Within 180wknd

180 Weekend Bible Study Teaching Plan Guide
Relate
In this section of the material, through group activities and discussion questions, you will
RELATE the Central Truth of the Bible Study to the lives of your students. This section will
also serve to RELATE the 180 Weekend messages to the small group Bible study.
Why This Section Is Crucial?

When you do the activities and discussion questions in this section students will open
their hearts and minds to what youre going to teach them from the Bible. Without a proper
connection between the two sections the Bible study material may not Ait into the context of
what were trying to accomplish during 180 Weekend.
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How To Lead This Section?
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You will be given 2-3 options per lesson. At least one of these options will be designed
for group discussions. Please select 1-2 options for your small group time.
Realize
In this section of the material you will teach the Bible to your small group. The goal of this
section is for them to REALIZE what the Bible says as it relates to the Central Truth of the
Bible Study.

This is the part where you teach the Bible. It is through Gods Word that he speaks to
us today. We want our students to hear from God during your small group time, therefore
teaching the Bible is the most important thing you can do! It should go without saying that if
this part gets skipped (or minimized) then your group didnt really have Bible study at all.
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Preparation:
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THE PREP MATERIAL IS INTENDED FOR YOUR PREPARATION TIME, IT IS NOT INTENDED
FOR YOU TO READ VERBATIM DURING YOUR GROUP TIME.

This section should be where the majority of your prep time is spent. First, pray that
God would teach your heart from this passage before you teach others. Second, read the prep
material thoroughly. Included in your prep material are sections dedicated to introducing the
main passage you will be teaching and an exegetical guide to each point of the Bible study.
page 1
180 Weekend Bible Study Teaching Plan Guide

Use the REALIZE section of the teaching plan to make additional notes from the prep
material. The REALIZE teaching plan is intended to guide you through the actual teaching
portion of the material.
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Teaching The Material:

The Bible study will be divided into multiple points that you will need to teach. Each
point of the Bible study will highlight speciAic sections of the prep material that you should
mention as you teach. The additional notes that you make should also be mentioned as your
lead your group.

In addition to the things you say, there will also be times where the material instructs
you to allow students to read passages of scripture, discuss certain aspects of the passage,
think of additional Biblical examples that correspond to this lesson, or to participate in
interactive activities that make them a part of the teaching process. While you will do most of
the talking during the REALIZE section, it shouldnt be 30 minutes of you teaching and them
being quiet. Thats not the best method for learning. Yes, you are supposed to teach the Bible,
but the more interactive you make it the better they will understand what you are trying to
say.
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Renovate
In this section of the material you will draw application from what youve taught. Group
activities, discussion questions, prayer times, and personal moments of reFlection will be
used to all allow the Holy Spirit to RENOVATE students hearts and lives.

James 1:23-24 tells us that Bible study without personal application is like looking in a
mirror and then walking away and forgetting what youve seen. We want our students to not
only hear the Word but to also Do the Word. This section will challenge them towards that
end.
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You will be given 2-4 options per lesson. Please select at least 2 options for your small
group time. For RENOVATE options that require large group discussion please dont be afraid
of silence as this it can take a while for students to formulate a response or to work up the
courage to share it.
page 2
WITHIN Session 1
Bible Study Title: Within Yourself
Key Passages: 2 Corinthians 13:5-9; Romans 7:14-25
Central Truth: I need to look within myself and recognize my own hopeless failures and
sin. As a result, I must find my identity and value by viewing myself within Jesus, His
truth, and His church.
Bible Study Points:
(1) We need to examine and test ourselves spiritually.
(2) We are not able to be good enough.
(3) We cannot fix ourselves.
Introduction
Who are you? What defines you as a person? What excites you? What makes
you tick? What do you fall asleep thinking about? What is the first thought that jumps
into your mind when you wake up in the morning? How do you decide how you will
spend your time, your money, and your life? What consumes the majority of your
thoughts? How do you decide what is right for you to do? What should you value and
pursue with your passions and talents? Which causes and people are worthy of your
life? Where do you turn on the day when everything has gone wrong and everyone has
failed you? In short, what is the source of your identity? What gives your life value,
purpose, and hope?
Search your feelings. Trust your gut. Go with your heart. You have to do
what makes you happy. Most of the answers that your friends, your songs, your
movies, and your other sources of influences will give you have something in common
look WITHIN. Although you may hear it worded in a thousand different ways, our
culture encourages you to build your own identity by what you do, how you think, what
you have, and who you know. A deafening roar from culture tells you to look WITHIN
YOURSELF.
At first glance, 2 Corinthians 13:5-9 may appear to give you the same
instructions for finding identity, value, purpose, and hope but we will see as we look
WITHIN over the next four sessions that God wants you to come to a radically different
answer than defining your identity by looking WITHIN YOURSELF. The passage says,
5Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you
not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?unless indeed you fail to
meet the test! 6I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. 7But we pray to
God that you may not do wrongnot that we may appear to have met the test, but that
you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. 8For we cannot do
anything against the truth, but only for the truth. 9For we are glad when we are weak
and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for.1

1All Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version
(Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001).
Before you begin the challenge of looking WITHIN YOURSELF by examining and
testing, let us back up to consider this challenge within the letter of 2 Corinthians.
Background
The book of 2 Corinthians is actually just one in a long string of interactions
between Paul and the church in Corinth. In 51 AD, he made a personal visit of 18
months to the city. After he moved on to Ephesus, he wrote a previous letter (1
Corinthians 5:9) to the church, after which he heard reports back from them. About a
year after that first letter, Paul wrote another letter to the Corinthian church, which we
call 1 Corinthians. Following this epistle, Paul sent Timothy to visit them (1 Corinthians
4:17, 16:10-11), came again personally to them in a painful visit (2 Corinthians 2:1),
sent them a severe letter (2 Corinthians 2:3-4), wrote the letter of 2 Corinthians, sent
Titus (2 Corinthians 7-8), and made a third personal visit (Acts 20:1-2). With three
extended personal visits, at least four letters, and at least two visits from Pauls close
disciples, it is important to see the letter of 2 Corinthians in the context of an extended,
personal relationship between the apostle Paul and a church about which he cared
deeply.
In the introduction to a commentary on the book, Simon Kistemaker gives the
following summary statement about 2 Corinthians:
We cannot point to a single theme in this epistle, but we are able to detect a few
characteristic ones. The letter expresses Pauls personal concerns for the
spiritual welfare of believers in Corinth He speaks words of encouragement
and comfort, while he reveals the sufferings he has experienced in the service of
the Lord Another feature is Pauls genuine relationship to Jesus Christ
For Paul and his people, that relationship demonstrates that Christian aspiration
to glorify God in Christ Jesus. And a last characteristic is the defense of Pauls
apostleship. This letter is at once a triumphant vindication of his apostolic
ministry, and a searing indictment of the pretensions of super-apostles who
were attempting to overthrow his work in Corinth by slandering his character and
his motives.2
Our passage in 13:5-9 is, aside from a few concluding remarks in the last 5
verses, the final culminating charge of everything that Paul has said. When he charges
his friends and followers in verse 5 to examine yourselves, to see whether you are in
the faith, Paul genuinely wants to see them living in a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Paul wants these believers to stand on the truth within the church without falling into
political gamesmanship.
As such, when Paul tells this group of believers and the generations of Christians
who have read his letter since then to look WITHIN YOURSELF through selfexamination and testing, we are at the final exclamation point of what the Holy Spirit is
communicating in the letter of 2 Corinthians.

2Simon J. Kistemaker, 2 Corinthians, Baker Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Baker
Books, 1993), 29-30.
(1) We Need to Examine and Test Ourselves Spiritually.

The action of honest self-examination and self-testing is something that most
teenagers never take the time to do. Many of them may think that they are not lacking
in this area, but they have no idea how much their constantly busy lives undermine this
effort. They have cellphones and computers that allow them to access friends and
entertainment anytime and anywhere. They have commitments and responsibilities with
school, family, sports, academics, friends, dating, and jobs just to name a few. On so
many occasions, our students begin to examine themselves (to look WITHIN) and begin
to see glimmers of Gods working and direction in their lives. Before they can consider
or respond to God, however, they are pulled away by the start of football practice or by
the vibration of a cell phone.
Most of us at some point have passed the time by staring at our reflection in a
lake or some other body of water. In the calm surface of the water, you can get a
dynamic and fairly accurate view of how you actually appear to the rest of the world.
The lake, however, only works as an effective mirror when the waters are still. On a
busy summer day filled with the shouts of swimmers and the whine of motors, the
resulting waves and ripples destroy any chance you have of seeing your reflection. On
the rare occasion that we as modern Americans find a smooth, calm bit of lake in which
we can actually examine ourselves, we are all too quick to create our own batch of
turbulence instead of looking WITHIN our reflection.
Busyness creates a barrier to genuinely examining ourselves. Romans 1:18
suggests that our students are content to let this busyness run its course without
resistance because they are people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
While this verse talks specifically about unbelievers, our Christian students also face the
easy and often subtle temptation to avoid reality. We view the world from the comfort of
our self-centered attitudes and actions of rebellion against our Creator. This verse
points out that we are content to suppress and explain away glimpses of our true selves,
instead of taking the time and energy to look at the painful and ugly truth of what lies
WITHIN each of us.
Because genuine self-examination and self-testing cut against the grain of what
we naturally want to do, the New Testament reminds believers again and again of the
importance of looking WITHIN honestly. Galatians 6:3-5 teaches, 3For if anyone
thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4But let each one test
his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his
neighbor. 5For each will have to bear his own load. According to 1 Corinthians 11:2831, self-examination is one of the central reasons for observing the Lords Supper. In
many ways, the entire letter of 1 John is meant to serve as a mirror for us to consider
where we are putting your hope and purpose, as we examine how we genuinely relate
to Jesus Christ.
Even though it cuts against our own inclinations as human beings and against
our routines in a modern life surrounded by technology, we must take the time to pause
in order examine and test ourselves if we are truly going to look WITHIN.
(2) We Are Not Able to Be Good Enough

For a group of young people living in the modern United States, the concept of
looking WITHIN YOURSELF is not a scary task. On the rare occasion when we actually
slow down enough to reflect on ourselves, we expect for the most part to like what we
see. We live in a culture of affirmation. The worldview in which we are saturated
believes that people are mostly good and will choose to do the right thing if they are only
given enough opportunity and guidance to do so. Our students have grown up in a
world where they do not keep score in sports leagues and where everyone gets a
trophy. At every turn, parents and teachers are building up our students out of fear that
their self-esteem or self-worth may be damaged or scarred. Although there are clearly
exceptions that have left some students with no sense of self-worth, the vast majority of
American teenagers default to seeing themselves as pretty good people who deserve
and expect good things to happen in life. Even more than just passively finding it, they
are actually taught to see and to expect to find good WITHIN themselves.
In contrast, living in latter half of the fourth century in northern Africa, Augustine
of Hippo came to a point in life when he was forced to see darkness and despair when
he looked WITHIN himself. Raised by a Christian mother and a father who worshipped
the traditional Roman gods, Augustine was exceptionally intelligent and therefore
pursued the best education possible, studying the art of speaking (rhetoric). Although
he knew much about it, he never embraced the Christian faith of his mother, largely
because he did not see how Christianity could account for the existence of evil in the
world. When he moved away from his family to study, he fathered a child with his
girlfriend. During the following years, he journeyed through the influences of pagan
philosophies and came to practice a Persian religion for a time.
This slow journey brought him eventually back full-circle to the Christian faith of
his mother. As he walked down so many spiritual and philosophical dead-ends, he
realized that Jesus Christ actually provided the best answers to his doubts and
questions. At the same time, he looked WITHIN his own life. Augustine saw himself
saturated in sinfulness and so darkly twisted that he did not think he could live as a
Christian. He was so tortured with his sin and so conflicted within himself that he could
no longer stand to be around other people. Just before reaching the point of placing his
trust in Christ instead of his own efforts, Augustine called out in despair, How long,
Lord, how long? Will it be tomorrow and always tomorrow? Why does my uncleanness
not end this very moment?3
Augustines conclusions from looking WITHIN himself are remarkably similar to
what the Apostle Paul expresses about his own look WITHIN that he describes in
Romans 7:14-24. He writes,
14
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15For
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the
very thing I hate. 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is
good. 17So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18For I

