Shock and Awe - The Jesus Experience
Chapter seven is filled with shock and awe. An outsider shows great faith, a widow's son is raised, John the Baptist is not sure about Jesus, and a sinner is forgiven much. Many times when we encounter true faith, we are filled with shock and awe.
Questions to Go Deeper in your Faith
Describe a time when you’ve seen someone act in faith. What did it look like?
Read Luke 7: 1-10. A centurion, someone who was a Roman military officer and was not Hebrew. He did not feel like he could ask for something from Jesus because he was an outsider to the faith. How does Jesus respond to him?
Why is it shocking that Jesus says “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”? (Luke 7:9) What does this tell us about the nature of faith?
Read Luke 7:36-50. Why do you think this sinful woman would have shown up at this Pharisees house where Jesus was eating?
Compare the responses of Jesus and Simon the Pharisee, as they encounter this sinful woman who comes into their presence. How does Jesus view the situation differently? What does this tell us about the nature of faith and forgiveness?
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All Or Nothing - The Jesus Experience
Jesus is giving us a picture of the kingdom of God: miracles, healings, and parties. However, some are very upset that Jesus is doing any of this and are threatening to kill him. Jesus just looks at them and says the way of God is all or nothing.
Questions to Go Deeper in your Faith
When you think of all the miracles, healings, and parties that Jesus did and had, which one most excites you and why?
Read Luke 5:33-39. Jesus calls us to fully embrace his new way of trusting him completely rather than ourselves. It’s hard to move to the new way of Jesus because we like the old way so much. Why are we so comfortable in the old way?
Read Luke 6:20-42. Jesus describes the new way. Why is the new way so difficult to embrace?
For further reading about the dangers of holding on to the old way, read Galatians 5:1-15.
Give some examples of how Jesus completely lives out this new way as described in Luke 6:20-42.
This week look for ways you see Jesus’ new way breaking in where the poor are blessed, the hungry are satisfied, the weeping are brought to joy, and enemies are loved.
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Something New - The Jesus Experience
Jesus bursts onto the scene; he reads from Scripture and how God is doing something new, and he says that newness is Him. How do people respond? Will they be happy? How would you have responded?
Jesus falls the third time
He weeps with you and with you he will stay
When all your staying power has run out
You can’t go on, you go on anyway.
He stumbles just beside you when the doubt
That always haunts you, cuts you down at last
And takes away the hope that drove you on.
This is the third fall and it hurts the worst,
This long descent through darkness to depression
From which there seems no rising and no will
To rise, or breathe or bear your own heart beat.
Twice you survived; this third will surely kill,
And you could almost wish for that defeat
Except that in the cold hell where you freeze
You find your God beside you on his knees.
Questions to Go Deeper in your Faith
How many new year's resolutions have you made that you have not kept? Do you have a funny story about a failed resolution?
Read Luke 4:16-30.Jesus quotes from the scroll of Isaiah, that speaks of what the Messiah will do. According to his reading in Luke 4:18-19, what will the promised Messiah do? From what you know about Jesus how does he fulfill this promise?
Optional Deeper Reading
Read Isaiah 61, which Jesus quotes here to get the full context.How do the people react to Jesus saying he will be the one to fulfill this passage?
What does examples does Jesus allude to in response, to explain who God shows favor to? (See v. 25-27)?For deeper context read the stories Jesus alludes to in 1 Kings 17 and 2 Kings 5.
How do you respond when you find out Jesus loves people you may not like?
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The Jesus Experience Sermon Series.
Luke’s Story of Jesus Luke wants to tell us a story; no, he wants to give us an experience. It’s about someone who is doing something new, someone who is bringing miracles, healings, and parties, someone who defies expectations, someone whom everyone has an opinion about, and who will save the world.
Luke’s Story of Jesus Luke wants to tell us a story; no, he wants to give us an experience. It’s about someone who is doing something new, someone who is bringing miracles, healings, and parties, someone who defies expectations, someone whom everyone has an opinion about, and who will save the world.
Baptism of Jesus - The Jesus Experience
John was a man from the wilderness who “prepared the way of the Lord.” But when he baptized Jesus, it was not the normal pattern of forgiveness. Rather, this time the heavens opened up, and God said “this is my son whom I love.”
Advent Table Talk Questions
Use these questions to reflect on the message this week. Gather with your family, or a few friends and dig a little deeper into scripture and The Christmas Experience this year.
What is your favorite part of the Christmas story? Why is it your favorite?
Read Luke 2:1-20. In contrast with the power of the Roman empire, an angel appears to shepherds in the fields. The angel announces that a Savior has been born to these shepherds who were commonly considered to be lowly and powerless. Why do you think the birth of Jesus was first announced to people like these shepherds?
How has your understanding of Christmas changed the last few years as your faith has grown and your life has adjusted to new circumstances?
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Shepherds - Christmas Experience
Mary looks up from swaddling her baby, only to see dirty, wide-eyed shepherds looking at her. When God chose to send a group of people to witness his new Son, He did not send royalty; he sent those who were not able to sleep within the town at night - the outcasts, the dirty, the shepherds.
Advent Table Talk Questions
Use these questions to reflect on the message this week. Gather with your family, or a few friends and dig a little deeper into scripture and The Christmas Experience this year.
What is your favorite part of the Christmas story? Why is it your favorite?
