Friday August 8, 2014

Read Romans 8:31-36

It’s sometimes hard for us to fathom and accept that God is on our side. It’s particularly hard when life gets tough and the road beneath us becomes rocky. Personally I have witnessed far too many people turn and walk away from God when the going gets a little (or a lot) tougher. I’ve had people ask me questions like, ‘If God loves me how could He…?’ or ‘If God is so great and so sovereign how could He let…?’ Asking questions is not the hard bit. Accepting God’s answer is the hard bit!

Jesus, in Mark 4, told a parable about seed being sown onto four soils. In all, only one of those soils produced a crop. 3 failed. Only 1 succeeded. People will turn away from God because of persecution (ie rocky soil) or because of the riches and deceits of this world (weedy soil) but it’s never easy to bear and is always heart wrenching. To persevere we need to have a deeper and more biblical view of God and what God promises (and what He doesn’t promise) to do in and for us. God never promises us an easy road this side of heaven. The road is narrow and the gate is narrow. Those headed for eternal destruction are on the wide, smooth road and are entering through the wide gate.

 God also promises in today’s verses that He in on our side. Paul asks us, “If God is for us, who can be against us?’ The answer is, of course, no one or no thing. Life is not against us. The world is not against us. Satan may rally against us but he will not prevail. Then Paul asks us, Who will bring any charge against us?’ The answer is again no one! For in Christ all our charges were dealt with and paid in full. Again, Paul asks us ‘Who can condemn us?’ The answer is again, no one. The final question put to us is ‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? The answer is getting boring! NO ONE and NO Thing!

The implication is clear. If God is for us then nothing can work against us, no matter how hard they try. But how do we know that God is for us? God the Father chose us in Christ (Eph 1:4) and predestined us to be conformed into the likeness of His Son. He’s working  all things to that end (Romans 8:28-30). God the Son came into our world and gave Himself as a sin offering so that we can be adopted as God’s sons and daughters (Romans 3:21-26). Having been raised to eternal life Jesus intercedes for us (Romans 8:34). The Holy Spirit has been given to us and intercedes for us when we don’t know how to pray or when life is too much a burden for us (Romans 8:26-28).

The reality of the situation is that God is on our side. Even when the chips are down or when life is brutal or rotten  God is for us. Nothing will separate us from God. Nothing will take away the love of Christ. Nothing will thwart God’s plan and God’s will. You are secure in Christ, live joyously!

Prayer:

Having read today’s passage and notes jot down various prayer points in each:

Adoration:

Confession:

Thanks:

Supplication:

¨ Pray that our Kings Kids ministry would greatly bless the children in the church. Pray that the children grow in faith, in love, in perseverance and in their ability to model Jesus in their worlds.

¨ Pray that the teachers and helpers are blessed by their service and that they grow in knowledge and wisdom too. Pray that God would use them mightily to grow our children in the faith.

 Witness Moment:

Our job is tell people about Jesus and to invite them into the Kingdom. They have to make up their own minds. Unlike so many other religions we do not force people to convert.

We leave that to our God!

 Discussion Questions For Families and Groups

1. How can you encourage a believer going through a tough time at present?

2. How can we make sure that we are good soil and not rocky or weedy soil?

3. What are some common misconceptions about what God does promise us? How can you stand up against these false promises?

 Discipleship Moment For Girls

Intro: Friends in this life will come and go. Sometimes they’ll stop liking you for the dumbest of reasons. How we act in these times is vital.

Discuss a time in your life when friends left you. Share how you felt and how you acted. Can you now see a more godly way to act?

Read  Deuteronomy 31:6

What does God promise us in this verse?

What does He call us to do?

Pray together that you would be strong and courageous in all situations and that you’ll bring glory to God.

 Discipleship Moment For Boys

Intro: Boys like to fight over a lot of things. They like to brag and boast about their achievements. This can often cause friendships to be ruined.

Discuss a time when boasting/bragging caused a friendship to fail. How did you act? What would have been a better way to act?

Read  Deuteronomy 31:6

What does God promise us in this verse?

What does He call us to do?

Pray together that you would be strong and courageous in all situations and that you’ll bring glory to God.

Thursday August 7, 2014

Read Romans 8:28-30

As a believer you have the answers to the big questions. You have the answers that no other world view system has. A young couple have been praying for a child for years and after successfully giving birth to a baby girl, their daughter is tragically taken away in a car accident. You have answers in Christ Jesus. A man loses his job and can’t afford to feed and cloth his family. You have answers in Christ. A nation is ravaged by civil war even though your church has been praying for years. You have the answers in Christ.

Romans 8:28 forms a part of the answers we have in Christ. God promises us that He works all things for the good of those who love Him. This verse is not saying that everything we go through is good in and of itself. Many people suffer many horrible and sad things that cannot and should not be called good. God is not promising that all things in our life will be good. He is promising that no matter what we go through He will work those things for our good, our eternal good.  A simple illustration may help you to see the truth of this. A young toddler wants to climb up on the stove to touch the pretty glowing red circles.  After repeated saying of ‘no’, which fell on deaf ears, the father gives the boy a smack on the hand. That smack in and of itself is not good. The pain the child felt is not good - that’s why he’s crying not laughing. But good will come out of it because that child will not want to touch the hot elements on the stove. Good has come out of the ‘bad’.

