Sharpened: A Friend to Journey With

Selected Scripture

Connect:

• Share how you have seen God in the Highs and Lows of your week.

Prayer:

Pray that God would lead your discussion time and bring fresh insight, conviction, and hope through your time together.

Review:

We are starting a three week series slide called Sharpened - Forging Faith Through Godly Relationships. We are all formed to become better people. To become more Christ-like through the relationships we surround ourselves with. God uses people in front of us, beside us and even behind us to sharpen our faith, stretch our growth and shape our legacy. The goal of the series is to develop the core practice of biblical community. This week we looked at the idea of finding good friends whom we can trust and journey with as we grow in our walk of faith…

The Grand Tour of the message: Thinking back on what you heard this Sunday…

o What did you learn about God?

o What did you learn about people?

o What did you learn about yourself?

o What do you want to commit to putting into practice?

Reflection:

Personal Experience:

• Share about a really good friend you have had at some point in your life— what made them a good friend, and how did you shape each other, as well as encourage each other in faith, in the context of that friendship?

  • Group Discussion:

    1. Why do our friendships have such a powerful impact on our faith? (Prov 27:17, 1 Cor 15:33, Eccl 4:9.,10, Prov 18:24, Psalm 1)

    2. Read Acts 4:36-37.

       1. What can we deduce about Barnabas’ faith from this very brief description? One could ask, “Really? Who does that?”?

       2. Talk about the term “Encouragement”. In Scripture this is often talked about as “building others up” so let’s look at that (Eph 4:29, Rom 15:2, 1 Thes 5:11). What does it mean to “build each other up”— does that mean only saying nice things?

       3. The door Barnabas opened had GREAT impact in the early church which echoes right up to today (Paul wrote most of the letters included in the NT). The risk was also great (If Paul had been a spy, many believers could have been imprisoned/killed). How would you have gone about assessing that risk? Would you have advocated for Paul and introduced him to church leaders? Why or why not?

    3. Read Acts 9:26-28 and then read Acts 15:36-40)

       1. Compare the strengths of Paul and Barnabas in each of these situations. Both men acted with conviction, both took great risks, both loved God… and yet in one scenario Barnabas fights FOR Paul and in the next he fights WITH him.

       2. Would you have sided with Paul or Barnabas in this instance? Why so?

       3. Read 2 Tim 4:11. Apparently Paul and John Mark made peace! If you were John Mark, would you have been willing to work with Paul again? Why or why not?

    4. Pastor Ben reminded us not to be stingy with encouragement. Why would we want to limit that work of “building each other up”?

    5. If a mentor were to challenge you to change something or stop doing something (not just get better at what you are already good at), how might you respond to that?

Application: 

Ask God to lead you to someone for whom you can build a bridge of encouragement this week!

Prayer:

Spend some time in prayer asking the Lord to bring into your path this week someone who needs encouragement. Pray that He would give you the love, the words and the joy of building someone up!

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