Sermon Response Guide
PRIMARY SCRIPTURE:
Galatians 5:26 – 6:10 ESV
26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
1 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. 5 For each will have to bear his own load.
6 Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. 7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. 10 So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
Key Points
- The unholy trinity of pride:
1) Conceit = insecurity masked as confidence
2) Provocation = to taunt, antagonize, ridicule, criticize, or put others down
3) Envy = being jealous of anyone who has something we don’t - Pride = possessive, fragile, self-delusion
- Humility = a proper perspective of how things really are
- The things that burden us most are often the things we are most proud or ashamed of
Memory Verse
Ask God to write this word on your heart this week:
“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
-Galatians 6:2 ESV
Questions for Reflection
Take time to reflect and respond to these questions on your own in the presence of the Holy Spirit, or with trusted friends or family members:
1: Why do you think pride so often goes undetected in our own lives?*
2: We spend our lives shifting the weight between our twin burdens of pride and shame.
· How are pride and shame both similar and different?
· Which do you feel you struggle with more often, pride or shame?
· How can we find freedom over pride and shame in our daily lives?
3: Review Galatians 6:1 and answer the questions that follow.
· After hearing today’s message, how has your understanding of this verse shifted, particularly when it comes to temptation?
· When was a time someone restored you in a spirit of gentleness?
· What was it about their gentle spirit that was so crucial to your experience of restoration?
· What does this verse teach us about God?
4: Every person in the church is fed, nourished, and cared for by someone else. In the family of God, we all need each other.
· How has someone in the church cared for you lately?
· How are you currently caring for someone else in the church?
· If this is not your usual way of life, what can you do to live into this vision of the church? How can you preemptively bear someone else’s burdens this week?
5: Because the self-delusion of pride is so strong, we need community to tell us the truth.
· Where are you currently experiencing this kind of truth-telling community in your own life?
If you don’t have this kind of community in your life right now, use this link to find a group of friends you can get to know and grow in Christ with at PCBC this fall!
Pray
Lord, we confess we are more conceited than we know. We would rather provoke others than reveal our own insecurities. We are quick to envy what others seem to have, forgetting all we have received in you by your grace. Help us, Lord. Free us from the weight of our pride and shame. Fix our eyes on your glorious goodness. Teach us to seek out the needs of others – caring for one another as you first cared for us.
*Pride Self-Assessment
Use the questions below (rooted in today’s primary Scripture) to help you recognize the presence of pride in your own life.
- Am I antagonistic?
- Do I view others as threats to my security, comfort, and happiness?
- Do I blame others for my problems?
- How do I respond to the failings of another?
- Am I relieved? Do I feel better about myself when I see others fall apart? Do I get angry?
- Or, do I try to take on their burdens? Do I want to love them? Do I want to encourage them? Do I want to build them up?
- Do I find myself so concerned with their well-being that I pray for them genuinely and honestly? Do I see myself in them at all?
- What do I think about myself?
- Am I constantly comparing myself to others?
- Am I insecure?
- Whenever something happens, whenever someone comes to me, is the first thing I think, “How does this affect me?”
