Bible Study on Grace for Week 1 of Groups . . . GRACE – Study One Welcome to the first week in our Bible Study series on GRACE. When asked what grace is, a common answer offered is that grace is unmerited favor. That sounds simple enough. But when favor has been meted out to you most of your life based on your performance, you sometimes have trouble grasping what unmerited favor actually implies. As children we’re promised that if we’re good little boys and girls, we’ll find what we want under the Christmas tree. If we eat our vegetables we’ll get dessert. If we do well in high school we’ll get into a good college, and if we do well in college we’ll get a good job. And then once we get that good job, we’re promised great rewards once we exceed the company’s expectations. It has been impressed upon us time and time again that if we want good things to happen it was up to us to make them happen. We have been groomed to perform. But grace is what saved us. Remember? And what we need to realize, as well, is that grace is what is sustaining us still. Grace didn’t do its job at salvation and then leave us on our own to make our case before God, to craft our own righteousness. Diving In … Read Luke 18:10-14 In Sunday’s sermon, Nate took us to this same passage, the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. The Pharisee’s assessment of himself was pretty favorable, to say the least. He prayed as much as the law required, he fasted, and gave tithes – a stellar example of faithfully keeping the law. I think it’s safe to say that the Pharisee may have been having a very good day. As far as the Pharisee was concerned, God should have been pretty impressed. The tax collector, on the other hand, didn’t fare as well in his personal assessment of himself. As it turns out, the poor guy was a sinner and knew it. By his own admission, he needed help to even lift his head before Almighty God. I think you could say he was having a pretty bad day. But this is where the story gets interesting. Instead of being impressed with the Pharisee, Jesus found him wanting. And instead of shunning the tax collector as the Pharisee did, Jesus exalted him. Why? The Pharisee mistakenly thought he could accomplish his own righteousness, while the tax collector knew better. Discussion Questions: The Pharisees looked at the Law and concluded he was righteous. Why or why not was he right in doing so? (Hint: Romans 3:20) The Pharisees seems almost cartoon-like in his reasoning. Surely none of us would think that way. And yet, have you ever looked at your own failures and concluded that you were still “OK” because you hadn’t committed a really serious sin like murder. How is that fundamentally the same line of reasoning as the Pharisee’s? How dangerous is it to compare ourselves to others? How do you measure your own righteousness? How does recognition of our sinfulness impact our perspective on grace? 2. Connecting to Life … Most of us get the fact that we’re saved by grace. How can it be otherwise? The real issue for many of us is what role grace plays in our ongoing lives. For example, let’s assume you’ve had a bad day. You missed your quiet time, yelled at your spouse, and kicked the dog. At the end of the day an opportunity to share your faith with a co-worker presents itself. How do you respond? If your thought is, “I can’t witness for Christ today, I’ve really blown it”, what does that expose regarding your beliefs about God and how He relates to you? Isn’t that a performance mentality, albeit a spiritual one? Is grace really so quickly and easily absent in our lives? Sure, you’ve sinned but your actions still don’t cut you off from God. You are under grace. In fact, could you not quietly breathe a prayer thanking God that He is faithful, even when you are not? Indeed, isn’t grace is so large that you (or I) could even quietly ask God to forgive us for a poorly lived day and resolve to set things right? Would such a prayer be merely another work? Not if we prayed it on realizing that it was only grace that gave us the awareness of our sins, the radical availability of God to cleanse us, and the delight of God to use to share the Gospel with our waiting friend. Do you see it’s not about performance, even spiritual performance? II Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. Jerry Bridges – The Discipline of Grace “Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.” Discussion Questions: Have you ever felt that God was more likely to work through you on one of your good days? Have you ever felt that God was less likely to work through you on one of your bad days? How is grace the answer to such thinking? How can you have a heart-felt awareness of your sin and keep your fellowship with God intact? How do you avoid feelings of condemnation and still be sensitive to sin? Does grace mean that we can continue in sin? (Hint: Read Titus 2:11-15) 3. Consider This . . . It is true that once we are saved and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are able to do many things that please God. We can obey; we can witness; we can study God’s Word. We can resist gossip – and that alone ought to earn us extra points. We can even choose to tithe. Yes, we can do all those things through the power of the Holy Spirit. But doing all those things cannot earn you favor with God, nor can it entitle you to His favor. And doing none of them cannot jeopardize His favor. God’s grace is unmerited and free. It’s not about religious performance, no matter what the Pharisee would tell us. His grace will be in operation in your life whether you do everything right or can’t seem to do anything right. What an amazing truth! In the context of a typical family, it is not unusual for a child to do things for his parents for no other reason than because of the love that child has for them. The fistful of dandelions excitedly offered to Mom and the eagerness to get the right tool for Dad are the youthful expression of that child’s love for his parents. He may track in dirt along with the weeds, or hand his dad the wrong screwdriver, but he’s motivated by love – by the love he has received from them and by the love he carries in his heart for them. Likewise, as sons of God, our greatest and most enduring motivation to pursue a holy life, in spite of our imperfections, is the love we’ve received from God and the love we carry in our hearts for God. [2 Corinthians 5:14] Though we are not perfect in the flesh, we have been given the grace to love our Heavenly Father, know the joy of being in relationship with Our God who so loved us that He gave His Only Begotten Son for us that we might be saved. [John 3:16]
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 23:21:26 +0000
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