Grace Church Teaching

Body Matters

Jesus, both fully God and fully man, is the victorious and perfect atonement for our sins. Because Jesus became and remains fully man, He has the unique ability to join two worlds and to break the power of sin and death through the shedding of His own blood. As God, Jesus has access to the real Holy of Holies; as man, He is eligible to die to pay for our sins. He has come perfectly and gloriously to both comfort us through the experience of death and ease our fears because He has already experienced and defeated it.

In the opening verses of Hebrews 2, the author warns Christians of their ongoing responsibility to hold close the message of Jesus. He warns that if we do not continually process the hope of the gospel, we may drift away from the Truth. We must recognize the reality of our own sin to truly see the good news of Jesus.

The letter to the Hebrews should serve as a warning and a challenge for us to know the Word and to know Jesus. The author of Hebrews counted on the biblical knowledge of his audience in order to draw attention to the supremacy of Jesus—to once again captivate their eyes and hearts with Jesus, challenge them, and open the doors for them to experience His greatness. Despite all of the worldly things that may consume our hearts, Jesus is greater.

This past Sunday, Matt and Bill laid out We Choose, our two-year ministry plan based on our best understanding of how God is directing us. It is a strategic way to budget, allocate, raise, and spend resources in a manner that will help us accomplish the mission God has given us.

As believers, we view our resources differently than the world. The way we steward what we have reflects our faith—it reveals what we value. Jesus said, “Where your money is, there your heart will be also.” (Luke 12:34) As a church, we want to be a people who give courageously, storing up for ourselves treasure in heaven because we have faith in the One who provides and gives generously to us.

Jesus’ gift of salvation was the greatest act of sacrifice, generosity, and obedience. Why, then, do we trust God with our souls and not always with our resources? God gives us instructions to choose between the weak god of money and Him— the faithful Provider. We cannot serve both. We have to evaluate our hearts and recognize that generosity is more than the amount given—it exposes the condition of our hearts.

In 2 Corinthians 8, Paul instructs Corinth to mimic the generous hearts of the Macedonian church. Because their first action was giving themselves completely away to God, they considered it a privilege to worship with their money. In giving themselves away, they were able to give generously and eagerly because Christ had given generously to them. We should be able to view our money in the same light as the Macedonians viewed their resources—as a call to worship rather than a resource to be worshipped.

Jeremiah 17: 5-8 invites us to evaluate what we ultimately put our trust in and what we naturally rely on. In this passage, there are two kinds of trees: one that is struggling and one that is flourishing. The difference between the trees is not their circumstances, but instead where they have placed their roots. In the same way for us, it is not our circumstances that should dictate our joy and growth, but rather where we plant the roots of our heart.

Pursuit of God

Spiritual Disciplines

Anxiety stems from the unknown and can consume our everyday thoughts and life. However, anxious thoughts can be fought and won with what we do know: God sacrificed His only Son on our behalf. Through God’s reassurance to Abraham in Genesis 15 and God’s truth in Scripture, we learn that the hope of the gospel conquers our anxiety and any uncertainty of our future. Although we may feel unsure of our immediate future, we do know our eternal future and have the ability to live in that hope on Earth.

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