Growing Big Faith - Providential Relationships

God uses people to help you grow big faith.

Proverbs 13:20 Walk with the wise and become wise; associate with fools and get in trouble.

1 Corinthians 15:33 Don’t be fooled by those who say such things, for “bad company corrupts good character.”

---

We have probably all heard the warning when we were young that we need to be careful who your friends are and who you hang out with.

Few of us realize when we are young but by the time you are old enough to be a parent you finally get what your parents were talking about. Looking back you can see relationships that were good for you and some that were not.

Relationships are a powerful influence in life. Has there been someone in your life who has had a positive influence on your life? How about somebody that has had a positive impact on your faith? There may be someone that came into your life that made a profound difference in who you are today.

The wise person will be very careful in deciding who gets to influence their life. Will you choose to have a wise person shape your thinking? The Bible teaches us that a fool is a person that knows the difference between right and wrong but they just don't care. They do not care that today's decisions have an impact on tomorrow.

Your friends will determine the direction and quality of your life. - Andy Stanley

Providential relationships are relationships that God brings into your life that ignite and grow your faith. The kind of people that challenge you to see new possibilities and understand new truths spiritually in order for you to grow in your faith. You usually see those relationships the easiest with hind sight, you look back and say to yourself, "thank God that person came into my life and helped me."

There are not many neutral relationships, most of the people we know will have an impact on our lives. Their values can easily become our values. You are around people everyday that do not care about your faith, culture is tearing you away from your faith, and besides culture you also have your old sin nature working against you.

Proverbs 27:17 As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.

Maximizing the relationships in our lives for the purpose of growing in our faith is only half the picture. God also wants us to have a positive impact on others lives and he wants us to be of benefit to their faith as well. Sometimes we are the wise one that needs to go have an awkward conversation with a friend that is blind to something. We can pray for our friend but if something is breaking your heart in their situation then maybe God is prompting you to do something about it.

Awkward conversations can be found in the Bible between:

✔  Eli and his sons (1 Samuel 2:22-25)
✔  Samuel and King Saul (1 Samuel 15:12-26)
✔  Nathan and David (2 Samuel 12:1-12)

We can't force a providential relationship to happen but we can leverage this Biblical principle by:

✔  Be intentional about who you spend time with
✔  Be intentional about moving into situations where relationships will be built
✔  Initiate interaction with the wise people around you
✔  Invite that wise person to speak into your life

Close relationships are the means that God uses to provide us with the opportunity and accountability to live out the truth of his Word. God has placed people in your life to help you by challenging you to be more like Christ.

Time To Grow Up

God's blessings and benefits should motivate us to live for him.

1 Peter 2:1-3 So get rid of all evil behavior. Be done with all deceit, hypocrisy, jealousy, and all unkind speech. 2 Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation. Cry out for this nourishment, 3 now that you have had a taste of the Lord's kindness.

Ephesians 4:30 And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption.

1 Timothy 4:8 “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.”

---

In chapter one Peter wrote about the new life in Christ that the church in Asia Minor had, he told them of all of the benefits that they inherited as a Christ follower. Peter wrote about the blessings, the ability to go through trials with joy, about Christ payment for their sin and about the way that Christ showed us how to really love.

Chapter two starts out by suggesting that because of all of the those blessings and benefits that we have received we should be motivated to grow up and the internal change in our lives should make a difference to our external. People should see a difference in us, instead of "deceit, hypocrisy, jealousy, and all unkind speech," they should see people that exercise self-control and are striving to be holy through being obedient to God. (1 Peter 1:13-15)

Galatians 5:24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.

As a new Christ follower you are probably well aware of how much you have failed to live up to God's standard. it isn't easy to change your lifestyle, it will take training to get rid of the behavior that is unpleasing to God. A new born babe needs the basic milk of God's word to get them started in growing up to be the person that God wants them to be.

Job 23:12 I have not departed from his commands, but have treasured his words more than daily food.

The desire for the Word of God is a very effective indicator of a person’s spiritual condition. The Bible has been the best selling book for a long time but it is also the least read book. We need to have a passion for God's word and take delight in learning about him and his desires for our lives. A new babe in Christ will have the same instinct to take in the "pure spiritual milk" that a new born infant has to nurse on his mothers milk.

Too many of God's children get stuck in the habit of showing up at church and having the Bible read and explained to them. It's a great place to start but that's not the only time each week that you should get fed. We need to be digging deeper into the word for ourselves and meditating on it in personal quiet time and in small group Bible study.

I need to be in in Bible study and personal quiet time in order to grow up in Christ. God expects us to move out of the milk years and move on to eating meat, being lazy about your spiritual development isn't a good idea, it is a dangerous condition that Satan will try and take advantage of.

Facing Peer preasure

Looking for trouble? Go along with the crowd.

Genesis 6:5 The LORD observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. 6 So the LORD was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart.

Genesis 7:1 When everything was ready, the LORD said to Noah, "Go into the boat with all your family, for among all the people of the earth, I can see that you alone are righteous. 5 So Noah did everything as the LORD commanded him.

Genesis 8:20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and there he sacrificed as burnt offerings the animals and birds that had been approved for that purpose. 21 And the LORD was pleased with the aroma of the sacrifice and said to himself, "I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood. I will never again destroy all living things. 22 As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night."

---

It is easy to read the story about Noah and jump to the building of the boat and the actual flood, but what about the events that led up to the flood?

Already the people on the earth had disobeyed God to an outrageous extent, from the temptation in the garden to be like God, to jealousy and murder, you can be sure that is only the tip of the iceberg. You can be certain that Noah had a lot of opportunities to join right in, just think about how over whelming the enticement would be if you didn't know another person that was living to please God, Noah and his family were all alone in being saved from God judgment. Noah was facing some difficult circumstances and he could surely use a friend to encourage him, if he could have had a small group to give him a hand, it could have been so much easier.

Noah's situation was worse off than what we have , despite the circumstances Noah was righteous and he received grace in the midst of the judgment of the wicked, what an awesome example for us to hold fast to our faith and continue to do what is right no matter how bleak our situation may seem.

Psalms 34:15 The eyes of the LORD watch over those who do right; his ears are open to their cries for help. 16 But the LORD turns his face against those who do evil; he will erase their memory from the earth. 22 But the LORD will redeem those who serve him. No one who takes refuge in him will be condemned.

2 Peter 2:9 So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment.

God is a righteous judge but he is also merciful and he will rescue us from this world and take us to be with him for eternity.

I must remember that no matter how bad the world seems to be around me, it is still better than what Noah had to live with, he didn't have any companionship with other believers to help him and encourage him.

Thank you Lord for the fellowship of those that are Christ followers, help us to remember the importance of being in small groups doing life together so that we can encourage and strengthen each other.