Love As a Way of Life

Study Series: Traveling Light By: Max Lucado

Lesson Title: “Psalm 23:3” (pp. 111-122) May 7, 2017 Session 10

The main point of this lesson is: Many adults carry the baggage of the burdens of hopelessness, guilt and arrogance.

Focus on this goal: To help adults release the burdens of hopelessness, guilt and arrogance.

Key Bible Passage: Psalm 23:3

Before the Session

Bring the backpack loaded with heavy gear. (Step 1)

Cut a poster board into three rectangles.

On each, write one of the following: hopelessness, guilt, arrogance. (Steps 2, 4, and 6)

To the Leader

Looking for ways to get your group members more engaged?

Several days before your meeting time, review the teaching suggestions for elements members could do (reading Bible passages or quotes from the book, summarizing book material, giving a mini-lecture, etc.), then enlist a member for the task at least a couple of days before you meet so the person can prepare and feel confident.

At the appropriate time, call on the enlisted person.

During the Session

Step 1. Lead-in

Invite one of the smaller group members to put on the backpack.

1 Ask the person to describe how wearing the backpack would affect everyday life.

Repeat the process with the strongest learner.

Say: We are often very quick to point out our weaknesses when we don’t feel strong. On the other hand, if we’re feeling tough, we might think we can bear a heavy burden. However, the baggage we carry weighs us down and affects our walk.

Open with prayer, asking God to reveal to each person his or her baggage and the need to give it to Him.

Step 2. Day 1 – The Burden of Hopelessness, Part 1

Hold up the poster board with the word hopelessness.

Ask: How might you define this word? (Don’t accept “without hope.” Urge adults to dig deeper.)

Read the Day One paragraph (p. 112), beginning “For many people …”

Invite volunteers to summarize newsworthy events from the past week that involved hopeless situations.

Guide adults to search Day One (p. 112) for three elements necessary to reenergize someone who is hopeless. (We need a person, a vision and direction.)

Step 3. Day 2 – The Burden of Hopelessness, Part 2

Share a time you were lost and put your trust in someone leading you to find the way out. (Think driving through an unfamiliar city or leaving a confusing building.)

Read the three opening paragraphs of Day Two (p. 113).

Point out that we can have hope in a hopeless situation if we keep our eyes on God Himself.

2 Invite several volunteers to read Psalm 121 in a few different translations.

Remind learners that God—Yahweh—is fully powerful and knowledgeable to get us through any situation; however, we might not understand why we are going through it or how He will get us out.

Invite a learner to quote or read Matthew 28:20, encouraging learners to trust this and every promise of God found in His Word.

Step 4. Day 3 – The Burden of Guilt, Part 1

Give a quick mini-lecture on righteousness using the Scriptures in Day Three (pp. 116-117) and your own re-search.

Be sure to make the point that God alone is righteous.

Say: God has called us to be righteous—are we?

Point out the resounding “NO” answer in Romans 3:10.

Ask: 1. Do we try to be righteous? 2. What happens when we can’t do it?

Hold up the poster board with the word guilt.

Say: Each time we fail at righteousness, we add guilt to our backpacks.

Step 5. Day 4 – The Burden of Guilt, Part 2

On the far right side of a board, write righteousness.

Say: This is God’s standard for eternity: We must be righteous to be with Him.

On the far left side write sin with an arrow pointing to unrighteousness to the right. [You’re starting a flow chart that looks like this: sin —> unrighteousness —> guilt —> confession —> 3 justification —> righteousness.]

As you write the flow chart, say: Our sin, which makes us unrighteous, leads us to feel guilt. The only way to unload that guilt is to confess it, meaning we agree with God that we are sinful. And when we confess, we realize Jesus has already justified us, or made us right, through His death! He has taken the guilt of our sin and exchanged it with the righteousness that only He has.

Read the Day Four paragraph (p. 119), beginning “It was, at once, …” followed by 1 Peter 3:18.

Step 6. Day 5 – The Burden of Arrogance

Hold up the poster board with arrogance.

Ask: How is arrogance related to humility?

Read the opening paragraph of Day Five (p. 120).

Say: Psalm 23 is proof enough that we do not have any reason to be arrogant; God alone is the One who deserves all the glory.

Instruct learners to underline in their Bibles the words “LORD,” “He,” and “you” every time they occur in Psalm 23.

Ask: 1. Is there any point in this Psalm where David—a warrior, king, and man after God’s own heart—gives himself any credit? 2. Do you detect any arrogance in this psalm?

Read the phrase from verse 3, “for His name’s sake.”

Ask: What does this phrase mean?

Help learners understand that God loves humility, and the only way we can be biblically humble is to give Him glory for every good thing.

Step 7. Make It Practical 4 Direct learners’ attention to the list of seven tips for cultivating humility listed at the end of Day Five (p. 122).

Challenge learners to read through this list each day this coming week and to memorize one (or more!) of the verses about humility found in the text of Day Five.

Say: Let’s make His name’s sake our goal this week, looking for ways we can honor our amazing Shepherd.

Closing prayer.