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

Where are you tempted to lose heart: in a relationship, life situation, an area of lack, affliction, confusion, doubt, or pain that feels unending—if not for yourself, for someone you love? Keep this in mind as you consider the questions below:

1. Keith mentions several ways we instinctively deal with suffering: 1) avoiding it, 2) figuring out a solution to ease it or preserve ourselves through it; 3) manipulation or control, all in an effort to protect our comfort. How are you handling your hardship? 

2. As believers we are given the light of the gospel. Instead of walking by sight, take time to think on the truths about the gospel, God and about ourselves mentioned in this sermon: 

• We have a Savior who comes to us, entering into our sufferings with us. Thank him for not leaving you in the dark.
• Not only has he entered our sufferings, he has endured suffering on our behalf out of love. Thank him for illuminating your mind to understand the gospel that gives us light in the darkness. 
• Remember who you are: a jar of clay—weak, dependent, needy. Take time to confess your struggle in accepting this about yourself. Pray for his help to see how this is a blessing instead of fighting these limits. 

3. How can you respond to the gospel light of Christ? 

• Do you need to receive the gospel—willingly come and die to your own ways and die for Christ? 
• Do you need to embrace the opportunities God provides in your suffering instead of evading it? 
• Do you need to think differently about your suffering? Ask for help to see the good he is doing. 
• Do you need to submit to the suffering he has ordained for you? Do you need to trust that even if He does not save us from our sufferings, He is at work sanctifying you to become more like Christ as you walk through it? 
• Do you need to believe that in the midst of your sufferings, he is perfecting your faith every moment you lean on his strength?

Take time to prayerfully respond to God in the ways you need.

4. What possible lessons of weakness, dependence, sin, need, etc. might God teach you through your suffering? How might you cooperate with God in learning these lessons by stepping out in faith today in the midst of your suffering? 

5. Consider how your “cracked clay pot”–your life of suffering—might testify of his light to someone who needs to hear the gospel or another fellow sufferer. How might you suffer well as an act of love for Christ and neighbor, as He has suffered for us?