MEETING AGENDA
- OPENING PRAYER – Ask one person to open the meeting in prayer.
- GROWTH QUESTIONS – Ask everyone the Growth Questions.
- ATTENDANCE – Take attendance through the DG Attendance System.
- TODAY’S LESSON – Go over this week’s DG lesson.
- GIVING – Encourage everyone to give on the App.
- CLOSING PRAYER – Ask for prayer requests and pray.
How many people in your DG are registered for Growth Conference?
THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL
TODAY’S PASSAGE:
Romans 1:16-23 NLT 16 For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile. 17 This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.” 18 But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. 20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. 21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. 22 Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. 23 And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.
- DEFINITION – “Good News” (euangelion) – the glad tidings of salvation through Christ, the gospel
- The Good News starts with some really bad news… we are all sinners with no hope of saving ourselves.
Romans 3:23 (NLT) – For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.
- Even worse, the penalty for our sins is death!
Romans 6:23a (NLT) – For the wages of sin is death…
- DEFINITION – Death (thanatos) – the separation of the soul from the body by which life is ended; the eternal separation of the soul from God, the source of all life
- The Good News is that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay for the wages/cost of our sin.
- Jesus made it possible for us to be made right in God’s sight by dying in our place so that none of us has to experience death and eternal separation from God.
- The best news of all is that Jesus’ payment for our sins and being made right with God is all accomplished through faith alone!
Romans 1:17 (NLT) – This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”
- There are some people who willfully deny God’s existence. They choose to ignore the clear evidence that all of creation makes plain.
- Creation reveals God‘s eternal power and divine nature.
- DEFINITION – Power (dynamis) – force, miraculous power, ability, abundance, might, strength, violence, mighty work
- Put simply, God is the most powerful force in the universe. He made everything that we can see with just a few words from His mouth.
- God invested this same power into the Gospel!
- When we accept Jesus as our Savior and embrace faith in the Good News, God’s power, the most mighty and miraculous power in the universe, begins to go to work in us!
- The Bible reminds us that real wisdom comes from knowing God.
Proverbs 9:10 (NLT) – Fear of the Lord is the foundation of wisdom. Knowledge of the Holy One results in good judgment.
- Those that try to deny God or look for wisdom in any other source become more and more foolish, their minds will become dark and confused.
- When people refuse to believe in God, they separate themselves from Him and from all that is good, and that is utter foolishness.