Fearless | Session 4 | Paul
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Option 1: Review
· Start by reminding students of what you talked about last session. Use the following teaching points from Large Group Lesson 3 to review:
Being fearless isn’t always, if ever, easy. Being fearless often requires great faith in God’s power to take care of you. If we fearlessly pursue the task God calls us to, God will lead us in accomplishing the task.
Teaching Point 1: Being fearless in our faith will cost us.
As you’ve done in previous sessions, give students some context for your look at Paul’s life by providing some of the details of his backstory:
o Most of you know who the Apostle Paul was. After all, he wrote 13 out of the 27 books in the New Testament.
o Paul started out as the chief enemy of the Christian church in Jerusalem. He was an interesting guy: both a Jew and a Roman citizen, he was an up and coming superstar in Jewish circles.
o He came from a prestigious lineage and studied under the best rabbis.
o He was so fanatical about his Jewish faith that he was the leading persecutor of Christians. And then it all changed.
o On the way to imprison Christians in the city of Damascus, Paul encountered the risen Christ who confronted, and eventually converted, him.
o Paul would go on to be the main missionary to the Gentiles, traveling throughout the Roman Empire to share the Gospel and start churches.
o On these travels, he ran into quite a bit of opposition from those who were enemies of Christ. Let’s look at what this looked like and the effect it had on Paul.
Have students turn to 2 Corinthians 11:24-33.
Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands.
Look back over this list.
Unpack it. Let it sink in.
- This is what being fearless cost Paul.
- He met abuse at the hands of those who did not want to hear him preach the Gospel.
- He met hardship because he faithfully traveled around the Roman Empire sharing Christ.
- He even had some friends desert him.
- Paul was hungry.
- Paul was cold.
- Paul was tired.
- He experienced great pain.
- All because he was committed to living a fearless faith.
This level of hardship is neither normal nor ideal. No one is saying that this is somehow the measure of a fearless faith. And no one is urging students to seek out persecution. BUT, it’s important to know that if we are truly living a fearless faith, we’ll experience tough times.
It’s an inevitable truth: if we live out a fearless faith, it will cost us.
- It cost people in the Bible. It has cost people throughout history. It costs people all around the world today.
- But as we’ll see in a moment, it doesn’t mean that we should shrink away from living a bold faith.
Teaching Point 2: Being fearless is costly, but it’s always worth it.
· knowing what Paul’s faith cost him, it would be easy for him to be bitter, or to walk away from Christ, or to just want to be done with it all. The interesting thing is that we don’t see this from Paul at all. In fact it’s quite the opposite.
· Have students turn to Philippians 1. While they are doing so, remind students that Paul is writing Philippians while imprisoned in Rome. He has been thrown in jail for preaching the Gospel. He is writing to the church in Philippi letting them know that he is imprisoned but otherwise OK, and to encourage them.
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
o One verse. One simple sentence. But can you imagine anything more profound?
At this point all the awful stuff that Paul described in the Corinthian passage we just read had already happened.
Paul has already experienced a tremendous amount of pain and discomfort for the Gospel. And on top of that he is writing from jail! And yet Paul can make the statement that the aim of his entire existence is Christ!
For Paul, the object of living was simply Jesus. And dying would be nothing but gain because it would bring him face-to-face with the Lord. What an amazing statement!
Paul teaches us that no matter how tough it gets living out a fearless faith, it’s always worth it.
Knowing God, serving Him, and being known by God in return, is the most rewarding thing there is.
It may cost us to live our faith out in boldness. But it’s worth it.
What we’re about to see is that not only is it worth it, we may actually come to know Christ more and better in the midst of living fearlessly through the tough times.
Optional Illustration: Going Deeper: “To Live Is Christ”
· Explain to students that the New Testament Bibles we read today were originally written in Greek. And so sometimes we can look at the original Greek and gain a better understanding of what is being said. This may be one of those circumstances.
· Explain to students that the original Greek phrasing (τὸ ζῆν Χριστὸς) of Paul’s words, to “live is Christ,” literally means “the living is Christ.”[i]When we see Paul’s words in Galatians 2:20 it makes a little more sense.
· Then, read Galatians 2:20 to your students.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
o The literal translation of what Paul writes in Philippians 1 is talking about coexisting with Christ. [ii] It’s literally a life lived in union with Jesus. Paul reaffirms this in the Galatians passage we just read. The life where Paul lived for himself and his interests? It was over. That life was crucified. In it’s place is a life where God and His ways lives in and through Paul.
· his is exactly the life we’re called to live. This is what fearless faith looks like.
Teaching Point 3: Being fearless in the face of tough times leads us closer to Christ.
· Philippians 3:7-11
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
o Here we see Paul articulating a concept that is fitting for us to focus on in the last point of our last session.
It’s such a powerful truth for living a fearless faith in the midst of a world that is opposed to God and His ways.
Paul says in verse 7 and 8 that no matter what he had lost in his pursuit of Christ, it was OK.
In fact, he goes a step further.
He says that anything he lost is actually gain. Why? Because in suffering, Paul has come to know and understand Christ better. In suffering for the Gospel, Paul can relate to what Jesus experienced on this earth. This fact draws Paul closer to God, enriching his faith in the process.
· Y’all see, living a fearless faith will lead us to know Christ better.
o If faith never costs you anything, it is not a faith that looks like the faith lived out by the people in the Bible.
It’s not the kind of faith Paul lived.
A faith that costs you something, that is difficult at times, is a faith that puts you squarely in line with Jesus and His plan for your life.
By fearlessly pursuing Jesus, no matter the cost, you will be more aligned with Jesus and His mission.
You will experience Jesus in a much richer way, and your life will be changed as a result.
CLOSING
Option 2: Personal Challenge
- I want to close with this: What do the conversations we have had this weekend mean to you?
- What does your faith look like? Are you living courageously or fearfully?
Is your faith an active part of your identity/day to day?