WEEK 10- Hold Firmly Till the End

MONDAY — Read this passage with your team.

     6 Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house.  And we are His house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.

     7 So, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear His voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert,  9 where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did.  10 That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.’  11 So I declared an oath in my anger, ‘ They shall never enter my rest.’”

     12 See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.  13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.  14 We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.  15 As has just been said, “ Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.”

Hebrews 3:6-15

What does this passage have to say about confidence?

Why is that important?

TUESDAY — Discuss the passage with your team.

1) What qualities does our culture most often identify as those that mark a confident person?  Does this passage describe a confident person as someone who is brash or cocky — as someone who    aggressively elevates and asserts himself?

2) What does a confident person do, according to verse 14?  Are you a steady person, one who “stays the course” of obeying faithfully?

WEDNESDAY — Discuss the passage with your team.

3) Verse 6 identifies courage as a key concept of your ability to “hold firmly till the end the confidence [you] had at first.”  What important factor (according to verse 13) allows you to remain courageous in the face of sin, temptation, and unbelief?

4) How often are you commanded to encourage others? (v. 13)  Do you take that command seriously?  Do your habits as an athlete — at practice, in games, with both teammates and opponents — reflect this?

THURSDAY — Discuss the passage with your team.

5) How is your heart most easily hardened, discouraged, tempted, or angered?  In what ways could you use help or encouragement in order to remain confident?

6) Have you asked others (family, friends, teammates, coaches) to pray for and encourage you in regard to these things?  Are you actively encouraging your family, friends, teammates, and coaches?

FRIDAY — Discuss sport applications of confidence and pray together.

· Ask your athletes to briefly reflect on what they’ve learned about confidence this week, and to repeat some of those things.  (Remind them of some of the Biblical truths about confidence you’ve discussed, if necessary.)

· Ask your team, “Based on what we learned about confidence this week...What does a confident athlete do?”  Do not settle for vague answers; challenge your athletes to go beyond general qualities of confidence, and to determine what those qualities look like in action.

· Add the results to your team’s list of descriptions of the “confident athlete”, and be sure the list is displayed somewhere that is constantly visible, as a reminder to the team.

Pray together as a team.  Encourage your athletes to pray for your team’s growth in regard to the discipline of confidence —  especially in relation to some of the issues and challenges that you discussed together this week.  Challenge them to also ask for  forgiveness, when applicable.  Give time for athletes to request prayer (regarding confidence or anything else), and pray together