CONVERSATION STARTERS
Conversation Starters help us dig deeper, connecting Sunday’s sermons with our Monday lives. Please know that these questions are meant to be a resource. You do not have to follow them verbatim or get through them all. We trust you to know your group and to ask the questions based on your group needs.

1. Take a moment and think about a time when you felt lonely or alone. Take a few minutes for group members to share - as the leader, kick off the sharing!

2. Read John 14:15-31 silently or aloud.

3. What are some of the descriptions/purposes of the Holy Spirit (the King’s Counselor) in this passage?

4. When have you felt that Jesus is near and real? When have you struggled to feel or believe his nearness?

5. What do we learn about Jesus in this passage?

6. What does this passage say about what it means for believers to follow Jesus as king?

7. How does this passage encourage and/or challenge you?

PRAYER PROMPT
Pray for the Holy Spirit to be present in the room and to fill each of you. Pray for belief that Jesus is near even when we may not feel it.

Title: The King’s Counselor
Reference: John 14:15-31
Speaker: Bill Gorman, BillG@cckc.church

> We are God’s home.

> When God makes his home in us,
-Love replaces obligation.

"Virtue formation takes practice, and there is no practice that isn’t repetitive. We willingly embrace repetition as good in all kinds of other sectors of life–to hone our golf swing, our piano prowess, and our mathematical abilities, for example. If the sovereign Lord has created us as creatures of habit, why should we think repetition is inimical [damaging] to our spiritual growth”
- James K. A. Smith, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit

> When God makes his home in us,
-Help is always there

> When God makes his home in us,
-He’s always home.

“If I had understood as I do now that in this little palace of my soul dwelt so great a King, I would not have left Him alone so often. . . . But what a marvelous thing, that He who would fill a thousand worlds and many more with His grandeur would enclose Himself in something so small! . . . Since He is Lord He is free to do what He wants, and since He loves us He adapts Himself to our size.” - Teresa of Ávila

> When God makes his home in us,
-Peace triumphs over worry

"Strongholds are things we built to protect ourselves from anxiety but they can hinder God's work." - Mark Sayers, A Non-Anxious Presence

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”
- CS Lewis, Mere Christianity