We sing about it, write poems about it. I’ll go out on a limb and say that every song, book, movie, friendship, and poem is a testimony to our pursuit of this one thing … LOVE. Our desire to love, and be loved, is at the root of most everything we do.
We are in the third of our seven-week sermon series “Why Church?” taking seriously the question, why do we need God’s Church to find true love? While they may not phrase it this way, many who reject the church believe they don’t need church to find true love, “I can find love on my own.” This morning we are looking for a good answer to this objection.
Making a commitment to a Church is not for the timid, especially in our current day and age. Today, a large percentage of Americans still self-identify as Christian, but more and more believe the church is unnecessary. Some even see the Christian Church as a hinderance to social progress, a place to be avoided, a place against love. Those are conclusions easily reached when we misunderstand God’s intentions for the Church. Is the Church, including Grace of Christ, imperfect? Yes! But the Church, Grace too, is still God’s chosen organism to introduce Jesus to a world desperate for real truth, real love, genuine compassion, and honest relationships.
This series is not an act of desperation. It is not an attempt to beg, badger, or argue, in order to convince people to come back to, or begin to attend, church. It is meant to be an intentional, Bible-based, communication of God’s desire for the church and our part in it. The heart and soul of Christian faith, and the Church, is not dogmas, disciplines, and demands. The heart and soul is God’s undeserved, and unending, love. Once we believe that our whole life and world begins to change, and our love for others grows too.
We Love Best Together (9AM)
October 2, 2022 • Curt McFarland • 1 Corinthians 12:31, 1 Corinthians 13
We Serve Best Together In Ministry (11AM)
October 30, 2022 • Curt McFarland • 1 Corinthians 12:5–31
Each Sunday for the past two months we have been asking the question “Why? Why Church?” Do we really need the church to know about God, to worship God, to pray, to serve, to love? Aren’t there better, or at least equally effective, ways to do all of the above on our own terms, when, where, and how we want? Why Church? What has been stated repeatedly these seven weeks is that the Church was not founded by a bunch of eager, starry-eyed, religious fanatics. The origin of the Church is supernatural. The Church was established, chartered, initiated, by God Himself. When God set the Church in motion His priorities were not walls, windows, carpets, and lighting. His priority, then and now, has always been people, real people, including you and me. We are God’s priority, God’s Church. In our passage from the Bible this morning it is clear that each of us, without exception, has been blessed and gifted by God so that we can be a blessing and gift to others. Every Christian, every single Christian, has a God-given mission (a place to serve others) in their community, and a God-given ministry (a place to serve others) inside their church. We need the Church to discover and engage, in the right ways and for the right reasons, the passions and abilities given to us by God. If we reject the Church even our best intentions and efforts get messed up. This Sunday is also the first of four Stewardship Sundays. As we ask “Why?” we also ask “How?” How can we best steward (take care) of God’s Church here at Grace. These are Big Questions, beautiful questions, challenging questions, questions that lead us closer to God and to each other.
We Serve Best Together In Ministry (9AM)
October 30, 2022 • Curt McFarland • 1 Corinthians 12:5–31
Each Sunday for the past two months we have been asking the question “Why? Why Church?” Do we really need the church to know about God, to worship God, to pray, to serve, to love? Aren’t there better, or at least equally effective, ways to do all of the above on our own terms, when, where, and how we want? Why Church? What has been stated repeatedly these seven weeks is that the Church was not founded by a bunch of eager, starry-eyed, religious fanatics. The origin of the Church is supernatural. The Church was established, chartered, initiated, by God Himself. When God set the Church in motion His priorities were not walls, windows, carpets, and lighting. His priority, then and now, has always been people, real people, including you and me. We are God’s priority, God’s Church. In our passage from the Bible this morning it is clear that each of us, without exception, has been blessed and gifted by God so that we can be a blessing and gift to others. Every Christian, every single Christian, has a God-given mission (a place to serve others) in their community, and a God-given ministry (a place to serve others) inside their church. We need the Church to discover and engage, in the right ways and for the right reasons, the passions and abilities given to us by God. If we reject the Church even our best intentions and efforts get messed up. This Sunday is also the first of four Stewardship Sundays. As we ask “Why?” we also ask “How?” How can we best steward (take care) of God’s Church here at Grace. These are Big Questions, beautiful questions, challenging questions, questions that lead us closer to God and to each other.
We Serve Best Together In Mission (11AM)
October 23, 2022 • Alex Rule • 2 Corinthians 7:13, 2 Corinthians 8:15
Many of us have learned as children to love God, to be grateful, to ask for things before taking them, to say please and thank you, as well as to respect and serve people, and to have compassion and be generous with others in need. Paul is comforted that the Corinthians wanted to reform their lives and ways. He is please not only because of their good resolve but also because of their good actions by which they were correcting their former practice he even said that after he had boasted about the Corinthians to Titus, they had not let him down. Paul offered the Macedonians the highest praise, for even in the poverty they give generously of what they have. They wanted to offer even more than their strength allow by giving themselves wholly to God first, and then to their fellow believers with exceptional generosity of their own free will, with this the Macedonians demonstrated their sincere desire to receive a spirit gift. Paul sent Titus to the Corinthians to encourage them to imitate the Macedonians.