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).

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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?

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The intermingled stories of salvation and the great controversy call us to acknowledge a truth about life that is foundational for our understanding of our world and ourselves, and that is: we and our world are fallen, broken, and sinful. Our world is not what it was created to be, and though we still bear the image of the God who created us, we are part of the world’s brokenness.

Compassion

The sin in our lives is of the same nature as the evil that causes so much pain, oppression, and exploitation all over the world.

Thus, it is right for us to feel the hurt, discomfort, sorrow, and tragedy of the world and of the lives around us. We would have to be robots not to feel the pain of life here. The laments in the book of Psalms, the sorrows of Jeremiah and the other prophets, and the tears and compassion of Jesus demonstrate the appropriateness of this kind of response to the world and its evil, and particularly to those who are so often hurt by that evil.

Read Matthew 9:36, Matthew 14:14, Luke 19:41-42, and John 11:35. What was it in each of these verses that moved Jesus with compassion? How can we have a heart that is softened to the pain around us?

We also need to remember that sin and evil are not just “out there”, or the result of someone else’s brokenness: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8, NIV). In the understanding of the biblical prophets, sin was a tragedy not primarily because someone had broken “the rules”, but because sin has broken the relationship between God and His people, and also because our sin hurts other people. This may take place on a small or large scale, but it is the same evil.

Selfishness, greed, meanness, prejudice, ignorance, and carelessness are at the root of all the world’s evil, injustice, poverty, and oppression. And confessing our sinfulness is a first step in addressing this evil, as well as a first step toward allowing the love of God to take its rightful place in our hearts: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, NIV).

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John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world … ” (NIV)—and the original Greek word is kosmos, meaning “the world as a created, organized entity”. – The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 5, p. 929. This verse is about salvation for humanity, but the plan of salvation has implications for the whole of creation too.

Read Romans 8:20-23. What does this teach about the broader issues in the plan of salvation?

Image © Kevin Carden from GoodSalt.com

Of course, on one level, salvation is about each one of us in our personal relationship with the Lord. But there’s more. Justification is really not just about getting our sins forgiven. Ideally, it should also be about how, through Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, the Lord creates the family of God, who celebrate their forgiveness and assurance of salvation by, among other things, being witnesses to the world through their good works.

Read John 3:16-17. How does verse 17 contribute to a broader understanding of verse 16?

We can accept that God loves people other than just ourselves. He loves those we love, and we rejoice in that. He also loves those we reach out to, and our recognition of this truth is often our motivation for our own reaching out to them. But He also loves those whom we are uncomfortable with, or even afraid of. God loves all people, everywhere, even those whom we might not particularly like.

Creation is one way we see this demonstrated. The Bible consistently points to the world around us as evidence of God’s goodness: “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matt. 5:45, NIV). Even life itself is a gift from God, and regardless of the individual’s response or attitude to God, every person is a recipient of that gift.

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Read for This Week’s Study: Rom. 8:20-23; John 3:16-17; Matt. 9:36; Eph. 2:8-10; 1 John 3:16-17; Rev. 14:6-7.

Memory Text: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-10, NKJV).

As soon as we talk about God’s commands, requirements or instructions, we run the risk—or even face the temptation—of thinking that somehow what we do can earn or contribute to our salvation or otherwise gain favor with God. But the Bible tells us repeatedly that we are sinners saved by God’s grace through Jesus and His substitutionary death for us on the cross. What could we possibly add to this in any way? Or, as Ellen G. White has written: “If you would gather together everything that is good and holy and noble and lovely in man and then present the subject to the angels of God as acting a part in the salvation of the human soul or in merit, the proposition would be rejected as treason”. – Faith and Works, p. 24.

Thus, too, even our works of mercy and compassion toward those in need should not be seen as legalistic. On the contrary, as we grow in our understanding and appreciation of salvation, the link between God’s love and His concern for the poor and oppressed will be passed on to us, recipients of His love. We have received, so we will give. When we see how God so loved us, we also see how much He loves others and calls us to love them, as well.

Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, September 7.

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