20 Nov Discussion Guide: Reversal Week 15
Before We Get Started
For our discussion today we will be using the sermon series discussion guides. If you would like to follow along you can access this discussion guide on the website at mosaicchurchaustin.com and then select “community group resources” in the menu options.
Prayer
Because the main goal of our time together is to establish relationships and learn how to walk with one another in all that God has called us to be and do, we’d like to begin by praying for one another. So, does anyone have anything you’d like us to pray for, or anything to share regarding how you’ve seen God moving in your life that we can celebrate together.
This Week’s Topic
Today, we continue our series titled, Reversal. We will be taking some time to walk through the Gospel account of Luke. Luke was an historian who set out to document the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and the impact it had on the world of his day. What we see in Luke’s account is that when Jesus gets involved in the life of a person, things get turned upside-down and inside-out. Jesus brings about a reversal of everything we thought we knew.
Today’s Topic
Confusing
Discussion Questions
Is there anything in a scripture that you find confusing or mind blowing?
Luke 16:1-7
“He also said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.”
Put yourself in the position of this manager, how would you feel in this situation?
How would you describe this manager’s actions?
If you were the owner, how would you have responded when you found out what was happening?
Luke 16:8-9
“The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.”
How does the master treat the man who had just stolen money from him?
Why would Jesus have the master in His parable respond this way? What point is Jesus trying to make?
How might the way followers of Jesus treat their possessions and money come across as foolish and prodigal to the world?
How does this kind of “foolish generosity” reflect or represent God’s Kingdom?
Harold Best, Unceasing Worship
“We begin with one fundamental fact about worship: at this very moment, and for as long as this world endures, everybody inhabiting it is bowing down and serving something or someone — an artifact, a person, an institution, an idea, a spirit, or God through Christ. Everyone is being shaped thereby and is growing up toward some measure of fullness, whether of righteousness or of evil. No one is exempt and no one can wish to be. We are, every one of us, unceasing worshipers and will remain so forever, for eternity is an infinite extrapolation of one of two conditions: a surrender to the sinfulness of sin unto infinite loss or the commitment of personal righteousness unto infinite gain. This is the central fact of our existence, and it drives every other fact. Within it lies the story of creation, fall, redemption, and new creation or final loss.”
What does it mean to worship something?
Why do you think Jesus contrasts the worship of God with the worship of money?
With that in mind, why do you think Jesus calls us to be generous when it comes to our possessions?
Closing Thought
How does the Gospel Truth empower us to do that?