Small Group Questions

December 14 - 20

Sermon Series: Restored

Week 1: Captivity

Ice Breaker, if Needed:

What were your childhood Christmases like? How have those past Christmases
influenced your current traditions?

Discussion Questions for Small Groups or Individual Study

1. Identify a “now what?” moment in your life. Why might you call that state of being “captivity”? What is captivity and how do you know if you are in it? What should the captive ask God when the Promised Land is beyond reach?
• Read Jeremiah 29:1 and 4-7
• Who was Jeremiah addressing?
• Why would God give freshly-captive people these commands?
• What does the act of building signal? Planting? Occupying? Thriving?
What would be the opposite of those actions? What outcome would you expect if they disobeyed what God told them to do?

2. When you are in Christ, you have a rock to build upon. Share examples of people building back after a “now what?” What do they have in common? What would have happened if they believed they were disqualified from God’s work or His call? Why is it important to realize you (and they) were never qualified to begin with? Why is the foot of the cross the perfect place to build?

3. When you are in captivity, fruitfulness can be found. Have you seen someone’s misery become their ministry? How were they able to bear fruit? How can we frustrate The Enemy by our fruit?
• Read Jeremiah 29:10-14
• Why is there hope?
• What was God doing with Israel while they were in captivity? What would fruit have signaled to them? To you?

4. Wherever God brings you, occupy that space, that time.
• Read Luke 17:20-21
• When you occupy a blessed or a broken space, what are you carrying in that space? Describe that power and why it transforms captivity into Kingdom.
• Read Lamentations 3:21-26
• What did you find today when you woke up? Tomorrow? How will you occupy time?

5. Freedom is yours in Christ, not when captivity is over, but in the midst of it!
• Read Romans 8:35-37
• How are you living as a hostage to your circumstances? What if you thought more about what is happening through you, rather than to you?
• Pray through Romans 8:35-37 and thank God for His grace in the thick of the worst places and forgotten spaces.