HCBC Sunday School - "Friends" Class
When Tragedy Hits Home (Ezekiel 20:1 -- 24:27)
How can I trust God when I'm facing personal tragedy?
1) Listen for God's Guidance (Ezek. 24:15-18)
a. Note: A pattern of listening to God is evidence of salvation, i.e., relationship.
b. Grief can pose a crisis of faith. People cope with grief in different ways.
c. Perhaps the most telling indicator of a broken society is that they forget God.
d. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. ~ John 6:35
2) Seek to Know God Better (Ezek. 24:19-24)
a. Believers can use times of personal crisis to grow in our relationships with Christ.
b. Difference between knowing about Christ (head knowledge) and knowing Him intimately and personally (heart-based love relationship).
c. How to develop? By spending time daily with the Lord.
3) Trust That God is in Control (Ezek. 24:25-27)
a. [8] For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life:
[9] But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:
[10] Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us; ~ II Corinthians 1:8-10
b. That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; ~ Philippians 3:10
c. [16] That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
[17] That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
[18] May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
[19] And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. ~ Ephesians 3:16-19