3Justo L. Gonzales, The Story of Christianity, Volume 1 (San Francisco: Harper San
Francisco, 1984), 206-211.
know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to
do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19For I do not do the good I
want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do
not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
21
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22For
I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23but I see in my members another
law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of
sin that dwells in my members. 24Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me
from this body of death?
God used Paul in extraordinary and unique ways. Paul wrote roughly half of the
New Testament. Paul planted churches and encouraged believers across multiple
continents. He had a face-to-face encounter with the resurrected Jesus Christ Himself.
Even this super-Christian among super-Christians recognized that evil, sin, and selfdeception were ever-present WITHIN himself. In this passage, Paul admits that he
knows and wants to do what is right but that a powerful evil wars and pulls him in the
other direction from WITHIN. In his exact words, he recognizes in verse 17 that his own
sin dwells within him and in verse 24 that he is trapped in a body of death.
In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis explains, When a man is getting better he
understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is
getting worse he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man
knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common
sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping.
You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly: while you are
making them you cannot see them. You can understand the nature of drunkenness
when you are sober, not when you are drunk. Good people know about both good and
evil: bad people do not know about either.4
As we work with teenagers, we do not want students who think of themselves as
good kids. We want them instead to see their sinfulness and brokenness for what it is.
Only with the blackness and darkness of our own sin as a backdrop, can they see the
awe-inspiring beauty of the fireworks show that is Gods mercy and love poured out in
the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in our place. If we do not test and
examine ourselves to see that we are broken and dead WITHIN, the rest of the story of
redemption will make little sense.
(3) We Cannot Fix Ourselves
When you honestly look WITHIN YOURSELF, you will get a glimpse of the
depths of your own sinfulness. The darkness and evil that you see does not mean that
you are always as bad as you could be, but it does mean that everything you do and
think is touched by the sin that lies WITHIN. As a result, trying harder to be better is a
dead-end road. In Isaiah 64:6, the prophet says, We have all become like one who is
unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. Another, more well
4C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Nashville: Broadman and Hollman, 1980), 88.
known version of this verse translates polluted garment as filthy rags. Our best effort
on our best day is still pulled down and dirtied by our own sinfulness.
There is an ancient Greek myth about a king named Midas, who acquires a
golden touch. Because of this ability, everything that Midas touched immediately
turned into gold. He was initially excited about his new, never-ending source of wealth.
Quickly, however, he came to realize that his golden touch extended also to his food,
drink, and even other people. Depending on the version of the myth, King Midas either
starves to death or finds a way to discard his ability before moving to the countryside
and choosing to live in simple poverty for the rest of his life. Our sinfulness is just like
Midass golden touch in that everything we contact in word or action is influenced and
turned by our own evil and rebellion.
The words of an old puritan prayer make this same point by saying, But in my
Christian walk I am still in rags. My best prayers are stained with sin. My penitential
tears are so many impurities. My confessions of wrong are so many aggravations of sin.
My receiving the Spirit is tinctured with selfishness. I need to repent of my repentance.5
Paul explains in Philippians 3:4-9 how the best human efforts possible cannot escape
our sinfulness and become good enough. We are caught in a hole and can only dig
ourselves deeper into it. He states,
4
Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else
thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5circumcised on the
eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of
Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to
righteousness under the law, blameless. 7But whatever gain I had, I counted as
loss for the sake of Christ. 8Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the
surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered
the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
9
and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the
law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God
that depends on faith.
Paul personified the worlds standards of being religious and being good. His
best efforts, however, were loss and rubbish. Our attempts at fixing ourselves from
WITHIN are like a squirrel trying to save up enough acorns to purchase a fully furnished
seaside mansion with a fleet of sports cars in the garage. We are in a high-stakes, lifeor-death situation and playing with Monopoly money.
However, Paul did not lose hope just as Augustine later found the same hope
and meaning in the face of his despair because he saw that his goodness and value
came from knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and through faith in Christ.
With this perspective in mind, we return to Romans 7:24s cry of Wretched man
that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? We now see the answer in

5Arthur Bennett, editor, Valley of Vision (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2009),
Prayer 76.
verse 25 with, Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! It is, therefore, from
without ourselves and from WITHIN Jesus Christ that we find our sure foundation.
Conclusion
My identity, my value, my purpose, my hope these essential components of my
life cannot be defined from WITHIN myself. All of the Scriptures are uniting together to
tell me that looking WITHIN myself is actually a road to death and condemnation.
Romans 3:20 reminds us, For by works of the law no human being will be justified in
his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. All of the instructions for living
in the Bible are one of Gods ways of showing us that the solution to our problems and
the foundation of our identity cannot come from WITHIN ourselves.
Going back to our original passage in 2 Corinthians 13:5-9, we see again,
5
Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you
and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for.
There is a frequently told story of a middle school teacher who gives her students
an unusually long pop quiz on material that the class should know easily off the top of
their heads. In their anxiety, the majority of the students begin tearing through the
questions trying to answer them. In the midst of the panic, a single average student
walks to the front of the room to hand in his quiz after only a minute. He had taken time
to actually read the directions and had discovered that students were instructed to
write their name at the top of the page and leave all other answers blank.
In the same way, passing the test described in our passage from 2 Corinthians
does not mean trying harder to be better once you see the darkness WITHIN
YOURSELF. When we hear about our badness, our human nature leads us to start
scrambling to pull ourselves up into a higher level of obedience and goodness. Just as
the students in the quiz could only pass by not tackling a long string of questions, the
only way to pass the test from our passage is to see that Jesus Christ is in you. If we
look to ourselves, we have failed before we have even begun.
In this lesson we have seen that looking WITHIN YOURSELF will not provide a
foundation for your identity and value (verse 5a). In the following lessons you will
explore the rest of the passage to discover that you must view your life instead WITHIN
the outside workings of Gods plan for your life: WITHIN CHRIST (verse 5b), WITHIN
TRUTH (verses 6-8), and WITHIN THE CHURCH (v9). You have an unshakable
foundation for your identity, value, and purpose you just cannot obtain it by looking
WITHIN YOURSELF!
180 Weekend 2015: Within

Small Group Session One
Lesson Plan - Within Yourself

Key Passage: 2 Corinthians 13:5-9; Romans 7:14-25
Central Truth: I need to look within myself and recognize my own hopeless failures and
sin. As a result, I must find my identity and value by viewing myself within Jesus, His
truth, and His church.
Relate
Option #1: Something About You!
Give a small piece of paper or notecard to everyone in the group. Have them write
something about themselves that others may not know and have them give it back to
you. One at a time, read what they wrote and have the group vote on who they think
you are talking about. Dont reveal the true answer until youve read what everyone
wrote.
Option #2: Internet Quiz
Say: Internet Quizzes are very popular. All over social media you can find the answers
to some of lifes deepest questions like- What character from Hunger Games are you?,
What do people love/hate about you?, or What celebrity would you be best friends
with?. Many people take these quizzes for fun, not really caring what the outcome is.
But the fact that these type quizzes are so popular speaks to the fact that people in our
culture are consumed with trying to define who they are (even if its something silly like
what kind of Starbucks coffee drink are you?).
Ask the following questions and allow time for your group to discuss.
1.
Have you ever taken an internet quiz? What was the quiz and the result?
2.
Do you think some people are looking for real answers about who they are by
taking these quizzes?
Personal Study Notes:_______________________________________________
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Within Yourself
Page 1

3.
Do you think people answer the questions honestly, or are they answering them
hoping for a certain result?
Say: Whether or not you like internet quizzes, were all looking without and within to try
to find our identity. During this lesson we are going to see what we find when we truly
look within.
Option #3: Group Discussion About Looking Within
1.
What are some means people use to examine themselves?
2.
Why do you think some people enjoy self examination and internal reflection
and others do not.
3.
What measuring stick do most people you know judge themselves by?
____________________________________________________________
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Within Yourself
Page 2

Realize
Bible Teaching Plan:
Introduction to the Passage
Teach: Most of the answers that your friends, your songs, your movies, and your
other sources of influences will give you have something in common look
WITHIN. Search your feelings. Trust your gut. Go with your heart. You
have to do what makes you happy.
Although you may hear it worded in a thousand different ways, our culture
encourages you to build your own identity by what you do, how you think, what
you have, and who you know. A deafening roar tells you to look WITHIN
YOURSELF.
READ 2 Corinthians 13:5-9
Teach: At first glance, 2 Corinthians 13:5-9 may appear to give you the same
instructions for finding identity, value, purpose, and hope but we will see as we look
WITHIN over the next four sessions that God wants you to come to a radically different
answer than defining your identity by looking WITHIN YOURSELF.
1.
We Need to Examine and Test Ourselves Spiritually
Teach: Because genuine self-examination and self-testing cut against the grain of what
we naturally want to do, the New Testament reminds believers again and again of the
importance of looking WITHIN honestly.
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
Within Yourself
Page 3

READ Galatians 6:3-5

Teach: Even though it cuts against your own inclinations as a human and against your
routine in a modern life surrounded by technology, you must take the time to pause in
order examine and test yourself if you are truly going to look WITHIN.
Realize Discussion Question #1: What things, from inside ourselves and from
outside, keep us from wanting to, or even being able to, really look within and examine
ourselves?
2.
We Are Not Able to Be Good Enough
Teach: We live in a culture of affirmation. Therefore, the concept of looking WITHIN

YOURSELF is not all that scary to a group of young people living in the modern United
States. On the rare occasion when we actually slow down enough to reflect on
ourselves, we expect for the most part to like what we see. The worldview in which we
are saturated believes that people are mostly good and will choose to do the right thing
if they are only given enough opportunity and guidance to do so.
READ Romans 7:14-24
Teach: God used Paul in extraordinary and unique ways. Paul wrote roughly half of the
New Testament. Paul planted churches and encouraged believers across multiple
continents. He had a face-to-face encounter with the resurrected Jesus Christ Himself.
Even this super-Christian among super-Christians recognized that evil, sin, and selfdeception were ever-present WITHIN himself. Paul admits that he knows and wants to
do what is right but that a powerful evil wars and pulls him in the other direction from
WITHIN. In his exact words, he recognizes in verse 17 that his own sin dwells within
him and in verse 24 that he is trapped in a body of death.
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
Within Yourself
Page 4

Quote: When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil
that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness
less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man
thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are
awake, not while you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind
is working properly: while you are making them you cannot see them. You can
understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk.
Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.
- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Realize Discussion Question #2: Do most of the people you know think of
themselves as being generally good or generally bad people?
Realize Discussion Question #3: Why do people struggle to recognize their own sin?
3.
We Cannot Fix Ourselves
Teach: When you honestly look WITHIN YOURSELF, you will get a glimpse of the
depths of your own sinfulness. The darkness and evil that you will see does not mean
that you are always as bad as you could be, but it does mean that everything you do
and think is touched by the sin that lies WITHIN. As a result, trying harder to be better
is a dead-end road.
READ Philippians 3:4-9
Teach: Paul fit the worlds standards of being religious and good perfectly. His best
efforts, however, were loss and rubbish. However, Paul did not lose hope because
he saw that his goodness and value came from knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and
through faith in Christ.
READ Romans 7:24-25
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____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
Within Yourself
Page 5

Teach: We cannot find our salvation within ourselves. Instead, It is from without
ourselves and from WITHIN Jesus Christ that we find our sure foundation.
Realize Discussion Question #4: What do people in our culture do to try to fix their
sin problem?
Realize Discussion Question #5: Why do all methods of trying to fix our sin problem
on our own fail?
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Renovate
Option #1: Share the Gospel
Teachers Note: Even though this is called Option #1 please dont view it as optional.
This is a must do activity! After sharing the Gospel with your students, ask the
following question, but dont have them answer out loud. Offer to meet after group time
with those who have not responded to the Gospel.
The Gospel has four essential elements:
God: We must start with God. There is one God who has always existed. He is
holy (Isaiah 6), and demands perfect obedience from us. If we obey, we are
blessed, but if we disobey, we are punished severely and eternally.
Man: We are created in Gods image and after His likeness (Genesis 1:26). We
were created to love Him, worship Him, and serve Him. However, we have all
sinned against Him (Romans 3:23). We have disobeyed His Word and rejected
His authority. Because He is holy, He must punish us. His wrath is His righteous
response to our sin. We are in desperate need of a Savior!
Christ: Christ Jesus is that Savior. He came to earth and lived a perfect life
the life we were supposed to live. He died in our place on the cross for our sins
(1 Corinthians 15:3-4, 1 Peter 2:24). He rose again on the third day in victory
over Satan, sin, death, demons, and Hell. All who call upon Him as Lord and
Savior will be saved!
Response: We call upon Christ through repentance and faith (Acts 20:21).
Repentance means to turn away from your sin. Faith means to turn to Christ and
to trust Him as your Savior from your sin. By believing in Him, new life is ours.
Supremely, we are brought back into a loving relationship with our heavenly
Father. He is the highest and greatest gift the Gospel offers.
Ask: Do you believe that these things are true, and have your responded to them in
faith and repentance? (dont have them answer aloud)
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Within Yourself
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Option #2: Dealing With Our Sin
Say: Even for those who have trusted in Christ for the forgiveness of our sin, we must
battle with sin that wars against us.
Give the students in your group a few minutes of silence to look within themselves and
see what particular sins that are currently warring against them. Have them write those
sins in the space provided in their student books.
Quote: be killing sin or it will be killing you.
- John Owens
Have the students in your group answer the following questions in their books.
1.
Am I taking the war against sin seriously?
2.
What specific steps do I need to take to rid myself of the sins that I listed above?
3.
Are there sins in my life that Im not willing to put to death?
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WITHIN Session 2
Bible Study Title: Christ Within / Within Christ
Key Passages: 2 Corinthians 13:5; John 15:1-9
Central Truth: To define my identity and value, I must understand that Christ is in me
and that I am in Christ, such that we are united together.
Bible Study Points:
(1) Christ is within all believers.
(2) All believers are within Christ.
(3) Christ and the believer are united together.
Introduction
Even while so much of our world tells you to look WITHIN YOURSELF for
answers and meaning, superheroes in print, online, on television, and in movies are
a dominant stream of popular culture at an all-time height of recognition. Even while we
deny and suppress the truth of our own darkness and hopelessness from ourselves
(Romans 1:18), the idea of being rescued and having our problems solved by a
superhuman hero resonates with humanity at a deeply emotional level. In a world
where the evidence of human sinfulness is rampant, there is a longing for Iron Man or
Superman to crash into our story as an external force of goodness and hope.
This cultural interest in super-powered avengers taps explicitly into Pauls words
to the church at Corinth in 2 Corinthians 13:5-9. The text says, 5Examine yourselves,
to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about
yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?unless indeed you fail to meet the test! 6I
hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. 7But we pray to God that you may
not do wrongnot that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is
right, though we may seem to have failed. 8For we cannot do anything against the truth,
but only for the truth. 9For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your
restoration is what we pray for.1
In verse 5, Paul starts with a charge to test and examine self before shifting his
attention to Jesus Christ. The apostle encourages us not to look WITHIN OURSELVES
as a final solution but instead to see CHRIST WITHIN us. With self now struck down as
a viable option for meaning and purpose, we are turning the conversation to the primary
valid source of identity and worth. In light of the hopelessness and darkness that we
explored in Lesson 1, Jesus Christ is the hero who comes WITHIN our life story, while
simultaneously pulling us WITHIN His cosmic story of redemption and glory. We gain
further clarity by looking at what Jesus taught in John 15:1-9.
Further Context
As the storyline of Christs life unfolds in Johns Gospel, chapters 14-17 contain
an extended section of Jesus speaking to His followers and praying to His heavenly

