Heart Over Hype: Wanting What Others Have

Use this curriculum to help you further engage with the sermon, the scriptures, and each other. Allow the Holy Spirit to bring things up to encourage and guide you so that you are always growing in your faith. If the Spirit leads you away from these questions and into conversation and prayer that encourages and points you to Jesus, go for it.

scripture

Read the following scriptures together: 1 Samuel 8.

overview

Samuel has been a faithful spiritual guide and leader for the people, but due to the spiritual failures of his sons and his increasing age, the elders of Israel gather to meet. Their gathering isn’t to seek wisdom or insight from God; instead, they make a decision based on what their neighbors are doing and demand a king. Their demand demonstrates their rejection of God as their King – they weren’t interested in the wisdom of God or even of Samuel who had proven himself faithful and anointed. God’s ways challenge the ways of this world and for the believer. As we choose to live by God’s guidelines, we will have to become comfortable with looking and acting differently from our culture – we will learn to choose sacrifice over success, humility over influence, and kindness, forgiveness, and generosity over our own feelings. 

question 1

How are we tempted to conform to the culture around us instead of relying on God’s wisdom? What steps can we take to choose his ways over the world’s standards?

discussion

Read Proverbs 11:12 and James 4:6. Samuel shares with the people what God tells him and one phrase that is repeated is “he is going to take…” But the people refused to listen to Samuel’s warning. Pride leads to self-sufficiency and away from the heart of God. Pride is sneaky – it starts as a thought that we can start to believe, agree, and act on without even realizing it. It is wise for us to be alert to our own pride through daily prayer and confession. If the elders of Israel had checked their own hearts and submitted to God in prayer, they would have had an easier time waiting for God’s solution and might have avoided hundreds of years of distress from living under ungodly kings

question 2

How do you react to criticism or people who are different from you? What does it look like to genuinely practice humility over pride even though it’s uncomfortable at times and goes against our natural response?

The chapter ends with God replying to Samuel to give the people what they want. God hasn’t left us alone in trying to figure things out – he has given us his Spirit and his Word as clear guides for us, filled with warnings that the wise will heed. He has implemented the Church as a gathering of like-minded people who can remind us, counsel us, and warn us when we need it. God will permit human failure because even that can be redeemed to prove his superior purposes as well as to build our own faith and character. Let us become listeners and seekers of his wisdom rather than the inventors of our own, because sometimes there is nothing more foolish than having our own way succeed. 

question 3

Does anyone want to share an example of when you made a hasty decision? What were the consequences?

weekly application

If you don’t currently have someone who can speak wisdom into your life, ask God to show you who is already in your orbit – someone you know to be aligned with God through prayer and Scripture – and take the courageous step to meet with them, to be vulnerable, and seek some counsel. God has filled our community with many wise people – some of whom are probably already in your group or serving with you on Saturdays.