Yes and Amen
This six-week study walks a small group through the teaching above, one piece at a time, pairing an Old Testament passage with a New Testament passage each week. Read the Expanded version together as a group first for the full picture, or work week by week — either way, your group will have covered the whole teaching by week six. Each week traces the same foundation from a different angle: belief, grace, the Spirit's guidance, honest doubt, fruitful roots, and settled assurance.
Week One: Every Single Promise Is Yes and Amen
Old Testament Passage
New Testament Passage
Walking Through It
This week, talk about what it means that every promise of God is already "yes" in Christ. Abraham's belief, centuries before the law was ever given, shows this pattern is nothing new — God has always counted simple, genuine belief as righteousness, long before anyone had heard the words grace or gospel. Paul returns to this exact story centuries later to make the same argument this whole teaching keeps making: righteousness has always come by faith, not by works.
Discussion Questions
- What promise of God has felt most real to you personally?
- Why do you think we're called to respond with "amen" rather than just receive passively?
- What would change if you truly believed every one of God's promises applied to you?
- Paul says every promise is yes in Christ, without exception. What is one promise you find hardest to believe includes you?
- How does answering this one foundational question shape how you approach every other choice this teaching series describes?
- Why do you think Paul insists every promise, without exception, is yes in Christ?
- How does Abraham's story change the way you think about faith preceding any earned standing with God?
- What is one promise of God you find hardest to actually believe applies to you?
Week Two: Saved by Grace Alone, for Good Works
Old Testament Passage
New Testament Passage
Walking Through It
Discuss the difference between being saved by works and being saved for works. God's choice of Israel in Deuteronomy makes the same point Paul makes centuries later — God's favor was never based on their merit or size, but on His own love and promise, which is exactly the pattern of grace this teaching keeps returning to. This should be freeing for anyone who has ever quietly believed their standing with God depended, even partly, on their own effort or worthiness.
Discussion Questions
- Have you ever felt pressure to earn God's love through performance? What happened when you let that go?
- What "good works" do you think God prepared in advance specifically for you?
- How does grace change your motivation for doing good?
- Why do you think God chose Israel based on His own love rather than their size or merit? What does that suggest about how He chooses us?
- How does it change your view of your own calling to know the good works you'll do were planned in advance rather than invented by you?
- Why do you think God specifically told Israel their choosing wasn't about their own merit?
- What is the danger of quietly believing, even as a Christian, that you're saved partly by your own effort?
- How would your daily life look different if you were fully convinced grace, not performance, is the foundation?
- Grace does not cancel responsibility — it relocates it. How would you explain that distinction to someone new to the faith?
Week Three: Learning to Walk by the Spirit
Old Testament Passage
New Testament Passage
Walking Through It
Talk about what it looks like practically to "walk by the Spirit" day to day. Ezekiel's promise of a new heart and God's own Spirit within His people is the Old Testament seed of exactly what Paul describes centuries later — the Spirit is not a New Testament surprise, but the long-promised fulfillment of something God had been planning all along. Walking by the Spirit is a daily choice, repeated, not a one-time decision made once and then coasted on indefinitely.
Discussion Questions
- What does a day of "walking by the Spirit" actually look like for you?
- What old instincts or self-interest patterns do you still default to?
- How can our group encourage each other to walk by the Spirit this week?
- How does knowing the Spirit was promised centuries in advance, through Ezekiel, change the way you think about His presence in you today?
- How does Ezekiel's promise of a new heart change how you think about the Holy Spirit's role today?
- Why do you think walking by the Spirit is described as a daily choice rather than a one-time event?
- What would it look like to actually rely on the Spirit's leading in a specific decision this week?
- What is the difference between gratifying the desires of the flesh and simply meeting a legitimate need?
- What old habit or instinct would you like to see replaced by the Spirit's leading this year?