1All Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version
(Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001).
Father. This dialogue is sandwiched between His prediction of Peters denial and His
experiences in the Garden of Gethsemane. As such, approaching the end of His earthly
ministry, Jesus teaches in John 15:1-9,
1
I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2Every branch in me that
does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he
prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3Already you are clean because of the word
that I have spoken to you. 4Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear
fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in
me. 5I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him,
he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6If anyone
does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the
branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7If you abide in me, and
my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8By
this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my
disciples. 9As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.
In this section, Jesus uses a gardening analogy, which His original audience
would have clearly heard as a strong allusion to the song of the vineyard in Isaiah 5. In
these words, Jesus explains that your source of power, meaning, and success in life
comes down to Him abiding in you, while you also abide in Him. In the language of our
180 Weekend theme, He points out the two-way relationship of having CHRIST WITHIN
me and of me being WITHIN CHRIST. For our purposes, the key to this passage is that
Christ and the believer continually remain and rest in a state of mutual spiritual
indwelling.2
This connection between Christ and His follower is intimate and close; after all,
the vine and branches are actually united together as a single plant. Because of this
tight union, we rarely take the opportunity to slow down to examine the meaning of each
of these abiding relationships on their own. Let us, therefore, examine having CHRIST
WITHIN and being WITHIN CHRIST individually, before bringing our thoughts to a close
by examining them together in light of the believers union with Christ.
Before going any further, it is important to emphasize that the state of having
CHRIST WITHIN and being WITHIN CHRIST is not the default or baseline position for
humanity. It is only when the Holy Spirit awakens a person to see his own sinfulness
and his own need for Christs substitutionary death and that person responds by
placing his hope and trust in the completed work of Christ that he moves into the state
of abiding described in John 15 and 2 Corinthians 13. In Colossians 1:13-14, Paul tells
the believer that He [God] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and
transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the
forgiveness of sins.
(1) Christ Is Within All Believers

2Andreas J. Kostenberger, John, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New
Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 453.
The National Football League is indisputably the single most popular form of
entertainment in the United States today. The most conservative estimates claim that
well over 100 million people watch the Super Bowl each year. As fans watch their
favorite team attempt to earn a spot in this championship game, they go through an
array of outlandish behaviors as a result of having WITHIN themselves an excitement
and passion for their team. The zealous fan internalizes the mascot, colors, players,
and excitement WITHIN himself. Every week of the season, countless adult men paint
themselves in team colors and stand outside screaming for hours without shirts, even in
front of television cameras or in sub-freezing temperatures. They are filled with a
purpose and passion that they have internalized deeply, which now spills out of their
lives naturally and effortlessly.
Even more than an all-in football fan identifies with his favorite team within
himself, the Christian can actually be described accurately as having CHRIST WITHIN
himself. In Colossians 1:27, Paul explains, To them God chose to make known how
great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in
you, the hope of glory. The apostle is teaching that having CHRIST WITHIN is both a
glorious mystery and a glorious hope. When you place your hope in the completed
work of Jesus Christ and trust that He has paid in full the punishment you deserve for
the rebellion and evil that is WITHIN YOURSELF, it is the greatest miracle that a person
can experience. On top of salvation and deliverance from your own sinfulness, this
verse shows that Jesus indwells and remains in the believer, in an act that is equal
parts inspirational and mind-blowing.
In Romans 8:10-11, Paul writes, But if Christ is in you, although the body is
dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who
raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will
also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. The person
who has CHRIST WITHIN has life and has righteousness. This believer has these gifts
because he also has WITHIN himself the same Holy Spirit who empowered and
indwelled the incarnate Jesus Christ. Even more, Galatians 2:20 says, I have been
crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I
now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for
me.
While the extreme football fan has within himself a passion for a game without
eternal consequences, Jim Elliot understood what it meant to live his life having CHRIST
WITHIN in the sense of the verses we have just examined. He was born in Portland,
Oregon, in 1927. He knew that he wanted to tell people about the hope and joy he had
found in Jesus Christ, so he attended a Bible college in Chicago to pursue further
training. While there, he met a girl named Elisabeth but he delayed pursuing a
romantic relationship with her because he did not want to be hindered from going to a
foreign country to serve as a missionary. After graduating and following a few different
avenues, Jim moved to Ecuador at age 24 to share the Gospel with remote native tribes
who had never been told of Jesus life, death, and resurrection.
He quickly settled into his new ministry location and eventually married Elisabeth
on his 26th birthday. The next year they had a baby girl, and Jim began working with a
group of other missionaries to make contact with a tribe called the Huaorani or Auca.
After a few promising attempts at communication, Jim Elliot at age 28 (along with four
other missionaries) was killed by a group of the tribes warriors. As he sacrificed and
worked to build a relationship with these tribesmen (as well as with any people along the
way wherever God had placed him), Elliot had lived out his prayer, "Father, make of me
a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single
road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me."
Even though it cost him his life, Jim Elliot wanted to be clearly known as a man
who had CHRIST WITHIN, so that others would see his lifes passion and purpose. In
both his life and death, Elliot put these pagan tribesmen in the position of facing Christ
WITHIN him. Having CHRIST WITHIN was also how his wife Elisabeth, widowed with a
baby who had not yet reached her first birthday, was able to be instrumental in the
continued and eventually successful effort to take the Gospel to the same tribesmen
that had killed her husband. Elisabeth Elliot later wrote, The secret is Christ in me, not
me in a different set of circumstances. The motivation and purpose for her life were not
derived from what happened in her life. Instead, she was driven by and living for the
Jesus who intimately indwelled and sustained her. Nothing else except CHRIST
WITHIN can make sense of her determination in light of Jims death.
In Philippians 1:21, Paul triumphantly declares, For me to live is Christ, and to
die is gain. Many of us memorized a variation of this verse in an enduring 1970s
worship chorus, which rewords the concept to say, Christ in me is to live, to die is gain.
If Christ is abiding WITHIN me, He shapes and defines everything else about my life
and my death. While I live, I am filled with Christ such that He lives through me. When I
die, I will be filled up with Christ in in such a way and to such a degree that the greatest
joys and treasures of my current life become dim and dwarfed in comparison.
(2) All Believers Are Within Christ
While they are under the influence of your churchs youth ministry, many of your
students will make a decision that will shape the direction of the rest of their lives. They
will choose a college or university to attend for their continuing education. Once a
teenage girl completes high school and plunges completely into her new college life, the
student will now be within a community, a structure, and a reputation that will inevitably
shape and mark her life. After she places herself within this school, the choices made
by her teachers and administration will pull and shape her, even when she is only acting
passively or is even completely unaware of what her college is doing. People who do
not know her at all will project thoughts and feelings on her because of the educational
community within which she has placed herself. In an especially intense rivalry (such
as Duke vs. UNC), this student will be in situations where she will liked or disliked
simply because of her identification within her college.
It is only a rough and loose analogy; however, this story of the college student
gets our minds thinking along of the lines of what it looks like to abide WITHIN CHRIST.
Just as the value of ones completed degree and ones ability to brag about victories on
the athletic field are determined by the universitys actions apart from the average
students actions, my present purpose and future hope are defined by my identification
with the completed, perfect, obedience and substitutionary death of Jesus Christ. Jesus
acts and does and I am carried along with Him in the benefits and rewards. Romans
6:11 explains, So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in
Christ Jesus. Because you are WITHIN CHRIST, you have life and victory over the
sinfulness WITHIN YOURSELF.
2 Corinthians 5:21 states, For our sake he [God] made him [Jesus] to be sin
who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. We
ourselves are counted or credited as being righteous when we are in Christ (see also
Romans 4:24). Why does God do so? Because when he looks on you, He does not
see you simply as yourself. Instead, when He looks at you, he sees you WITHIN
CHRIST. In the words of the old hymn, God sees you dressed in His righteousness
alone, faultless stand before the throne. John Piper explains, God counts sinners to
be righteousness through their faith in Christ on the basis of Christs blood and
righteousness, specifically the righteousness that Christ accomplished by his perfect
obedience in life and death The historic Protestant teaching [is] that the basis of our
justification through faith is the provision of Christ for both pardon and imputed
perfection.3
The list of the benefits of being WITHIN CHRIST goes on and on. Galatians
3:26-29 explains, For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as
many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor
Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in
Christ Jesus. And if you are Christs, then you are Abrahams offspring, heirs according
to promise. According to 1 Corinthians 1:30, And because of him [God] you are in
Christ Jesus. Paul says that God Himself places His children WITHIN CHRIST and
therefore grants us access to countless numbers of blessings that He has given to
Jesus. You have value, meaning, and purpose in life, according to Colossians 3:3,
because your life is hidden with Christ in God no other potential source or grounding
can come close!
(3) Christ and Believers Are United Together
I am WITHIN CHRIST, and I have CHRIST WITHIN me. In different but equally
real ways, I am constantly choosing to identify myself within Jesus, while He is abiding
and sustaining my life from within me. While the implications and results of being
WITHIN CHRIST and having CHRIST WITHIN are essentially similar according to the
Scriptures we have observed, the dual direction of abiding cannot be skipped over. In
the best sense of the outworking, this two-way relationship becomes so close and
personal and intimate that the believer can begin to think of Himself as one with Jesus,
as in union with Him. In John 14:20, we see Jesus saying, In that day you will know
that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. According to Romans 6:5, For if
we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in
a resurrection like his.
John Murray emphasizes the importance of understanding our mutually abiding
relationship with Jesus when he writes, Union with Christ is really the central truth of

3John Piper, Counted Righteous in Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2002), 41.
the whole doctrine of salvation not only in its application but also in its once-for-all
accomplishment in the finished work of Christ. Indeed the whole process of salvation
has its origin in one phase of union with Christ, and salvation has in view the realization
of other phases of union with Christ.4 Our salvation as Christians is so much more than
being saved from an eternity in hell. Even more, it is an eternity spent together
intimately with the single greatest Source of joy, purpose, and contentment in the
universe.
Because of the prominent place of Eastern and mystical thought in our society,
let us pause briefly to say what we do not mean by a union with Jesus. Whether or not
we (or our students) realize it, these ways of thinking have entered the popular
consciousness and therefore can stealthily impact the way that we understand this
concept of union with Christ. In the biblical worldview, we do not mean that a person
and God become blended together in a complete merging, such that the lines of each
partys personal identity become lost. The believer is united to Christ, has Christ within,
and exists within Christ but he or she never actually becomes part of Christ or part of
God. Jesus remains Jesus, and I remain myself although my identity becomes
inseparably and essentially bound up with Him.
The historical, orthodox explanation of God Himself can help shed light on our
union with Christ. As Christians have tried to articulate our understanding of God as
revealed in the Scriptures, we speak of Him as the Trinity. Norman Geisler explains,
First of all, it is important to point out what is not meant by the Christian concept
of a Trinity. It does not mean there are three gods (tritheism), and it does not
mean God has three modes of one and the same being (modalism). Tritheism
denies the absolute simplicity of God, and modalism denies the plurality of
persons in God. The former claims there are three beings in the Godhead, and
the latter affirms there are not three persons in God. What, then, does the word
Trinity mean? It means that God is a triunity: He is a plurality within unity. God
has a plurality of persons and a unity of essence; God is three persons in one
nature. There is only one What (essence) in God, but there are three Whos
(persons) in that one What. God has three Is in His one Itthere are three
Subjects in one Object.5
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all completely and totally God. At the same time,
the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father. In a
similar way, the believer is in total union with God without ever becoming God in any
sense.
The New Testament also uses the illustration of marriage and its accompanying
sexual intimacy as a way to understand the bond between Jesus and His church. This

