Study the Word

Bible Studies and Sermon Series

These studies explore relationships, spiritual growth, disappointment, identity, purpose, healing, and the ways God uses people to shape our lives. Each resource brings Scripture, reflection, and practical application together for individuals, churches, and small groups.

Series One

The People We Need

The People We Need explores the relationships God uses to sustain, challenge, strengthen, redirect, and restore us. Each message examines a biblical relationship and asks not only what kind of people we need in our lives, but what kind of person God is calling us to become for others.

Biblical foundation

John 11; Esther 4; 2 Samuel 12; Ruth 1; 1 Samuel 18, 20, and 23; 2 Kings 5; Exodus 18

Key themes

Presence, courage, truth, commitment, loyalty, healing, wise counsel, and shared responsibility

Lazarus, Mary, Martha, and the Bethany community

If You Had Been Here

Scripture: John 11:1–44

Bethany was more than a village. It was a circle of friendship. This study explores the people who notice our pain, remain with us through delay and grief, and help unwrap what Jesus raises to new life.

Key themes

Notice when something is wrong
Trust God’s timing
Help others walk free

View Study Overview

Opportunity

Be close enough to be called. Know people’s struggles, not only their strengths, and carry grief together.

Obstacle

Love enough to wait on God. Hold space for grief and worship while wondering.

Option

Move from if to now. Believe before seeing, obey before understanding, and move the stone.

If You Had Been Here sermon teaching handout

Esther and Mordecai

For Such a Time as This

Scripture: Esther 4:1–17

Esther had a crown, but she also had a choice. Mordecai reminded her who she was, spoke truth when fear was loud, and called her toward courage and God’s purpose.

Key themes

Remember who you are
Choose courage despite fear
Trust God’s larger purpose

View Study Overview

Obstacle

Fear exaggerates risk. Silence can feel safer than obedience, and comfort can compete with calling.

Opportunity

Mordecai speaks truth. Real friends tell us what we need to hear, and love speaks honestly.

Option

Step into courage. Faith acts before outcomes are known, and God works through surrendered people.

For Such a Time as This sermon teaching handout

Nathan and David

It Is You

Scripture: 2 Samuel 12:1–13

David could see another person’s wrong while remaining blind to his own. God sent Nathan to speak truth, not to humiliate David, but to lead him toward repentance, freedom, and restoration.

Key themes

Receive truth with humility
Face blind spots honestly
Walk in restoration

View Study Overview

Opportunity

Receive truth. God often sends truth through people, and wisdom listens before it reacts.

Obstacle

Self-deception protects what conviction exposes. Pride resists what humility receives.

Option

Face the truth and respond with repentance. Confession breaks self-deception and opens the door to healing.

Ruth and Naomi

Where You Go, I Will Go

Scripture: Ruth 1:1–18

Naomi’s losses gave everyone a reason to leave, but Ruth stayed. This study considers the friends who choose loyalty over convenience and remain committed through uncertainty.

Key themes

Choose commitment
Stay through difficult seasons
Trust God with the future

View Study Overview

Opportunity

Choose commitment before circumstances improve. Relationships require intentional choice.

Obstacle

Grief can make the future look hopeless. Loss tests the depth of relationships.

Option

Walk together anyway. Loyalty chooses people over convenience, and love continues through difficult seasons.

Where You Go, I Will Go sermon teaching handout

Jonathan and David

Better Together

Scripture: 1 Samuel 18:1–4; 20:1–42; 23:16

David had God’s promise, but opposition stood between the promise and the palace. Jonathan recognized God’s hand on David, stayed loyal under pressure, and helped him find strength in God.

Key themes

See God’s hand on others
Choose loyalty under pressure
Strengthen another person’s calling

View Study Overview

Opportunity

See God’s hand. Great friends celebrate rather than compete and recognize God’s potential in others.

Obstacle

Jealousy can turn blessing into rivalry. Pressure reveals hidden motives and tests loyalty.

Option

Choose covenant over convenience. Point others back to God and help them walk into their calling.

The servant girl and Naaman

If Only He Knew

Scripture: 2 Kings 5:1–14

A servant girl saw what others overlooked and spoke with boldness despite having little power. Her words pointed Naaman toward God’s provision, healing, restored worship, and new purpose.

Key themes

See what others overlook
Speak hope with boldness
Point people toward healing

View Study Overview

Opportunity

Share what you know. Great friends notice needs others miss and speak what could bring hope.

Obstacle

Pride resists help when it does not look the way we expect.

Option

Humble yourself and follow God’s way. Healing can restore worship and open new purpose.

Jethro and Moses

You Cannot Do This Alone

Scripture: Exodus 18:13–24

What looked like dedication in Moses was becoming exhaustion. Jethro observed the burden, offered wise counsel, and helped Moses build a healthier and more sustainable way forward.

Key themes

Recognize your limits
Share the load
Remain teachable

View Study Overview

Opportunity

Receive wise counsel. Jethro observed before he advised, and wisdom began with honest evaluation.

Obstacle

Good intentions can still produce unhealthy patterns. Exhaustion often hides behind responsibility.

Option

Share the load. Delegation is stewardship, shared burdens strengthen communities, and healthy systems protect people.

You Cannot Do This Alone sermon teaching handout

Series Two

The People We Must Navigate

Some relationships strengthen us. Others test our wisdom, identity, boundaries, and spiritual maturity. The People We Must Navigate explores how to respond to difficult, demanding, controlling, competitive, or confusing people without allowing their behavior to determine our character. Through Scripture, the series helps us recognize unhealthy relational dynamics while responding with truth, wisdom, courage, grace, integrity, and appropriate boundaries.

