a GROW lesson

Focal Passage Outline and Scripture Passages:
Have a Heart for God (Ezra 7:1a,6-10)
Build a Reputation of Integrity (Ezra 7:25-28)
Identify with the People You Lead (Ezra 9:4-6; 10:10-12)

Background Passage:
Ezra 7:1–10:44

Focal Passages:
Ezra 7:1a,6-10,25-28; 9:4-6; 10:10-12

What This Lesson Is About:
People lead from the essence of who they are. Leading successfully involves walking with God in such a way that both unbelievers and believers recognize the person’s integrity and trust the person to lead.

How This Lesson Can Impact Your Life:
This lesson can challenge you to walk with God in such a way that both unbelievers and believers recognize your integrity and trust you to lead.

Money is a litmus test of our true character. It is an index of our spiritual life. Our stewardship of money tells a deep and consequential story. It forms our biography. In a sense, how we relate to money and possessions is the story of our lives.

If this is true of all men in all ages, does it not have special application to us who live in a time and place of unparalleled affluence? Take a man or woman who works from age twenty-five to sixty-five and makes $15,000 a year. In his lifetime this person of modest income by our standards will handle well over half a million dollars. He will manage a fortune. And if Scripture is true, and men must give an account of their lives to God (Rom. 14:12), then one day this man must answer these questions:

• Where did it all go?

• What did I spend it on?
• What has been accomplished for eternity through my use of all this wealth?

In the account of the poor widow, Mark wrote, “Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury” (Mark 12:41). Notice we are not told, “Jesus happened to see….” No, it seems he deliberately watched to observe what people were giving.

Jesus was interested enough in who was giving what to make an immediate object lesson to the disciples about the true nature of trusting God as demonstrated in sacrificial financial giving.

If we stop to think about it, this passage makes all of us who suppose that what we do with our money is our business and only our business feel terribly uncomfortable. On the contrary, it is painfully apparent that it is God’s business-that God makes it his business. He does not apologize for watching with intense interest what we do with the money he has entrusted to us. If we use our imaginations, we might even peer into the invisible realm to see him gathering some of his subjects together this very moment. Perhaps you can hear him using your handling of finances as an object lesson. The question is this: what kind of lesson?

Background Passage: 2 Corinthians 1:1–2:17
Lesson Passages: 2 Corinthians 1:3-12; 2:14-17

LESSON PASSAGES OUTLINE
1. Live for Others (2 Cor. 1:3-7)
2. Live in God’s Strength (2 Cor. 1:8-11)
3. Live So God Approves (2 Cor. 1:12; 2:14-17)

BIBLICAL TRUTH
Christians can exhibit integrity amid imperfect relationships.

LIFE GOAL
To help adults live with integrity

Focal Passage Outline and Scripture Passages:
Does Sin Still Shock Us? (1 Cor. 5:1-2)
How Should We Respond to Immoral Members? (1 Cor. 5:9-13)
What’s Wrong with Sexual Immorality? (1 Cor. 6:15-20)

Background Passages:
1 Corinthians 5:1-13; 6:12–7:40

Focal Passages:
1 Corinthians 5:1-2,9-13; 6:15-20

What This Lesson Is About:
God’s standards—not prevailing cultural standards—form the basis for the Christian’s morality. The church must uphold God’s standards of morality.

How This Lesson Can Impact Your Life:
This lesson will help you to examine ways you are influenced by cultural views of sexual morality and to identify ways to protect your moral integrity and the reputation of your church.

1John 2:5-6.

2:5. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.
2:6. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.
–NKJ

How do people know that we are Christians? There is a well known hymn, and bible verse that declares that, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” It’s true, people should know us by our love above anything else. People can still know in other ways, both for the things we passively, and actively do.

The opening phrase, “But whoever keeps His word,” sounds like it might be an activity, a thing for Christians to do. I’ll get to that more in a moment. To keep comes from the word to safeguard. Now what does that mean? If I had any valuable item, a Rolls Royce, a gold and diamond piece of jewelry, fancy dress clothes, I would do well to use them and show them off. I probably wouldn’t dress in a tuxedo to do the daily chores. I would safely guard it and store it away. If I had a Rolls Royce, I would gladly cruise around in comfort in it, but I wouldn’t park it on the street, along the curb. It would be safely tucked away, and locked in a garage when I wasn’t driving it.

The words, commands, and teachings of Jesus are valuable treasures. We should spend time in prayer, reading the Bible, and so forth. We don’t do those things continuously through the day. It isn’t practical. But those valuable things should never be compromised. Keep them safely locked away in the vault of your heart and mind. Don’t let them become compromised.

Safeguarding is a passive thing we can do. It may not make others fully recognize that we are Christians, but it will show in the integrity of our actions as we go about the daily grind of life.

This verse is saying that the person who safeguards the words of Jesus. To this very same person, God will be allegiant to. God will be loyal and true to do something.

