Grace Community Church Listen Again

Productivity has a place. But it’s defined by measurable goals. Fruitfulness is different. Jesus reminds us our fruitfulness is not about what we do but who we are and who he is. When we live by the Spirit, we bear fruit. So what does fruitfulness look like for you in this season?

How do we relate to God and other people? The only person who can truly know us is our Father in heaven. When other people don’t fully understand the road you’re walking on, He does. God doesn’t skip over the parts of our life that are hard. He invites us into a place where you can be raw and real. Lila explores some thoughts around how we relate to God and how we relate to other people.

When Paul describes love, the first attribute he lists is ​“patience”. Impatience lies within us. And if you’re a product of the West, impatience is particularly prevalent. If it’s not nipped in the bud, generations will reap the cost of instant gratification. We’ve also become an instant disappointment. As a result, we’ve become averse to suffering. To suffer with, requires patience, to slow down. Our instant reaction is to fix: to find a Bible verse, to have the solution. Compassion requires patience. It requires us to suffer alongside someone.

What does ​“home” mean to you? As we live as salt and light we look to help those in our neighbourhood feel at home. You don’t have to spend a long time on social media to see that our world is broken and fragmented. What we can bring is reconciliation and stability. Stability means to stand and endure. In a culture (even within church) to shop around, Jesus contrasts, by dwelling in the community he was in. What can Leslie Knope of Parks and Recreation teach us about community?

We’re all want to be loved, missed and needed. We explore 4 stories and 4 spaces of belonging. These misfits in the stories who didn’t feel they belong found belonging in the Father.

We are called to create a space where people can come just as they are. Maybe, like Amy, over lockdown, you’ve gained a new appreciation for home and the nearby community. A lot of the early church consisted of gatherings in homes. Homes are where people can come as they are, and be accepted unconditionally. Although COVID restrictions mean having people round at our house isn’t always possible, we can still ask the question: can we carry the heart of a homemaker with us as we meet people where they are?

For the people who are watching my life, what is the reputation of God? The Greek for ​“glory” is δόξα (doxa), which means ​“good opinion”. If we want to give the right opinion, in seeing the life of Jesus, we give him glory by laying our lives down.

Four stories where faith and expectations are rewarded. The paralysed man, as told in Luke 5, who was lowered from the roof. His friends hoped Jesus would be able to change his situation. The woman, who was described in Luke 8 as being subject to bleeding for twelve years. Having been through so much suffering, shame and low self-worth, she just wanted to get close to Jesus. In Mark 10, blind Bartimaeus spent his days on a roadside outside Jericho begging. When he heard Jesus, he cried out causing a commotion, but his faith healed him. Finally, in Acts 3, Peter and John encounter a lame man, who sat outside a place of worship each day begging. Expecting money, Peter and John explained they had no coins. Instead they had something better. Life changing.

In this advent season, we learn that Jesus is Light, but in Matthew 5, Jesus says to his people: you are light. Is this a different light? No. We are conduits of the same light.

Transformation means renewing and restoring. It also means giving away that renewal and restoration to other people. What does transformation look like? How does it happen?

We cannot be the ​“salt of the earth” if we separate ourselves from the decay. In warm climates, salt did much more than flavour the food. It was a natural preservative. This raises the question as Jesus uses it to describe his Kingdom: did Jesus come to preserve traditions or morals, or is it something else? Salt needs to be connected with the thing it’s preserving. Could it be that we are to get involved in the mess and dirt of this world in order to be effective? Also, salt should enhance the flavour – not overpower it. Is our job to enrich what God has presented to us, rather than replace it?

Sometimes we can claim we’re being persecuted, when I’m reality it’s not persecution at all. Following Jesus puts love at the centre of everything we do. When we love as Jesus does, and refuse to take a "side", we are risking being hated by both sides. The love of Jesus includes. There is no ​“them”.

The way of peacemaking is incredibly costly. The Hebrew word shalom (שָׁלוֹם) is so much more than what we understand it to be. We can reduce it to an internal state of wellbeing, or lack of conflict. Rather it’s a state of wholeness. Not just in an individual level. Humanity has consistently shown a strange obsession with violence. Jesus, however, shows us the way of ​“peace”. He’s constantly revealing another way.

Purity is not about what we do. It’s not about the external. It’s also not without doing something about what you’re thinking and praying. We need to reconcile our inside with our outside. When our actions and our thinking are different we have a divided heart.

Are we too focused on judgement and being right, that we’ve forgotten how to be merciful? James 2:13 says people who judge without mercy, will be shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgement. We are in no position to ever look down on someone else.

Things are not ok. Families are separated, the poor are continuing to be oppressed, and the earth is groaning. But Jesus says ​“blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness”. This can also mean ​“justice”. The Kingdom is a mix between the ​“already” and the ​“not yet”. In this instance, the ​“not yet” is the fact that things are not as they should be. But, the promise is that those who hunger for things to be made right, will be satisfied.

For us to understand this Beatitude, it's important to understand who Jesus is referring to. Meekness isn't something that should be pursued. It's meekness that happens to a person. The "meek" Matthew refers to are the Others. The oppressed, the marginalised, the people born into the "wrong" families. But, for these people, Jesus has good news. For those of us who are privileged, this is a confrontation to our position and a challenge to see others differently.

In our fast-moving society, it’s possible we have lost the art of grief and lamenting. Maybe it’s even seen as a lack of faith. In Isaiah 61, the people mourn because they’ve been exiled from all that they’ve known and loved. Jesus echoes the words of Isaiah — that there is comfort for those who mourn.

In Luke 18, Jesus tells the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, which challenges the self-righteous. And as we look at the first of the Beatitudes, we are challenged that "our brokenness is not something to hide, it's the price of admission". If you're broken, you belong!

It's our first Sunday back together physically since lockdown began. We're beginning this season with a series on the famous passage from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5: the "Beatitudes".