The Price is Right: “A New Car!”

Selected Scripture

Connect:

• Share how you have seen God in the Highs and Lows of your week.

Prayer:

Pray that God would lead your discussion time and bring fresh insight, conviction, and hope through your time together.

Review:

This series, “The Price is Right, we are looking at honoring God with the resources we are entrusted with as He provides for our own needs and gives us the capacity to “be blessed and be a blessing”. We will look at tithes and offerings as God’s intended way of reducing the hold that our ‘stuff’ has on our hopes, confidence and security. This week we looked at the way our desire for new, more, better can overcome our calling to learn to be content while stewarding resources…

The Grand Tour of the message: Thinking back on what you heard this Sunday…

o What did you learn about God?

o What did you learn about people?

o What did you learn about yourself?

o What do you want to commit to putting into practice?

Reflection:

Personal Experience:

• Share about something that you never new existed… until you saw it and bought it… then used it once or twice… and soon forgot all about it! Maybe it was an electric dental flosser, LED lights for the inside of your car, a SUPER fancy camping accessory, something for your phone or computer, or maybe one of those “OH my GOODNESS, that is so CUTE!!!” purchases. You came, you saw, you bought it… and promptly discarded/forgot about it.

  Group Discussion:

  1. Read Eccl 5:10-12

     1. Why do we want to keep up with the Joneses? Is it FOMO, fear of loss, fear of running out, fear of being seen as weak, human greed… AND/OR is it more of a healthy desire to give family the best we can, to provide, to protect, to nurture…? Why is it so increasingly hard to live contented, thankful, generous lives?

     2. Let’s dig into the meat here to unpack what Solomon is getting at:

        1. What’s the difference between an unhealthy love of money and a healthy view of money?

        2. He doesn’t say it’s fruitless, he says it is meaningless to pursue happiness through wealth. What kind of ‘meaning’ are we pursuing by trying to buy happiness?

        3. He says, “People who work hard sleep well whether they eat little or much.” What is the point here, contrasting it to a sleepless rich person?

  2. Discuss the difference between being focusing on God while enjoying stuff VERSUS focusing on our stuff and using God to get more:

     1. Read Prov 23:1-5: What are the dangers inherent in the invitation to focus life on building wealth?

     2. Read 1 Timothy 6:9-10: Paul is not warning against the responsible use of wealth but rather the effect of loving money. Why does the love of money involve “Temptation”, “Ruin”, “Destruction”, “Evil”, “Wandering”, “Grief”?

     3. Read Luke 12:15: If we decide to live as if “we are what we have”, then what are we? How might we “guard against” that?

  3. Read Eccl 5:18-19

     1. We are encouraged here to work hard and enjoy the fruit of our labor as a gift of God. Great! How does ‘generosity’ figure in that picture?

Application: 

If contentment is a choice that breaks the power of consumerism in our lives, where do we start if we are willing to pursue this? Talk about the “1 week nonessential spending fast”— are you in?

Prayer:

Spend some time in prayer thanking God for His provision and presence, asking for the strength to be sober minded in a world that refuses to say “enough”.

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