Week Four: Practicing Honest Faith
Old Testament Passage
New Testament Passage
Walking Through It
This week, discuss the honesty of wrestling with doubt while still reaching toward God. David's psalm and the father's prayer in Mark are separated by centuries but share the same posture: an honest admission of struggle that does not stop short of still reaching toward God, rather than giving up on Him altogether. God does not require perfect certainty before He responds to genuine faith; He asks for belief, even imperfect belief, extended honestly toward Him.
Discussion Questions
- Have you ever prayed something like "I believe, help my unbelief"? What was that season like?
- Why do you think Jesus responded to this imperfect faith rather than demanding certainty first?
- What doubt do you need to bring honestly to God this week?
- David's psalm moves from complaint to renewed trust within the same prayer. Why might it help to bring both halves honestly to God rather than only the trust?
- What keeps believers from admitting doubt honestly, even to close friends in their own church community?
- How does David's psalm model bringing real doubt to God without losing faith entirely?
- Why do you think Scripture includes so many honest prayers of doubt rather than only confident ones?
- What keeps people from admitting doubt honestly to God or to their church community?
Week Five: Belief as the Root System
Old Testament Passage
New Testament Passage
Walking Through It
Discuss belief as the root system underneath every other fruit in our lives. Jeremiah's image of a tree planted by water, whose roots keep it fruitful even in drought, is precisely the picture Paul's fruit of the Spirit assumes — a healthy root system, not manufactured effort, is what actually produces lasting fruit even under hard circumstances. A tree does not strain to produce fruit; it simply produces what its root system, given enough water, naturally supplies.
Discussion Questions
- Which of these fruits feels most present in your life right now? Which feels weakest?
- How is fruit different from something we manufacture through effort?
- What might strengthening your root belief do for the fruit in your life?
- Jeremiah's tree stays fruitful even in a year of drought. What practical roots keep you fruitful when circumstances turn hard?
- What would it look like to tend your roots this week rather than straining to manufacture fruit directly?
- Jeremiah says the tree stays fruitful even in drought. How does a strong root in Christ sustain someone through hardship?
- What practical habit helps you stay rooted, the way Jeremiah describes, rather than relying on willpower alone?
- What would it look like to tend to your own roots this week rather than straining to manufacture fruit directly?
Week Six: A Settled Assurance, Not Shaken by Circumstance
Old Testament Passage
New Testament Passage
Walking Through It
Close the study by reflecting on the settled assurance of belief in Christ. Joshua's ancient challenge to an entire nation and John's settled assurance to individual believers work together as bookends of this whole study — belief that must be actively chosen, and belief that, once given, provides an assurance no circumstance can take away. That single daily answer, chosen and renewed, is the true starting point of every freedom this whole teaching series has described.
Discussion Questions
- Looking back over six weeks, how has your understanding of belief deepened?
- What would it look like to rest in this assurance rather than your feelings on a given day?
- Who in your life needs to hear this good news of "yes and amen" from you?
- If your assurance rested entirely on God's testimony rather than your own feelings, what would change about how you approach a hard week?
- What is one way your group can hold each other accountable to saying amen daily, not only once?
- Why do you think Joshua insisted the choice be made actively rather than assumed by default?
- How does John's language of settled testimony differ from a feeling-based confidence in your salvation?
- Looking back over this whole study, what is the one truth about belief you most want to carry forward?
Closing Thought
If this six-week study opened up more than it could cover, the Teaching and Expanded versions of this document go deeper into every week's theme, including Abraham's belief credited as righteousness and Joshua's challenge to an entire nation to choose whom they would serve. This teaching is one branch of the larger Freedom of Choice series — consider closing your final week together in prayer, thanking God that every promise He has made is already yes in Christ, and asking for the courage to say amen to it daily, not just once. Every other freedom this whole series describes — over entitlement, over grievance, over selfishness — flows downstream from this one foundational choice, made and remade each day.
For deeper study on any week's theme, read the full Teaching or Expanded version of Yes and Amen.
Want to read these passages in their full setting? Browse every book of the Bible on BibleRef (opens in a new tab), a free site with plain-language commentary.