Online Missions Trip Day 11

Ryan the Religious: Ryan has a religious view of the world, which means he has a strong built-in sense of right and wrong, and strictly follows a set of standards that he believes will earn him spiritual reward here on earth and heaven when he dies. Ryan also tends to carry around an "I'm spiritually superior to you" attitude because he believes that good works are the key to religion. Ryan believes that by believing in certain creeds or statements of beliefs, and by strictly engaging in certain religious behaviors, he will be on God's "nice" list, while those who aren't religious are on God's "naughty" list. He has been raised with this since day one, which is why religion and good works are such a key part of his life. Ryan also believes that religion is a combination of faith and good works that will one day get him into heaven. Ryan believes in an afterlife where there is a heaven and hell, and that which place you end up is determined by how religious you were here on earth. Ryan believes that salvation is "earned" by believing and behaving the right way. Ryan is not absolutely sure he'll make it into heaven, but he hopes that his good deeds will outweigh his bad deeds.

Things to Remember:

Ryan carries around a pretty strong dose of pride and self-righteousness, so focus on the 10 commandments and how all of us have broken them. One good illustration of this is to use the example of the religious person who only sinned a mere 3 times per day. While that seems good, when you add it up it becomes very bad. Three sins a day is over a thousand sins a year, and if he lives to be in his 80's, he will have sinned over 80,000 times!

Talk about how one lie will keep us out of heaven (Revelation 21:8), so the standard for getting into heaven is absolute perfection. Deep down Ryan knows he is not perfect, so talk about how Jesus lived a perfect life, which is why he is the only one who could pay the price for our sin.

In Philippians 3:4-12, Paul goes into detail about how he once depended on his "religion" to please God, but after he trusted Christ, he saw all those things as trash. If Paul saw religion in that light, what should that teach us? Also, talk about what Jesus meant when he said "it is finished" on the cross. That phrase actually means "paid in full".