Deeper in the Word (2)

Week 1

Game: signs? mafia? Sanctuary manhunt

Books of the Bible y’all would like to discuss?

Revelation.

Out of curiosity, what interests you about Revelation?

Why would you want to discuss that book as a group?

Any other books y’all would like to discuss.

If we do study some of Revelation, if you want to pull the eject button at any time, that’s not a problem to me, we will go to something else.

So if we do 3 weeks of Revelation, and y’all want to eject, we can do a different book for the last 3 weeks.

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Here is a mental exercise for tonight:

Read Genesis 11:4 “4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.””

I want you to grab a partner

I want you to tell me all the ways it could be sinful for us to travel in space.

Why is space travel potentially sinful.

3. I want you to also tell me why AI could be sinful.

Creative answers win bonus points.

Serious answers also receive bonus points.

Best overall answer wins.

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I. Why would God allow sin into the world?

* Is God capable of preventing evil? - yes.

*Did God create Adam with Evil in him already?

II. Does God desire to get rid of evil? - Yes.

Let’s break down these secondary questions for a moment.

Let’s start with this:

Is God capable of preventing Evil?

Yes. Absolutely.

God could change everyone and make them to where they cannot sin.

This does not go against God’s nature

This would certainly bring righteousness and not unrighteousness.

SO again, why doesn’t he do that?

If God removed your choice to sin or not, and only created you to do righteousness, what does that say about your humanity?

What is a relationship if you do not have both the option to do right AND wrong?

When you date a girl guys. Trust is imperative.

Trust is never assumed, but always earned.

It takes time to build trust with someone.

In the beginning, you don’t know if someone is trustworthy or not, but over time, you experience good things and bad things and through both the highs and the lows of life, when one person has been with you through those things, you trust them more and more.

Trusting them, leads to loving them.

But we rarely talk about the negative here.

Through all of that you KNOW that person could cheat on you, break up with you for no reason, decide not to date you anymore, etc… etc…

But the right person, quickly, removes those fears and insecurities.

The person you will marry one day, you will know quickly (perhaps) that this person calms you, complements you, and wants success with you.

So to say this differently, one thing that truly does make love beautiful is knowing that a dating relationship could end at any time, but that you both have the mutual desire to be with one another as long as you have breath in your lungs.

To say this even more differently, life is fragile. The more you experience the fragile nature of life, the more you appreciate your spouse who is with you through all of that.

Love is beautiful not just for the good things, but for the person who is also with you through the bad things.

To bring this back to God, I would say this is a long illustration to say that through our sin, God is teaching us something about himself and the way he relates to us.

What would be some ways God relates to us through our sin?

*Allow time for responses here*

II. Does God desire to get rid of evil? - Yes.

Why then does God allow evil?

Romans 5:8 “8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

God certainly relates to us through our sin by understanding first and foremost that’s the reason he died.

He didn’t die reluctantly for our sin.

He died specifically for our sin.

Sin wasn’t a byproduct of Jesus’ reason for dying.

It was the reason.

To kill the sin in us, Jesus died.

To live as a new creation in Christ, restored, new life, That’s why he died.

2 Corinthians 5:17 “17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

Why would God allow sin?

Maybe to show us, we aren’t robots or programmed, but we are really loved by the God of the universe.

Love assumes choice.

You choose to love God or not to.

God wants to be loved. He’s given us everything we need to know how loved we are, but at the end of the day, he leaves the choice up to us to choose Him or not.

What about this…

Did God create Adam with evil already in him?

no.

Genesis 1:31 “31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.”

The only thing God looks at and says is in Genesis 2:18 “18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.””

Romans 5:12 “12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—”

God didn’t create evil.

Evil was the rebellion against God.

It began with Satan.

And Satan ultimately brought that to us.

But make no mistake here. God didn’t make evil any more than God created darkness.

Darkness is the absence of light.

Evil is the absence of God.

Also consider mentioning/ Honorable Mentions

Couldn’t God intervene 100% of the time before people commit evil acts:

Examples: Planes into buildings, Laziness, stop drunk drivers, father’s who are drunks, abusive parents,

It would be great if all of these were removed. 100%

But the problem is, we want God to take away all these Big sins, but that would also mean he would take away our little sins too.

In other words, you all have sin. And you sin because you enjoy sinning! SO that would mean God not only removes all the big sins, but also the sin you like too.

But why doesn’t he then still intervene?

Because God uses our sin to remind us of the price he paid for us.

TO truly come to Christ, we need to recognize the weight of our sin.

How condemned we are because of Sin (Romans 3:23 “23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 6:23 “23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” )

We also need to know GOD IS restraining some acts.

It’s impossible to say what god is allowing and not allowing.

But it’s most important to remember God allows us to choose good or evil.

Rather than blaming God for _____ sin or evil.

We should be proclaiming the only way to be free from sin and evil… JESUS CHRIST!