REALLIFE STUDY GROUP

Got Delay?

ICEBREAKER: What is your favorite board or card game?

DEFINITIONS:

Delay:

1. make (someone or something) late or slow.

2. a period of time by which something is late or postponed.

synonyms: detain, hold up, make late, slow up/down, bog down; postpone or defer (an action).

Greek Words expressing or translated “time”:

· Chronos: a season of time, time on the move, time as before and after, time as the future passing through the present and so becoming the past. Time that can be measured

· Kairos: a strategic moment of opportunity, a now moment where there is a widow of opportunity. Kairos time is always a now instant,

· Horaios: beauty, time reached by coming of age, ripeness, maturity, reaching an age of fruitfulness or fertility

· Pleroo: a completed time, the fullness of time, a time whose time has fully come into the present.

OUTLINE:

Kinds of Delay:

· Arrested Development

· Delayed maturity

· Prolonged progress

· Delayed promotion

· Detained destiny

· Delayed deployment

· Delayed Answers

· Delayed breakthrough

The Decay of Delay:

1. Disobedience often delays promotion

2. Disobedience often delays blessing

3. Disobedience often delays inheritance

4. Disobedience often delays opportunity

5. Disobedience often delays progress

Examples of Delay

· Elijah and Jezebel – 12 year delay

· Ezra 4:4-6 and Haggai – 16 year delay in building the temple

· Israel – 40 year delay in receiving Canaan

· David and Ark – 3 month delay

· Paul – 1 Thessalonians 2:18 – “Satan thwarted us” (“more than once”)

TEXT: Acts 2:1; Acts 3:1-21

I hurry and do not delay to heed your commands. (Psalms 119:60 LEB)

“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was DELAYED, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. (Matthew 25:1-13 ESV)

STUDY GROUP QUESTIONS:

1. If today were described as the best of times and the worst of times what about our times would be the best and the worst?

2. If it is true that your response to delay exposes your stage or level of maturity, how mature are you by how you handle delay? Do you just deal with it, throw a fit, ask God why, feel rejected, leave no tip for the bad waitress, scream, get depressed, thank God for the opportunity to learn patience by waiting...

3. Name someone in the Bible that had to deal with delay.

4. Name something that disobedience can delay. You can pick one from the outline and make a comment or go with your own answer.

5. Have you ever had a kairos moment (a moment or window of opportunity)? Explain.

6. When is delay a good thing?

PRAISE REPORTS & PRAYER REQUESTS:

ACTION POINT: This week I am going to trust God with a delay I have no control over and ask God give me the strength and grace to deal with delay I have caused by my attitudes or actions of disobedience.