Grace Community Church Sunday Morning Messages

Shepherds and Angels, ordinary men among magnificent heavenly hosts. This story is remarkable, the characters are unexpected, God’s plan of salvation and the way it is carried out by the creating and sustaining God is challenging for us to fully grasp. Still, we don’t have to grasp it completely in order to join with the shepherds and angels in singing praises to our worthy and mighty Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Prepare for th...

Every Advent we seek to spend time focusing in on the story of Jesus’ coming to help instill in us a heart postured towards Christ during the Christmas season. We’ve chosen the hymn ‘Joy to the World’ and pray that these well known verses will be our daily anthem.

The prophets in the Old Testament often wrote of the coming Messiah and the salvation He would bring. In our first week of Advent we will study Isaiah’s plea and prayer fo...

There is a difference between arguments that feed vanity and self-importance and arguments intended to edify and benefit the other. The former is what Paul refers to as foolish, unprofitable and useless. These we are to avoid and instead engage with those prone to divisiveness in such a way that these things stop. While we often mistake kindness to mean being non-confrontational, it is actually better understood as being *wisely* c...

Here we have the crux of our do good letter! Paul wants Titus to stress the reality of the gospel; that all of us were once far from God, foolish and enslaved. But by the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared – He saved us!! We too are challenged to devote ourselves to lives that reflect the power and beauty of this rescue – for we no longer need to live enslaved, deceived, or with malice or envy. We now have the power and m...

The reason for all that Paul has instructed thus far in his letter is found in this section. God’s grace and the gospel is the foundation upon which everything else stands. Memorizing these words allows us to keep them as our focus as we study Paul’s instructions for this Cretan church and the church today. All teaching, doctrine, and patterns of relating with one another must be built upon the good news of Jesus’ redemption.  

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In the context of this chapter, Paul is instructing the Christians in Crete on behavior that reflects Christ, not speaking into the right or wrongness of cultural or social practices. It’s not just what we know or what we say that helps others to know Christ, but how we live. Whatever circumstances we find ourselves in – by the power of the Holy Spirit – we can conduct ourselves with faithfulness and integrity.  

During our serm...

Jesus’ last words to the 11 remaining disciples was to “go and make disciples…baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded.” (Matt 28:18-20)

Chapter 2 of Paul’s letter reiterates this in his instructions that Titus teach sound doctrine within the context of relationships. Sound doctrine simply means teaching that aligns with all that Jesus taught and that promotes Christlikeness. Making disciples happens with...

For the early church, a lot of attention is given related to whether a believer in Christ needed to follow the laws given by Moses, including the law of circumcision. Acts 15, 1 Corinthians 7, Galatians 3, 5-6, Ephesians 2, Philippians 3, and Colossians 2 all address this subject.  While we may not find ourselves tempted to follow the laws of Moses, legalism can be a real struggle in the church today, causing harm to whole families...

The point Paul makes is that to be a leader and shepherd over the church of God, one’s character and lifestyle must reflect Christ. This goes beyond a leader’s skillset, ability to teach, preach, serve or give. Paul talks about demonstrating Christlike character related to finances, family, physical health and spiritual maturity. These godly leaders are to build their lives on the solid foundation of the Word of God and the Grace f...

Titus was a Greek who had become a Christian through Paul’s teaching. He was left on the island of Crete to tend to the ministry there and establish the church with sound doctrine leading to transformed lives through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In Crete at that time, on the one hand they have false teachers deceiving the new Christians, on the other hand a cultural tendency toward moral laxity regarding sin – making this new church...

Practically speaking, how is the Holy Spirit at work in the world? What is He seeking to accomplish? There is both a diversity and unity to the working and gifting of the Holy Spirit. He gives God's people different skills and abilities, different ministries, and different activities to accomplish His will, but it is the same Spirit, the same Lord, and the same God who is doing the work within that diversity. And everything is sole...

What does it mean to "keep in step" with the Holy Spirit? How do we do it? How do we tell the difference between the Spirit and our flesh? What does it mean to have the mind of Christ?

These are tough questions to answer. Thankfull we are not left to guess or figure it out on our own. God's word gives us help and contrasts for us acts that come from our flesh with acts that come from the Holy Spirit living within us. 

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As He prepared His disciples for His upcoming death, Jesus said it was to their advantage that He was leaving - so that the Holy Spirit could be sent to them. There is specific work that the Holy Spirit does in the world and in the life of a believer. What is that work? How can we tell the difference between the Holy Spirit's work and a counterfeit? Join us on Sunday as we seek to better understand the works of the Holy Spirit.

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Grace's statement of faith says this about the Holy Spirit;

>>> We believe that the ministry of the Holy Spirit, as the third person of the Trinity, is to apply the saving work of Christ. He does this by bringing conviction of a person’s need for the forgiveness of Christ. He regenerates their heart and then permanently indwells them when they believe. His ongoing work is to guide, instruct, and empower the believer for godly li...

Jesus summons the multitude with His disciples and explains what it means to be His disciple. As with everything we devote ourselves to, there is a cost - there are things that must go to make room for our devotion. Let us start off the fall season pondering what it means for each of us to lose our lives for Jesus and the gospel, so that we gain that which is better - namely Christ!

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Paul tells us; 

“Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works.” ---Romans 4:4-6

Paul is referring to psalm 32 where David recounts the joy - the rel...

When teaching on Psalm 8, Spurgeon tells us; “The first and last verses are a sweet song of admiration, in which the excellence of the name of God is extolled. The intermediate verses are made up of holy wonder at the Lord's greatness in creation, and at his condescension towards man.”

In Matthew 21, Jesus quotes this psalm to the Pharisees, declaring to them once again His identity as God;

...when the chief priests and the teach...

This Psalm highlights God’s character understood through His Creation (vs. 1- 6) and through His Word (vs. 7-11). It then moves into understanding our great need for our Lord to help us (vs. 12-14), culminating with the hopeful reality we have with the Lord as our firm and steadfast Rock and Redeemer.    

There is a grandeur in nature that leaves us awe-struck, it shows us how big and powerful and creative God is. While God’s gl...