Below is an outline for the sermon preached on Sunday morning. Accessing these notes allows you to take the sermon home with you. Feel free to add your own notes!

At the end of the sermon you can email yourself those notes from that day.

We hope this is a helpful resource for you as you dive deeper into the Scriptures and the messages preached at New Life Church.

• Open your group in prayer, then spend a few minutes discussing the step you chose last week towards living as a New Creation. What’s something you learned from that exercise? 

• Have someone in your group read Luke 7:36-50. What did you notice about this story? 

• As we’ve gone through the different identity statements the past few weeks, you may have felt like it’s a struggle to really believe them and live them out. Cody mentioned that the gap in believing this can often be forgiveness. How do you initially react to the phrase “I am forgiven”? Do you identify more with Simon or the woman in Luke 7?

• Cody identified three barriers that can prevent us from living like a forgiven person: (1) we fail to recognize our need for forgiveness, (2) we let our past dictate our future, and (3) we struggle to believe we’re fully loved and forgiven. Which barrier did you identify with the most? (You could also share a different barrier that wasn’t named.) 

• God has something to say to each barrier, and Cody shared a few possibilities: 

• God sees our hearts and offers forgiveness freely, even before we fix ourselves. 
• In Christ, the old is gone and the new has come; our past does not define our destiny. 
• God’s love and forgiveness is complete, even when our hearts struggle to believe it.  

Did one of these statements stand out to you (you could also come up with one of your own)? How could it provide freedom from the barrier you named in Question 4? 

• We want to live as forgiven people. What’s a specific way you can take hold of your forgiven identity and live out of it? Some suggestions include preaching the Gospel to yourself daily, forgive others, and let grace speak louder than shame (go in peace).

• Wrap up your group in prayer, thanking Him that we are forgiven. The worst thing we’ve ever done has been paid for from a place of love. Thank Him earnestly for this, and pray that we can believe this and live from it. Pray that it grounds us in Him.