Sermon Application

Please remember -- these are meant to be a helpful guide and should lead you to ask your own questions (not simply regurgitate our questions supplied to you). If you like the aim of these questions, please use them. Most of the fruit of these are in the discussions that the questions help you to begin. Make sure to be conversational in these discussions and avoid merely working through the questions in a robotic way.

1. In Romans 11, the Jews are described as hardened and rebellious towards God and now jealous towards Gentiles who are being softened towards God and saved. Are there ways that you can empathize with the Jews who are jealous towards saved Gentiles?
Where (or in what ways) can you empathize with Jews experiencing this sentiment? Are there any categories of people who you struggle in being jealous towards? Describe.

2. Are there any groups (or types) of people that you struggle to love and struggle to want to see converted? Describe.

3. Romans 11 is largely about exposing pride and cultivating humility regarding our salvation from both Jews and Gentiles. How is God presently working in your life to uproot pride in your heart? In what areas/ways are you presently tempted to be proud, arrogant, and braggadocious? ---> Rather than brag, we are to fear (v20). What does this mean and how are we doing "fearing" instead of "boasting?"

4. (v24 exposes that we ought to be expectant and hope-filled. What hinders your hope? What deflates your hope? Describe.

5. Discuss together whether you believe Romans 11 teaches that there will be a large ingathering of all Jews one day or whether Paul means to teach something different. Can you prove your position Biblically? How much does this matter to you? (be honest). Do you enjoy or disdain these kinds of hard/rigorous/tedious/complicated/technical theological discussions? Why/not do you enjoy them? Is it hard for you to engage deeply in theologically technical conversations? Why (what about them makes it difficult or unenjoyable)? --> What do you believe God has for you (specifically) in giving you passages in His Word like Romans 11?

6. Regarding our salvation, at the end of the day, Jews and Gentiles alike (all) have only MERCY (the mercy of God) to cling to. Read together Romans 11:33-36. Does this sentiment ("Oh, the riches and wisdom of God...") resonate with you? Is this where your own heart is presently in regard to your great salvation from God? What stops you from possessing this kind of gratitude?

Sermon Application

1. Spend some time recollecting personally the great things God has done to bring you from darkness into His marvelous light. Have a few individuals share conversion stories with specific details of the mighty things God has done to bring you into His salvation.

2. How "God-centered" are you in considering your own salvation? What difference does it make when you consider your own salvation in a "God-centered way" and when you consider your salvation from a "man-centered way?" How (specifically) have you struggled to regard your salvation in a God-centered way? (Remember v48 together - "As many as were appointed to eternal life believed...")

3. There is no God like our God. He is sovereign over every event in human history. He raises one leader and puts another leader down. He was sovereign over the cross, using even the most evil act in human history to accomplish our salvation. Are there any things presently happening in your life that cause you to question or disbelieve God's sovereignty? Describe.

4. God has appointed many people to salvation. Nothing in the world can thwart God's plan from being accomplished. How "ought" we to respond to this reality? How "are" we presently responding to this reality? Does this reveal any specific ways that we ought to repent?

5. There is NO TROUBLE in life that can thwart God's purposes. This should engender boldness and confidence. As you evaluate your own life, are you growing in boldness and confidence in the Lord or is your boldness and confidence waning? Describe. As your members describe these things, let the sharing lead you to pray for one another giving thanks for the ways that confidence/boldness is growing and praying for one another to walk in repentance where our confidence and boldness has come under attack.

Sermon Application

1. We sang this morning, a song that asked, "Is He (Christ) worthy to receive blessing and honor and glory? He is!" Recount the reasons that Christ is worthy to receive our praise together!

2. We are to imitate Paul not by becoming apostles like he was, but by following the example of his character. His character made him cross-cultural (He was a jew reaching those who were not Jewish). How are you doing crossing cultures with the gospel? What specific "cultural divides" in your life are hard to cross? What makes them so difficult?

3. Paul's ministry was both practical and doctrinal (not one at the exclusion of the other). Do you tend in one of these directions at the exclusion of the other? Which is harder for you (doctrinal/truth or love/applied theology)? If you err, which side are you more prone to err on? Why? How might you grow in areas of weakness?

4. What ways are you currently orienting your life to reach the lost? Do you see yourself presently more on the front-lines of evangelism or more a part of the redeemed community living a life that makes the lost jealous? Are you content with your specific role/places of ministry, or do you wish your plate was filled with something different? Describe.

5. In what areas of Christian obedience are you presently finding it difficult to obey? Counsel and pray for one another in these areas, knowing that our growth in obedience has kingdom-advancing potential.

Sermon Application

1. When you consider "the riches of Christ" towards you, what specifically comes to mind?

2. Which aspects of gospel riches encourage you most? Why (what is it about those aspects that encourage you)?

3. Which aspects of gospel riches do you desire to think about, learn about, and study down more?

4. As you consider the historical reality of the Jewish people rejecting salvation in order that Gentiles would be reached, how does this fact affect you?

In Romans 11:33-36 Paul concludes his comprehensive teaching on the gospel of Christ with exuberant praise! As we heard this morning the Christian is in constant need of seeing the glory of God again and again as the means by which we persevere and stay on our course to heaven. As you consider these things together spend some time reviewing the sermon and answering the following questions.

1. Read Romans 11:33-36, brother/sister can you say that this is the temperature of your soul? Why/why not? Are there particular ways you're striving to be taken up with God's perfection, beauty, glory in the gospel? Explain.

2. One of the points Pastor Ryan made this morning was that "Paul believes that overwhelming worship comes from careful contemplation as opposed to emotional manipulation." Thinking about the 'temperature' of your own heart towards the Lord, how much would you say you're depending on having to be moved emotionally in order to give the Lord thanks and praise? Is careful contemplation of who God is and what he has done for us in the gospel difficult for you? Explain.

3. In Romans 11:1-5 Paul is concerned that the church would not misunderstand God's plan for his people, which ultimately effects how they would see God. Brother/sister do you see that one of your primary ministries to the body is to help one another see God rightly?

May we all together be taken up with the glory of God in the gospel and proclaim his wonder and majesty!