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Love
Teaching Text: Luke 23: 44–46
It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.
Luke 24: 28-35
As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.
Acts 4: 29-31
Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
Hebrews: A new and Living Way
Vision Series 1 | Presence x Altars
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
Sermon Summary
One of the first people we ever baptized was Emerson. He’d left TGC — back when we still met in the evenings — biking off to watch the series finale of Lost with friends. On the way, God overwhelmed him. He pulled his bike over, right there on the street, and surrendered his heart to Jesus.
The curtain has been torn. God’s presence is no longer sealed off in a room — it’s ours to seek, every day, in the ordinary places of our lives.
Trinity Grace turned 17 this week. Baptisms. Freedom from addiction. Marriages restored. Neighbors fed, rent paid, gardens grown out of abandoned lots. Mistakes too — ego, impatience, seasons of talking about prayer more than praying. Through all of it, God kept speaking. Break through will come in hospitality. Breathe. Pray. Prune. You are acquainted with grief, but anointed with joy.
Every September we pause to remember who God has called us to be. In 2009, our first Sunday, we prayed Moses’s prayer: if your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. In 2019 God clarified our vision — Presence, Formation, and Love. In 2024, turning 15, that became Altars, Tables, and Gardens. Places we seek God. Places we grow together. Places we sow love.
Three stories carry us there.
The curtain torn. When Jesus died, the temple curtain — the barrier that kept God’s holiness safely apart from an unholy people — tore in two. God’s presence was no longer confined to an inner room. It was loosed into the world.
The road to Emmaus. Two grieving disciples walk seven miles home, certain it’s over. Jesus walks with them before they recognize Him. Jesus might be with you before you even know it. Their hearts burned before their eyes opened.
The wait that became fire. The disciples don’t rush to the streets after seeing the risen Jesus — they wait. Then the presence that once filled a temple room fills a prayer meeting instead. Acts 2. Acts 4. A shaken room, a bold church, a Gospel that spreads because people got near to God first.
The presence of God didn’t just give the early church a nice feeling — it gave them courage in the way of love.
We can meet God anywhere now. But we still build altars — intentional places to seek Him: the bread and the cup, prayer with other believers, worship, the face of a neighbor in need.
Complacency is deadly to spiritual growth. If deep longing for God feels far off, start there. Ask for it.
Let’s receive the gift Christ has won for us. Let’s seek His presence — starting now.
Direct Quotes
God wills that we should push on into His presence and live our whole lives there. This is to be known to us in conscious experience. It is more than a doctrine to be held, it is a life to be enjoyed… At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for his redeemed children to push into conscious awareness of His presence.
— A.W. Tozer
The Presence and the manifestation of the Presence are not the same. There can be one without the other. God is here when we are wholly unaware of it. He is manifest only when we are aware of His presence… If we cooperate with Him in loving obedience, God will manifest Himself to us, and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal Christian life and a life radiant with the light of His face.
— A.W. Tozer
Three Questions for Personal Application
How do you seek God’s presence? Think honestly about your week — where does seeking God actually show up? Not the ideal version, the real one. Is there a rhythm you could return to, or start?
How might God be reaching out to you right now? Before you rush past this, sit with it. A conversation, a burning heart, an unexplained nudge — where has God possibly already been walking beside you, unrecognized?
What distractions are keeping you from saying yes to God? Name them specifically, not generally. What would it look like to put one aside this week, on purpose, to make room?
“Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
— Luke 24:32