“The love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.” The love, agape love, of God is perfect in that very same person. To be perfect is to be complete, finished, accomplished, consumated, fulfilled, get the idea? God’s character will come spilling out into how we live our lives. That is the undeniable sign that the person who claims to be a Christian, and safeguards the commands, and words of Jesus is genuine.

There is a common saying among Christian circles that says to spread the Gospel using all means available, and when all else fails to use words.

To drive the point home, John includes the statement that “to walk just as He walked.” Besides keeping those valuable words safe, pull them out and use them once in a while. Practice the very same things that Jesus did.

Often, in our world today, Christians get a bad rap as being pushy, or judgmental. People are put off when we come around spouting a litany of sins, and pointing out faults, reasons, and the logic of why Christ is the answer. There is a time for that, but it comes across as being negative. First show a passive, loving friendship, because you really should be concerned for that person, just as
God is. Let the action and the words come once there is a connection of friendship.

If people don’t know exactly what you are at first, they’ll know that something is different.
Be a gentle spirit, safeguard the morality taught by Jesus, and let God work before you jump in and share.

1John 2:3-4

2:3. Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.
2:4. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
–NKJ

Is your faith real? Do you say one thing and end up doing another? To paraphrase Paul, ” the evil things I don’t want to do is what I end up doing, and the good things I want to do never seem to get done.” It can be difficult to do the right things, loving others, showing tolerance, and lovingkindness to those who need it. The best of Christians fall short.

In the phrase, “we know that we know Him,” it could be more accurately read as, “we know that we are knowing him,” To know him is an ongoing experience. One that can be lived out each new day. Knowing him isn’t a matter of whipping out an old book, and reading about history, and learning about a small event that happened centuries ago. The things that Jesus taught are so basic to humans that they are still relevant today, and will continue to be in centuries to come.

So what is the proof of our belief? What is the demonstration that we are continuously knowing and experiencing him? When “we keep His commandments.”

His commandments are the things he taught, and are recorded in the Gospel, but even all through the scripture. It’s good to actually do what his commandments and teachings say, but that isn’t the exact meaning of the word ‘keep’. It comes from a word that literally means to safeguard.

If you had something valuable in your possession, what would you do with it? A diamond necklace? Wear it. A Rolls Royce? Drive it. As much as you might like to, you probably wouldn’t use those things on a daily basis. The shine would wear off, wear and tear by normal use requires extra maintenance. During the times your valuable item is not in use you safeguard it. You keep it locked securely in a safe, or in a secure garage. During the times when you fail to use those valuables, you keep them safe.

During many of our daily chores of life, we may not see the connection to the thing we do to a Christian teaching. Maybe there isn’t any. Still even when our behavior and conversation doesn’t demand the need for us to whip out our acts that imitate Jesus, keep them safe, and close at hand. Don’t let the voices of society creep in and try to make those valuables out to be less than what they are. Safeguard the teachings of Jesus and don’t let people try to devalue them, or say they are irrelevant, or useless.

If you are a Christian, then you’ve got the goods. Use them if you have them. Keep them safe and uncompromised when you’re not.

James 2:1-12

2:1.  My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality.
 2:2.  For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes,
 2:3.  and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, “You sit here in a good place,” and say to the poor man, “You stand there,” or, “Sit here at my footstool,”
 2:4.  have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?
 2:5.  Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?
 2:6.  But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts?
 2:7.  Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called?
 2:8.  If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well;
 2:9.  but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
 2:10.  For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.
 2:11.  For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
 2:12.  So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty.

Be Impartial and Fair.

What is it about people who are rich that atract people to them? The general thought is that they must be doing something right. Maybe getting close to them will make some of what they have rub off on us. It’s time to get re-focused on God. Romans 3:23. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All, both rich and poor have sinned. All need to hear the good news of the Gospel.

Remember this: John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. The gift of Jesus is for everybody, the world, whosoever. Try to see people as God sees them. The poor person may need cleaning up on the outside. That’s really easy. All it takes is a little soap and water. Both the rich and poor person need to be washed in the soul. Not so easy for us to do. In fact nobody can except Jesus. Don’t hold anybody back.

The rest of this passage tries to demonstrate that all people, despite what they say or think, really do have sin. Here’s a comparison. Think of a balloon that is full of air. All it takes to pop it is one little stick with a pinpoint. The whole balloon is broken. Keeping the commandments is like that. Break even one little one, and the integrity of the whole thing is broke.

Everybody needs a spiritual cleaning. Treat each other with the same, high level of respect. Bring them all the good word, and let Jesus offer his cleaning to them.

Background passage: Isaiah 5:1-14

Biblical Insight

How can there be expectations for something that is a free gift?

The offer of salvation is a free gift. It is a gift of grace offered to anyone who will accept the gift of salvation. However, receiving a gift has some
assumptions. The assumption is that we will use the gift in the way it was intended. If you gave a painting as a gift and they never displayed the painting,
you would wonder why. You gave it with the expectation that they would display it. We confuse the nature of salvation with the nature of the Christian
life.