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“Every time we look at the cross Christ seems to say to us, “I am here because of you. It is your sin I am bearing, your curse I am suffering, your debt I am paying, your death I am dying.” Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross. All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self-righteousness, until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is there, at the foot of the cross, that we shrink to our true size.”
— John Stott
The Message of Galatians
(Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1968), 179
Today, Pastor Brad preached on what the Elders believe God would have Grace Fellowship Church focus on in the days to come. In his sermon, he referred to this resource (a survey from Leadership Network) that you may find helpful in learning more. Enjoy!
(Source: multisiteismultiplying)
“The twin brother of aggrievement is entitlement.” — Condoleezza Rice
“The past remembers better than it lived.” — Jackie Gleason
“The cross was a glorious outworking of the grace of God, by which the Father commissioned the Son to make full satisfaction so that sinners might be saved with no sacrifice of God’s justice.” — R. C. Sproul
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The Strategy of Jesus
There is no person in history who has impacted all of mankind more than Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus was deeply concerned for the continuation of His redemptive work after the close of His earthly existence, and His chosen method was a formation of a small band of committed friends. He did not form an army, establish a headquarters, or even write a book. What He did was collect a few very common men and women, inspire them with the sense of the spirit and vision, and build their lives into an intensive fellowship of affection, worship, and work.
One of the truly shocking passages of the gospel is that in which Jesus indicates that there is absolutely no substitute for the tiny, loving, caring, reconciling society. If this fails, he suggests, all is a failure; there is no other way. He told the little bedraggled fellowship that they were actually the salt of the earth and if the salt should fail there would be no adequate preservative at all. He was staking it all on one throw.
What we need is not intellectual theorizing or even preaching, but a demonstration. One of the most powerful ways of turning people’s loyalty to Christ is by loving others with the great love of God. We cannot revive faith by argument, but we might catch the imagination of puzzled men and women by an exhibition of a fellowship so intensely alive that every thoughtful person would be forced to respect it.
If there should emerge in our day such a fellowship, wholly without being artificial and free from the dead hand of the past, it would be an exciting event of momentous importance. A society of genuine loving friends, set free from self-seeking struggle for personal prestige and from all unreality, would be something unutterably priceless and powerful. A wise person would travel any distance to join it.
” — (excerpts from Elton Trueblood)