The Christ Church Wednesday Bible Study Group is studying grace. The title of the study is "What's So Amazing about Grace"
There could have been no grace whatsoever for us but for the fact that God the Son volunteered to take our place and redeem us: Grace... came through Jesus Christ.
For nearly four months we’ve been talking about grace and how we extend it to others by letting them be what God wants them to be. Grace gives other freedom and liberty in their relationship with Christ and others. We’ve talked about not killing the joy of the grace that God gave us in saving and sanctifying us without attaching any strings to it. We’ve talked about not being legalistic and requiring others to be like us in our worship and relationship with God for them to experience the freedom and liberty brings. In the last couple of sessions, we’ve talked about the inevitable disagreements that come with the freedom of grace and how to deal with them without becoming disagreeable ourselves. We’ve talked about letting go.
What we have not really addressed is how we, or if we accept the grace, we’ve been talking about extending to others. We sometimes even resist grace.
Question: Just how open and accepting are you when others extend unexpected and undeserved grace in your direction?
We are using the books, "The Grace Awakening: Believing In Grace Is One Thing. Living it is Another", and "The Grace Awakening Workbook" by Charles E. Swindoll. You can study along with us by clicking the above links or the images after the notes.
These are the notes to Session 15
A prayer asking God to help us extend grace:
Let's Pray:
God, You are perfectly kind. Thank You for Your lovingkindness that has been continuously shown to us. Thank You for Your help and Your encouragement to us when we have been undeserving. Would You please meet us in the areas of unkindness in our lives? Would You please help us to say no to our flesh and yes to the Spirit? We pray that the fruit of the Spirit's kindness would flourish. We ask that You would reveal ways we can grow.
Forgive us for not being kind to the people around us, for not being kind to ourselves even, and for neglecting this powerful way of living that honors You and blesses others. Remind us how to love well by being kind.
God, we know true kindness is not indifference and tolerance but sharing the truth in love. Help us to present hard truths when needed in compassionate ways with gracious words. We know that we all fall short of Your glory, and we pray for Your eyes in moments of difficult conversations to be able to communicate lovingly. For those who we disagree with, help us be kind. For those who we do not know, help us be kind. For those who we are closest with who see our worst, help us be kind. Lord, we cannot do this on our own; we need Your help.
Lord, You say in Galatians 6:9-10, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” Part of showing kindness and living out this fruit of the Spirit is extending forgiveness to others. Would You please enable us to have softened hearts to show kindness to others when they let us down or hurt us? We have been
forgiven so many times over by You, Jesus; help us to remember that as we grow in forgiving others.
We pray for kindness to young people. So often, it is easy to separate ourselves from children. Please help us to model Your love in the way we talk and act towards the least of these. Remind us that we have a ministry opportunity to point them to you by the kindness we show to them. Please give them insight into Your saving love through the ways that we treat them. Remove any temptation to be short-tempered as they are learning and growing. Take away any unkind thoughts or words that we are tempted to think or say to young people. Give us hearts for them as You have for them.
We ask lastly that You would help us to show kindness to those who are not kind to us. To those who hate us or treat us poorly, give us strength. Reveal ways that we can show genuine kindness by Your Holy Spirit. May the ways that we love them point to Your ultimate sacrifice for them. We pray that they would see You through our kindness because it is not natural; it is only from God.
Thank You for the gift to be kind. Thank You for the beauty of showing love and care for others. We pray that we would represent Your name well today and always. Amen.
First, marriage requires mutual unselfishness.
Marriage means a lifelong commitment.
Marriage includes times of trouble (troubles are inevitable)
Grace releases and affirms. It doesn’t smother.
• Grace values the dignity of individuals. It doesn’t destroy.
• Grace supports and encourages. It isn’t jealous or suspicious.
1 Peter 3:7 NIV Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.
- Mutual equality (fellow)
- Mutual dignity (heir )
- Mutual humility (grace)
- Mutual destiny (life)
Generous Giving
First, it helps us keep a healthy balance. “But just as you abound in everything, in faith and utterance and knowledge and in all earnestness and in the love we inspired in you, see that you abound in this gracious work also” (2 Cor. 8:7).
The second reason that giving is addictive is that in giving we model the same grace of Jesus Christ.
Third, giving by grace is addictive because in doing so we counteract selfishness and covetousness.
You can’t help but be generous when grace consumes you. “Now this I say, he who sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly; and he who sows bountifully shall also reap bountifully” (2 Cor. 9:6).
Accepting Grace
For the past nearly four months we’ve been talking about grace and how we extend it to others by letting them be what God wants them to be. Grace gives other freedom and liberty in their relationship with Christ and others. We’ve talked about not killing the joy of the grace that God gave us in saving and sanctifying us without attaching any strings to it. We’ve talked about not being legalistic and requiring others to be like us in our worship and relationship with God for them to experience the freedom and liberty brings. In the last couple of sessions, we’ve talked about the inevitable disagreements that come with the freedom of grace and how to deal with them without becoming disagreeable ourselves. We’ve talked about letting go.
What we have not really addressed is how we, or if we accept the grace we’ve been talking about extending. We sometimes even resist grace.
Question: Just how open and accepting are you when others extend unexpected and undeserved grace in your direction?
We even struggle with unconditionally accepting God’s grace that’s why we are legalistic sometimes. We don’t understand how a holy God can just forgive just because you believe. We can’t get our heads around that. If we feel that way about God’s grace, then no wonder we have a problem accepting grace from other human beings. When we reject or don’t accept grace then we are operating in pride.
Guilt and Shame are grace killers and keep us from accepting or even cause us to resist grace.
Let's look at Moses and how he resisted God's grace.
