someone in the less-than-deserving category were to find your gift, what thoughts might you zing his or her way? For example, You don't deserve it. You'd better not waste it. Someone else needs it more.

• The same way we think about giving gifts is often reflected in the way we think about receiving them. Consider the internal response you tend to have when you are the recipient of a gift, whether material or immaterial. What might the thought zingers you just identified suggest about your own ability to receive a gift, perhaps especially when it is unexpected? Do you send similar thought zingers to yourself? (I don't deserve it; I better not waste it; someone else needs it more.) What other internal dynamics sometimes make it difficult for you to truly receive a gift?

3. Max described the period leading up to Easter as a season of gifts — precious gifts that God gave us at the cross, such as the crown of thorns For centuries, Christians throughout the world have used the season of Lent to prepare themselves spiritually so that nothing prevents them from receiving and celebrating the greatest Easter gift of all — the resurrected Christ.

The word Lent comes from the Old English word lencten, which means spring. In its earliest observance, Lent was a time for new converts to prepare for their baptism on Easter Sunday. Today, Lent marks the forty-day period before Easter that begins each year on Ash Wednesday. Although it is traditionally a time devoted to self-examination, self-denial, and repentance, Lent sinks its deepest roots into the joyful expectation of new life through God's forgiveness and steadfast love. This sense of Lent is evident in the words of John the Baptist: "The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!" (Mark 1:15). We also find it in this passage written by the prophet Joel, traditionally read at the beginning of Lent:

"Even now," declares the Lord, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning." Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity (Joel 2:12-13).

The time during which Joel was a prophet was one of great prosperity. God had richly blessed his people, but their hearts had grown cold over time. They began to take "God and his blessings for granted. [Their] faith had degenerated into an empty formalism and their lives into moral decadence." Through the prophet, God pleaded with his people to return to him with their whole heart.

The season of Lent issues a similar call to God's people today. It is a time to take seriously the areas of our lives in which we fall short, feel defeated, or have grown cold. And we do so not to beat ourselves up but to prepare for God's gifts:

Lent is a time for discipline, for confession, for honesty, not because God is mean or fault-finding or finger-pointing but because he wants us to know the joy of being cleaned out, ready for all the good things he now has in store.

This process of being cleaned out is part of how we return to God...