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.
1. In this dark and broken world, what is an area of confusion, questioning, longing, or hurt that you are trying to make sense of?
2. Honestly evaluate: What is your starting point—Christ, or something else (e.g. approval, acceptance, appearance, belonging, value, success, happiness, contentment, etc.)? If your starting point is not Christ, how has it contributed to faithless or sinful responses to your difficulties?
3. Pastor Kim points out we may not always draw a line between our specific sin and our specific suffering because God may be doing a work in our lives we may not even begin to comprehend (John 9:3). Explain how this reality can be a comfort in your own circumstances.
4. Meditate on what it means that Christ is the light of the world. Ask Him to help you see correctly, not as the world advises or counsels. Consider: Who is he in all of your suffering? What would he say about it? What does he promise? How does he make sense of it all?
What difference does this make, not only for eternal life but everyday life—and yours in particular? How do we love and worship him in the midst of it? What does he call us to do in response to it?
5. Come in humble, worshipful faith to Jesus the light of the world. Tell him of your need and your inability to save yourself. In what way do you need to trust Him? Affirm your belief that He is wise, loving, working and active, doing something purposeful and significant through our sufferings, even in the midst of our overwhelm and despair.
6. How might your own wrestling in faith be a way God equips you to help others, whether your children or other loved ones, as they look for a way out of their darkness of suffering? How might you testify, counsel, or point them to Christ as their starting point?