Being Human
Speaker: Pastor Pierre du Plessis
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. How did the sermon resonate with you?
2. Have you ever felt a sense of dissonance or dissatisfaction with life? When? What was the nature of your dissonance?
3. How did you handle it? Did you see it as an opportunity for spiritual growth? What factors helped you through this season?
4. If you are currently in a state of dissonance, how can we as your family in Christ, help?
5. It has been said that complacency kills vision. Do you agree? Explain.
6. How can complacency be as harmful to our growth as a sense of unexamined dissonance can be?
7. What are you doing to strengthen your relationship with God so that your dissonance becomes your hallelujah?
SERMON RECAP
Scripture References: Philippians 3:7-11, Romans 8:29 MSG, John 6:63
Being human encompasses all life's uncertainties, disruptions and mundane routines and responsibilities. Over time, however, like a favorite activity that has lost its appeal, life loses its wonder and dissonance replaces wonderment; that which initially brought joy and excitement now becomes mundane, lack-luster. You’ve become numb to celebrations that you once joyfully anticipated. Everyday frustrations add to your overall malaise. You begin to doubt all your efforts in succeeding in what you do. You think, in the grand scheme of things, “Does what I do really matter?” Many of us just keep pushing forward, after all, we are responsible adults, with bills to pay and children to raise. Press the pause button. Can this be what happens when God, in His loving care for us, brings disruption, unpredictability and frustration to the normalcy of our lives? God uses them as vehicles for self-examination. Disquiet, though uncomfortable, can lead to deeper, and more profound levels of intimacy with God when we choose to be still in His presence and make time to be with Him. Who would have thought that the lyrics to a ballad by Boyz II Men would encapsulate your state of mind so aptly? But it does...
Can we go back to the day our love was strong?
Can you tell me how a perfect love goes wrong?
Can somebody tell me how to get things back the way they used to be
O God give me the reason I’m down on bended knee.
Can you relate? It’s not about a romantic love gone awry so much as it is a portrait of a broken relationship, that state of nostalgia that longs for the place of profound intimacy that is now gone. The heart yearns for its return to its former state when everything was “perfect.” David’s prayer of repentance shows his heart-felt plea for restoration, and a desire to be restored to his former state of fellowship with God. in Psalm 51:10...Restore to me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
On the other hand, some feel perfectly at home in the safety of routine ,a well-ordered life. This too has it draw-backs. It can lead to complacency, and complacency kills wonder. A life without wonder is a life without vision. God loves you. Pray that you know God, not more about God. Like David, pray that God brings you back to your first love. Be more concerned about the drug of complacency than the discomfort of dissonance. Pray that your brokenness be your hallelujah.
