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Sep 10, 2023

The Shape of Grace

The Shape of Grace

Passage: Acts 2:24-47

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: That’s the Spirit: Learning to keep in step with Him who indwells

Keywords: praise, giving, fellowship, favor, together, need, awe, devoted

arly in the existence of what Jesus first called the church, Luke writes that “great grace was upon them.” They were marked by grace–both in what had come to them but in what was now being manifest in and through them. Grace shaped them. And what shaped them in particular ways in that moment is meant to shape every people in its particular moment–including this church we know as Grace Church. We want to ask and imagine how Grace shape our vital life, our common life, and our public life–and then pray to that end as we give thanks for how God has already shaped us in each of those dimensions.

Readings & Scripture

PREPARATION: Psalm 100:1-3
LEADER: Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!
Serve the LORD with gladness!
Come into his presence with singing!

ALL: Know that the LORD, he is God!
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH/SCRIPTURE READING/CORPORATE PRAYER:      

ALL: I believe in God, the Father almighty,
      creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
  who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
  and born of the virgin Mary.
  He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
  was crucified, died, and was buried;
  he descended to hell.
  The third day he rose again from the dead.
  He ascended to heaven
  and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
  From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
  the holy catholic church,
  the communion of saints,
  the forgiveness of sins,
  the resurrection of the body,
  and the life everlasting. Amen.

CENTRAL TEXT: Acts 2:42-47; Ephesians 4:1-3

Acts 2:42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Eph. 4:1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

BENEDICTION: Ephesians 3:20, 21

LEADER: Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever..

ALL: Amen

RELATED SCRIPTURES:

  • Deuteronomy 15:4-5
  • Luke 12:13-21
  • Acts 4:32-37
  • Acts 6:1-3
  • 2 Corinthians 8-9–especially 8:8,9

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. What are the most common complaints people have about the Church of Jesus in general–whether as believers or not? By what standard are they typically making those complaints?
  2. What brought you to Grace Mills River–whether you have been attending or have chosen to become a member?
  3. “Expert” credentials not required: What would you say constitutes a healthy church? What would be its priorities, its marks of alignment with the Gospel of grace and the Kingdom of God?
  4. We mentioned three ways in which grace shapes the church: its “vital” life, its common life, and its public life. Why, like the fruit of the Spirit, are those three interdependent features of a church? Why would it be impossible for a healthy church to have less than all three dimensions as a priority?
  5. Why might that newly birthed church take such remarkable steps to financially stabilize the whole Body? From what is said there (and from later in Acts 5), would you say a policy was established or a culture emerged? Defend your answer
  6. Why is the grace of God in Jesus so essential to a people who will often fail in their calling to nevertheless pursue fulfilling it?
  7. Where might Grace Mills River have room for maturing in any of those three dimensions? Where might you need help to mature so that you may participate more fully in GMR’s public, common and vital life?

QUOTES: 

  • . . .the defining problem driving out most people who leave is … just how American life works in the 21st century. Contemporary America simply isn’t set up to promote mutuality, care, or common life. Rather, it is designed to maximize individual accomplishment as defined by professional and financial success. Such a system leaves precious little time or energy for forms of community that don’t contribute to one’s own professional life or, as one ages, the professional prospects of one’s children.  Jake Meador
  • . . .The problem in front of us is not that we have a healthy, sustainable society that doesn’t have room for church. The problem is that many Americans have adopted a way of life that has left us lonely, anxious, and uncertain of how to live in community with other people. Jake Meador
  • . . .we will bring our communities metaphorically into conjunction with Acts 4. . .[when we] ask ourselves, “How can we order our economic practices in the church in such a way that we give testimony with power to the resurrection of Jesus?” To ask that question in a serious and sustained way will require of us not only imaginative reflection but also costly change. Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament
  • None of us is enough. I don’t know you, personally, but I can still say with great confidence that you are not enough. If you go through life uncritically accepting the Instagram ideology that you can #manifest everything you deserve because you practice #self-care and are #valid, on a long enough time frame you’re going to end up alone and miserable and profoundly aware that the idea of total emotional self-sufficiency is a transparent lie. Human beings need other human beings. Freddie DeBoer
  • No communication went out from the patriarchate or the diocese saying, “Don’t retaliate.” It was just Christians in Egypt doing what the Christians in Egypt do. And by not retaliating, they took the wind out of that initiative. By the admission of many, including political analysts and non-Christians at every level, that’s what protected the community. From an interview in Plough Magazine with the Coptic Archbishop of London
  • To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist. Cardinal Emmanuel Célestin Suhard
  • I am often asked if I am “asking too much” by insisting that the church’s worship form people in this rigorous way. But it seems to me that this kind of demand is the only thing that ultimately makes Christianity believable. If it is true, it’s worth betting your life on. If it is not, you are better off choosing something else. When the church becomes preoccupied with defending itself to the world, it eventually becomes incoherent. The only way to be a church is to speak the peculiar language of peace, of forgiveness, of repentance and resurrection. When we do not do our job, the church becomes understandable to the world but loses its mission. It is no longer peculiar, even if it is now coherent to a culture that is anything but Christian. We need that friction, that impossible question of how church works, that puzzlement over what the church does, because what it does is often inconceivable to those outside it. Dr Kirsten Sanders
  • . . .there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.  They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred. To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body.   (Mathetes’ Letter to Diognetus)

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