Free to Love

Theme: Freedom in Christ

Scriptures: 1 Corinthians 8:1–9:23

Objectives: (From the D6 Fusion Sunday School Lesson book)

Know: Christ has set us free to put other’s needs and well-being ahead of our own.

Think: I consider other’s well-being as more important than my own desires.

Do: Use my freedom in Christ to choose what is best for others.

Notes and questions:

B1 What is freedom?

C1 Not under or following any laws

C2 “I can do what I want.”

C3 Freedom means getting rid of desires except one and that is, to love — the kind of love which doesn’t demand anything, even love in return. Source (in the comments).

C4 Freedom is the ability to resist.

C5 What else?

B2 Freedom lost

C1 Can freedom be lost?

C2 How is it lost?

B3 Freedom regained

C1 Are either of the following choices Scriptural?

C2 Second Council of Orange, Canon 13: The freedom of will that was destroyed in the first man can be restored only by the grace of baptism…

C3 “Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it”—Malcolm X Source

B4 Who is free?

C1  His (God–editor) will is completely free, because He cannot be forced to will, reject or permit [anything] either by the inward necessity of His nature, nor by external power either of some force or the efficacy of an object which either are outside Himself, or will be. (Arminian Confession of Faith (1621), Chapter 2.9)

C2 No person is free who is not master of himself.—Pythagoras

C3 "I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free."—Nikos Kazantzakis Source

C4 In an irreverent TV commercial for the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Ron Reagan quips that he is "an unabashed atheist, not afraid of burning in hell." Source

C5 After reading these, who is free?

B5 Consider

C1 Is the first, second, or third quote freedom, or is it something else?

D1 Isaiah 14:12-13 NKJV  How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations!  13  For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north.

D2 Malachi 3:15 NKJV  So now we call the proud blessed, For those who do wickedness are raised up; They even tempt God and go free.

D3 John 8:33 NKJV  They answered Him, "We are Abraham's descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, 'You will be made free'?"

C2 The context of the third quote: John 8:33-36 NKJV  They answered Him, "We are Abraham's descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, 'You will be made free'?"  34  Jesus answered them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.  35  And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever.  36  Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.

D1 Who is a slave in this passage?

D2 Is one who commits sin free?

B6 1 Corinthians 8,

C1 The Corinthians had a question about food and idols.

C2 Could they eat food that had been dedicated to an idol?

C3 Can we eat food offered to idols?

C4 Could we eat halal or kosher food?

C5 What is the weaker conscious that might be offended?

C6 What should the motivation be for the one who is free to eat towards the one who does not have that freedom?

C7 How does having love (God’s definition of it) change our perception of freedom?

C8 Are we our brother’s keeper?

C9 Could someone use this as an excuse to manipulate others?

C10 How else can we apply this principle today?

C11 Why is it necessary to limit our freedom?

B7 1 Corinthians 9,

C1 Rights

D1 What are rights?

E1 Some suffer for the greater good?

E2 What the rich and power want?

E3 What the government gives and takes?

E4 What we protest for?

D2 Who gives rights? Is it government, ourselves, peer pressure, or something else?

C2 Did Lucifer have the right to rebel against God?

C3 Did Adam have the right to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?

C4 Did Jesus have the right to lay down His life voluntarily as a sacrifice for our sins?

C5 1 Corinthians 9:11-12 NKJV  If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things?  12  If others are partakers of this right over you, are we not even more? Nevertheless we have not used this right, but endure all things lest we hinder the gospel of Christ.

D1 The Apostles have a right to not work and have the financial assistance from believer’s gifts. They gain something.

D2 What rights do the givers have? They lose something.

D3 How does this apply, or maybe it doesn’t? 1 Corinthians 9:14 NKJV  Even so the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel.

C6 1 Corinthians 9:20-23 NKJV  and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law;  21  to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law;  22  to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.  23  Now this I do for the gospel's sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.

D1 Does this make Paul a hypocrite? He lives like a Jew when with Jews and a Gentile when with Gentiles.

D2 Does this help answer the question? Acts 16:3 NKJV  Paul wanted to have him go on with him. And he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in that region, for they all knew that his father was Greek.

D3 Or this: Galatians 2:3 NKJV  Yet not even Titus who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised.

D4 Does a missionary to a foreign country have to live by the culture they know or the culture of the people they are ministering to?

D5 What is more important—the Gospel or “my rights?”

D6 How can we apply this today?

D7 When should we not adopt the culture of those we minister to?

B8 Questions

C1 How do we find the balance between tolerance and intolerance?

C2 When do “my rights” cause a problem for spreading the Gospel?

C3 How do we decide what activities I can do that others cannot?

D1 Alcohol

D2 Movies with cursing and the Lord’s name taken in vain

D3 Movies with just one sex scene (implied or otherwise)

D4 Doing the drug scene as an undercover police officer

B9 Next week