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Weekend Recap – 5/20/12PM

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On Sunday PM, 5/20/12, we began a new book in our Small Group Ministry entitled Who Am I? by Jerry Bridges.  This book explores our identity in Christ.  For our first session, we read the introduction and chapter 1, I Am A Creature.  Here’s the questions I developed for use in our small group based on these:

Related to the short introduction…In the introduction, Bridges said, “As Christians…our identity is to be found in our relationship with Christ, not in our subjective and often negative life experiences.”  Why do we base so much of our identity in these things rather than who we are in Christ?

What benefit do you think it will give to answer the question, “Who am I in Christ?”  Why is that important?

Related to chapter 1 I Am A Creature:Why would being a creature, created in God’s image, be an important starting point for our discussion of who we are?

In describing how, as creatures, we are utterly dependent, Bridges noted that we are dependent for: Food, Life & Breath, Plans, Abilities.  Which of these stood out to you, why?

How are you guilty of not being dependent upon God for everything?

How does realizing that we’re physically fragile help our being dependent upon God?

Have you ever heard the saying, “Pride goes before a fall?”  How does this relate to being spiritually vulnerable?  Why is this so important for our dependence upon God? 

Why do we so easily reject our moral accountability before God?

Bridges encouraged 2 applications in light of this chapter: humility and gratitude.  What other applications does this have for our lives?

We had a great starting night of discussion.  Our next small group will meet on June 24th…

Weekend Preview – Faith/Gratitude

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This coming Lord’s Day, we plan to move to a Thanksgiving emphasis and I hope to preach from Luke 17:11-19.  We know the story.  10 lepers are healed but only one returns to give thanks.  I want to marinade in this passage Sunday so that we can see how faith and gratitude work together.

Here’s Bridges commenting in Respectable Sins on this, which led me to go after this text again:

We read this story (Luke 17:11-19) and we think, “How could those nine men be so ungrateful as to not even turn back and say a word of thanks to Jesus?” And yet far too many of us are guilty of the same sin of unthankfulness.

Maybe this is you (I know I’m included).  Let’s embrace God’s Word for the means of grace it is, receive the Holy Spirit’s ministry of exalting Christ and let our faith demonstrate gratitude, to the glory of God.

Gospel Enemy: Self-Reliance…

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For the past few weeks, we’ve looked at what TGINL is, and sought to seek out whether or not we are guilty of Gospel Enemy 1, Self-Righteousness, and Gospel Enemy 2, Persistent Guilt.  Today, I want to help you flee a huge Gospel enemy, Self-Reliance.  Again, I’m leaning on Jerry Bridges work:

Self-reliance toward God is a dependence on our own power, not the power of the Holy Spirit.

Here’s some questions to expose this:

How many times in the past twenty-four hours have we done anything with conscious dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit? How many of our job issues, family matters, leisure pursuits, daily routines, or even our spiritual disciplines have we conducted with an attitude of self-reliance, not God-reliance?

If this is true for you, repent of your self-reliance and choose to lean on God for everything. This will help you see the beauty of the Gospel and rest in all that God has done, freeing you from yourself.

Gospel Enemy: Persistent Guilt

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For the past few weeks, on Fridays, I’ve posted something related to the Gospel.  2 weeks ago, I wrote on the TGINL (Thank God I’m Not Like) phenomenon that can easily sweep into our souls.  Last week, we looked at questions to see self-righteousness, since it is a Gospel-enemy.

Today, I again want to direct your attention to some questions, this time looking at what Jerry Bridges calls Persistent Guilt.  Here are the questions that help diagnose this:

1) Are you painfully preoccupied with a particular habitual sin? 2) Are you discouraged or depressed by your failure to measure up? 3) Do you frequently experience anxiety that something’s about to go wrong? 4) Does it appear God can use others but not you? 5) Is there something in your past you just can’t seem to get over? 6) Do you fear that your past will come back to haunt you? 7) Do your difficult circumstances seem like God’s judgment for your sin? 8) Do you steer clear of intimate relationships or small-group discussion? 9) When you sin, do you get a vague sense that somehow there’ll be a price to pay? 10) Do you seldom think of the cross. (from pp.56-57)

And, then, Bridges masterfully turns us to cross:

Only the life and death of Christ offers a legitimate path to freedom from a guilty conscience–legitimate because it was a real, lived-in-the-flesh, finished righteousness, applied to us, forever.

If you sense guilt may be nagging you, look to Jesus. As the song says, “When Satan tempts me to despair, and tells me of the guilt within, upward and look and see Him there, who made an end of the all my sin. Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free, for God the just is satisfied, to look on Him and pardon me.” Look to Jesus and know freedom from persistent guilt.

Self Righteousness – Gospel Enemy…

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Last Friday I posted on TGINL, and how we tend to minimize the Gospel by being self-righteous.  I get it.  It’s hard to recognize and see how self-righteous we’ve become.  We all tend to give ourselves very favorable ratings in what’s right.  I was greatly helped then, this week, when I read over these questions again from Jerry Bridges’ Bookends of the Christian Life.

When you analyze your Christian walk: 1) Do you tend to live by a list of dos and don’ts? 2) Is it difficult for you to respect those whose standards aren’t as high as yours? 3) Do you assume that practicing spiritual disciplines should result in God’s blessing? 4) Do you feel you’re better than most other people? 5) Has it been a long time since you identified a sin and repented of it? 6) Do you resent it when others point out your “spiritual blind spots”? 7) Do you readily recognize the sins of others but not your own? 8) Do you have the sense that God owes you a good life? 9) Do you get angry when difficulties and suffering come into your life? 10) Do you seldom think of the cross?

Bridges concludes:

If you found yourself answering yes to at least half of these questions, it’s likely you’re living under the stronghold of self-righteousness toward God. You need to see this for what it really is — a hideous enemy disguised as a satisfying glory. It will let you down and leave you hanging. Its satisfaction is as short-lived as an ice cube in the blazing sun; its glory has all the appeal of a well-dressed corpse. And at the end of the day this fact remains: no amount of personal performance will ever gain the approval of a holy God. (pp.49-50)

The remedy is to repent of our self-righteousness by depending on the finished work of Jesus Christ. We need to truth of the Gospel to saturate us in such a way that our living is informed by the Gospel, not by our self-righteous, religious performance. Run to Jesus today, He’s your refuge and crushed your self-righteousness on the cross and through His resurrection.

Weekend Recap – God’s Powerful Word

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My sermon from 7/10/11, God’s Powerful Word out of Hebrews 4:12-13 is online.  I thought we had an amazing morning in corporate worship coupled with some great time examining these familiar verses as we continue to make our way through this book.  God’s Word is powerful and this sermon, in particular, pointed us to how God’s Word prepares us for the Gospel.

In the evening, our small group read through Chapter 5 of Jerry Bridges’ Respectable Sins on The Power of the Holy Spirit.  We were encouraged that in the fight with sin, we aren’t left to our devices but have been given God Himself to help us in the fight.

It was a full day, but filled with blessings from our Lord at each turn.  I hope you had a blessed day yourself.