Key Bible Passage(s):

Matthew 15:18-20; Jer.17:9-10; Heb.3:12 AND

Rom.6:17; Eph.3:17; Heb.8:10

Tier 1:

We saw last session that our liturgy of confession teaches us to think rightly about our God. It also teaches us to think rightly about ourselves. The act of confessing our sin, and of confessing that we are sinners before God is deeply subversive. Jesus teaches us that evil orginates within us; it is not simply external. This cuts against the grain of our culture’s thinking (and therefore our thinking) and makes confession one of the most difficult things for us to negotiate as new Christians.

Tier 2:

The liturgy of confession teaches us to take responsiblity for our own life - both internally and externally. We must reject the call to be true to ourselves, or to live out who we truly are. This is an utterly naive and profoundly dangerous idea. We instead learn the adopt the diagnosis of the Spirit, and to grasp that we will change nothing in our world, until we ourselves are first changed. This will confornt us with the reality of our guilt. But until we have felt our guilt we cannot know His grace.

Tier 3:

Christianity is a battle for our hearts, for what we will love and desire. It is precisely the ambiguity of our hearts that leads to the ambiguity of our lives and relationships. Only as we learn to love that which is truly lovely - or better, the One who is truly lovely - can we begin to become like Christ. All else is sin.

But fool that I was, I foamed in my wickedness as the sea and, abandoning you, followed the rushing of my own tide, and burst out of your bounds.

St. Augustine of Hippo

Discussion Questions:

read through Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143

What does this Psalm teach me about myself? …and about my relationship with God?

What is a Christian’s response to the reality of their sin?   Does it resonate with your experience?

How can we cultivate that response?  Would you want to?

How are we taught to pray?

…what else grabs your attention?

Homework

Over this half-term we have been working to memorise Matthew 7:13-20. You will have to keep refreshing Matt.5:1-26, Matt.6:5-15 and Matt.7:7-12 & 21-28 whilst you do this.

(we’ll memorise the whole of the Sermon on the Mount over the 3 years of DTP)

continue to reflect on the cycle of repentance. How are you seeing things develop?

And begin to think about what a Rule of Life might look like. We come back to this in DTP year 3 and spend a term on it, but we’ve found it’s helpful to get people mulling it over for a few months before that!

The process of change is one that many Christians struggle to grasp. This very accessible book by Tim Chester will be a great accompaniment to the material we’ve been reflecting on together throughout this term. It is a hope-filled book, rooted in joy and the love of God. If you want to spend more time getting to grips with this, you could do worse than start here!