Core biblical foundation

Proverbs 26:4–5; Matthew 10:16; Romans 12:17–21; Ephesians 4:15; 2 Timothy 3:1–5

Formation focus

Discernment, identity, wisdom, integrity, peace, grace, and appropriate boundaries

Opportunity

Remembrance

Recognize how God has guided, sustained, and identified us before entering or responding to a difficult relationship.

Obstacle

Temperance

Refuse to allow difficult people, unhealthy pressure, personal pain, or strong emotions to control our response.

Option

Countenance

Carry wisdom, courage, truth, grace, integrity, peace, and appropriate boundaries into the relationship.

We cannot always choose the people we encounter, but with God’s help, we can choose the spirit, wisdom, and integrity with which we respond.

Featured Completed Study

You Will Always Eat at My Table

Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s son

You Will Always Eat at My Table

Scripture: 2 Samuel 9:1–13

Primary theme: Moving from forgotten identity to restored dignity, belonging, and a future secured by grace

Mephibosheth lived in Lo-debar, forgotten, hidden, and shaped by circumstances he did not choose. David remembered his covenant with Jonathan, sought Mephibosheth out, restored his inheritance, and gave him a permanent place at the king’s table. This study explores the difference between the identity imposed upon us by pain and the identity restored through grace.

Key themes

Moving from forgotten identity
Receiving restored dignity and belonging
Living into a future secured by grace

Grace remembersGrace restoresGrace invitesGrace seatsGrace secures

Live from the table, not from Lo-debar.

View Study Overview

Opportunity: Remembered by Grace

Grace initiates and restoration begins with remembrance.

Obstacle: Life in Lo-debar

Isolation, fear, bitterness, and diminished identity can grow in places that convince us we have been forgotten.

Option: Respond to the Invitation

At the table, identity, provision, belonging, and future are restored.

The Table of Restoration

At the king’s table, Mephibosheth’s identity, provision, and belonging are restored.

A New Future

He moves from forgotten to honored and lives securely in the inheritance restored through grace.

You Will Always Eat at My Table sermon teaching handout

Series Topics

People, Pressures, and Patterns We Must Navigate

Difficult relationships often involve more than one person. They can include environments, pressures, wounds, patterns, and influences that gradually affect how we see ourselves and how we respond. These biblical portraits help us name what we are navigating before deciding how to navigate it.

Forgotten Identity

Lo-debar

Places and circumstances that convince us we have been forgotten, disqualified, or excluded.

Key question

Are you living from what happened to you, or from the identity grace has restored?

Self-Preservation

Saul

Insecurity, jealousy, threatened leadership, and the need to protect position at the expense of people.

Key question

How do we respond when another person’s insecurity makes us a target?

Protective Control

Rebekah

The temptation to manipulate people or outcomes because we believe control is the only way to protect what matters.

Key question

When does protection become control?

Corrupting Influence

Ahithophel

Betrayal, wounded counsel, and the use of wisdom or influence for destructive purposes.

Key question

How do we discern when trusted influence has become spiritually corrosive?

Rivalrous Comparison

Haman

Pride, resentment, comparison, and the inability to celebrate another person without feeling diminished.

Key question

What happens when another person’s presence feels like a threat to our importance?

Esther and Haman

Esther’s navigation of Haman applies Remembrance, Temperance, and Countenance to risk, power, fear, and destructive opposition. This is distinct from the Mordecai-focused study in The People We Need.

Destructive Design

Jonadab

People who use their access, creativity, or advice to move others toward harmful decisions.

Key question

Does this person’s counsel lead toward wisdom and wholeness, or toward secrecy and destruction?

Eroding Pressure

Delilah

Repeated pressure, weakened boundaries, emotional exhaustion, and gradual compromise.

Key question

What boundary must remain firm when pressure becomes persistent?

Existing Series

Disappointment and the Divine

Disappointment can touch our view of God, ourselves, our leaders, our families, our churches, and our future. This series creates room to name what hurt, examine what stands in the way of healing, and choose faithful options for what comes next.

Primary Scriptures

Job 1–2 and 38–42; Genesis 16 and 21; Joshua 9; Matthew 26:36–46; Luke 15:11–32; John 21:3–17

Key themes

Honest lament, healing, faithful response, restored identity, renewed purpose, and calling after loss

Faith · Loss · Restoration

Disappointment and the Divine

Biblical foundation: Job, Genesis, Joshua, Matthew, Luke, and John

The series makes room for pain without treating disappointment as evidence that God is absent or finished. It asks what God can form or reveal, what keeps us stuck, and what faithful response is available now.

Key themes

Bring pain to God without abandoning faith
Separate what happened from what disappointment tells us to believe
Receive restored identity, purpose, and calling

View Study Overview

Opportunity

What can God form or reveal here?

Obstacles

What pain, belief, or behavior keeps us stuck?

Options and Restoration

What faithful response is available now, and how can disappointment become a place of renewed calling?

Disappointment and the Divine series overview

Two Related Series

Formation and discernment belong together.

The people we need help form us. The people we must navigate test what has been formed in us. Together, these studies invite us to build life-giving relationships while developing the wisdom and spiritual maturity required for difficult ones.

Explore The People We Need Explore The People We Must Navigate

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