4John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1955), 161.
5Norman L. Geisler, Systematic Theology, Volume Two: God, Creation (Minneapolis,
MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2003), 278-279.
union is an echo of the brides passionate exclamation in Song of Songs 6:3, when she
says, I am my beloveds and my beloved is mine. 1 Corinthians 6:16-17 teaches, Or
do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For,
as it is written, The two will become one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord
becomes one spirit with him. Paul even more explicitly writes in Ephesians 5:29-32,
For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does
the church, because we are members of his body. Therefore a man shall leave his
father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This
mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
In marriage, a husband and wife become a single unit emotionally, financially,
physically, and in countless other ways. In this closest and most intimate of human
relationships, in which both parties have a tremendous shaping influence on one
another, the husband and wife remain distinct individuals. A marriage, according to
what we have read, is in some mysterious way the best analogy we have for thinking
about the union between Jesus and His followers. Husband and wife, as well as Christ
and the believer, become one unit together, without sacrificing or blurring their own
unique identities.
Conclusion
This union and mutual indwelling is exactly what the ancient Breastplate Prayer,
which is traditionally attributed to Saint Patrick, describes by saying, Christ with
me,Christ before me,Christ behind me,Christ in me,Christ beneath me,Christ above
me,Christ on my right,Christ on my left,Christ when I lie down,Christ when I sit
down,Christ when I arise,Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,Christ in the
mouth of everyone who speaks of me,Christ in every eye that sees me,Christ in every
ear that hears me. On your own, you are fully deserving of eternal punishment in hell
because of what lies WITHIN YOURSELF. Having CHRIST WITHIN and being WITHIN
CHRIST, however, you are joined together with Jesus to rule with Him over the cosmos
for all eternity. In light of this truth about our identity, how can we aim for anything less
than Saint Patricks statement? If we understand who Jesus is and what He has done,
no aspect of our lives remains unaffected.
These are two essential facts about all Christians that must be ferociously held
and defended, although there is an innate tension between them. First, in and of
yourself, you deserve eternal punishment and condemnation because you are an evil
rebel against your Creator. Second, in and because of Jesus Christ, you are a child and
friend of God who will be a part of His reign over the new heavens and the new earth for
all of eternity. If either of these two perspectives is lost or obscured, your identity loses
its foundation. You have value, meaning, and purpose because of Jesus Christ. When
your view yourself and the rest of creation through these dual lenses, you will not fail the
test of 2 Corinthians 13!
In Lesson 1, we learned that my identity, my value, my purpose, and my hope
cannot be defined from WITHIN myself. We saw that looking WITHIN myself is actually
a road to death and condemnation. In contrast, Lesson 2 has shown us that viewing
ourselves united to Jesus is the valid and strong answer that we need for making sense
of life. Going back to our original passage in 2 Corinthians 13:5-9, we see again,
You pass the test by viewing yourself as being WITHIN CHRIST and having
CHRIST WITHIN you. With this foundation established securely, our main passage
from 2 Corinthians goes on to explain more about the proper foundation of our identity.
When we view ourselves WITHIN TRUTH (verses 6-8) in Lesson 3 and WITHIN THE
CHURCH (verse 9) in Lesson 4, we will discover that these sources and perspectives
radiate out from and are defined by our position WITHIN CHRIST. As you continue to
learn to define your lifes meaning WITHIN the outside workings of Gods plan for your
life, you have an unshakable foundation for your identity, value, and purpose
undergirded by your relationship with Jesus Christ.

Small Group Session Two
Lesson Plan - Christ Within / Within Christ

Key Passage: 2 Corinthians 13:5; John 15:1-9
Central Truth: To define my identity and value, I must understand that Christ is in me
and that I am in Christ, such that we are united together.
Relate
Option #1: Identity
Have the students use the space provided in their books to list 4 things that they believe
are defining characteristics of themselves. Encourage them to not over-spiritualize
this activity, but to really think about their identity and what makes them who they are.
Once everyone is finished, have everyone say one of the 4 things they wrote down.
1.
Did anyone write down something that someone else mentioned about
themselves?
2.
What were some common threads that we used to identify ourselves? (i.e.
outward appearance, personality, abilities)
Option #2: Group Discussion About the Word Abide

Read the following definition of the word abide to your group.
Abide: verb (used without object) 1. to remain; continue; stay: 2. to have ones
abode; dwell; reside: 3. to continue in a particular condition, attitude,
relationship, etc.; last.
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1.
The word abide is not a word we use often. What do you think of when you
hear that word?
2.
How do you think that word fits into our discussion today about being within
Christ and Christ being within us?
Leaders Note: This Group Discussion continues in Renovate Option #2.
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Realize
Teach: Even while so many aspects of our world tell you to look WITHIN YOURSELF
for answers and meaning, superheroes in print, online, on television, and in movies
are a dominant stream of popular culture at an all-time height of recognition. Even
while we deny and suppress the truth of our own darkness and hopelessness from
ourselves (Romans 1:18), the idea of being rescued and having our problems solved
by a superhuman hero resonates with humanity at a deeply emotional level. In a
world where the evidence of human sinfulness is rampant, there is a longing for Iron
Man or Superman to crash into our story as an external force of goodness and hope.
This cultural interest in super-powered avengers taps explicitly into Pauls words to the
church at Corinth.
READ 2 Corinthians 13:5
Teach: With self now struck down as a viable option for meaning and purpose, we are
turning the conversation to the primary valid source of identity and worth. In light of the
hopelessness and darkness that we explored in Lesson 1, Jesus Christ is the hero who
comes WITHIN our life story, while simultaneously pulling us WITHIN His cosmic story
of redemption and glory.
READ John 15:1-9
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Teach: This connection between Christ and His follower is intimate and close; after all,
the vine and branches are actually united together as a single plant. Because of this
tight union, we rarely take the opportunity to slow down to examine the meaning of each
of these abiding relationships on their own. Let us, therefore, examine having CHRIST
WITHIN and being WITHIN CHRIST individually, before bringing our thoughts to a close
by examining them together in light of the believers union with Christ.
Before going any further, it is important to emphasize that the state of having CHRIST
WITHIN and being WITHIN CHRIST is not the default or baseline position for humanity.
It is only when the Holy Spirit awakens a person to see his own sinfulness and his own
need for Christs substitutionary death and that person responds by placing his hope
and trust in the completed work of Christ that he moves into the state of abiding
described in John 15 and 2 Corinthians 13.
1.
Christ Is Within All Believers
Teach: A Christian can actually be described accurately as having CHRIST WITHIN

him or her self. When you place your hope in the completed work of Jesus Christ and
trust that He has paid in full the punishment you deserve for the rebellion and evil that is
WITHIN YOURSELF, it is the greatest miracle that a person can experience. On top of
this salvation and deliverance from your own sinfulness, this verse shows that Jesus
indwells and remains in the believer, in an act that is equal parts inspirational and mindblowing.
READ Romans 8:10-11
Teach: The person who has CHRIST WITHIN has life and has righteousness. This
believer has these gifts because he also has WITHIN himself the same Holy Spirit who
empowered and indwelled the incarnate Jesus Christ.
If Christ is abiding WITHIN me, He shapes and defines everything else about my life
and my death. While I live, I am filled with Christ such that He lives through me. When
I die, I will be filled up with Christ in such a way and to such a degree that the greatest
joys and treasures of my current life become dim and dwarfed in comparison.
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Realize Discussion Question #1: Why is it important for believers to understand that
Christ is WITHIN them?
2.
All Believers Are Within Christ
Teach: The present purpose and future hope for all believers is defined by our
identification with the completed, perfect, obedience and substitutionary death of Jesus
Christ. Jesus acts and does and I am carried along with Him in the benefits and
rewards.
Teach: We ourselves are counted or credited as being righteous when we are in Christ.
Why does God do so? Because when he looks on you, He does not see you simply as
yourself. Instead, when He looks at you, he sees you WITHIN CHRIST.
Quote: God counts sinners to be righteousness through their faith in Christ on the
basis of Christs blood and righteousness, specifically the righteousness that Christ
accomplished by his perfect obedience in life and death The historic Protestant
teaching [is] that the basis of our justification through faith is the provision of Christ for
both pardon and imputed perfection.
- John Piper, Counted Righteous in Christ
Teach: God Himself places His children WITHIN CHRIST and therefore grants us
access to countless numbers of blessings that He has given to Jesus. You have
value, meaning, and purpose in life, according to Colossians 3:3, because your life
is hidden with Christ in God no other potential source or grounding can come close!
Realize Discussion Question #2: What should be different about you if you are are in
Christ?
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Realize Discussion Question #3: How does being in Christ give believers value,
meaning, and purpose?
3.
Christ and Believers Are United Together
Teach: We are WITHIN CHRIST, and we have CHRIST WITHIN us. In different but
equally real ways, we are constantly choosing to identify ourselves within Jesus, while
He is abiding and sustaining our lives from within. While the implications and results of
being WITHIN CHRIST and having CHRIST WITHIN are essentially similar according to
the Scriptures we have observed, the dual direction of abiding cannot be skipped over.
In the best sense of the outworking, this two-way relationship becomes so close and
personal and intimate that the believer can begin to think of Himself as one with Jesus,
as in union with Him.
READ John 14:20
Teach: As Christians have tried to articulate our understanding of God as revealed in
the Scriptures, we speak of Him as the Trinity. As Christians have tried to articulate our
understanding of God as revealed in the Scriptures, we speak of Him as the Trinity.
In marriage, a husband and wife become a single unit emotionally, financially,
physically, and in countless other ways. In this closest and most intimate of human
relationships, in which both parties have a tremendous shaping influence on one
another, the husband and wife remain distinct individuals. A marriage, according to
what we have read, is in some mysterious way the best analogy we have for thinking
about the union between Jesus and His followers. Husband and wife, as well as Christ
and the believer, become one unit together, without sacrificing or blurring their own
unique identities.
Realize Discussion Question #4: Do you think most Christians consider themselves
to be one with Jesus or have they somehow sold their relationship with Jesus short?
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Renovate
Option #1: Is Christ In You?
Say: During the Renovate portion of Session 1, we saw that holy God provided a way
through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to restore sinful man to Himself. Many of you have
heard these facts since you were a small child. Maybe you question whether or not
youve truly believed them and been saved. Well, this lesson provides the test for us.
The best way to tell of you are truly saved is to answer this simple question.
Ask: Is Christ in you and are you in Christ?
Say: While the question is simple, finding the answer might not seem so easy. But in
truth, its not really that difficult. Lets ask the question a different way.
Ask: Is their evidence in your life, between the time you first professed faith in Christ
until now, that Christ is in you and that you are in Christ?
Say: What does that evidence look like, you ask?
READ Galatians 5:22-23
Say: This passage is a great place to start asking the question of is their evidence of
Jesus being in you and you being in him.
Ask: Has Jesus brought about these things, known as the Fruit of the Spirit, in your
life?
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Say: If so, then that is evidence of Jesus in you and you in him. If youre still not sure,
Id like to spend some time talking with you one on one after the session to help you
answer that question.
Option #2: Group Discussion About the Word Abide (continued from Relate
Option #2)
Remind your group of the definition of the word abide.
Abide: verb (used without object) 1. to remain; continue; stay: 2. to have ones
abode; dwell; reside: 3. to continue in a particular condition, attitude,
relationship, etc.; last.
1.
What does it mean for a Christian to abide in Christ?
2.
Why does abiding in Christ require for him to also abide in us?
3.
What are the practical ramifications of the fact that Christ dwells in believers?
4.
If our salvation is eternally secure in Christ, why is abiding in Christ a continual

choice Christians must make?
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WITHIN Session 3
Bible Study Title: Within Truth
Key Passages: 2 Corinthians 13:6-8; John 18:33-38
Central Truth: To define my identity and value, I must recognize that absolute truth
exists. Even more, I must authentically be a doer of the truth and not just give the truth
surface allegiance for the sake of appearances.
Bible Study Points:
(1) Jesus is the Truth.
(2) Whether I believe it or not, absolute truth exists.
(3) Authentic truth leads me to authentic action.
Introduction
Truth is in the eye of the beholder. One of the pervading myths of our modern
American culture is that truth is essentially fluid and subjective. In the popular
Broadway musical Wicked or the recent movie Maleficent, audiences are challenged to
consider whether their beloved versions of The Wizard of Oz or Sleeping Beauty only
tell one side of a story or one version of possible truth. They cause us to think that
perhaps the things that we consider to be truth are actually just one way that they could
have been presented, regardless of whatever may actually have happened.
It is the same phenomenon experienced with the truths projected over social
media. While the pictures and comments shared with the world may appear to be a
happenstance sampling of normal and special moments in life, many teenagers
carefully and meticulously craft their posts to ensure that they are projecting the life and
thoughts that they want the world to see them having. A comment is worded and
reworded for an hour before it is posted. A picture is retaken dozens of times to ensure
just the right angle, lighting, and background. Countless events and thoughts are
consciously omitted from upload. Image is everything. Appearance is reality. Things
are not always as they appear.
In our journey to establish our source of meaning, purpose, and identity, we
contrast these popular ideas on truth with the teaching of our core passage in 2
Corinthians 13:5-9. The text says, 5Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in
the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus
Christ is in you?unless indeed you fail to meet the test! 6I hope you will find out that
we have not failed the test. 7But we pray to God that you may not do wrongnot that
we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may
seem to have failed. 8For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.
9
For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what we
pray for.1
In Lessons 1 and 2, we established from verses 5-6 that the solution to
examining and testing yourself successfully is solely met by having Jesus Christ in you

