Have you reflected on why you attend worship? Why would you even consider serving, giving, or offering your precious time, treasures, or even your talents as you join Jesus on mission where you live, work, learn, and play? Today Pastor John leads us in a message time where we can reflect on our real motivations for life and living. How can we begin to see a shift from being motivated by guilt to being moved and motivated by God’s love experienced in Christ? May the Lord pour out His wonderful and powerful gift of grace, mercy, and love to you today! 

Ephesians 3:14-19

14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith - that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

For Adult Homes and Groups

1. With your group, describe how many guilt-producing messages you are bombarded with during your normal day. 

2. Read Ephesians 3:14-18. What verses or truths from these verses jumped off the page for you? What verses communicated God’s love and grace experienced in and through Christ? Why is it difficult for many people to shift from being motivated by guilt (law) to being motivated by Christ’s love (Gospel)?

3. Carrying the fullness of Jesus into every corner of society is Faith’s goal when mobilizing God’s people, God’s way. Ephesians 3:16-21 says that it is a foundation in love that positions us to be filled with the fullness of Jesus. What can happen when our motives for mobilization are rooted in anything other than love?

4. Can you describe a time in your life where you experienced, in a very real and special way, God’s love toward you? (Perhaps God provided, protected, or simply became very present when you needed Him.)

For Families with Kids

1. Take turns reading Ephesians 3:17-19 out loud.

2. What’s the widest thing you can think of? The longest? What about the highest? What’s the deepest thing you can imagine? The Bible tells us that God’s love is bigger than all those things. Talk about a time when you felt God’s love.

3. God says that faith is active when we root and ground ourselves in Christ’s love. Challenge and encourage one another to commit as a family to worship (rooted) more frequently and pray together out loud (grounded) at least once a day.