Five Things God Uses to Grow Your Faith 6 – Pivotal Circumstances

Welcome to CROLCC, we are so glad you are here worshiping with us. We have been in this series Five Things God Uses to Grow Your Faith and my hope for you is that your faith will grow because you are now more aware of how your faith grows. For some of us God uses our prayer and giving disciplines to grow our faith. For others of us it was that person that God brought just in the right moment of our lives to help us strengthen our faith. These past few weeks I have had many conversations about how God uses these things to grow people’s faith, and I just want to thank you for allowing God to play an important part of your lives. As you continue to allow God to grow your faith, your relationship with God will grow.

Today as we close our series we are going to talk about the last thing that God uses to grow our faith – Pivotal Circumstances. Life is full of surprises – some good, some not so good. But did you realize each unexpected event that comes our way has the potential to grow or undermine our faith? Have you ever wondered why when life’s unexpected happened, some hang tight to God and therefore their faith grows while other leave church and leave God altogether? We will look at a familiar Bible story together in hope to answer our question and discover the role that pivotal circumstances play in the development of our confidence in God.

Moving Forward

Often times, what shapes our response to these pivotal circumstances is the support that we have around us during these experiences. Is there a community? Are there providential relationships? Relationships help us frame these circumstances in a way to see that God is not doing something to us, but is doing something in us and through us. With that in mind, close your group time by praying for the individuals or couples in your group who are currently facing a faith-stretching trial.

Discussion Questions

1. Give a brief example of an event or set of circumstances in your life that led to feelings of helplessness or being out of control. The event can be positive or negative.

2. As you think back on this incident, what role did God play in your thoughts? Did you pray? Did you pray differently? Were you angry, sad, confuse, etc?

3. Would you say this event strengthened or weakened your confidence in God? Why?

4. Read John 11:1-6. How does it make you feel when you read that Jesus loved Lazarus but didn’t go to him in his time of need?

5. Is the idea of God using human pain for his glory disturbing to you? Is this a new concept for you?

6. Read John 11:11-15. According to these verses, what is the relationship between Lazarus’ death and the disciples’ faith?

7. Read John 11:21-27. What did Martha already believe about Jesus? What did Jesus ask her to believe? What is the difference?

8. If God uses pivotal circumstances to build our faith in him, what should our response be next time life takes us by surprise?