1The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). (2 Co 13:59). Wheaton: Standard
Bible Society.
rather than relying on yourself. With this knowledge firmly in hand, we now turn to the
task of establishing our identity, value, and purpose of life WITHIN TRUTH. In the
words of verse 8, we must consider that we cannot do anything against the truth, but
only for the truth. Our quest to discern between appearance and truth thus brings us to
John 18:33-38.
Further Context
Jesus has been betrayed by Judas and arrested by Jewish authorities. At this
point, He is only hours away from His death on the cross. To follow the legal process of
having Him killed, Jesus opponents bring him before the Roman governor Pontius
Pilate. This background takes us to the conversation outlined in John 18:33-38, which
says,
33
So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him,
Are you the King of the Jews? 34Jesus answered, Do you say this of your own
accord, or did others say it to you about me? 35Pilate answered, Am I a Jew?
Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have
you done? 36Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom
were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be
delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world. 37Then Pilate
said to him, So you are a king? Jesus answered, You say that I am a king.
For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the worldto
bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.
38
Pilate said to him, What is truth?
Before sentencing Jesus to death or releasing Him, Pilate attempts to understand
personally the validity of the charges against Jesus. The Jewish religious leaders, in
addition to their anger over Jesus claim to be God, are appealing for His execution on
the grounds that He claims to be King of the Jews, such that He is a rival and threat to
Roman rule in the region. This Roman governor is naturally concerned with political and
social unrest, but verse 37 shows that Jesus primary concern is to proclaim and serve
as a witness of the truth.
While many of our students who have grown up in church will immediately
connect that dots that Jesus is talking about His own life and death, along with the good
news of reconciliation with God that they will bring the majority of twenty-first century
teenagers and preteens will instead identify with the jaded and confused answer of
Pilate. They are confronted with the truth of Jesus Christ, and they are only able to
respond by asking what Christians and our Bible mean by the notion of truth. Thus
having no proper sense of truth at all, how can they know whether they are living for or
against it according to the warning of 2 Corinthians 13:8? How can they know what we
mean by living WITHIN TRUTH?
(1) Jesus Is the Truth.
What is the disconnect between Pilate and Jesus, between average teenagers
and the churchs understanding of being WITHIN TRUTH?
The present chasm between the generations has been brought about almost
entirely by a change in the concept of truth The tragedy of our situation today is
that men and women are being fundamentally affected by the new way of looking
at truth, and yet they have never even analyzed the drift that has taken place.
Young people from Christian homes are brought up in the old framework of truth.
Then they are subjected to the modern framework. In time they become
confused because they do not understand the alternatives with which they are
being presented. Confusion becomes bewilderment, and before long they are
overwhelmed. This is unhappily true not only of young people, but of many
pastors, Christian educators, evangelists and missionaries as well. So this
change in the concept of the way we come to knowledge and truth is the most
crucial problem, as I understand it, facing Christianity today.2
These words were written by Francis A. Schaeffer. He was born in 1912 to nonChristian parents who allowed him to explore church, faith, and philosophy in whatever
ways appealed to him. As such, young Schaeffer ended up in a church with weak
preaching and few answers for his search for spiritual meaning. At the same time, he
began aggressively to pursue reading as much philosophy as he could find. As his
unanswered questions began to grow, Schaeffer became an agnostic (an agnostic is
someone who does not believe it is possible to know whether or not God exists). As his
doubts continued to eat at him, he decided to read the entire Bible over a six-month
period. After seeing answers to his questions actually existed in the Scriptures
themselves, Schaeffer became a Christian at the age of eighteen.
Schaeffer then threw himself into seminary training and pastoring churches, in
addition to traveling throughout the United States and Europe speaking about the
reliability of the Bible and the ability for people to know truth. During the height of the
hippie movement, Francis and his wife moved to Switzerland to open a compound
called LAbri, where spiritual seekers could stay and discuss topics like God, philosophy,
and truth. In 1968, Schaeffer returned to the United States, where he published his first
books at age 55 and began to tour the country again as a speaker. With his signature
goatee, knickers, and knee socks (if you have not seen his picture, you really need to
take the time to look him up on Google), Francis Schaeffer passionately kept a spotlight
on the essential role of Gods truth in making sense of life, meaning, purpose, and
identity in the modern world. In countless ways, his analysis of truth and culture in the
1960s and 1970s remain remarkably poignant in the context of the twenty-first century3
In short, the life and ministry of Francis Schaeffer were dedicated to helping
people both hear and understand the truth. John 8:32 says, And you will know the

2Francis Schaeffer, The God Who is There, from Trilogy (Wheaton: Crossy Books,
1990), 5-6.
3Tood Temple and Kim Twitchwell, Twentieth Century People Who Shaped the
Church (Wheaton: Tyndale House, 2000), 276-280.
truth, and the truth will set you free. In response to the questions, despair,
hopelessness, and even careless unconcern of his day, Schaeffer believed the God was
there and that He had spoken and shown truth to people in a way that could be
understood. He believed that we can live WITHIN TRUTH.
There is a clear and concise answer to the question of Pontius Pilate, the people
ministered to in the late twentieth century by Francis Schaeffer, and the students in our
churches. What is truth? According to John 14:6, Jesus said to him, I am the way,
and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. The
dictionary rightly defines truth as the real facts about something and as a statement or
idea that is true or accepted as true.4 However, the truth can be certain and known
because it is first and foremost revealed in Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus, along with
everything He does or says, is truth. Truth is a person. Truth is also based on the
unchanging and unshakeable reality of God revealing Himself and His nature to us
through Scripture. There is no other standard or definition that can provide a certain
foundation for beginning to build your purpose, meaning, and identity in life.
Because of being WITHIN TRUTH, one can have a boldness and confidence
when exploring and pursuing truth in any facet of life. Schaeffer teaches, The ancients
were afraid that if they went to the end of the earth they would fall off and be consumed
by dragons. But once we understand that Christianity is true to what is there, true to the
ultimate environment - the infinite, personal God who is really there - then our minds are
freed. We can pursue any question and can be sure that we will not fall off the end of
the earth. Such an attitude will give our Christianity a strength that it often does not
seem to have at the present time5
(2) Whether I Believe It or Not, Absolute Truth Exists.
With the great and earth-shattering hope of the truth of Jesus and His Word
before us, though, we are simultaneously faced with a seemingly insurmountable
difficulty. Schaeffer explains, Before man had a romantic hope that on the basis of
rationalism he was going to be able to find a meaning to life, and put universals over the
particulars This hope no longer exists; the hope is given up. People today live in a
generation that no longer believes in the hope of truth as truth. That is why I use the
term true truth in my books, to emphasize real truth It is an admission that the word
truth now means something that before would not have been considered truth at all.
So I coined the expression true truth to make the point, but it is hard to make it sharp
enough for people to understand how large the problem is.6
We are saying that living WITHIN TRUTH means operating from the perspective
that truth is actually true outside of our subjective understanding. When we tell the
average twenty-first century teenager that something is true in a spiritual conversation,
they do not process the words the same way that a teenager would have done so

4Accessed from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/truth on 9/21/14.
5Francis Schaeffer, Art and the Bible, from Complete Works, Vol. 2 (Wheaton:
Crossway Books, 1982), 377.
6Francis Schaeffer, He is There and He is Not Silent, from Trilogy (Wheaton: Crossway
Books, 1990), 310-311.
twenty or thirty years ago. All too often, our claims of truth are understood instead to be
merely statements of preference or opinion. When we make a truth claim about spiritual
matters, the twenty-first century teenager naturally thinks that our statement is of similar
nature to expressing our favorite ice cream flavor or preferred television show. As such,
we must go out of our way to explicitly and consciously explain to them the Schaeffers
idea of true truth.
The Bible means, and we intend to communicate, that the Gospel of Jesus Christ
is absolutely and historically true, whether or not anyone on the face of the earth
believes it. In contrast, the modern student understands us and the Bible as saying only
that we believe something to be true or that we find our belief in Jesus to be meaningful
or valuable for ourselves. Although we are using the same words as our students when
we make a truth claim about Jesus and the Bible, we can all too easily have an
extended conversation such that both sides walk away with a completely different
understanding of what was said without either side realizing that any communication
breakdown happened at all. The worldview and cultural shift regarding truth is that
substantive!
As Christians, we cannot be content with this generational misunderstanding of
truth. 1 Corinthians 15:16-18 brings the essential nature of true truth into focus when it
says, For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has
not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who
have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. Schaeffer further explains, Christianity is
realistic because it says that if there is no truth, there is also no hope; and there can be
no truth if there is no adequate base. It is prepared to face the consequences of being
proved false and say with Paul: If you find the body of Christ, the discussion is finished,
let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. It leaves absolutely no room for a romantic
answer.7
The Bible teaches that its claims about Jesus are objectively and absolutely true.
The verses we just read explain that this truth claim is open to scrutiny and testing. As
such, if the Bible is right, any claim that does not agree with it is objectively and
absolutely false. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, modern Judaism, generic belief in God,
faith in human goodness and potential, and all other truth claims cannot be true in any
sense when they do not agree with the Scriptures. The sincerity, passion, humility, and
excitement behind a statement do not impact its truth status. How that statement
relates to Gods character and revelation is the only relevant standard. There is no
other possible test to discern whether you live in such a way that you cannot do
anything against the truth, but only for the truth.
In contrast to modern subjectivism and relativism, we affirm that a fact and its
opposite cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time. This claim definitively
and absolutely undermines any possibility of believing that all spiritual roads lead to God
and to His truth. If there is a possibility of being WITHIN TRUTH, then there is also the
possibility of being outside of truth. In the words of Schaeffer, It is an important
principle to remember, in the contemporary interest in communication and language
study, that the biblical presentation is that though we do not have exhaustive truth, we

7Francis Shaeffer, The God Who Is There, 45.
have from the Bible what I term true truth. In this way we know true truth about God,
true truth about man, and something truly about nature. Thus on the basis of the
Scriptures, while we do not have exhaustive knowledge, we have true and unified
knowledge.8
(3) Authentic Truth Leads Me to Authentic Action Steps.
Absolute and true truth exists. As a result, there are significant consequences for
our lives. If you suddenly inherit a billion dollars from an unknown distant uncle, you will
not be able to help but live your life in a different way from that point forward. If God has
reconciled us as sinful rebels into peace with Himself through the death and resurrection
of His Son, there will be visible and explicit consequences in the way that we live. Being
WITHIN TRUTH, the Christian has meaning, purpose, and value in his or her life. This
mindset lies behind James 1:22s command to be doers of the word, and not hearers
only, deceiving yourselves.
We do not want our students to deceive themselves and feel good about being
WITHIN TRUTH when they are not. At the same time, we do not want our lives and
choices to undermine the truth to which we cling. Going again back to Schaeffer, he
says, We not only believe in the existence of truth, but we believe we have the truth
a truth we can share with the twentieth-century world. Do you think our contemporaries
will take us seriously if we do not practice the truth? Do you think for a moment that the
really serious-minded twentieth-century young people our own youth as they go off to
universities, who are taught in the fields of sociology, psychology, philosophy, etc., that
all is relative will take us seriously? Will their fathers have credibility, if they do not
practice [truth]?9
According to 2 Corinthians 15:7, living in truth is much more than (although not
less than) looking a certain way in front of other people. This verse says, not that we
may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may
seem to have failed. Since truth exists externally and objectively to ourselves and
since truth is Jesus Christ and thus in accord with His perfectly good character our
interaction with it cannot be solely for the sake of appearances. The verse actually
teaches that doing right and looking like a failure is more desirable than appearing to
pass the test that you have actually failed. 1 Samuel 16:7 reminds us that the Lord
sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the
heart.
When we consider the interactions between Jesus and the Jewish religious
leaders of His day, we see the problem of appearance versus truth illustrated. In
Matthew 23:25-28, Jesus says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For
you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and selfindulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the
outside also may be clean. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are

