Sermon Discussion Guide 6-28-26

Sermon Discussion Guide
The Ten Commandments | You Shall Not Steal | Exodus 20:15

Gathering Question:
What is one way you've experienced God in your life this week?

Gathering Prayer
Father, by Your Spirit, would You guide us into all truth. Help us to hear and be attentive to Your voice as we work through this study. In the name of Jesus, Your Son, we pray, Amen.

Opening Questions

• What stood out to you in the sermon?
• What insights did you gain?
• What questions did it raise?

Read Exodus 20:1-17

• Tom Skinner suggests that hundreds of years of slavery contort a soul and require that it be transformed to walk in the way of life. How does this observation help you see and hear the commandments?

• Of the catechism commentary on this text, which resonates with you? Which one posits something new for you to consider?
  • It’s the unauthorized and willful taking of what rightly belongs to another… I can steal wages, identity, credit, intellectual property (Anglican)
  • It teaches us to hold sacred the property of others (Wesleyan-Methodists)
  • God also labels as theft wicked tricks and schemes by which we seek to get our neighbors' goods: false weights, deceptive advertising, counterfeit money, and exorbitant interest. He forbids greed and misuse and waste or his gifts . . . and encourages work for the good of our neighbor (Heidelberg Catechism)

• How does work and being generous serve as a pathway to peace in the neighborhood and a way to God’s good and beautiful life?

• Read Malachi 3:8-9 and 1:7-8. Malachi accused the priests of robbing God. Judas displayed something similar (in John 12). As you worship today, what do you hear the Holy Spirit God asking of you? How does being generous with God bring forth joy?

Closing Prayer

Holy Father, there is nothing I have that You have not given me. All I have and am belong to You, bought with the blood of Jesus.
To spend everything on myself, and to give without sacrifice, is the way of the world that You cannot abide.
But generosity is the way of those who call Christ their Lord, who love Him with free hearts and serve him with renewed minds;
Who withstand the delusion of riches that chokes the Word; whose hearts are in your kingdom and not in the systems of the world.
I am determined to increase in generosity until it can be said that there is no needy person among us.
I am determined to be trustworthy with such a little thing as money that you may trust me with true riches.
Above all, I am determined to be generous because You, Father, are generous.
It is the delight of your daughters and sons to share your traits, and to show what You are like to all the world.
Amen.