Key Thought: God’s love in the life and sacrifice of Jesus offers us forgiveness, life, and hope. This gospel moves us to serve others especially those in need.

September 7, 2019

1. Have a volunteer read Romans 8:20-23.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. How does the whole creation groan under the bondage of corruption?
3. Personal Application: How should our attitude towards others and their circumstances be when we recognize them as being created and loved by God? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your relatives states: “I think that some people think that by helping others that they are gaining merit with God and that they are better than others.” How would you respond to your relative?

2. Have a volunteer read Ephesians 2:8-10.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point is in this passage.
2. Do these verses show us a relationship between faith and works, or do they show a division between faith and works?
3. Personal Application: What works do you think God has ordained you to walk in? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your friends states, “We are saved by grace, not by good works. So we shouldn’t be trying to do good; that’s works. All we have to do is have faith in God.” How would you respond to your friend?

3. Have a volunteer read Luke 19:41,42.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the main idea of this text is.
2. What moved Jesus to compassion in these verses?
3. Personal Application: How can we have more compassion that is softened to the pain around us? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your neighbors states, “I don’t think that we need to look very far to find pain and sorrow and disobedience. I think we can find it in our own lives, our own homes, our own neighborhoods. I think we might be part of the problem. The question is, how do we become part of the solution?” How would you respond to your neighbor?

4. Have a volunteer read Revelation 14:6,7.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the main idea of this text is.
2. What aspects of the gospel are found in the first angel’s message?
3. Personal Application: How can we find ways of ministering to those in need while also sharing with them the warning found in the three angel’s messages? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: Think of one person who needs to hear a message from this week’s lesson. Tell the class what you plan to do this week to share with them.

(Truth that is not lived, that is not imparted, loses its life-giving power, its healing virtue. Its blessings can be retained only as it is shared.”Ministry of Healing, p. 148).

Amen!(0)

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Summarize Ephesians 2:8-10 in your own words. What do these verses tell us about the relationship between grace and good works?

The Bible tells us that among other things, we were created to worship God and to serve others. Only in our imagination can we try to understand what these acts would be like in a sinless environment.

Grace

For now, because of sin, we know only a broken and fallen world. Fortunately for us, God’s grace, expressed and enacted in Jesus’ sacrifice for the sins of the world, opens the way for forgiveness and healing. Thus, even amid athis broken existence our lives become more fully God’s workmanship, and God uses us to partner with Him to seek to heal and restore the damage and hurt in the lives of others (see Eph. 2:10). “Those who receive are to impart to others. From every direction are coming calls for help. God calls upon men to minister gladly to their fellow men”. – Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Healing, p. 103.

Again, we do not do good works—care for the poor, lift up the oppressed, feed the hungry—in order to earn salvation or standing with God. In Christ, by faith, we have all the standing with God we will ever need. Rather, we recognize ourselves as both sinners and victims of sin who are, nonetheless, loved and redeemed by God. While we still battle with temptations to self-centeredness and greed, the self-sacrificing and humble grace of God offers a new kind of life and love that will transform our lives.

When we look at the Cross, we see the great and complete sacrifice done for us and realize that we can add nothing to what it offers us in Christ. But this does not mean that we shouldn’t do something in response to what we have been given in Christ. On the contrary, we must respond, and what better way to respond to the love that has been shown us than by showing love to others?

Read 1 John 3:16-17. How do these verses so powerfully capture what our response to the cross should be?

Amen!(2)

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