Chewing On This Week's Message At Northview: Balance

Balance - A message on Grace at NVCL

What do you do with the Christian Doctrine of Grace?

This is an opportunity for you to "push back" on this weekend's message. What are you thinking about? Struggling with? Excited about...when you think about God's Grace in your life? I would invite you to wrestle with the following questions...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: I really enjoyed the message this weekend. One thing I wanted to throw out is that I struggle with the idea of grace being something that God uses to stop us from hitting the bottom - as your illustration showed the rope not allowing us to hit the ground.
I would picture it more like our choices allow us to fall and hit the ground - sometimes very hard, and sometimes very, very painfully.
I think grace is God lifting us up after the fall and restoring and healing what we broke when we fell.

The really hard part is when we are lying there broken, being able to look up and accept God's hand up as he reaches for us.

I think hitting the bottom is essential in order to truly understand how powerful and wonderful God's grace really is.

I don't have a Biblical basis for my little commentary, but that has been my personal experience.; January 31, 2008 at 11:15 AM
Anonymous said...: I was unable to come to service this weekend. I do, however, have some thoughts on grace. In particular, it has been huge for me this year to step back from childhood teachings and drawn illustrations of Jesus and His sacrafice on the cross, and enter into the reality that He, His life here, His sacrafice for me, His Resurrection... all that is an actual part of history as real as Abraham Linclon was President.
We can never do justice the Good News. I have been, am, and will forever be forgiven- that's truth, it's history, it's recorded in the Holy Bible as real as an encyclopedia.
But more important, it's my future, my hope, my reverence to God for grace that, not by my own, but by Him I am 100% saved!; February 27, 2008 at 3:00 PM

Romans 3:20 - 31

20Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.
21But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
27Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. 28For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. 29Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.

Romans 6

1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with,[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
Slaves to Righteousness 15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in[b] Christ Jesus our Lord.

Chewing On This Week's Message At Northview

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Balance - A message on Grace at NVCL

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Romans 3:20 - 31

Romans 6

Romans 12:1-2

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