Group Guide

November 24th, 2024

This Week's City 7:

4. Can a person be good enough to go to heaven? No. Because Jesus rose from the dead, proving He is God, I believe a person is saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
(John 1:12, 14:6; Acts 4:12; Romans 4:1-25, 5:1-2, 6-11, 6:23, 10:1-4, 10:9; Galatians 3:26; Ephesians 2:1-9; 1 Timothy 2:5-6; Titus 3:4-7)

Ice-Breaker:

Anyone have the love language of gift giving? If not, what is yours?

Scripture:

Romans 7
21 I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. 22 I love God’s law with all my heart. 23 But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. 24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? 25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.

Discussion Questions:

In Romans 7, Paul, who is arguably the greatest apostle in scripture, admits to something most of us would be to ashamed to say out loud. He admits that, while he is a faithful believer, he still struggles with sin. We've all been there, haven't we? We have the best of intentions, we desperately want to serve God faithfully, to leave our old ways behind us. But it seems like as much as we want to do the right thing, we find that we are at war with ourselves. We want to honor God but we fail... sometimes over and over. Amber's first takeaway from Sunday was the believers WRESTLE with SIN. In fact, they MUST wrestle with sin. We won't be perfect until heaven, though God is always working on us to grow us and change us. In fact, if you find you're NOT wrestling with sin, that could be a sign of a problem. Perhaps you've stopped fighting it all together. Have you ever had a time in your life when you've grown numb to sin? Have you been ignoring the conviction of the Holy Spirit? Is there anything you've willingly let into your life that God has commanded you resist?
As a Christian, it can be easy to get defeated when we struggle with sin. We can heap condemnation onto ourselves and wear ourselves out on the hamster wheel of guilt and shame. So what is the answer to the struggle? Paul says in verse 25, "Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord." He says in Romans 8 that there is "no condemnation for those who belong to Jesus Christ." Because of Jesus' finished work on the cross, we no longer stand condemned for our sin. Should we be broken and repentant over our sin? Absolutely. But should we condemn ourselves? No. God doesn't. So why do you think we are so set on heaping condemning upon ourselves? What are the dangers of this way of thinking?
We belong to Christ. This means your flesh is no longer in charge of you. Do you still have a sinful nature? Of course. But what you were born into naturally has not been overcome by the Spirit of God, which you were born into SUPERNATURALLY. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead now lives in you, empowering you to walk in victory over your flesh. Just like Paul wrote in Romans 7, there is a battle raging on the inside of each of us between our flesh and the Spirit. That is why we need to learn what it means to WALK in the SPIRIT. What do you think it looks like to walk in the Spirit in your day to day life? How might this help you win the battle going on inside you?
So, like Paul, we're saved and headed to heaven. But, at the same time, we struggle with sin. This is an already but not yet kind of situation. We already stand before God, legally speaking, perfect and blameless because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. BUT, we aren't yet fully holy in the sense that we will be when Jesus returns and makes all things right. So, right now we are fully JUSTIFIED (what God does FOR us), but we are not yet fully SANCTIFIED (what God does IN us). Justification is our position before God. When you put your faith in Jesus, you are immediately justified. But sanctification is a process. It is a lifetime of walking in the Spirit as God slowly shapes us more and more into the image of Jesus. So... the fact you still wrestle with sin doesn't mean you aren't saved. It just means you are in the process of being sanctified. Sanctification means your life and faith should be showing signs of progress. Are you further along spiritually now than you were a year ago? How can you tell you are growing in your faith? What are the markers?
As we wrestle with sin, and as we walk in the Spirit, we also WAIT with a SEAL. When we gave our lives to Christ, we were immediately justified and adopted into the family of God. According to Ephesians 1, we were forever sealed by the Holy Spirit and are now co-heirs with Christ. So now we wait for that eternal inheritance that is to come. Revelation 21 tells us that one day He will wipe away every tear from our eyes. There won't be any more death or morning or crying or pain. The old will finally be gone forever and the new will have come! This is the hope we have in Jesus. So, as we fall and fail, and as we experience pain and loss in this life, we struggle and mourn and wrestle as people who have a HOPE in what has been promised to us. How often are you thinking about eternity? How might your outlook on life change if you were to stay focused on that hope of what Jesus has promised us?

Prayer Topics:

That we would wrestle with sin, not embrace it.
That God would show us what it looks like to walk in the Spirit.
That we would remember to look forward with hope.

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