STORY OF HEAVEN SG: Exploring the Hope and Promise of Eternity - Softcover

Lucado, Frazee

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0310820278 ISBN 13: 9780310820277

Verlag: HarperChristian Resources, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

In The Story of Heaven, a 3-session video Bible study, bestselling authors and pastors Max Lucado and Randy Frazee offer a hope-filled, biblical perspective of heaven.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

With more than 130 million products in print, Max Lucado is America's bestselling inspirational author. He serves the Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas, where he lives with his wife, Denalyn, and their mischievous mutt, Andy.

Randy Frazee is the senior minister at Oak Hills Church, one of the largest churches in America, leading alongside author and pastor Max Lucado. A leader and innovator in spiritual formation and biblical community, Randy is the architect of The Story church engagement campaign. He is also the author of The Heart of the Story, The Connecting Church 2.0, and The Christian Life Profile Assessment. He and his wife, Rozanne, live in San Antonio.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

-Over 45,000 center-column references -Concordance -Extensive study helps -Introductions for every book in the Bible -Presentation pages -Words of Christ in red

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

The Story of Heaven Study Guide

By Max Lucado, Randy Frazee

ZONDERVAN

Copyright © 2014 Max Lucado and Randy Frazee
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-310-82027-7

Contents

Introduction, 7, 
Session 1 Exit Strategy Teaching by Max Lucado, 9, 
Session 2 Heavenly Graduation Teaching by Max Lucado, 35, 
Session 3 The End of Time Teaching by Randy Frazee, 55, 

CHAPTER 1

Exit Strategy

In life, the end is often exactly that, the end. With Jesus, the end can become the beginning.

Bible Readings

Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick."

When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, and then he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea."

"But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?"

Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world's light. It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light."

After he had said this, he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up."

His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better." Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.

So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."

Then Thomas (also known as Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."

On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.

"Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."

Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."

Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

"Yes, Lord," she replied, "I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world."

After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. "The Teacher is here," she said, "and is asking for you." When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. "Where have you laid him?" he asked.

"Come and see, Lord," they replied.

Jesus wept.

Then the Jews said, "See how he loved him!"

But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. "Take away the stone," he said.

"But, Lord," said Martha, the sister of the dead man, "by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days."

Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?"

So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me."

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.

Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."

John 11:1–44

Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, "We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him; they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again."

Luke 18:31–33

[The disciples] were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. [Jesus] said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, "Do you have anything to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.

He said to them, "This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms."

Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, "This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem."

Luke 24:37–47

Now, brothers and sisters, I [Paul] want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.

But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

"Where, O death, is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?"

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

1 Corinthians 15:1–6, 12–26, 51–58

Study Guide

Introduction from the Video

Ralls, Texas, was a weathered tumbleweed of a town in 1965. The city center consisted of a two-story courthouse framed by a weedy lawn and bricked roads. One drugstore had gone out of business, and the second was not far behind. The closest resemblance to a traffic jam occurred every morning when farmers left the diner parking lot after their sunrise coffee.

It was as if someone had pressed the pause button and forgotten to release it. Which was just fine with my grandparents, God bless 'em. Charles and Macey McDermott looked just like the farm couple in Grant Wood's painting, only not nearly as energetic. Grandpa, lanky and long-faced; she, shorter and dark-eyed. Neither one smiled much. They shuffled about in a two-bedroom frame house, chewing Brown's Mule tobacco, watching soap operas, and reading Zane Grey novels.

It was my mom's idea for me to spend a week with them. Let ten-year-old Max get to know his grandparents' and mom's hometown. So she gave me a chocolate bar and a kiss, loaded me on a Greyhound bus, and waved goodbye.

The trip peaked with the candy bar. After one day I knew this was going to be the longest week of my life. My grandparents had no bicycles, baseballs, or basketball hoops. They knew no other ten-year-olds and lived too far out in the country for me to find any. Dullsville.

But then during lunch one day, I asked my grandmother about the photo that hung in her bedroom—the sepia-toned picture that was professionally taken and handsomely set in an oval-shaped walnut frame. Who was this mystery man who occupied prime real estate above my grandmother's bed?

"That's Levi Thornton," Grandma told me. "Your grandfather." I'd heard of this man. How he brought my mom to the farm country. How he died young. But where had he come from? How had he died? I didn't know.

So Grandma set out to tell me. Within a couple of sentences, I was lost in the story, bouncing in the cab of the 1929 Chevy pickup with Grandpa Levi, Grandma, and an eight-year-old version of my mom. I was happy to listen, and Grandma was thrilled to talk. For the better part of that day, we shinnied up the family tree and explored branches I had never known existed. As we did, my black-and-white week exploded into a Monet of colors.

