Games of Life Day 3

Can anyone tell me what it means to be condemned?

I know you read John 3:17 in your small group today but lets check it out quickly because its late and we’re all tired

John 3:17 NRSV

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Has anyone ever condemned you? Told you that you weren’t ever going to be good enough.

Mrs. Mayers story.

Has anyone ever had their life physically saved before? How about been saved from a bad situation?

Well I was saved from my situation

Principal: Dr. Dejarney

Scripture tells us a lot of stories about people who were condemned by someone, but who were saved by Jesus. One of my favorites comes from the Gospel of Luke

Luke 19:1–10 NRSV

He entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

What are some things that you notice about Zacchaeus?

What does the crowd call Zacchaeus?

What do you think Zacchaeus thinks of himself?

Yeah. Tax collectors were generally not well regarded people. They overcharged and defrauded people.

But look at what Jesus says about Zacchaeus.

Why do you think Zacchaeus climbed that tree?

I think that Zacchaeus had a holy curiosity.

And what’s cool is… When Zacchaeus was in the tree, Jesus knew where to find him.

This is what we call prevenient grace. Can you say that? prevenient grace.

Has anyone here gone through confirmation in a UMC?

Does anyone know what prevenient grace means?

It’s the grace of God that goes before us. Basically it means that God knows where to find us. Whether we are looking for God or not.

But when we encounter God, we experience another kind of Grace: Justifying grace.

Justifying grace is when transformation begins to happen in our hearts, because God reminds us of who we really are. God makes it Just As If all of the ways that we have been given a bad identity don’t exist any more.

I want us to watch another story. And in this story I want you to pay attention to a few details:

See if you can identify some of the things we’ve been talking about this week so far.

What is the identity that the woman has been given by the world.

What is the identity that she has given to herself. How does she see herself

What does Jesus say about her?

Woman at the Well video

Connect it all.

altar time

Zacchaeus’s Response, the response of the woman. They get up and go do something.