October (1 of 2): Small Group Discussion Guide
Salvation - How God Saves
Salvation doesn’t begin with your repentance—it begins with God’s rescue. Paul writes that we’ve been “brought into the kingdom of the Son he loves” where “we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Forgiveness isn’t something God offers after you repent; repentance is how you awaken to the forgiveness already flowing toward you in Christ. We don’t initiate salvation—God does. When we see it as a transaction we start (“I repent, then God forgives”), we become anxious, moralistic, and self-reliant. But when we see salvation as participation in Jesus’ life and authority, we find peace, humility, and freedom. In Christ, you are not a project trying to earn God’s favor; you are a person already reconciled, breathing the free air of grace.
Announcements
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Resources
When in Romans by Beverly Roberts Gaventa
Recovering Paul’s Mother Tongue by Susan Grove Eastman
Pauline Dogmatics by Douglas A. Campbell
Sermon Video
Sermon Text
Colossians 1:13-22
13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—
Romans 6:22
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
Romans 11:30
Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience,
Romans 7:6
But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
Sermon Quotes
You are not God’s self-improvement project.
“Turning from sin” becomes the primary badge of holiness.
Sin-conscious churches and still be grace-starved ones.
Forgiveness isn’t God responding to your repentance.
Discussion Questions
In your experience, what happens when we live as though “I repent → God forgives”? How does the mindset that you are the initiator of God’s goodness shape (or shake) your confidence in God’s care for your future—and how might your faith look different if you truly believed “God forgives → I repent”?
When “the confession of immorality becomes the morality,” how have you seen that play out—in Christian culture or in yourself—and how does that kind of sin-focused spirituality distort true humility and grace, often producing judgment or anxiety instead of freedom?
Paul says you’ve been “brought into the kingdom of the Son he loves”—what does it mean to actually live as someone who’s already been transferred into that kingdom, and how might that free you from the “self-improvement project” version of Christianity?
Where in your life do you still feel like you’re “earning your oxygen”? What would it look like to stop holding your breath so much and simply breathe in forgiveness this week?
