START TALKING

When have you experienced success at something that was hard to maintain once you got there? How did you "take your foot off the gas" and what happened to your success once you did?

If you have experienced success longterm (aka "faithfulness" to whatever it was), what was different that allowed you to continue stay dedicated?

START THINKING

Read Nehemiah 13:1-3. While the people of Jerusalem were following this law very strictly (no Ammonites or Moabites are to be among their assembly to the tenth generation), they were ignoring other promises they made to God, and at the same time some of them were marrying Ammonites and Moabites! How is this "legalism"? What are similar examples of legalism that we see in our current culture among Christians and churches?

Read Nehemiah 13:4-5. Why do you think they even had an empty room to put him in? What do you think this means about the connection between faithfulness and generosity? How does this show how legalism leads to hypocrisy when you consider that they were excluding people from certain nations but yet allowing an enemy governor to live in the house of God?

START SHARING

Read Nehemiah 13:15-18. This passage shows us the pitfall of ambition. The people became more concerned about their own wellbeing, their own pleasure, and making profit than they were concerned about obeying God. What are subtle ways that we allow ambition to take away our faithfulness?

Talk through each of the five pitfalls we see in Nehemiah 13, and share how you experience each of these threatening your own faithfulness and how you see each of these creep in. Which one is most likely to threaten your own personal faithfulness?

Legalism
Favoritism/Influence
Apathy
Ambition
Compromise

START DOING

Now talk through each of the pitfalls and share how you can guard your faithfulness in each of those areas. What are practical steps that you take or that you can take that will help you to remain faithful to who God has called you to be and what He has called you to do?

Read John 3:17 and Romans 8:1. What can you do as a response to these verses to repent when you see pitfalls without falling into feeling like you are a failure and are condemned as a result?

START PRAYING

Pray for each other in the microchurch to remain faithful and to experience the continued "success" or growth in their spiritual walk by growing closer to Jesus and looking more and more like him each and every day!