We are a few weeks into a new series on “Becoming Like Family”. This is important as members of our online community begin to share the daily challenges with friends, and we begin to gather our larger community together as one church community. We won’t be bound together by a building, or institution, but rather by five commitments. We’ve talked about commitment to common learning goals, connectedness as a community of small and large groups, connectedness to God in worship, and now this week, we come to grace in lifestyle.
Those who’ve decided to follow Jesus, and walk in his path, are going to have to choose this over other paths. These choices impact many areas of life. That should be no surprise, but sometimes it’s hard to swallow. We can recoil from rules, or worry about restricted freedom.
We’ll explore that this week, but it starts with understanding why we are asked to live by, and with, grace.
But what does grace mean?
There is a classic Seinfeld episode where Elaine is in a job interview, and the interviewer shares her admiration of Jackie O, who had “grace”. Elaine tries to say, “I think I have a little grace” but the interviewer snaps back, “You can’t have a little grace, you either have it or you don’t.” Elaine backpendals, “Alright, I have no grace. I don’t have grace, I don’t want grace. Hey, I don’t even say grace.”
You can see the confusion here – what does grace even mean? Is it poise and kindness? Is it a lovely name for an old lady that is finally making a comeback? Is it a prayer before a meal?
Question: What do you think of when you hear the word grace? What does it mean?
Reminder: Earlier in this series, we saw the importance of reading the Bible together in sync, so our new daily bible readings start today in our mobile app and web site.
Read the Bible in Sync Today
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My wife and I sometimes reminisce about our university days, a time in our life we both had closeknit groups of friends, all living close to one another, all dedicated to some common academic pursuits.
With so much more going on in our lives now, and living in so many places, we’ve maintained those friendships but not with the intensity of those early years.
Those are some of the same characteristics of the early Christians we’ve been studying this week, who spent time living in close proximity, united, but for a very different purpose: praying to begin their work of expanding the kingdom of God.
These were the early days, with the intensity and fervour that people are still talking about, and trying to replicate today.
Every church community today is meant to be patterned after this one, and that’s why we’ll explore this in detail over the next few months.
Not to say every aspect is to be copied…some things were simply cultural, or circumstantial. We have to differentiate those from the eternal aspects.
I think the first thing for us to consider is their dedication to prayer.
I know this is always a challenge for me – to be dedicated, and fervent in prayer like these first Christians were.
Yet I know that prayer always precedes any great move of God.
As we prepare for our community to take some big steps this fall, and start to meet together as this biblical community did, our small groups and individuals need to pay attention to prayer.
Challenge: Pray with your group for this upcoming series. Pray that God will unite you through common experiences, and send you out in mission to include others and help them follow Jesus too.
See you tomorrow, when we’ll spend some more time in prayer. See you then.
