The Light Still Shines

Fireworks light up the sky for a night. This Sunday we look at the Light that has been shining for 2,000 years and has never been overcome. "The Light Still Shines," John 3:16–21. Bring a friend!

Sermon Discussion Questions:

1. This series has repeatedly distinguished between knowing about Jesus and truly knowing him. Nicodemus knew the Scriptures better than anyone and was still in the dark. Where do you see that gap in your own life, and what would it look like to close it?

2. When someone we love walks away from Jesus, we reach for explanations: parenting, church hurt, politics, divorce. Why do you think we prefer those explanations to the diagnosis Jesus gives in John 3:19? How does misdiagnosing the sickness lead us to offer the wrong cures?

3. What areas of your life have you quietly labeled “off limits” to the light of Scripture — anger, greed, bitterness, how you treat your spouse, an unwillingness to forgive? What would it look like, practically, to bring one of those areas into the light this week?

4. “The same light that exposes us is the light that saves us.” Have you experienced a time when the exposure of your sin turned out to be a mercy? When the light shines on your sin now, are you more often grieved by the darkness or defending it?

5. Verse 21 says the one who “does what is true comes to the light.” How does Nicodemus’s journey — from coming by night in John 3 to coming publicly to the cross in John 19 — give you hope for the people you are praying for? How should it shape the way you pray for children and grandchildren who are not following Jesus?