Ness Baptist Church
  • Welcome
    • What We're About >
      • Statement of Faith
      • Expression of Faith
      • Our Team
    • Canadian Forces Families
  • Sunday Service
    • Sunday Bulletin
  • Ministries
    • For Kids
    • For Youth >
      • Youth Ministry
    • For Young Adults
    • For Women
    • For Men
    • For Community: Life Groups
    • For the World: Missions
    • Osborne Village Church
  • Resources
    • Sermons
    • Calendar
    • Scholarship
    • For Prayer
    • For Serving
    • Job Postings
  • Contact
  • Donate

Gospel Fluency: The Gospel In My Mind

1/26/2020

0 Comments

 
Thanks to Saturate the World for major sections of this study.

While the war of the mind is a personal war for everyone, it doesn’t have to be an individual war. It’s helpful to know that the ultimate Helper—God the Spirit—and those in your close community are in the foxholes with you, fighting on the front lines for your holiness. In chapter eight of Gospel Fluency, Jeff Vanderstelt writes: 


When I am teaching people how to fight with gospel truths, I introduce some cues to help them discover the aspect of the gospel they may need to press into. For instance, if someone is struggling with guilt or shame for what he been done, I encourage him to go to the cross where Jesus died and remember his words: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). We need the reminder that Jesus’s death paid for all our sin, past, present, and future. He atoned for our sin, removed our guilt, and covered our shame.

If someone is struggling to overcome sin, I might encourage her to remember and believe in the resurrection, where Jesus condemned sin’s power. He gives us the same power to overcome by the Spirit who raised him from the dead. 

Some are dealing with feelings of inadequacy in their behavior and lean toward performance-based acceptance. If so, I direct them to remember Jesus’s life, perfectly lived in their place, and the Father’s words spoken over Jesus (words that are now ours in Jesus): “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). 

Whatever the struggle, the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus gives life, hope, and power. And by faith in Christ, every attribute, characteristic, and blessing that belongs to Jesus is available to us because of our unity with him. 

In essence, fighting with gospel truths is trusting in and putting on ourselves all that is true of Jesus, and therefore also true of us in Jesus. 

This week’s group exercise puts that into practice as you consider going from “fruit to root” to “root to fruit” together. If your group is larger than six people, you might want to divide into groups of three or four to make sure everyone gets a chance to participate. We’ll encourage you to “let your group in”—especially if there are areas you’re having a hard time reconstructing right belief. It can feel shameful, but by God’s design you need each other in those areas especially!

First, looking at the Tree Diagrams and considering the four questions, have each person…

  1. Share one or two areas of unbelief he or she processed (unbelief in the sense of continued patterns of difficulty in trusting God in a particular area or type of situation / places in our lives in which we have not trusted God to rule well over us, we’ve desired control when it really belongs to him), along with specific ways God used that process to establish greater belief in his or her heart and mind. This is the process we walked through in our groups last week using some of the x-ray questions.
  2. Share at least one area you need help deconstructing disbelief based on the “fruit to root” process and reconstructing right belief based on the “root to fruit” process.
Picture
​After each person shares, together as a group . . . 

  1. Celebrate God’s work in each person as He worked through His Spirit to establish new areas of belief in former unbelief. 
  2. Lovingly serve one another as you help deconstruct unbelief and reconstruct right belief in areas others need help. 
  3. Why is it so easy to miss the “root” of our sin and disbelief, and instead try to merely solve or fix the “fruit”? What’s the result, both short-term and long-term of stopping at the “fruit” instead of getting to the “root”?
  4. Apply the gospel, even to this conversation: sometimes it’s hard to get to the root of things. Discuss why it’s difficult to “dig beneath the surface,” and why it’s hard to ask others for help in our own fights for holiness. Consider those reasons, in light of this week’s and previous weeks’ content.
  5. Consider if there are any commitments you need to make to help one another live consistently in light of newfound belief.

