Saved by Grace

18 March 2015

Opening Prayer/Worship

Hymn: Amazing Grace

Theme: Christ, the Image of God

Topic: Saved by Grace

Reading: Numbers 21:4-9

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. ⁵The people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.’ ⁶Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. ⁷The people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lordto take away the serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people.⁸And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.’ ⁹So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

Introduction

Grace is unmerited favour. God’s grace runs even deeper than the foregoing, because according to Scripture while we are sinners, the Lord sent His Son to die for us, reconciling all people to Him.  However, for us to fully experience the grace of God, we need to believe in His Son Jesus Christ.  That is the basis for a relationship with God our Maker.  He loves us more than we will ever know, and genuinely wants the best for us, and that we will spend eternity with Him.  However, we doubt or misunderstand God, take His grace for granted or even reject Him, from time to time.  The good news is that regardless of our rebellious ways, God still loves us and wants us to be reconciled to Him.  No matter how far we have gone from the Lord, His loving arms are long enough to bring us back into His fold if we accept His grace through our faith in His Son Jesus Christ.  

Questions/Discussion

1. What is your understanding of the grace of God.  What makes it amazing?

Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

¹ O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
   for his steadfast love endures for ever.
² Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
   those he redeemed from trouble
³ and gathered in from the lands,
   from the east and from the west,
   from the north and from the south. 

¹⁷ Some were sick through their sinful ways,
   and because of their iniquities endured affliction;
¹⁸ they loathed any kind of food,
   and they drew near to the gates of death.
¹⁹ Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
   and he saved them from their distress;
²⁰ he sent out his word and healed them,
   and delivered them from destruction.
²¹ Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
   for his wonderful works to humankind.
²² And let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices,
   and tell of his deeds with songs of joy. 

Romans 8:31-39

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? ³²He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? ³³Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. ³⁵Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long;  we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’  ³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Ephesians 2:1-10

You were dead through the trespasses and sins ²in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. ³All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. ⁴But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us ⁵even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— ⁶and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. ⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— ⁹not the result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

2. What are the lessons for us in John 3:14-21 regarding the Grace of God?

John 3:14-21

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. ¹⁶ ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. ¹⁷ ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. ¹⁹And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. ²¹But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.’ 

3. Discuss some of the things that hinder us from experiencing the grace of God. How do we overcome them?

2 Chronicles 7:13-16

When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, ¹⁴if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. ¹⁵Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place. ¹⁶For now I have chosen and consecrated this house so that my name may be there for ever; my eyes and my heart will be there for all time.

Isaiah 59:1-15

See, the Lord’s hand is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.
² Rather, your iniquities have been barriers between you and your God,
and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
³ For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity;
your lips have spoken lies, your tongue mutters wickedness.
⁴ No one brings suit justly, no one goes to law honestly;
they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, conceiving mischief and begetting iniquity.
⁵ They hatch adders’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web;
whoever eats their eggs dies, and the crushed egg hatches out a viper.
⁶ Their webs cannot serve as clothing; they cannot cover themselves with what they make.
Their works are works of iniquity, and deeds of violence are in their hands.
⁷ Their feet run to evil, and they rush to shed innocent blood;
their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, desolation and destruction are in their highways.
⁸ The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths.
Their roads they have made crooked; no one who walks in them knows peace. 

⁹ Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us;
we wait for light, and lo! there is darkness; and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
¹⁰ We grope like the blind along a wall, groping like those who have no eyes;
we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among the vigorous as though we were dead.
¹¹ We all growl like bears; like doves we moan mournfully.
We wait for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.
¹² For our transgressions before you are many, and our sins testify against us.
Our transgressions indeed are with us, and we know our iniquities:
¹³ transgressing, and denying the Lord, and turning away from following our God,
talking oppression and revolt, conceiving lying words and uttering them from the heart.
¹⁴ Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands at a distance;
for truth stumbles in the public square, and uprightness cannot enter.
¹⁵ Truth is lacking, and whoever turns from evil is despoiled. 

The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.

Romans 6:1-14

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? ²By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? ³Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. ⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷For whoever has died is freed from sin. ⁸But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.¹⁰The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. ¹² Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. ¹³No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. ¹⁴For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Intercession/Worship

Conclusion

No matter how far we have gone from the Lord, His loving arms are long enough to bring us back into His fold if we accept His grace through our faith in His Son Jesus Christ.

Closing Prayer (Collect for Fourth Sunday in Lent)

Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world, evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.