Wonder - End of Week 1

INTRODUCTION
The following is a guide to help facilitate discussion between you and the person you’re studying with or with your Connect Group. Feel free to add, subtract, or change questions to fit the conversation, and pray for the Spirit to lead in all things.

OPEN QUESTIONS
What is one of your favorite things about the Christmas season?  What’s one of your least favorite things?

HEAD

1. Read Luke 1:5-25 together and share any wisdom, insights, or thoughts that come to you from the reading.
2. What is wonder to you and how, and where, do you think it fits into the Christmas story?
3. Do you think Zechariah and Elizabeth ever felt bitter towards God for serving Him well, but not getting what they wanted?
4. In verse 8, we see Zechariah continuing to be faithful and obedient to God.  How can you and I be faithful and obedient even through tough times?
5. Angels always have to assure us to not be afraid.  Why do you think that is?
6. Why did Zechariah struggle to believe the angel?  Was it just the age or something else?

HEART

1. An angel, a promise, an answered prayer, a pregnancy.  Where do you see wonder, that which is extraordinary and even beyond explanation, in the story for this week?
2. Do you think there is any connection between the story of Abraham and Sarah, and that of Zechariah and Elizabeth?  If so, what?
3. Why can hope be such a dangerous thing for someone who hasn’t had it for so long (Zechariah and Elizabeth and having a son, as well as israel and the promised Messiah)?
4. What do you think the silence of the next nine months afforded Zechariah?
5. How freeing it must have felt for Elizabeth to finally be free from her disgrace! How can you and I seek to help free other people from whatever disgrace they or the world have held onto?

HANDS
Make a list of promises that you feel God has made and fulfilled for you up to this point in your life, as well as promises that He has made that have yet to be fulfilled.  Spent time in gratitude for all God has done, and all that He promises to do.  Do you think there might even be something He’s working on now that you just can’t see?  Remember, God is always at work and He loves you more than you can even imagine.

LIVING WORDS FOR YOUR WEEK
Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.
Psalm 46:10 NLT