Sermon Outline

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Sermon Discussion Outline Guide Amazing Grace in the

APRIL 17, 2011 Prodigal Righteousness Meets Prodigal Grace

Darkest Hour…

Luke 15:25-32

September Luke 23:26-4319th, 2010

Ice Breaker: Have each person share a detail about their personal testimony that indentifies the person who was the most influential on their road to salvation, sharing the details of how that person was used by the Lord and what it was they did specifically. Introduction: This week’s sermon focused on the biblical text found in Luke 23:26-43, “The Crucifixion”. Three points of God’s Amazing Grace were indentified and discussed through out the course of the sermon: 1. Amazing Grace for Simon of Cyrene 2. Amazing Grace in the Face of Shame, Disgrace, and Agony 3. Amazing Grace at Death’s Door Open the time together with the reading of Luke 23:26-43 and prayer. Discussion and Application: 1. Amazing Grace for Simon of Cyrene: Three sub-points were made during the sermon to support the fact that the seizing of Simon of Cyrene from the crowd to physically carry the cross of Jesus (Luke 23:26) was not a mere random event. 

The incredible suffering of Christ and the reality of his humanity – seen so clearly here in his stumbling under the weight of the cross beam. Flogging, beating, mocking, up all night sweating and laboring under anxiety and distress…facing off the leaders of the known world, watching betrayal, denial, abandonment…taunting, spitting. His human body was crushed under the weight of human cruelty and evil…

Copyright © 2010 Erik Braun

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The Gospel writers did not miss what seemed to be a clear lesson from the sovereign Lord even in his hour of great weakness, shame, and agony – an average Joe is plucked from the crowd to ‘carry the cross and follow Jesus’! Luke 9: 23 “if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me’; Luke 14:27 ‘Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple’

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The Possible Legacy of Simon of Cyrene - Cyrene (a N. African city in contemporary Libya) was a city with some 100,000 Jews who had settled there hundreds of years before; Simon was an average Jewish man coming in from the country for worship on festival day…he is plucked out of the crowd and compelled to be humiliated along the busy road behind Jesus. Tying together passages found in Mark15:21; Acts 11; Acts 13; and Romans 16:31 it is possible that the wife of Simon would be an eventual caregiver of the Apostle Paul.

Discuss the following with the group: Even amidst the incredible suffering of Jesus, which from Hebrews 12:1-2 we can understand the greater purpose (referred to as “the joy set before Him”) involved, we can also find the possible purpose behind Simon’s own humiliation as he followed behind Jesus…a legacy of “cross-bearers” who followed Simon’s own example. It is an inescapable fact that believers in Christ will suffer, but it is not an inescapable reality for us to find grace in the midst of our own suffering. 2. Amazing Grace in the Face of Shame, Disgrace, and Agony: This passage is such a witness to the love and grace of Jesus – His purity and innocence and quiet suffering are set in bold relief against the backdrop of Depravity…two verses to remind us of this are: Romans 5:8 - “God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” Luke 23:34 – “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” Jesus’ plea for the Father to forgive those responsible for His death is not meant absolve them of this responsibility, but is a plea for mercy on them for they didn’t fully understand the full extent of the evil they were doing, crucifying the “Holy and Righteous One” (Acts 3:14). Jesus was “loving one’s enemies” and interceding for them (Isa 53:12), and even in the midst of this evil, some by God’s grace, were able to truly see him and follow him. Discuss the following with the group: Something that can be done towards the end of your Fellowship Group’s meeting time is to split up into smaller groups and reflect and pray for God’s grace and conviction to identify those enemies that need to be forgiven and pray for each other.

Copyright © 2010 Erik Braun

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3. Amazing Grace at Death’s Door: Three things were indentified through the account of ‘the penitent thief’: what salvation is; how we lay hold of it; and who it is for. 

What Salvation is: Salvation is the ‘Paradise’ promised to the thief. God has made a way for our sin to be carried off and eternal life to be opened up.

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How do we lay hold of it? Ephesians 2:8-9 ‘by grace you have been saved through faith, this not from yourselves it is the gift of God; not a result of works, so that no one may boast.’ By GRACE - The thief is the ultimate picture of salvation by sheer, undeserved, unobtainable, unworkable grace as a beautiful and glorious gift. Through FAITH – the instrument, the conduit, however you want depict it…the way this grace is given is by faith.

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Who is it for? What an amazing testimony of the wide net of God’s saving work- if the criminal on the cross in the last hour of his life, who moments before was taunting him; who weeks before was a rebel and hater of men, full of evil deeds, living a life separate from the God who made him. If he at this moment can turn and receive grace and exercise faith- and be with Jesus in Paradise forever…then we can too.

Discuss the following with the group: If it is hard for someone to accept the fact that a person who has lived the life of a pagan their entire life and then by God’s grace be saved during the last moments of their life then they, in the words of Pastor Erik, either don’t understand the depth of their own sin or the depth of God’s grace and mercy. Which is it for you?

Copyright © 2010 Erik Braun

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