Read Luke 2:1-20. In contrast with the power of the Roman empire, an angel appears to shepherds in the fields. The angel announces that a Savior has been born to these shepherds who were commonly considered to be lowly and powerless. Why do you think the birth of Jesus was first announced to people like these shepherds?
How has your understanding of Christmas changed the last few years as your faith has grown and your life has adjusted to new circumstances?
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What Had happened at Grace this week.
Elizabeth - Christmas Experience
For years Elizabeth had wished for a child of her own. As she grew older, the chances of that happening vanished before her eyes. But then hope of all hope, her husband sees an angel, and she becomes pregnant. Then her much younger and also pregnant cousin Mary comes and visits her. Elizabeth could have said something nasty about Mary getting pregnant so young, but, with the jump of her spirit-filled womb, Elizabeth gives nothing but encouragement.
Advent Table Talk Questions
Use these questions to reflect on the message this week. Gather with your family, or a few friends and dig a little deeper into scripture and The Christmas Experience this year.
Tell of someone who has encouraged you. How did they specifically encourage you?
Read Luke 1:39-45. What role does the Holy Spirit play in this story?
Elizabeth encourages Mary with what God is doing in her life. Tell of a time when someone was encouraged by something that God was doing in their life.
Filled with the Spirit, Elizabeth encourages Mary. Who can you encourage this Advent season? How can you encourage them specifically this week?
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Mary - Christmas Experience
All of a sudden, a messenger of the Lord comes to Mary saying she is highly favored. At first she is agitated at the experience, just like her older cousin Zechariah was. However, when Zechariah’s experience with the angel ended, he was left in forced speechlessness, but Mary leaves with her voice. What was the difference? Perhaps it was one simple mindful stance, “I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
Advent Table Talk Questions
Use these questions to reflect on the message this week. Gather with your family, or a few friends and dig a little deeper into scripture and The Christmas Experience this year.
Describe a time you felt unworthy of a task assigned to you. How did you respond?
Read Luke 1:26-38. Mary was an unwed, teenager who would become pregnant and is told by the angel that she is “highly favored.” The angel of God thinks more of Mary than the world would have thought. Describe a time when someone showed you favor and it wasn’t deserved. What impact did that make on you?
Mary is “greatly troubled” when she finds out that she will be pregnant with God’s Son. She doesn’t feel worthy. How does she react? (See Luke 1:38)
How is Mary an encouragement to you to act in faith, when God or the church asks you to do something you don’t feel worthy of?
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Zechariah - Christmas Experience
He has worked his whole life for this one moment. He will be doing the sacrifice and will be blessing the people! However, when God shows up, Zachariah is left speechless, literally. Perhaps God is doing something different that no one expected.
Advent Table Talk Questions
Use these questions to reflect on the message this week. Gather with your family, or a few friends and dig a little deeper into scripture and The Christmas Experience this year.
Tell of a time when a Christmas experience did not go as planned.
Read Luke 1:1-25. How did Zachariah’s experience not go quite as planned when he entered the temple?
In the temple things didn't quite go as planned for Zechariah. An angel of God met him and said his wife, who was beyond childbearing years, would become pregnant with a messenger of God’s Savior. After this extreme experience he was made unable to speak.
What would be going through your heart and mind as you experienced this angel of the Lord if you were Zechariah?
What would you be thinking and feeling about the encounter if you then lost something afterwards, like you ability to speak?
After Zechariah's experience, his wife gave birth to John who would point people to Jesus, the Savior who will serve all of humanity. At John’s circumcision, Zechariah gives a blessing pointing people to Jesus, this servant. Read this blessing in Luke 1:67-79. What are ways you might serve you neighbor or point people to Jesus through your words and actions this Advent season?
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Thanksgiving Sunday
Sometimes our life is filled with chaos all around us. The holiday season shows us this well: Party after party, hand out after hand out, all the traveling, the cooking and gift wrapping. This season is supposed to be a joy-filled time; however, with everything going on we often feel overwhelmed. God’s people were feeling overwhelmed in their situation, and God told them like he tells us: give thanks for everything you have.
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Free To Live - God's Act of Grace
Today God’s act of grace to us is that, though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor, so that you, by his poverty, might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9
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TIM SALESKA, “THE GOSPEL-CENTERED CHRISTIAN”
Faith is a gift of God, not something a person can be reasoned into
Most Christians would agree that the Gospel, the good news about Jesus, is the saving message in the Bible. But if we were to look at how our acceptance of this truth actually influences the way we interpret the Scriptures, or the way we preach and witness, or the way we deal with cultural issues and people outside of the faith, we would soon see our agreement fading.
So, while everyone might agree about the importance of the Gospel as the saving message of the Bible, not everyone agrees with how this belief should be embodied in the various practices of our faith. This raises a lot of questions. For my purposes here, two of them are important, “How do Lutherans understand the relationship between the Gospel and Scripture?” and, “How does our understanding influence our preaching and teaching and our lives together?” These are big questions, and in this paper, I can only start to address them. Though there are any number of directions that my argument could take, I am going to argue specifically that Lutherans have always and should continue to walk a middle road between two ditches into which it is easy to fall. The middle-of-the-road approach for which I am advocating is what I will call a “Gospel–centered approach.” The ditches to be avoided are a so-called Gospel-reductionist approach on the one side and a so-called Biblicist approach on the other
Thursday, September 4 at 5:45 PM at St Lucie Draft House- 6630 Federal Hwy, Port St Lucie