8Francis Schaeffer, Escape from Reason, from Trilogy (Wheaton: Crossway Books,
1990), 218.
9Francis Schaeffer, The Church Before the Watching World, from Complete Works,
Vol. 4 (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1982), 155.
like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead
peoples bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others,
but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Jesus is not pleased with these devotedly religious men, who have allowed their
faith in God to become a series of rules kept up for the sake of looking religious and
spiritual. For teenagers who have grown up attending church, Sunday School, youth
ministry, and other such gatherings, there is a tremendous danger of falling into the trap
of missing the truth while outwardly appearing to grasp it. How heartbreaking it is to
have in our midst students who look the part of a Christian, while actually being as far
from living WITHIN TRUTH as you can possibly imagine. They are lost from TRUTH
and separated from God and neither they nor their youth leaders are aware of their
plight. Although we generally view the Pharisees as those bad guys when we read
about their interactions with Jesus, they are often the characters who most closely
resemble the students whom we teach. They are not WITHIN TRUTH, so neither are
they WITHIN CHRIST nor do they have a grasp of their meaning, purpose, or value in
life. These students fail the test by looking WITHIN themselves and their own efforts to
appear good.
Conclusion
We have established the foundation of having a worldview that is rooted with
confidence in the reliability of God and His Word and is therefore WITHIN TRUTH. As a
result, we can now move ahead with Schaeffer to trust that,
The Bible says that you are wonderful because you are made in the image of
God, but that you are flawed because at a space-time point of history man fell.
The reformers knew that man was separated from God because of mans revolt
against God. But the reformers, and the people who following the Reformation
built the culture of Northern Europe, knew that while man is morally guilty before
the God who exists, man is not nothing. Modern man tends to think that he is
nothing. The reformers knew they were the very opposite of nothing, because
they knew they were made in the image of God. Even though they were fallen
and, without the nonhumanistic solution of Christ and His substitutionary death,
were separated from God and would go to Hell, this still did not mean that they
were nothing.10
In Lesson 1, we learned that my identity, my value, my purpose, my hope these
essential components of my life cannot be defined from WITHIN myself. We saw that
looking WITHIN myself is actually a road to death and condemnation. All of the
instructions for living in the Bible are one of Gods ways of showing us that the solution
to our problems and the foundation of our identity cannot come from WITHIN ourselves.
In contrast, Lesson 2 established for us that viewing ourselves united to Jesus is the
valid and strong answer that we need for making sense of life. In Lesson 3, we have

10Francis Schaeffer, Escape from Reason, 219.
connected the truths of the first two lessons to a reliable foundation of absolute true
truth.
In addition to viewing yourself as WITHIN CHRIST and having CHRIST WITHIN
you, we have now considered that our identity, purpose, value, and meaning come from
WITHIN TRUTH, which is external and absolute, specifically in the form of Jesus Christ
Himself. We now turn to our final discussion, which is an examination of how all we
have considered so far gets lived out and made sense of WITHIN THE CHURCH.

Small Group Session Three
Lesson Plan - Within Truth

Key Passage: 2 Corinthians 13:6-8; John 18:33-38
Central Truth: To define my identity and value, I must recognize that absolute truth
exists. Even more, I must authentically be a doer of the truth and not just give the truth
surface allegiance for the sake of appearances.
Relate
Option #1: Something About You! (or maybe not)
Have your group follow the same instructions from Lesson One Relate Option #1 but
have them write a new piece of information about themselves. However, once the cards
are have been returned to you, insert 2 new cards that you wrote that would not be true
of anyone in your group. Instead of having your group figure out which card belongs to
which person, have them try to guess which 2 facts are not true.
Option #2: Truth or Poop1
Divide into 2 teams. Have 1 contestant come up for each team for each question. They
will hear a fact being read that may or may not be true. If they think its true they say
truth. If they believe its not true they say poop. For each correct answer they win
points for their team. Team with the most points at the end of the game wins.
100 Points
1. Steve Jobs was 15 when he co-founded Apple Computers, Inc. POOP (He was 21.)
2. Fish scales can be found in many lipsticks. TRUTH
3. Foot rot disease in sheep can be found in the horns as well as the feet. POOP
(Only the feet get foot rot.)
http://www.thesource4ym.com/games/game.aspx?ID=1048
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4. By law, womens underwear cannot be hung outdoors during autumn and winter in
Los Angeles. - TRUTH
200 Points
1. Texas eats more Spam than any other US state. POOP (Hawaii does.)
2. The most popular sport among college women in the U.S. is volleyball. POOP (It is
basketball.)
3. Before anyone may step inside the Oval Office, they must salute the American flag.
POOP (This is not required.)
4. The collective noun for a group of whales is a watch. POOP (The group is called
a pod. )
300 Points
1. When the moon blocks the path of the sun, it is called a lunar eclipse. POOP (A
lunar eclipse occurs when the earth interrupts sunlight shining on the moon.)
2. The family name of the kangaroo, Macropodidae, means big foot. TRUTH
3. A ziggurat is a species of rat native to South America. POOP (Its a Babylonian
pyramid.)
4. The second state to join the union was Massachusetts. POOP (It was
Pennsylvania.)
Option #3: Group Discussion About Truth and Culture

1.
Do you think most people your age believe in absolute truth?
2.
How do some people in our culture explain their idea that differing truths can
exist?
3.
How has the idea that differing truths can exist impacted religion in our culture?
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Realize
Teach: In Lessons 1 and 2, we established from verses 5-6 that the solution to
examining and testing yourself successfully is solely met by having Jesus Christ in
you not by relying on yourself. With this knowledge firmly in hand, we now turn to the
task of establishing our identity, value, and purpose of life WITHIN TRUTH. In the
words of verse 8, we must consider that we cannot do anything against the truth, but
only for the truth. Our quest to discern between appearance and truth thus brings us
to John 18:33-38.
READ John 18:33-38
Teach: Before sentencing Jesus to death or releasing Him, Pilate attempts to
understand personally the validity of the charges against Jesus. The Jewish religious
leaders, in addition to their anger over Jesus claim to be God, are appealing for His
execution on the grounds that He claims to be King of the Jews, such that He is a rival
and threat to Roman rule in the region. This Roman governor is naturally concerned
with political and social unrest, but verse 37 shows that Jesus primary concern is to
proclaim and serve as a witness of the truth.
1.
Jesus Is the Truth
Quote: The present chasm between the generations has been brought about almost
entirely by a change in the concept of truth The tragedy of our situation today is that
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Within Truth
Page 3

men and women are being fundamentally affected by the new way of looking at truth,
and yet they have never even analyzed the drift which has taken place. Young people
from Christian homes are brought up in the old framework of truth. Then they are
subjected to the modern framework. In time they become confused because they do
not understand the alternatives with which they are being presented. Confusion
becomes bewilderment, and before long they are overwhelmed. This is unhappily true
not only of young people, but of many pastors, Christian educators, evangelists and
missionaries as well. So this change in the concept of the way we come to knowledge
and truth is the most crucial problem, as I understand it, facing Christianity today.
- Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There
Realize Discussion Question #1: What are some modern ideas of truth?
READ John 14:6
Teach: So what is real truth? The dictionary rightly defines truth as the real facts about
something and as a statement or idea that is true or accepted as true. However, the
truth can be certain and known because it is first and foremost revealed in Jesus Christ
Himself. Jesus, along with everything He does or says, is truth. Truth is a person.
Truth is also based on the unchanging and unshakeable reality of God revealing Himself
and His nature to us through Scripture. There is no other standard or definition that can
provide a certain foundation for beginning to build your purpose, meaning, and identity
in life.
Realize Discussion Question #2: How is what we looked at in the previous lesson,
Christ Within / Within Christ, affected by Jesus being Truth?
2.
Whether I Believe It or Not, Absolute Truth Exists
Teach: Living WITHIN TRUTH means operating from the perspective that truth is
actually true outside of our subjective understanding. This means that the Bible, and
the Gospel we learn from its teachings, is absolutely and historically true, whether or not
anyone on the face of the earth believes it or not.
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Teach: The Bible teaches that its claims about Jesus are objectively and absolutely
true. The verses we just read explain that this truth claim is open to scrutiny and
testing. As such, if the Bible is right, any claim that does not agree with it is objectively
and absolutely false. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, modern Judaism, generic belief in
God, faith in human goodness and potential, and all other truth claims cannot be true in
any sense when they do not agree with the Scriptures. The sincerity, passion, humility,
and excitement behind a statement do not impact its truth status. How that statement
relates to Gods character and revelation is the only relevant standard. There is no
other possible test to discern whether you live in such a way that you cannot do
anything against the truth, but only for the truth.
Realize Discussion Question #3: Why are modern people offended by the idea of
absolute truth?
Quote: It is an important principle to remember, in the contemporary interest in
communication and language study, that the biblical presentation is that though we do
not have exhaustive truth, we have from the bible what I term true truth. In this way we
know true truth about God, true truth about man, and something truly about nature.
Thus on the basis of the Scriptures, while we do not have exhaustive knowledge, we
have true and unified knowledge.
- Francis Shaeffer, Escape from Reason
Teach: A fact and its opposite cannot both be true in the same sense at the same
time. This claim definitively and absolutely undermines any possibility of believing that
all spiritual roads lead to God and to His truth. If there is a possibility of being WITHIN
TRUTH, then there is also the possibility of being outside of truth.
Realize Discussion Question #4: What does it mean if a person is outside of truth?
3.
Authentic Truth Leads Me to Authentic Action Steps
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Teach: Absolute and true truth exists. As a result, there are significant consequences
for our lives. If you suddenly inherit a billion dollars from an unknown distant uncle, you
will not be able to help but live your life in a different way from that point forward. If God
has reconciled us as sinful rebels into peace with Himself through the death and
resurrection of His Son, there will be visible and explicit consequences in the way that
we live. Being WITHIN TRUTH, the Christian has meaning, purpose, and value in his or
her life. . This mindset lies behind James 1:22s command to be doers of the word,
and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
According to 2 Corinthians 15:7, living in truth is much more than (although not
less than) looking a certain way in front of other people. This verse says, not
that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right,
though we may seem to have failed. Since truth exists externally and objectively
to ourselves and since truth is Jesus Christ and thus in accord with His
perfectly good character our interaction with it cannot be solely for the sake of
appearances. The verse actually teaches that doing right and looking like a
failure is more desirable than appearing to pass the test that you have actually
failed.
READ Matthew 23:25-28
Teach: Jesus is not pleased with these devotedly religious men, who have allowed
their faith in God to become a series of rules kept up for the sake of looking religious
and spiritual. For teenagers who have grown up attending church, Sunday School,
youth ministry, and other such gatherings, there is a tremendous danger of falling into
the trap of missing the truth while outwardly appearing to grasp it.
Although we generally view the Pharisees as those bad guys when we read about
their interactions with Jesus, they are often the characters who most closely resemble
the modern church-goers. They are not WITHIN TRUTH, so neither are they WITHIN
CHRIST nor do they have a grasp of their meaning, purpose, or value in life. They fail
the test by looking WITHIN themselves and their own efforts to appear good.
Realize Discussion Question #5: Who do modern day Pharisees, those who are
concerned with appearing good or Christian but actually arent, really living for?
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Renovate
Option #1: Group Discussion About Living Within Truth
1.
Why do you think some people are hesitant to live fully within truth?
2.
What do you think it looks like for a person to live within truth?
3.
In what areas of our lives do we claim to live within truth but struggle to live it out
practically in our lives.
4.
What steps can we take to better apply ourselves to living within truth?
Option #2: Search the Truth

Have your group search their Bibles (concordance and Bible apps okay) for passages
about the Word of God or Jesus being Truth. Have them read these passages aloud,
then ask the following questions.
1.
Do any of the passages we read leave open the idea that Gods Word may not
be fully true?
2.
If Gods Word so clearly claims to be absolute truth, why do we so often live like
its not true or struggle to believe what it says?
Option #3: Personal Reflection on Truth

Have your group split up and spend some time reading the following passage,
answering the questions in their book, and praying about their response to the Truth.
Read James 1:22-24
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1.
In what areas of your life have you been a hearer of the Word, but not a doer?
2.
What has the Word of God shown you, like a man looking in a mirror, but youve
chosen to ignore?
3.
What action steps do you need to take to become a doer of the Word in these
areas?
Spend a few moments praying over these things. Repent of the areas in which youve
ignored Gods Word. Ask God for help in knowing His Truth and being a doer of it.
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WITHIN Session 4
Bible Study Title: Within The Church
Key Passages: 2 Corinthians 13:9-14; 1 Corinthians 12:14-27
Central Truth: To define my identity and value, I must live out my life within the church
and its honest life-on-life relationships.
Bible Study Points:
(1) It is necessary for Christians to admit that we have weaknesses.
(2) It is necessary to be around other believers who have different strengths.
(3) There is no substitute for the church.
Introduction
Love. It is a word that most of us use countless times each day. I love you. I
love football. I love hamburgers. I love to sleep. All you need is love. We use the word
so often, so casually, in so many contexts, however, that we have almost no clue at all
what love actually means. If you ask ten people for a definition, you will receive ten
different answers. In most everyday conversations, this unspoken difference in
meaning does not make a significant impact. When it comes to deep friendships and
romantic relationships, though, an ambiguous meaning for love can create major
heartache and chaos.
From the perspective of our students (and speaking honestly, from the viewpoint
of many of our adult leaders also), the problems with the word love are equally
applicable to the word church. We talk about church all the time. We all assume that
we know what it means until we actually try to explain it to someone else. Most of the
time, we can live with our loose and unclear definition of church. Only when crisis or
difficulty arises do we actually realize the importance of having an accurate, biblical
understanding of church.
In our journey to establish our source of meaning, purpose, and identity, we now
return to 2 Corinthians 13:5-9 to see that our search for a foundation in life is designed
to occur within the context of the church. The passage says, 5Examine yourselves, to
see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about
yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?unless indeed you fail to meet the test! 6I
hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. 7But we pray to God that you may
not do wrongnot that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is
right, though we may seem to have failed. 8For we cannot do anything against the truth,
but only for the truth. 9For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your
restoration is what we pray for.1
In Lessons 1 and 2, we established from verses 5-6 that the solution to
examining and testing yourself successfully is solely met by having Jesus Christ in you
- not by relying on yourself. We then continued our exploration by establishing our
identity, value, and purpose of life only for the truth, which exists objectively outside

