Lesson 1-B: God is Calling Us
Purpose: to help the disciple understand that God loves and forgives him
Objective: to explain God's love and how He demonstrates it through Christ
Introduction: Last time we looked at God's holiness. This time
we are going to look at three more attributes of
God - His love, mercy, and grace - and what they mean for our lives.
First let's examine God's love.
Read 1 John 4:9-12, 16
Q. These verses
speak of God as a God of love. In light of what we talked about last time,
how would
you describe
God's love?
A. God's love
is deeper than any human love we've ever experienced. He sacrificially
seeks the best
for us, even
at a great cost to Himself. It is His love which eternally moves God to
communicate
Himself to us.
Yet God manifests love out of His own free will. He is not forced to love;
He chooses
to love us.
Q. Have you ever
thought about how fantastic it is that God loves us so much? What is the
greatest
expression of
His love for us?
A. God sent His one and only Son to die as our substitute to pay the penalty for our sins.
Q. How then should we respond to God's supreme example of love (v. 11)?
A. By following His example and loving one another.
Q. What does loving one another demonstrate about us? (V. 12,20).
A. It proves that God lives in us and that we love God.
Read Romans 8:38-39
Q. Can we as Christians ever be separated from God's love for us?
A. No, not by
anything. Since everything that exists is created, then there is nothing
which can
separate us
from the love of God.
Remembering that Jesus Christ is God Himself,
let's look at a few verses to see how much suffering He was
willing to undergo because of His love
for us. What does each verse say He endured for our sakes?
Read Philippians 2:5-8 [Go through passages verse by verse.]
v. 7 He emptied Himself (willfully laid aside the use of His own
Godly powers, living in utter dependence upon the Father).
v. 7 He became a servan t.
v. 7 He was made in human likeness.
v. 8 He humbled Himself to the point of death, death on a cross,
which was intensely painful and shameful.
Read John 19:1-6
vv. 1,3,6
He was beaten beyond description and later crucified.
vv. 2,3
He was also publicly humiliated before those He created.
Read 2 Corinthians 5:21
As He bore our sin, He became sin for us. He hated sin; thus He was identified with the very thing He hated.
Read 1 John 2:2
He is the propitiation for our sins. To
propitiate means to appease or satisfy. Thus Christ satisfied God's justice.
Actually God poured out His wrath against
our sin upon Christ, instead of upon us.
Q. The depth
of Christ's sufferings could only be surpassed by the depth of His love
for us. Just think
how valuable
you must be to Him for Him to undergo such suffering on your behalf! Have
you ever
considered that
He endured all that pain for you personally? That He loves you enough to
have
suffered all
those indignities?
A. [Pause to let them think about this and to comment if they want to.]
God loves us so deeply that He paid a great
price to provide a way for us to come to Him. But Christ's sacrifice
also enables God to view those of us who
accept this sacrifice in a whole new way. This is how God sees a person
who has not accepted Christ compared to
one who has:
Non-Christian:
Q. What does a non-Christian have against Him?
A. His sin. (Romans 3:23)
Q. What does he think he has going for him?
A. His righteousness, his good works.
Q. How does God view man's righteousness?
A. As filthy rags. (Isaiah 64:6)
Q. How does God view a non-Christian?
A. He sees his sin.
Christian:
Q. What does a Christian have against him?
A. Sin. (Romans 3:23)
Q. What has God done with his sin?
A. Blotted it out through Christ. (Hebrews 10:14,17)
Q. What does a Christian have going for him?
A. Christ's righteousness. (Romans 3:21-23)
Q. How does God view a Christian?
A. He sees Christ's righteousness.
This doesn't mean that we will never sin
again. It does mean that God has forgiven us and no longer holds our sins
against us. It also means that God has
given us Christ's strength, through His Spirit, to overcome the sins we
still
fall into. God is working in our lives
to transform us into the image of Christ. The result is that we will more
consistently love and obey Him and that
we will sin less as God continues to work in our lives. (Romans 8:1-4)
Q. How then do we deal with our everyday sin?
A. [Let them give their answer and then show them 1 John 1:9.] We must confess it.
Q. What will God do in response?
A. Forgive us and cleanse us of our sin.
Q. What is confession?
A. In the original
Greek that the Bible (New Testament) was written in, the word translated
as
confession means
"to agree with" or "to say the same thing as." In other words, confession
means to
agree that we
have sinned and that God has forgiven us. Confession also involves turning
from your
sin, and back
to Christ; i.e., repentance.
Q. What happens if we don't confess our sin?
A. We have turned
our back on God and gone our own way again. We do not lose our salvation,
but
we do lose our
moment by moment fellowship with God. (Isaiah 59:2)
Q. What happens if we do confess our sin?
A. We experience
forgiveness, cleansing from sin, and re-establishment of our fellowship
with God. (1
John 1:9)
Q. Is there any unconfessed sin in your life that is keeping you from fellowship with God?
Assignment: Write down what you learn about God and yourself
from Psalm 103