About This Guide
The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.
Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.
pdf download
Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.
Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.
more Resources
Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.
Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.
Love
Teaching Text: Luke 18: 28-48
Peter said to him, “We have left all we had to follow you!”
“Truly I tell you,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.”
Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him;they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.”
The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about.
As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging.When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.”
He called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?”
“Lord, I want to see,” he replied.
Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
Triumphal Entry
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
Lent: Historically, the season of Lent in the church year is a time of preparation, repentance, and renewal. We remember and mark Jesus’ time of fasting and temptation in the wilderness. We ask God to help remove our sin and anything that has entangled us or is keeping us from experiencing our union with Jesus.
5 moments as Jesus comes into this final week and what they show us:
About what it takes to save the world
What it costs to forgive
How we can be brought into God’s family and Kingdom forever
How that Kingdom might come on earth as it is in heaven
Why this MARCH OF LOVE was worth it
The Triumphal Entry
Luke has been telling us that Jesus had set His face towards Jerusalem. Even though He had been there many times, this was different. He had tried to tell His disciples, but they didn’t seem to be able to hear.
He was coming to Jerusalem to give his life away. To die.
Jesus is deeply aware this is THE MARCH OF LOVE
“Imagine the imperial procession’s arrival in the city. A visual panoply of imperial power; cavalry on horses, foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets, weapons, banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, sun glinting on metal and gold. Sounds: the marching of feet, the creaking of leather, the clinking of bridles, the beating of drums. The swirling of dust. The eyes of the silent onlookers, some curious, some awed, some resentful.”
– The Last Week
NT WRIGHT summarizes this…
“That was the way the pilgrims came, with Jesus going on ahead as he had planned all along. This was to be the climax of his story, of his public career, of his vocation. He knew well enough what lay ahead and had set his face to go and meet it head-on. He couldn’t stop announcing the kingdom, but that announcement could only come true if he now embodied in himself the things he’d been talking about. The living God was at work to heal and save, and the forces of evil and death were massed to oppose him, like Pharaoh and the armies of Egypt trying to prevent the Israelites from leaving. But this was to be the moment of God’s new Exodus, God’s great Passover, and nothing could stop Jesus going ahead to celebrate it.”
The Borrowed Donkey
There a centuries-old prophecy from Zechariah…
Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Jesus is not riding a warhorse or accompanied by soldiers
It’s an unexpected Kingdom. A donkey is the carrier of the king.
In what ways is the kingdom of God unlike what you’d expect as strength in our culture?
Weeping over the city
“As He approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it”
– Luke 19: 41
Even further back than the prophecy about the donkey, God revealed Himself to Moses in a way that Israel has repeated ever since…
“And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”
– Exodus 34: 6-7
GOD HAS SHOWN THAT HE IS COMPASSIONATE, GRACIOUS, MERCIFUL, LOVING, FORGIVING
God will not compromise His holiness. But He will not let go of His love.
He doesn’t say I will throw our justice so I can forgive
He doesn’t say I love so much that it means people living as their own God is fine and does no damage.
This is the Gospel.
“For the essence of sin is we substitute ourselves for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for us. ”
– John Stott
The tears of Jesus show that God hates what our separation has done to us.
“Oh, that you would know even now what makes for peace”
That you wouldn’t cling to your stubbornness
That you would come out of your blindness
You have no idea what pain you are bringing on yourself
You are missing the moment of God visiting you
His heart breaks for His people. But then also for people who aren’t His people yet…
What does it mean to you that God weeps over the separation you experience because of sin?
Cleansing the Temple
“When Jesus entered the temple courts, he began to drive out those who were selling. 46 “It is written,” he said to them, “ ‘My house will be a house of prayer’; but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”
– Luke 19
A HOUSE OF PRAYER (FOR ALL NATIONS)
A place of communion for all types of people, for anyone who would join
For us.
JESUS did something to get Himself arrested. But it wasn’t a random act of anger. IT WAS MAKING SPACE FOR ALL OF US.
A Meal with Friends
Sometimes, you will hear the crowds who shouted Hosanna, just a few days later in the week, were shouting crucify Him.
That very well may have been true. There may have been some of the same crowds from this moment of walking into Jerusalem who were there when Pilate offered to release Jesus.
But we know with more clarity where His disciples, His friends were in these scenes
In the height of emotion, at the height of a long climb when they could fairly see the city. They shouted, "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord"
Then days later they would betray Him, argue over their own status, fall asleep in His hour of agony, run away, and deny Him multiple times…
The Gospel is that Jesus laid down His life for friends, knowing all of that.
On the Cross, He speaks mercy over the ones who are killing Him. Forgive them; they dont know what they are doing. At the heart of the Gospel is a man dying for His enemies.
DO YOU SEE THE SAVIOR’S MARCH OF LOVE?
He has come to the city, though He knows what it holds
He is inviting us to join in
He is weeping when we do not
He is making space for us
And when we fail or scream “crucify Him”, or deny Him by the fire