God is so sovereign and so in control of all things that He can and does work all things for your good, your eternal good. It may take a while for grieving parents or an unemployed husband and father to see God’s goodness but that doesn’t negate His goodness.

Romans 8:28-30 goes on to tell us the good things that God is working in and through us. Through our trials and sufferings we are being honed down to be more in the image of Jesus. To be more like Jesus in character, heart and mind is worth all the pain in the world. Romans 5:3-5 already covered this. We rejoice in our sufferings because suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, namely the character of Christ, and character grows the hope we have in Christ.

Another good follows this. God moulds us to be more like Christ so that we might be the first born of many brothers. In other words, God wants us to bear more fruit! The grieving couple, for example, might one day minister to other grieving couples in a way that you and I never could. They might lead many people into God’s Kingdom! Another good also follows. We know that if we are predestined to be conformed to Christ’s image then we will be called and justified and finally glorified. That means God is fitting us out for heaven and is getting us ready for heaven. 

Can you see how you have real answers to the real issues in life Get out there and share the answers with those who are looking!

Prayer:

Having read today’s passage and notes jot down various prayer points in each:

Adoration:

Confession:

Thanks:

Supplication:

¨ Pray that the men and women in your church would grow strong in faith, gracious in Christ and exceedingly generous in Christ.

¨ Pray that the young marrieds in your church would be developing godly patterns of relationship, growing in Christ and walking in the ways God has set for marriage.

 Witness Moment:

Having the answers in Christ doesn’t mean we have the right to be a smarty pants know it all.

We are fellow struggles on a journey. Walk with people and you’ll bring more of them to Christ.

 Discussion Questions For Families and Groups

1. Take the situation of the grieving parents in today’s notes and, assuming they are Christian, discuss how would you tackle this situation?

2. How would you support the husband/father who lost his job?

3. Sum up Romans 8:28 in your own words.

 Discipleship Moment For Girls

Intro: Can we praise God in tough times? Can we really turn to God and offer up heartfelt praise and adoration?

Discuss a time in your life that was difficult. Brainstorm things for which you could have praised God for during this time.

Read  Romans 5:3-5.

Define each key term in these verses.

Why does God use tough times to grow these in us?

Can you illustrate this in some way?

Pray together that God will use your tough times to produce perseverance, character and hope.

 Discipleship Moment For Boys

Intro: Can we praise God in tough times? Can we really turn to God and offer up heartfelt praise and adoration?

Discuss a time in your life that was difficult. Brainstorm things for which you could have praised God for during this time.

Read  Romans 5:3-5.

Define each key term in these verses.

Why does God use tough times to grow these in us?

Can you illustrate this in some way?

Pray together that God will use your tough times to produce perseverance, character and hope.

Wednesday August 6, 2014

Read Romans 8:26-27

The reality of the Christian life is that the more you put Jesus at the centre of your life, the more you will probably suffer for Him. Let me briefly illustrate. If you  were to make a pact with God right now that you will put Jesus and His church first on your agenda then by next Monday you could be unemployed and facing severe rebuke and angst from your family members as they realise that they now play second fiddle to this Jesus character whom they’ve trumped over In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted

In times of hardship and persecution it’s often difficult to know how to pray or what to pray. Our insides scream out and want us to pray for relief, for an end to the agony. Scripturally, our minds may be telling us that there’s more to come. And so we can be caught in a tug of war where we don’t know how to pray.

It’s in these times that the Holy Spirit living in us intercedes for us and prays for us with groans that words cannot express. Creation is groaning. We believers are groaning. Even the Holy Spirit is groaning for us as He intercedes for us. What that means is that the Holy Spirit seeks God’s will for us and helps us to know and to do the will of God. The Holy Spirit brings us and our plight before the Lord Almighty and brings His will before us so that we can know it and do it. Sometimes in the pain and rottenness of life we can do nothing but sit and weep in God’s presence. How comforting to know that God’s Spirit is interceding for us.

After this, we are given a wonderfully encouraging, though possibly cryptic, promise and assurance from God. God who searches our heart knows the mind of the Spirit as He intercedes for us because the Spirit always prays in accord with the will of God. We can be assured and confident that when the Spirit intercedes for us in groans that words cannot express, He is interceding for us according to the will of God. We can know that God will hear the Spirit because the Spirit is praying completely in line with God’s will.

Romans 8:26-27 starts with the words, ‘in the same way’. In the earlier verses we saw that creation groans with us as well. We groan in hope as we await our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. In the same way, the Spirit groans for us and on our behalf bringing that hope to bear into our lives. The Spirit creates patient endurance in us as He refocusses our heart and mind away from the things of this world onto the things of Christ and the new creation. 

As such we are again confident that God will hear the groans of the Spirit for us and that these prayers will, at the very least, bless us with an increased hope as we regain sight of our heavenly target. 

