Getting Grace (1 of 7)
Series: The Image of the Invisible
Craig Smith
Colossians 1:1-6
I. Introduction
Hey, before we get into our message for today, let me just say that I know a lot of you are wondering if I’m going to say anything about the Supreme Court decision on Friday. And the answer is, yes, I am. What God has done is too good for us not to talk about, but before we do that, I want to set some context for that conversation.
So what I want to talk to you about today is getting grace. Not only in the sense of receiving grace, but also in the sense of understanding grace. Which is not easy to do. Grace might be the hardest concept in all of Christianity to understand, not because it’s complicated but because it’s just hard to believe. The idea that God’s acceptance doesn’t depend on our performance - which is the foundation of the Christian faith - just doesn’t make sense in a world where everything depends on performance. We get accepted to schools based on our academic performance. We get accepted to teams based on our athletic performance. We get accepted to companies based on our work performance. We live in a performance-based culture. And every other religion in the world follows that same pattern.
I was in Northern Africa a few weeks ago and it was the first time I’d ever been in a primarily Muslim country. And it was great. The people were warm and friendly. The food was amazing. And it was easily the most religious place I’ve ever been. Religion was everywhere from the way people dressed, to mosques every few hundred feet. Every evening the call to prayer rang out over the city and people came to the mosques to ear the Quran read and offer their prayers. It was incredibly religious...but at the same time, it was also hopeless. There was a sense of hopelessness over the whole country. And the more I learned about Islam, the more I understood that. Islam is not a religion of hope...because it’s not a religion of grace...it’s a religi ...
Series: The Image of the Invisible
Craig Smith
Colossians 1:1-6
I. Introduction
Hey, before we get into our message for today, let me just say that I know a lot of you are wondering if I’m going to say anything about the Supreme Court decision on Friday. And the answer is, yes, I am. What God has done is too good for us not to talk about, but before we do that, I want to set some context for that conversation.
So what I want to talk to you about today is getting grace. Not only in the sense of receiving grace, but also in the sense of understanding grace. Which is not easy to do. Grace might be the hardest concept in all of Christianity to understand, not because it’s complicated but because it’s just hard to believe. The idea that God’s acceptance doesn’t depend on our performance - which is the foundation of the Christian faith - just doesn’t make sense in a world where everything depends on performance. We get accepted to schools based on our academic performance. We get accepted to teams based on our athletic performance. We get accepted to companies based on our work performance. We live in a performance-based culture. And every other religion in the world follows that same pattern.
I was in Northern Africa a few weeks ago and it was the first time I’d ever been in a primarily Muslim country. And it was great. The people were warm and friendly. The food was amazing. And it was easily the most religious place I’ve ever been. Religion was everywhere from the way people dressed, to mosques every few hundred feet. Every evening the call to prayer rang out over the city and people came to the mosques to ear the Quran read and offer their prayers. It was incredibly religious...but at the same time, it was also hopeless. There was a sense of hopelessness over the whole country. And the more I learned about Islam, the more I understood that. Islam is not a religion of hope...because it’s not a religion of grace...it’s a religi ...
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