1The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). (2 Co 13:59). Wheaton: Standard
Bible Society.
ourselves. As we now come to verse 9, we see that we need to be involved with other
believers who are able to complement and support us in our shortcomings and
weaknesses. In short, we need a life WITHIN THE CHURCH. This need for other
believers in the context of the church is essential to the Christian life. Before the
conversation can move ahead, however, we must take time to bring our definitions of
the word church into alignment, at least for the sake of the current lesson.
What is the church?
Born in 1703 in England, John Wesley helped shape churches and individual
believers on multiple continents over decades of faithful ministry. As the son of a
minister, a graduate of Oxford, and an Anglican minister, Wesley joined his brother and
a group of friends in what came to be called a Holiness Club. These men vowed with
one another to live according to a strict moral code, in a life filled with prayer, study, and
service. As Wesley continuously lived out his pledge, he preached in churches and as a
revivalist and evangelist in cities across England and America. He inspired countless
individuals to pursue Christ and helped them form a new movement that birthed
congregation after congregation. By the time of his death, Wesley was overseeing
nearly 500 ministers and 115,000 church members. From this single mans life and
ministry, we see the roots of the Methodist and Wesleyan denominations, as well as the
Holiness and Pentecostal movements with their associated denominations.
As someone whose entire life was deeply vested WITHIN THE CHURCH, John
Wesley wrote, How much do we almost continually hear about the Church! With many
it is matter of daily conversation. And yet how few understand what they talk of! How
few know what the term means! A more ambiguous word than this, the Church, is
scarce to be found in the English language. It is sometimes taken for a building, set
apart for public worship: sometimes for a congregation, or body of people, united
together in the service of God. It is only in the latter sense that it is taken in the ensuing
discourse.2 Just as the meaning of church created widespread difficulty in Wesleys
day, our students and leaders are also operating with confusion about the definition of
church.
A scholar has summarized that in the New Testament, the word church may be
applied to a group of believers at any level, ranging from a very small group meeting in
a private home all the way to the group of all true believers in the universal church.3
This understanding defines church as cutting across both time and locations, as well

2The Sermons of John Wesley. Sermon 74. Of The Church. Edited by Keanan
Williams with corrections by Ryan Danker and George Lyons for the Wesley Center for
Applied Theology at Northwest Nazarene University. Copyright 1999 by the Wesley Center
for Applied Theology. Text may be freely used for personal or scholarly purposes or
mirrored on other web sites, provided this notice is left intact. Any use of this material for
commercial purposes of any kind is strictly forbidden without the express permission of
the Wesley Center at Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, ID 83686. Contact the
webmaster for permission. Accessed at http://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/the-sermons-
of-john-wesley-1872-edition/sermon-74-of-the-church/
3Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 857.
as being defined by a particular time and location. Both senses of the word appear
together in 1 Corinthians 1:2, which says, To the church of God that is in Corinth, to
those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every
place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.
Taking pieces of the previous quotations and scriptures, the church is a group of
Christ-followers, not a building or formal organization. Church can equally apply to all
believers at all times in all places (universal church) or to a particular group of believers
gathered in a certain time and location (local church). For this current lessons
conversation about the relational and life-on-life connections of the church, we will mean
local church whenever the word church occurs, unless we specifically note
otherwise.
To get us all thinking along the same lines, here are two more quotations about
the church that give clear insight on the best meaning of the word church. N.T. Wright
explains, The church exists primarily for two closely correlated purposes: to worship
God and to work for his kingdom in the world ... The church also exists for a third
purpose, which serves the other two: to encourage one another, to build one another up
in faith, to pray with and for one another, to learn from one another and teach one
another, and to set one another examples to follow, challenges to take up, and urgent
tasks to perform. This is all part of what is known loosely as fellowship.4
From another perspective, Paul David Tripp says, The church is not a
theological classroom. It is a conversion, confession, repentance, reconciliation,
forgiveness and sanctification center, where flawed people place their faith in Christ,
gather to know and love him better, and learn to love others as he designed.5
With the term church now more clearly defined, let us now return to
understanding better what 2 Corinthians 13:5-9 says about establishing our purpose,
identity, value, and meaning WITHIN THE CHURCH.
(1) It Is Necessary for Christians to Admit That We Have Weaknesses
Although we established in lesson one that looking WITHIN SELF only leads to
dead ends and lack of a foundation, we now return again to being confronted with our
own weaknesses. Like the person in James 1:22-25 who sees his reflection and walks
away as if he did not, our natural tendency is to admit our failures but completely
forgetting about them as soon as life starts to happen around us. According to 2
Corinthians 13:9, Paul does not want the Christian to move past or beyond the point of
being glad when we are weak.
Earlier in the letter of 2 Corinthians, Paul engaged in an extended explanation of
the spiritual power and opportunity that comes about through the recognition of personal
weakness. 2 Corinthians 11:29-30 says, Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is
made to fall, and I am not indignant? If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show
my weakness. As part of the same flow of thought, Paul continues a few verses later in

4N.T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (New York: Harper One,
2006), 211.
5Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemers Hands (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R
Publishing, 2002)
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 with, But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my
power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my
weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ,
then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.
For when I am weak, then I am strong.
The Christians awareness of her own weaknesses is not for the sake of
wallowing in her shortcomings or living in a constant state of regret. At the same time, it
is not a shallow excuse to cast aside any desire or effort to live in such as way that
those weaknesses are overcome. Instead, her recognition of weakness is a reminder of
the true source of her spiritual and foundational power. God chooses not to remove our
weaknesses, even though everything in the struggling believer would prefer it otherwise.
Even Paul himself begged God repeatedly to take away his own thorn in the flesh (2
Corinthians 12:7-8).
When a Christian is clear about his own weakness, he is clear about the source
of his success and value in life. 2 Corinthians 4:7 teaches, But we have this treasure
in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. These
jars of clay are weak and easily broken, as compared to other types of vessels that
could have been used. Explained a little differently, 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 says, For
consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly
standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what
is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame
the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to
bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of
God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God,
righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, Let the one
who boasts, boast in the Lord.
A basketball player receives more praise and recognition from fans and media
when he carries a group of average players to a championship, than when he surrounds
himself with all-star teammates in order to win. When he is the only superstar player on
his team, he clearly gets the credit for victory. In a similar way, God receives glory most
clearly when it is evident that He is working with and through broken, weak people who
are accomplishing things that they could not be doing in their own strength. We see the
benefits for Gods glory, but recognizing our own weaknesses also nudges us along a
healthy personal path. With this perspective of weakness firmly in place, we generally
become more open to allowing other people with complementary strengths to have a
deeper level of access to our lives. As such, we are a step closer to living WITHIN THE
CHURCH.
(2) It Is Necessary to be Around Other Believers Who Have Different Strengths
Let us consider eight-year-old Anna who decides to open her own lemonade
stand to make some extra money over the summer. She is great at creating an eyecatching lemonade stand and choosing the perfect location that will optimize the number
of potential customers. Our young entrepreneur experiences an initial wave of modest
success and is sorely tempted to keep her business to herself. At the same time, she
does not have an outgoing, talkative personality and realizes that she could be getting a
lot more customers. After talking it over with her parents, Anna decides to partner with
Shelly, her neighbor with the bubbly personality, instead of her best friend, Julia, with
whom she has almost everything in common. She realizes that she needs a partner
with different strengths and weaknesses than her own in order to maximize success.
In that sense, your spiritual walk (including your search for meaning, purpose,
and identity) is not so different from Annas plan for lemonade stand success. Your
salvation is not just about you and Jesus. Salvation is personal because no one else
can believe and trust in Christ for you. At the same time, however, the life of the New
Testament believer is always pictured surrounded by other believers with differing sets
of gifts, coming from various walks of life. 1 Corinthians 12:14-27 explains,
14
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15If the foot should
say, Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make
it any less a part of the body. 16And if the ear should say, Because I am not an
eye, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the
body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If
the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18But as it is,
God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19If all
were a single member, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many
parts, yet one body. 21The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you,
nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. 22On the contrary, the
parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and on those parts
of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our
unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24which our more
presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving
greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25that there may be no division in the
body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26If one
member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice
together. 27Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
Within the church, all types of people are needed. From the perspective of the
Kingdom, visible leaders and visible gifts are no more important than faithful steady
service that no one ever sees. Believers succeed and fail as their lives are intertwined
together as a unit. As Thom Rainer explains, We who are church members are all
supposed to function in the church. The concept of an inactive church member is an
oxymoron Such is the reason we are exhorted to know our gifts and abilities, so we
can use them best to serve the church for the glory of God. The fact that there is so
much diversity in our church is our strength. Everyone has a function. Everyone should
be functioning. Everyone has a role. Because we are all different with different gifts
and abilities, we will function differently from other members.6

6Thom S. Rainer, I am a Church Member (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2013),
16.
The Christian who attempts to live out his faith alone is as misguided as a oneperson marching band or baseball team. Not only does he set himself up for failure, he
completely misses the point of what he is doing. Matt Brinkley sheds light onto Gods
design when he writes, Man was created for intimacy, and Christ, through His
redemptive work, would rebirth its holy intentions. He not only impacted the relationship
between God and man, but He also changed how His children related with one another.
The gospel produces life, and the best way to share it is life-on-life. Christ came to not
only rescue His people, but to relate to and through His people. Christs ministry
exemplified the call to engage the heart.7 The divine plan of redemption and
reconciliation involves both your vertical relationship with God and your horizontal
relationships with other people. When you consider Gods plan for the Gospel, you
cannot escape your need to live your life WITHIN THE CHURCH.
(3) There Is No Substitute for the Church
Our students are bombarded with a buffet of spiritual choices. They can access
devotional guides and worship services online at any time. Most of our churches
provide a variety of weekly and special events on a regular basis that are designed to
appeal to students and their friends. At school, they can choose among Bible Clubs,
Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Young Life, and small group Bible studies. Through
social media, they can stay in touch with a prayer partner or encouraging friend that
they met at a summer camp two years ago. As strange as it may seem at first
consideration, we must prepare our students for being challenged with too many good
options for them to say yes to all of them. As they work through all of their choices, we
must be clear with each student that God has not provided any resource or group that
replaces their need for living WITHIN THE CHURCH.
When we return to our core passage of 2 Corinthians 13:5-9, we see that the
thought process is essentially rooted WITHIN THE CHURCH. 2 Corinthians 13:9-14
says, For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what
we pray for. For this reason I write these things while I am away from you, that when I
come I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me
for building up and not for tearing down. Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration,
comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and
peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy
Spirit be with you all.
Paul frames his encouragement and instructions to people who are living as a
church. The self-examination takes places within a community that is living together for
the purposes of restoration, comfort, peace, and love with one another. With thoughtful
analysis, we see that these mandates for Christian living are not possible to sustain and
thrive without the intentional, committed, long-term, multi-generational relationships that
only come WITHIN THE CHURCH. When you look carefully at the New Testament, you
see that its writers did not conceive of any context for the Christian life other than a local

