Confusing Status and Identity
I. A Scary Yet Familiar Context
A. Economic Uncertainty
B. Looming Political Distress
C. Ever-Impending Day of the Lord
D. A Culture Obsessed with Status/Identity
1. Do you ever struggle to understand how what the bible is talking about could apply to your own life? What tools do you use help you understand scripture?
2. In what ways have you been overly focused on status?
Let’s Get This Straight
What this passage is not:
X A List of Rules for Marriage
X A Denunciation of Marriage
What this passage is:
>> An invitation to seek wisdom as we live out our calling, regardless of status.
3. Have you ever felt pressure to “change your status” (married/single) because of something you read in the bible or heard in church? How did you respond to that?
II. Updating Your Status
A. Follow Your Gifting (I Cor. 7:7)
B. Changing Earthly Status will not Change Spiritual Status (I Cor. 7:17-24)
C. Stop Conforming to a Fading Form (I Cor. 7:29-31; Rom. 12:2)
4. As you look at your life, what is an area of gifting where you feel God has equipped you uniquely?
5. In what ways do you feel the Church is guilty of playing the status game instead of affirming people’s identities in Christ?
6. How do you feel about Paul’s advice to married and unmarried people in this passage?
7. If you had to define your identity in Christ in one sentence, what would you say?
III. How, then, should we live?
A. Live very Earthly Lives… (I Cor. 7:1-6, 17)
B. …no Longer Concerned with Earthly Status (I Cor. 7:17-24, 29-31)
C. Rooted in our Identity in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17; Eph. 2:10; I Peter 2:9)
8. What might it look like for you to not conform to the fading patterns of this world?
9. What is one action you can take this week that is rooted in identity not status? What’s stopping you?
“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
~ Frederick Buechner