Welcome to Sunday Fuel! This series of questions is designed to assist your personal reflection and fellowship with others about the sermon from this past Sunday.
Go to This Sunday’s Sermon (start at 16:05).
In the previous sermon, Pastor Francis talks about the idea of freedom in Christ (Gal. 5:1) This message further develops how standing in faith in the true gospel frees us from slavery. There are many possible application points so just pick one to focus on.
Key Idea: We stand firm in the freedom we have in Christ through faith.
Three freedoms we enjoy through faith in Christ.
1. Peace: Faith frees us from a restless heart (vv. 2-4)
Evaluate: What are some “laws” that you believe you must follow, uphold, or obey in order to feel right with God? (These can be your own standards or the standards others have. Whatever they are, you feel a sense of guilt or shame when you don’t meet them.)
What is your form of “Christianized penance”? What do you feel like you need to do or feel in order to make up for your shortcomings to these standards?
Pastor Kim points out that living like these standards are a requirement (even if you know they aren’t) means we are not believing a true gospel.
Turn to God:
a. Meditate on the truth: Whether or not I (whatever your self-imposed rule) does not impact my salvation, God’s forgiveness or my standing before Him.
b. Grieve this sin before God. Admit your failure, the way you are trying to earn your salvation, or your lack of desire to resist the temptation.
c. Thank God for the freedom from the need to perform or pay back through good deeds or working harder. In faith, let your heart rest in the peace found through the true gospel of Christ.
d. Commit to stand firm in this freedom. Ask God to help you to not submit again to this yoke of slavery by performing your version of “Christianized penance.”
2. Hope: Faith frees us from enslavement to sin (v. 5).
Christianity will only be freeing if (by faith) you hate the sin you are freed from.
Evaluate: How much do you hate your sin? How do you find yourself tolerating, justifying, or even coddling it instead of hating it? Have you considered that anything less than hatred for sin is like preferring to live in a prison instead of in freedom?
Pastor Kim points out that what we believe about our sin impacts how much we eagerly await and look forward to it.
Turn to God:
a. Consider a sin that you have a hard time shedding. Ask God to shine his light on it and show you its true nature: dark, dishonoring, dangerous, and deceptive. How might seeing it this way help you move towards hating it?
b. Respond by acknowledging your sin humbly before God. Confess before God how this sin is dark, dishonoring, dangerous, and deceptive.
c. Express your desire to repent and turn from this sin as an expression of your hatred of it.
d. Thank God that one day, this sin will no longer cling to you. Let this confident hope strengthen you to persevere in battling it today.
3. Love: Faith frees us from our inward bent (v. 6).
Evaluate: Who are some “everyday enemies” in your life—people who get in the way of what you want? How?
What are some beliefs about love that you hold that could lead to a lack of love (e.g. love is transactional, I must feel love in order to love, they don’t deserve my love, I need to love myself first, loving them will take too much from me, I’m not wired to love, they’ve hurt me too much to love)?
When we have faith in these lies, love will always be a struggle. But when we believe the true gospel, we are also freed from these lies and empowered to love even our enemies. Love is costly and sacrificial, but if we believe Jesus is enough, He can help us to love. There is nothing that we sacrifice that He will not supply—He will give us all we need. This is where we exercise faith.
Turn to God:
a. Confess how refusing to love is a way you honor your idols instead of honoring God. Admit your false beliefs about love and your failure to appreciate and appropriate God’s generous love extended to you. Repent of the ways you judge others ungraciously from a posture of prideful superiority.
b. Stand firm in the gospel and ask God to free you from the inward bent that keeps you from loving as he does.
c. Take a moment to thank God for Christ’s willingness to associate with the lowly and even His enemies in love. Pray that you might do likewise.
d. Ask God for one way to work out love toward those who hurt, frustrate, or embitter you. Pray that the gospel that empowers you would give you the love of Christ to give away.
“Trust is not a passive state of mind. It is a vigorous act of the soul by which we choose to lay hold on the promises of God and cling to them despite the adversity that at times seeks to overwhelm us.”
–Jerry Bridges: Trusting God, Even When Life Hurts