7Matt Brinkley, Four Biblical Principles of Engagement that Penetrate Student Culture
(Alpharetta, GA: PACT Ministry, 2005), 94.
gathering of the church. The book of Acts describes the foundation and initial spread of
the church. All of the letters from Romans through Revelation are addressed either to
churches or to individuals who are explicitly living life within the framework of a church.
God does not have a Plan B for living together WITHIN THE CHURCH. The
early church fathers Augustine of Hippo and Cyprian of Carthage both taught the idea
that he cannot have God for his Father who will not have the Church for his mother. A
Christian songwriter once explained from the perspective of Jesus, There is none that
can replace her [the church], though there are many who will try. And though some may
be her bridesmaids, they can never be My bride. Cause I havent come for only you,
but for My people to pursue. You cannot care for me with no regard for her. If you love
me you will love the church.8 Events like 180 Weekend and Christian clubs in the
schools may be exciting, but they only succeed when they point students to Christ in the
context of His bride, the church.
You can be a Christian who does not attend church. If you are, though, you are
the exception to the rule. Crystalizing exactly what you are missing when you choose
private spirituality or student-centered ministry instead of living WITHIN THE CHURCH,
Ann Lamott wrote, Teenagers who do not go to church are adored by God, but they
don't get to meet some of the people who love God back.9 This model is how God
designed your growth and encouragement in Christ to happen. When we tuck away
teenagers from the broader body of Christ to shelter them or to make them more
comfortable, it is the teenagers who miss out on the benefits of the full range of life-onlife relationships that are only available WITHIN THE CHURCH.
The church (and individual churches) has made mistakes and gotten things
wrong. One of the most frequently mentioned ideas of Charles Spurgeon is that the
day we find the perfect church, it becomes imperfect the moment we join it. God is
glorified uniquely in a group of sinners living together in their weakness to become more
than they currently are. In such a scenario, we expect to see warts, failures, and
disappointments WITHIN THE CHURCH because our own warts, failures, and
disappointments are part of it. Even so, the church is the instrument through which God
has chosen to reach out and minister to the believers and to a lost world.
Conclusion
Bringing our many lines of thought in Lesson 4 together, Joshua Harris
summarizes, We cant live out our Christian lives on our own. When were saved from
our sin, we become part of something bigger than ourselves a family, a body, a
temple. Through the Church around the world, God is at work glorifying Himself and
transforming lives. This is the Church from all tribes and tongues and generations that
will be presented like a bride to Christ on the last day. This is the Church that will

8Derek Webb, The Church (Niphon, Inc., 2002)
9Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith (New York: Berkley Publishing
Group, 2005), 196.
triumph in spite of human failure and demonic attacks. This is the Church that will never
end.10
Left to yourselves and operating from within your own weaknesses, you cannot
trust any examination of yourselves. You will return with an inaccurate perspective of
where you stand WITHIN SELF, WITHIN CHRIST, and WITHIN TRUTH. It is only
WITHIN THE CHURCH that you have the loving, life-on-life relationships necessary to
help you see where you are rooting your identity, value, meaning, and purpose for life.
As such, students must respond to the challenge to get plugged in at your church. Find
a way to invest yourself. Let's change the church's problem from 'Where do we find the
help we need?' to 'What do we do with all the help we have?' The revolution begins
now; and it starts with you.11
Look WITHIN SELF and realize that you are not enough. Be sure of your
placement WITHIN CHRIST and that you have CHRIST WITHIN. Live it out WITHIN
TRUTH. Live it out WITHIN THE CHURCH. Such is the path outlined by 2 Corinthians
13:5-9 for creating a sustainable foundation of meaning, purpose, value, and identity in
your life. Do not seek it in anything more or in anything less.

10Joshua Harris, Stop Dating the Church (Colorado Springs: Multnomah Books,
2004), 37.
11Tyler Edwards, Zombie Church (Grand Rapids, Kregel, 2011), 77.

Small Group Session Four
Lesson Plan - Within The Church

Key Passage: 2 Corinthians 13:9-14; 1 Corinthians 12:14-27
Central Truth: To define my identity and value, I must live out my life within the church
and its honest life-on-life relationships.
Relate
Option #1: Group Picture
Give each member of your group a different color crayon. Place a blank sheet of paper
at the other end of the room. Tell your students they are going to draw a picture of a
church (the building and the people). One at a time, have students go to the sheet at
color the parts of the picture that they would color with the crayon they were given.
After 20 seconds, that person returns to the group and the next person goes.
Say: This game illustrates the importance of everyone (colors) and the importance of
everyone in the church working together.
Option #2: Weak or Strong
Have your group look at the list of words in their student book. Have them place the
number 1 beside their strongest activity, 2 beside their next to strongest, and so on (8
will be their weakest).
Running
Math
Speaking in public
Listening to others
Drawing
Cooking
Fishing
Making other laugh
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Now, go around the room and have students share their number ones. Once finished,
have them share their number eights.
Say: As part of todays lesson we are going to talk about how admitting your weakness
and using your strengths makes the church better.
Option #3: Group Discussion About the Church

1.
What do you think of when you hear the word church?
2.
Why do so many people think of a building and not the people?
3.
How has the church done a good job of working together for a common
purpose?
4.
How can the church do a better job of working together for a common purpose?
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Realize
Teach: In Lessons 1 and 2, we established from verses 5-6 that the solution to
examining and testing yourself successfully is solely met by having Jesus Christ in
you not by relying on yourself. We then continued our exploration by establishing our
identity, value, and purpose of life only for the truth, which exists objectively outside
ourselves. As we now come to verse 9, we see that we need to be involved with other
believers who are able to complement and support us in our shortcomings and
weaknesses. In short, we need a life WITHIN THE CHURCH. This need for other
believers in the context of the church is essential to the Christian life.
The church is a group of Christ-followers, not a building or formal organization.
Church can equally apply to all believers at all times in all places (universal
church) or to a particular group of believers gathered in a certain time and
location (local church). For this current lessons conversation about the relational
and life-on-life connections of the church, we will mean local church whenever
the word church occurs, unless we specifically note otherwise.
Quote: The church is not a theological classroom. It is a conversion,
confession, repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness and sanctification center,
where flawed people place their faith in Christ, gather to know and love him
better, and learn to love others as he designed.
- Paul Tripp, Instruments In the Redeemers Hands
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Within The Church
Page 3

1.
It Is Necessary for Christians to Admit That We Have Weaknesses
Teach: Although we established in lesson one that looking WITHIN SELF only leads to
dead ends and lack of a foundation, we now return again to being confronted with our
own weaknesses.
Earlier in the letter of 2 Corinthians, Paul engaged in an extended explanation of
the spiritual power and opportunity that comes about through a recognition of
personal weakness.
Teach: The Christians awareness of her own weaknesses is not for the sake of
wallowing in her shortcomings or living in a constant state of regret. At the same
time, it is not a shallow excuse to cast aside any desire or effort to live in such as
way that those weaknesses are overcome. Instead, her recognition of weakness
is a reminder of the true source of her spiritual and foundational power. God
chooses not to remove our weaknesses, even though everything in the struggling
believer would prefer it otherwise.
When a Christian is clear about his own weakness, he is clear about the source
of his success and value in life. 2 Corinthians 4:7 teaches, But we have this
treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and
not to us. These jars of clay are weak and easily broken, as compared to other
types of vessels that could have been used.
God receives glory most clearly when it is evident that He is working with and
through broken, weak people who are accomplishing things that they could not
be doing in their own strength. We see the benefits for Gods glory, but
recognizing our own weaknesses also nudges us along a healthy personal path.
With this perspective of weakness firmly in place, we generally become more
open to allowing other people with complementary strengths to have a deeper
level of access to our lives. As such, we are a step closer to living WITHIN THE
CHURCH.
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Within The Church
Page 4

Realize Discussion Question #1: Why are many Christians reluctant to admit their
weaknesses to their fellow believers?
2.
It Is Necessary to be Around Other Believers Who Have Different Strengths

Teach: Within the church, all types of people are needed. From the perspective of the
Kingdom, visible leaders and visible gifts are no more important than faithful steady
service that no one ever sees. Believers succeed and fail as their lives are intertwined
together as a unit.
Quote: We who are church members are all supposed to function in the church.
The concept of an inactive church member is an oxymoron Such is the reason
we are exhorted to know our gifts and abilities, so we can use them best to serve
the church for the glory of God. The fact that there is so much diversity in our
church is our strength. Everyone has a function. Everyone should be
functioning. Everyone has a role. Because we are all different with different gifts
and abilities, we will function differently from other members.
-Thom Rainer, I Am a Church Member
Teach: The Christian who attempts to live out his faith alone is as misguided as
a one-person marching band or baseball team. Not only does he set himself up
for failure, he completely misses the point of what he is doing.
The divine plan of redemption and reconciliation involves both your vertical
relationship with God and your horizontal relationships with other people. When
you consider Gods plan for the Gospel, you cannot escape your need to live
your life WITHIN THE CHURCH.
Realize Discussion Question #2: Why do many people who claim to be Christians
have a go-it-alone attitude when it comes to their faith?
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Within The Church
Page 5

3.
There Is No Substitute for the Church
Teach: When we return to our core passage of 2 Corinthians 13:5-9, we see that the
thought process is essentially rooted WITHIN THE CHURCH.
Teach: Paul frames his encouragement and instructions to people who are living as a
church. The self-examination takes places within a community that is living together for
the purposes of restoration, comfort, peace, and love with one another. We see that
these mandates for Christian living are not possible to sustain and thrive without the
intentional, committed, long-term, multi-generational relationships that only come
WITHIN THE CHURCH. When you look carefully at the New Testament, you see that
its writers did not conceive of any context for the Christian life other than a local
gathering of the church. The book of Acts describes the foundation and initial spread of
the church. All of the letters from Romans through Revelation are addressed either to
churches or to individuals who are explicitly living life within the framework of a church.
God does not have a Plan B for living together WITHIN THE CHURCH.
Quote: Teenagers who do not go to church are adored by God, but they don't
get to meet some of the people who love God back.
- Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
Realize Discussion Question #3: For those that have, how has living your life within
the context of a local church had a positive impact on your walk with Christ?
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Within The Church
Page 6

Renovate
Option #1: Group Discussion About Living Within Truth
1.
Why do you think some people are hesitant to live fully within truth?
2.
What do you think it looks like for a person to live within truth?
3.
In what areas of our lives do we claim to live within truth but struggle to live it out
practically in our lives.
4.
What steps can we take to better apply ourselves to living within truth?
Option #2: Group Discussion About Being a Part of the Body

Ask the following questions and allow time for your group to discuss
1.
Do you see yourself as a part of the body of Christ?
2.
What role do you think God has gifted and equipped you to play in the body?
3.
Are you using your gifts and talents to the fullest extent possible (at this stage of
your life) to be the part of the body God has made you to be?
4.
How do you see your role in the body changing or developing further as your get
older?
Option #3: Praying for Your Church

Say: Its important for those who are a part of the body of Christ to pray for the other
parts of the body.
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Within The Church
Page 7

Lead this prayer time however you see fit. You can have the group pray aloud over the
following items, or you can have them divide up and pray silently.
Pray for:
The pastor(s) of your church

The other leaders (elders, deacons, church council, etc) who lead
The people who teach the Bible to children, teenagers, and adults
The people who serve by cleaning, fixing, and setting up
The people who visit and care for the sick, widows, and orphans
The people who sing and lead others to worship God
The people who reach out to the lost in your community and world
The people who counsel those in need of direction or correction
The people who handle administrative tasks
Your groups influence and place in your church!
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Within The Church
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180 Weekend Bible Study Teaching Plan Guide

Why This Section Is Crucial?

Why This Section Is Crucial?

180 Weekend Bible Study Teaching Plan Guide

Teaching The Material:

Why This Section Is Crucial?

(1) We Need to Examine and Test Ourselves Spiritually.

(2) We Are Not Able to Be Good Enough

180 Weekend 2015: Within

Lesson Plan - Within Yourself

Personal Study Notes:_______________________________________________

180 Weekend 2015: Within

What are some means people use to examine themselves?

Personal Study Notes:_______________________________________________

180 Weekend 2015: Within

We Need to Examine and Test Ourselves Spiritually

180 Weekend 2015: Within

READ Galatians 6:3-5

We Are Not Able to Be Good Enough

Teach: We live in a culture of affirmation. Therefore, the concept of looking WITHIN

Personal Study Notes:_______________________________________________

180 Weekend 2015: Within

We Cannot Fix Ourselves

Personal Study Notes:_______________________________________________

180 Weekend 2015: Within

Personal Study Notes:_______________________________________________

180 Weekend 2015: Within

Personal Study Notes:_______________________________________________

180 Weekend 2015: Within

Am I taking the war against sin seriously?

Are there sins in my life that Im not willing to put to death?

Personal Study Notes:_______________________________________________

180 Weekend 2015: Within

Lesson Plan - Christ Within / Within Christ

Option #2: Group Discussion About the Word Abide

Personal Study Notes:_______________________________________________

180 Weekend 2015: Within

Leaders Note: This Group Discussion continues in Renovate Option #2.

Personal Study Notes:_______________________________________________

180 Weekend 2015: Within

Personal Study Notes:_______________________________________________

180 Weekend 2015: Within

Christ Is Within All Believers

Teach: A Christian can actually be described accurately as having CHRIST WITHIN

180 Weekend 2015: Within

All Believers Are Within Christ

180 Weekend 2015: Within

Christ and Believers Are United Together

180 Weekend 2015: Within

Personal Study Notes:_______________________________________________

180 Weekend 2015: Within

What does it mean for a Christian to abide in Christ?

If our salvation is eternally secure in Christ, why is abiding in Christ a continual

Personal Study Notes:_______________________________________________

180 Weekend 2015: Within

Lesson Plan - Within Truth

Personal Study Notes:_______________________________________________

180 Weekend 2015: Within

Option #3: Group Discussion About Truth and Culture

Do you think most people your age believe in absolute truth?

Personal Study Notes:_______________________________________________

180 Weekend 2015: Within

Jesus Is the Truth

180 Weekend 2015: Within