2023
The Miracle of Resurrection
Passage: 2 Kings 4:8-37
“I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the pitiful mirage … In the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened with men.”
– Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
The Westminster Catechism asks in its first question: what is our only hope in life and death? The answer: That we are not our own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death, to God and to our Savior Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus – where are you most drawn to place your hope? How else do people try to provide a different answer to this question?
Read 2 Kings 4:8-37. What do you observe about God from this passage? What does this story teach us about who God is, what he cares about, and how he cares for his people?
What did resilient faith look like in this passage?
When it comes to the promises of God, we should always get our hopes us. But the outcome is not always what we hoped for. How do you respond and wrestle with your grief when things do not turn out the way you hoped for?
Read John 11:25. How does the truth and reality of Jesus’s resurrection and our bodily resurrection inform the practice of hope in your life? What is the relationship between our surrender to God and our hope in his promises?
In a sermon on the Sunday following 9/11, Tim Keller posed the question: “Do you know what Jesus Christ is saying when he says, ‘I am the resurrection?’ He is not saying that he will give us a nicer place. He is going to make everything that happened this week be a bad dream. He is not just giving you a consolation. He is going to make it come untrue. He is going to incorporate even the worst things that have ever happened to you. They will be taken up into the glory that is to come in such a way that they make the glory better and greater for having once been broken.” (Tim Keller September 16, 2001, sermon titled “Truth, Tears, Anger, and Grace.”) Jesus has swallowed up death forever (Isaiah 25:8) giving us full and lasting life. How does resurrection hope transform your present life, your grief, your desires, your relationships?
What do we need to remember, rejoice in, request, or repent of from this passage?
PRAYER
Spend time praying for resurrection hope and a desire to surrender to God in your present circumstances. Ask God for grateful hearts to see his goodness and receive his mercy. Enjoy the truth that God knows you fully and loves you deeply.
Share with your group how they can be praying for you: what is weighing on you from this past week? What are you praising God for from this past week?
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you (1 Peter 1:3-4)