Why do you suppose, now forty years removed, that I still remember the day in such detail? I still see the kitchen in which we sat, its straight-backed chairs and Formica-topped table. I see Grandma spilling photos out of a box and details out of her heart as if neither had been taken off the shelf in quite some time.

I recall an emotion similar to the one you likely felt when you learned about your great-grandfather's migration from Norway or a distant relation being one of the charter Royal Canadian Mounties. Perhaps you've traced your ancestry through the Apache hunting grounds, African slave ships, or Polynesian sailors. We love to know where we came from.

And we need to know where we came from. Knowing connects us, links us, bonds us to something greater than we are. Knowing reminds us that we aren't floating on isolated ponds but on a grand river.

That's why God wants you to know his story. Framed photos hang in his house. Lively talks await you at his table. Stories about Bethlehem beginnings, enemy warfare in the wilderness, and fishermen friends in Galilee. The stumbles of Peter and the stubbornness of Paul. All a part of the story, but only subplots to the central message: "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). This is the headline of the story: God saves his people!

The Bible says so. Scripture assures us of heaven. "Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we've been given a brandnew life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now!" (1 Peter 1:3–4 MSG).

Jesus says so. "He told them, 'This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things'" (Luke 24:46–48).

The angel says so. "The angel said to the women, 'Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay'" (Matthew 28:5–6).

Witnesses say so. "He was seen by Peter and then by the twelve apostles. After that, Jesus was seen by more than five hundred of the believers at the same time" (1 Corinthians 15:5–6 NCV).

Even the rolled-away stone testifies to Christ's rising from the dead (Matthew 28:1–7). No barrier will keep us locked inside the grave. Christ was the first example that we will all follow.

We all have a start date and an end date, known only by God before we were born. The clock began ticking the moment we were conceived in the womb. But as God's story of heaven reveals, we also have an exit strategy.

Talk About It

Tell about a time that a Christian family member or friend passed away. What feelings did you have during this season of loss and how did you experience both sorrow and joy?

Video Teaching Notes

As you watch the video teaching segment for session 1, featuring Max Lucado, use the following outline to record anything that stands out to you.

The folly of not having an exit strategy

No dream of a Sunday morning miracle

Plans to embalm Jesus, not talk to him

Cadaver turned King: he is risen!

The bodily resurrection of Jesus means everything

Promise about our grave

Death is not the final chapter

Video Discussion

Note: For your convenience, most of the Bible readings referenced in the following discussion questions are also found in the Bible Readings section at the beginning of this session, though sometimes the Bible Readings section versions are expanded.

1. In the video, Max said, "We all have a start date and an end date, known only by God before we were born. The clock began ticking the moment we were conceived in the womb." Despite this undeniable truth, why do you think so many people walk through this life failing to plan for their ultimate departure? What do Christians have to share with others that will help them get ready for the end of life on this planet?

2. Satan would love to keep every man, woman, and child so distracted and busy that they never face their own mortality and the reality that death looms in front of us all. What are some of the Enemy's distractions that keep people from asking important spiritual and eternal questions?

3. If a non-Christian friend or family member asked you, "What do you believe will happen to you when this life ends?" how would you explain eternity and your faith and confidence in God in a way that would make sense to them?

4. If a nonbelieving family member or friend was drawing near the end of their life and they asked you, "How can I prepare for eternity and to meet God?" what would you say to them? How would you help them prepare?

5. Read: Luke 18:31–33; 24:45–47. Imagine you were one of the disciples who walked with Jesus and heard him declare things like this with crystal clarity. How could they have heard these words and still not have realized that Jesus was actually going to rise again from the dead? Give examples of ways that we hear Jesus declare things with clarity and conviction but still don't fully embrace the truth of what he says.

6. In the video, Max talked about how the disciples got stuck on Saturday (Jesus' body in the tomb), but they needed to move into Sunday (Christ risen and alive!). How can Christians today get stuck on Saturday and forget that we live in the glorious victory of Resurrection Sunday? What can we do to inspire ourselves, and others, to live in the hope and reality of Easter Sunday?

7. Read: 1 Corinthians 15:12–18. Why is absolute confidence in the bodily resurrection of Jesus so critical to the Christian faith? According to the apostle Paul, what are the implications for us if Christ has not risen from the dead?

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Story of Heaven Study Guide by Max Lucado, Randy Frazee. Copyright © 2014 Max Lucado and Randy Frazee. Excerpted by permission of ZONDERVAN.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: HarperChristian Resources
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0310820278
• ISBN 13: 9780310820277
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 80
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar