A brief overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of John 11:32-46, for Sunday, February 26, 2023, wit the title, “I Am The Resurrection.”
(A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:
INTRO: ??? I think the Lifeway Leader guide has a pretty good introduction suggestion: Have you & your members share about the most interesting funeral you ever attended.??? Then use that to transition into John 11 and the death/burial of Lazarus.
OR begin with a discussion time like this:
??? Can you share a time when you/someone you know, questioned God??? (Or you might put it another way: If you could ask God one question about a time in your life, what would it be?)
(For example: In 2012 I got sick with an illness that took me out of the ministry for a couple of years. After a year of being incapacitated, I was stepping down from the church I had pastored for 12 years, and we were selling our home and 2/3 of our possessions. It was a difficult time. My wife Cheryl likes to tell the story of how at one point I was laid up in bed, and she was walking through the room packing things, and I said to her, “You know, I am really at peace with this.” She didn’t say anything then, but she told me later that when I said that, she said “I wanted to take that pillow you were laying on and suffocate the snot out of you!” She was not at peace with it. WHY was God doing this?)
You/your group can undoubtedly share many examples of this same kind of thing: WHY did God not do what you thought He would? Why didn’t He heal; why didn’t He seem to answer, etc?
And then I’d say: This morning we’re going to look at John 11, at a time like that in the lives of some of Jesus’ closest friends, who wondered why Jesus didn’t do for them, what they thought He should.
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