Lesson Helper: Bringing Sin and Praise Together

Tonight I finished a series with my small group students. My goal has been to make their faith a central part of their home lives, even if their parents weren’t doing it themselves. The method of choice for of our final lesson was to put their sin side-by-side with their praise so they could see the need for God in every part of their lives. They cannot hope to make Christ central in their home life if they don’t allow Him into every aspect of their lives.

We started with these verses:

Proverbs 6:16-19 (MSG)
16 Here are six things God hates, and one more that he loathes with a passion: 17 eyes that are arrogant, a tongue that lies, hands that murder the innocent, 18 a heart that hatches evil plots, feet that race down a wicked track, 19 a mouth that lies under oath, a troublemaker in the family.

They had an especially strong reaction to the phrase “a troublemaker in the family”. I loved seeing the conviction starting to set in.

After reading the verses, I gave each student a piece of paper and a pen. I told them this sheet was only for them and I never needed to see it. I asked them to write what is in their lives that they knew God does not like. I gave them a minute to write and think. None of them wrote much, but the point was to get them thinking about what they knew they were doing outside of God’s boundaries.

I asked them to think about their list as I played a worship song. My hope was that their worldly life and spiritual lives would collide a bit. The point was to get them to come to grips with how they/we compartmentalize God out of our lives. The same God we praise gets treated like a friend we avoid when our cooler friends are around. I told them it shouldn’t be like this.

These are the next verses I read to drive the point home:

James 3:7-12 (NLT)
7 People can tame all kinds of animals and birds and reptiles and fish, 8 but no one can tame the tongue. It is an uncontrollable evil, full of deadly poison. 9 Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it breaks out into curses against those who have been made in the image of God. 10 And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right! 11 Does a spring of water bubble out with both fresh water and bitter water? 12 Can you pick olives from a fig tree or figs from a grapevine? No, and you can’t draw fresh water from a salty pool.

My final point of the night was that if they are ever going to have the spiritual lives they desire, a few things need to happen:

1. They need to quit shutting God out of certain parts of their lives
2. When they feel the urge to do something God hates, to check where their focus is. They can refocus on God through worship
3. Think about this problem as they go home. Let it bother them so they’ll take action. Either they’ll choose to make God the center of their lives or they’ll quit pretending that he is – no more living lukewarm lives
4. To get God into the culture of their homes, they need to allow him into every area of their lives

I don’t usually get that bold with my students. However, it’s important to jar them out of complacency ever so often. I’ve seen lackluster spiritual commitments in them. Hopefully these challenges will move them to take action.