Thursday Thoughts for Parents | "Sovereign Grace"
October 26, 2017 by SGCL Staff
Sunday Sermon, Discussion Questions, Parents, Thursday Thoughts
This post is based on C.J. Mahaney's sermon, Sovereign Grace, given on October 22, 2017.
Hey kids, did you know that God has been thinking about you for a long time? In fact, His thoughts about you go back before He created the world and everything in it. One of the sweetest doctrines, or teachings, gathered from the New Testament writings is that of divine election because it offers such comfort for those who put their hope in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The book of Ephesians essentially begins with a prolonged sentence theologians have called a “sentence begun in eternity”.
Hearing the theologically informed backstory of God’s plan for saving us helps us recognize that every soul that has been redeemed was a soul God came looking for. A challenge we face in talking about this teaching can be trying to relieve the tension we feel between our understanding of God’s elective purposes and man’s responsibility. To ease this challenge, CJ reminded us of the wisdom of growing comfortable with mystery in relation to God and His ways. Election has been embraced by church fathers because it stirs us to worship our merciful God.
Read Ephesians 1:3-14 giving priority to vv. 3-4a
- When considering how you were saved, whose actions take priority? Your actions or God’s initiative?
- If you find yourself overwhelmed that God would save anyone, what attribute did CJ say characterizes this kind of response?
- As a family, take time to worship God for His willingness to choose us before we would have ever chosen Him.
[Post written by Tyson Ziegler]
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