Let's first agree that Moses miraculously became a prince of Egypt and because he obviously knew he was Hebrew took it upon himself to do something about their condition.
Exodus 2:11-15 NIV One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?” The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.” When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.
Moses thought it was all over for him but God by His grace wanted to use Moses and granted Him grace by calling on him to free His people but Moses rejected God’s grace by resisting, because of his guilt and shame in taking matters into his own hands.
So when God told Moses that he wanted to use him he resisted but saying he wasn’t worthy.
Exodus 3:10-11 NIV So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
We, like Moses, convince ourselves we’re not useful, and we think we cannot measure up. You may think, I must be somebody special to be useful or important to God. But the fact is He does great things through nobodies. He does some of His best work with those who think they are finished and, humanly speaking, should be.
If you are God’s child because of His grace He will be with you and often like He did with Moses, He will give you a sign to reassure you.
Exodus 3:12 NIV And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”
Moses still resisted by saying “what if”
Exodus 3:13 NIV Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”
You know the story goes on and on until Moses says send somebody else.
Exodus 4:13 NIV But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”
God deals with this last objection to accepting God’s grace to empower Moses to lead His people by saying your brother is on the way.
Exodus 4:14-17 NIV Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses and he said, “What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you. You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him. But take this staff in your hand so you can perform the signs with it.”
So, God deals with all of Moses objections which he raised because of his guilt and shame resulting from his murder of the Egyptian trying to handle things his own way 40 years before. Moses finally accepts God’s empowering grace.
Here’s the point.
We resist grace when our guilt and shame have not been dealt with. Most folks, it seems, are better acquainted with their guilt and shame than with their God. Grace nullifies guilt. It renders shame powerless. We often use our guilt and shame as a way to stay away from God’s best.
The last person on earth we forgive is ourselves. We will forgive an enemy easier and quicker than we will forgive ourselves. But not until we have fully accepted the forgiveness of the Lord God will we be ready to let His grace awaken in us.
Any person being greatly used of God is a recipient of God’s great grace. No one deserves it. No one is adequate for the blessings that he or she is receiving. But God in His sovereign mercy has chosen to give great grace to an imperfect, ill-deserving individual . . . in spite of and in greater measure than his or her guilt and shame.
Samson is an example. He was a strong man simply because of the grace of God. His parents prayed the God’s grace would be on their child, and God answered.
Judges 13:2-5, 25 NIV A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was childless, unable to give birth. The angel of the Lord appeared to her and said, “You are barren and childless, but you are going to become pregnant and give birth to a son. Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean. You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines.” and the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him while he was in Mahaneh Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.
Exactly as God predicted, he began to deliver Israel from the Philistines. The problem with Samson, as you may already know, is that he refused to control his lust, resulting in the collapse of his world. We know the story. After the Philistines got one of his women to get him to tell the secret of his great strength he was captured and put in a place where he was ridiculed.
Judges 16:17-22 NIV So he told her everything. “No razor has ever been used on my head,” he said, “because I have been a Nazirite dedicated to God from my mother’s womb. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.” When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, “Come back once more; he has told me everything.” So the rulers of the Philistines returned with the silver in their hands. After putting him to sleep on her lap, she called for someone to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him. And his strength left him. Then she called, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him. Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding grain in the prison. But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.
We would say he deserved what happened to him but God never runs out of grace. His strength returned, so did his determination to fulfill the mandate given by God at his birth: to deliver Israel from the Philistines.
Judges 16:25-28 NIV While they were in high spirits, they shouted, “Bring out Samson to entertain us.” So they called Samson out of the prison, and he performed for them. When they stood him among the pillars, Samson said to the servant who held his hand, “Put me where I can feel the pillars that support the temple, so that I may lean against them.” Now the temple was crowded with men and women; all the rulers of the Philistines were there, and on the roof were about three thousand men and women watching Samson perform. Then Samson prayed to the Lord, “Sovereign Lord, remember me. Please, God, strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.”
We accept grace when we release all our expectations.
Only when we release them are we ready to accept the grace God offers.
Only when we release them are we ready to accept the grace God offers.
John 13:1-6 NIV It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
Our Lord had stooped and reached out in grace, but Peter dogmatically refused. In rather emphatic Greek, John records Peter’s statement of independence: “By no means will You wash my feet unto the age.” Today we’d say, “No way, Lord . . . never!” Here we find a third principle about receiving grace:
We resist grace when our pride is still paramount.
Grace reaches, pride resists. Each time grace offers, pride refuses. Yes, each and every time, pride leaves no room for grace. Awakening grace and a proudheart cannot coexist.
Do you look for subtle ways to pay back when someone gives to you? Or can you simply and graciously say, “Thankyou”? Pride holds us back and conveys a false image that says, “I am without need.” The truth is that all of us are needy people; it’s just that some of us hide it better than others.
Moses resisted grace because his guilt was not sufficiently dealt with. Second, Samson accepted grace because his expectations had been done away with. Third, Peter resisted grace because his pride was still paramount.
Now let's look at Paul. He accepted grace because he no longer put confidence in the flesh.
In the eyes of the world, he was impressive, but he realized that without God's grace he was nothing.
hilippians 3:4-12 NIV though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
We accept grace when we no longer put confidence in the flesh.
First, it takes an admission of humanity. In other words, an attitude that says in authentic honesty, “I am only human—I’mno prima donna, I can’t walk on water, and I won’t try to impress you.” Grace awakens within folks like that.
Second, it takes an attitude of humility. Nothing is so welcomed by grace as true humility, which is nothing more than a realization of one’s standing before God and a willingness to be cut down to size in order for Him to be exalted and glorified. Humility has learned the hard way that no person can operate in the flesh and produce any good thing, so it prevents us from trying.
Bible Study Audio
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