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 13:45)
- What’s your knee-jerk reaction of how God thinks of you?
- In what ways have you sinned like the younger son? When have you rejected or turned your back on God’s love, squandered his good gifts for your selfish gain, and/or pursued pleasure in all the wrong places? In what ways has this sin impoverished your soul?
- Pastor Mat describes the Father as one who is primed to show compassion, quick to reconcile, and lavish His grace. What do you struggle with believing? How do you expect him to respond? Ask God to help you to trust Jesus’s description of the Father’s compassion and grace instead of your own.
- How might the fact that God is quick to reconcile with those who repent change how you deal with your sin? How does this truth, along with 1 John 1:9, encourage you to humble yourself in repentance sooner than later?
If you have not yet reconciled yourself to the Father, what beliefs are holding you back?
- Do you believe you have messed up too much?
- Do you think you don’t need him because religion is for the weak?
- Do you have a hard time trusting a God who claims to be loving but appears to be cruel?
- Do you see him as a distant God, and it’s too much work to try to please him?
- Do you feel doubt because that is not the kind of picture you get from those who claim to love and represent him?
- Other reasons?
Thoughtfully and humbly consider the description of the Father that Jesus gives us in this parable. What do you struggle to believe? How might your life be different if you trusted a God like this?
If you have a friend who brought you to church, talk with them about your thoughts and questions. If you would like a pastor to contact you, please use this communication card and someone will be in touch shortly.
