05 Dec Discussion Guide: The Wise Women of Christmas Week 1
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
As Christmas approaches this month, we will be taking a look at the backstory of the birth of Jesus by focusing on some specific people’s voices and stories are connected to Jesus Christ. Long before there were any wise men who came to deliver gifts, there were wise women who offered their lives. And, to best understand Jesus, we need to better understand them…The Wise Women of Christmas.
Today’s Topic
Hannah – She Who Escaped
Discussion Questions
1 Samuel 1:1,3-7
“There was a certain man… whose name was Elkanah… Now this man used to go up year by year from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the Lord . On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and daughters. But to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the Lord had closed her womb. And her rival used to provoke her grievously to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb. So it went on year by year. As often as she went up to the house of the Lord , she used to provoke her. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat.”
Childbearing was one of the main markers of “success” in Hannah’s culture. If a woman was barren she was considered cursed, damaged, and second class.
What do you think about that?
What do you think Hannah was experiencing in her relationship with her husband and his other wife?
Have you ever experienced anything like this in your own life?
The World Economic Forum surveyed 2,000 people, asking them what they thought it meant for the average person to “make it” in America. The overwhelming response was that the average person has “made it” in America when they:
Are married with children, have more friends, earn at least $147,000 while working fewer hours with a shorter commute and more vacation days, live in a larger, higher valued home, and drive a more expensive car.
View article here
How would you say our culture defines “success” for us?
Why do you think we, and others, are so tempted to chase after those things?
How does our culture treat people who don’t measure up to those definitions of success?
How does that affect people’s lives? How does it affect your life?
Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters
“When anything in life is an absolute requirement for your happiness and self-worth, it is essentially an ‘idol,’ something you are actually worshiping. When such a thing is threatened, your anger is absolute. Your anger is actually the way the idol keeps you in its service, in its chains. Therefore if you find that, despite all the efforts to forgive, your anger and bitterness cannot subside, you may need to look deeper and ask, ‘What am I defending? What is so important that I cannot live without?’ It may be that, until some inordinate desire is identified and confronted, you will not be able to master your anger.”
What does Scripture say about our looking to created things (people and possessions) to be the source of our identity and security?
How does this idolatry play itself out in regards to our possessions? In regards to our relationships?
Philippians 4:11-13
“Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”
How can surrendering our identity, hopes, needs, dreams to Jesus set us free from those idolatrous traps?
How can we know that Jesus is worthy of that kind of trust and surrender?
The reason we tend to look to created things to be the source of our identity and security is because of fear. In our world, and in our culture, the desire to belong, to fit in, to achieve significance is a powerful force. People will do just about anything in order to achieve “success” as our culture defines it. You see, we all have some “functional hell” that we want to avoid, and a “functional heaven” we want to experience. For some, that “functional hell” is poverty, and therefore the “functional heaven” is wealth. For some, that hell is loneliness, and the heaven is being in a relationship. For some, that hell is not being considered beautiful or attractive, and the heaven is being desirable and wanted. Everyone has their own version of this, and in our attempts to avoid that hell and experience that heaven we go searching for a “functional savior” that can rescue us from that hell and deliver us to that heaven. Money, people, diets, plastic surgery, that job title that makes us feel powerful or important.
It is this search for a savior that produces the idolatrous patterns and pursuits in our lives. This is why Jesus is the only thing that can free us from this “cul-de-sac of stupidity” where we keep going round-and-round in our chasing after created things to save us. And, when those created things fail us and let us down we tend to think that if we just had more of that created thing then everything would be ok. But, Scripture tells us that God’s perfect love can cast out the fear that motivates our idolatry. You see, Jesus isn’t a created thing that is here one day and gone tomorrow. He isn’t a person who changes His mind about the way He feels about us. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and He has promised that in His love for us He will never leave us or forsake us. He has proven His love for us in that while we were in our sin He came and died for us. When you realize the King of the Universe, your Creator, has called you by name, loved you, adopted you, and considered you to be so significance that He was willing to give His life for you, then you realize there is nothing in this world that can add to, or take away from, the value that you already have in His eyes.
When you don’t need anything in this world to make you whole, then, and only then, are you able to be free from those cultural fears and love others unconditionally.
Closing Thought
Is there anything you are pursuing in your life right now that might be idolatrous in nature? What would it look like to turn away from that and let Jesus take the throne in that place in your life?
How would trusting Jesus in that area change the choices you make and the way you feel about yourself and others?