If you still have time, look together at Ephesians 6:10-18. List off the items of the armor of God that Paul talks about and discuss which is the most difficult for you to think about putting on. Dig into why this may be. How can you speak the gospel to each other and help to see Jesus as the one who has given this to you already. What do you need to begin believing about him in order to allow you to conquer this?!
The Gospel In My Mind_.mp3
File Size: 41392 kb
File Type: mp3
Download File

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Our Podcast can be found on:
    Listen on Google Play Music

    Ness Podcast

    Listen to Stitcher

    Listen to Stitcher

    Categories

    All
    1 Peter
    1 Samuel
    1 Timothy: God's Blueprint For The Church
    2 Peter
    40 Days In The Word
    A Call To Remember
    Acts
    Advent 2017
    Advent2018
    Advent 2019
    Advent 2020
    Advent 2021
    Advent 2022
    Arden Boville
    Authentic Christianity
    Authentic Faith
    Baptism
    Chopper Wilson
    Christ Centered Community
    Christmas
    Christmas Eve 2020
    Core Training
    Core Values
    Covenant Community
    Craig Dunsire
    Cyril Borthistle
    David Johnson
    DJ Groening
    Doug Sadler
    Dr. Chuck Nichols
    Dr. Gus Konkel
    Dwight Olney
    Easter
    Ephesians
    Eric Derksen
    Exodus
    Foundations
    Galatians: Jesus + Nothing = Everything
    Genesis...and So Our Story Begins
    God's Eternal Gifts
    God's Relentless Pursuit Of Rebels
    God With Us
    Going Public With Your Faith
    Gordon MacKenzie
    Gospel Fluency
    Gospel Life
    Guest Post
    Henry Ozirny
    Holy Week
    Howard Moore
    Jairo Do Nascimento
    Jeremy Smith
    Job
    Joe Antonio
    Joe Welty
    John
    John 17
    Joshua
    Josiah Antonio
    Judges
    Kingdom Blessings For True Disciples
    Life Groups
    Lifted Up
    Lincoln Lautermilch
    Live The 10
    Living Your Calling
    Lorne Meisner
    Loving God
    Mark
    Mark Dupuis
    Names Of Christ
    Palm Sunday
    Parables Of Jesus
    Parables Of The Kingdom
    Pastor Brennan
    Pastor Jeremy
    Pastor Matt
    Paul Johnson
    Prayer & Fasting
    Praying The Psalms
    Psalms
    Psalm Things To Think About
    Romans
    Ruth
    Scott Anningson
    Sent With Authority
    Sharing Our Faith As Jesus Taught Us
    Sin The Struggle The Solution
    Sitting At The Feet Of Jesus
    Standalone Messages
    Study Questions
    Teachings Of Jesus
    Terence Bergmann
    Thanksgiving
    The Birth Accounts Of Jesus
    The Church: The Gospel Made Visible
    The Divinity Of Christ Exposed
    The Gospel
    The Gospel Made Visible
    The Inseparable Link Between Faith & Practice
    The Journey Of Jesus
    The Mission & The Message
    The-purpose-ofis-the-cross
    The-seven-signs-of-john
    The-word-made-flesh
    The-word-made-flesh
    Tim-nielson
    To-the-seven-churches
    Wisdom
    Wisdom-calling

Join this Sunday!

SERVICE TIME: 10:30am every Sunday
​2700 Ness Ave.


Office Hours

M-Th: 9am - 3pm

Telephone

204-888-4338

Email

office@nessbaptist.com
Weekly email
Communication card
Donate
  • Welcome
    • What We're About >
      • Statement of Faith
      • Expression of Faith
      • Our Team
    • Canadian Forces Families
  • Sunday Service
    • Sunday Bulletin
  • Ministries
    • For Kids
    • For Youth >
      • Youth Ministry
    • For Young Adults
    • For Women
    • For Men
    • For Community: Life Groups
    • For the World: Missions
    • Osborne Village Church
  • Resources
    • Sermons
    • Calendar
    • Scholarship
    • For Prayer
    • For Serving
    • Job Postings
  • Contact
  • Donate