Prayer:

Having read today’s passage and notes jot down various prayer points in each:

Adoration:

Confession:

Thanks:

Supplication:

¨ Pray for cell groups as they meet today, tonight and tomorrow. Pray that the members would encourage and build each other up. Pray that more people would enroll in cell groups.

 Walk Moment:

God wants us to depend on Him for everything, even our daily bread. He often puts us through tough times to draw us back to Himself in total dependence. 

 Discussion Questions For Families and Groups

1. Have you ever experienced this Spirit groaning? Share it with the group.

2. How does the Spirit help us in our weakness?

3. What is our role in all of this?

 Discipleship Moment For Girls

Intro: Sometimes life can be so messy and so painful that we just don’t know what to pray. Sometimes we are so confused that prayer is virtually impossible. It’s then that the Spirit takes over.

Discuss how you’ve seen this in your own life and the impact it had in your life.

Read  John 14:15-17

What does God want us to be doing?

what does Jesus promise to do for us?

Who does the Spirit Counsel? How?

Pray together God would equip you to endure tough and painful times in patient endurance and holiness.

 Discipleship Moment For Boys

Intro: It’s hard sometimes to know what to do or how to pray.  Even more so when life is messy or rough. It’s in these times that we have to trust the Holy Spirit.

Discuss how you’ve seen this in your own life and the impact it had in your life.

Read  John 14:15-17

What does God want us to be doing?

what does Jesus promise to do for us?

Who does the Spirit Counsel? How?

Pray together God would equip you to endure tough and painful times in patient endurance and holiness.

Tuesday August 5, 2014

Read Romans 8:22-25

 Yesterday we saw that all creation has been groaning with us as we await the best that God has for us - the best in the new creation where God is glorified and exalted and where corruption and decay are completely done away with.

We too groan as we await our complete adoption, the redemption of our bodies. This phrase of vs23 refers to the time when Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead. Those who are dead in Christ will return and those who are alive will be caught up together with them in the air and after the judgement, the new creation will be ushered in.

But while we wait, we groan. It’s important that we understand what our groaning is and, more importantly, is not. Our groaning is NOT a self centred ‘woe is me’ attitude or a grumbling and complaining about our hardships. We are called to rejoice in our sufferings (James 1:2-5, for example) not to grumble and moan and complain. These things God absolutely hates as 1 Cor 10:1-10 makes clear. Verse 10 is strikingly clear.

And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel.

When we groan inwardly it is NOT a grumbling and whining. It is not a questioning of God’s goodness or grace to us. It is not a heavenly rant and rave or spiritual hissy fit.

Our groaning is an inner longing, a deep inner yearning. We know that the best is yet to come. We know that God has created us for something far better than this world. We know and we have tasted of the goodness of the Lord and of Heaven (Psalm 34:8) and we long or yearn for it. Like an athlete that can’t wait to get on the track or a fighter that can’t wait to climb into the ring so we cannot wait to get into the new creation. Our training/suffering is preparing us for that wonderful time. This inner yearning creates in  us a patient, yet eager longing. We hope in the surety of what is to come. We wait for the redemption of our bodies and for our total adoption – the coming to our heavenly home. We wait patiently and we endure patiently even though this hope is not seen in this dark world filled with corruption and decay.

Interestingly, this is exactly what Paul prays for those in the Colossian church who are or who are about to suffer. He prays that they would be ‘strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.’

As we wait for the new creation we groan inwardly. That groaning is not antagonistic to rejoicing, to praising God and to living a life of hope and goodness. In fact, the sure hope we have in Christ fosters all of these things in our life at present.

Prayer:

Having read today’s passage and notes jot down various prayer points in each:

Adoration:

Confession:

Thanks:

Supplication:

¨ Pray for cell groups as they meet today, tonight and tomorrow. Pray that the members would encourage and build each other up. Pray that more people would enroll in cell groups.

 Word Moment:

Hope grows in us as we grow in the Word. Indulge in the Word and you’ll indulge in hope.

 Discussion Questions For Families and Groups

1. How is the groaning we have inside us expressed?

2. How is this groaning different to the groaning of the world?

3. If this groaning weighs us down, what can we do?

 Discipleship Moment For Girls

Intro: Life is filled with hard times and disappointments. We can’t let these make us bitter. We have to let God make us better through them.

Discuss some let downs and disappointments in your own life and how God worked through them.

Read  James 1:2-8

Why does God allow hard times in our lives?

Why can we rejoice in these times?

How can this be expressed?

Pray together that you might understand the point of tough times in your life and that you might rejoice because God is at work in them.

 Discipleship Moment For Boys

Intro: People will always let us down and disappoint us. Getting angry and taking it out on others doesn’t solve anything. The key is to turn to God and to rejoice in Him.

Discuss a time when you were let down and acted inappropriately. Discuss a better way to act in that situation.

Read  James 1:2-8

Why does God allow hard times in our lives?

Why can we rejoice in these times?

How can this be expressed?

Pray together that you might understand the point of tough times in your life and that you might rejoice because God is at work in them.