Grace Continues Through the Church

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to your Daily Grace by Timothy Wilder Grace continues through the church [00:00:06] Speaker B: it's easy to think of grace as [00:00:08] Speaker A: something personal, something that meets us in [00:00:11] Speaker B: our sin, restores us in our failure, and brings us back into relationship with God. [00:00:17] Speaker A: And that's absolutely true. [00:00:19] Speaker B: But grace was never meant to stop with us. From the very beginning, God's plan has always been bigger than individual transformation. It has been about forming a people through whom his grace would continue to flow into the world after his resurrection. Jesus didn't just restore his followers, he sent them as the Father has sent me. I also send you. John 20:21 in that moment, grace became something not only received but carried. What they had experienced in Christ, they were now entrusted to share. This is the identity of the church. We are not a collection of individuals trying to hold on to grace for ourselves. We are a body through which grace moves. The same grace that forgave us, restored us, and gave us new life is now at work in us for the sake of others. As Paul writes, God reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. 2nd Corinthians 5:18. [00:01:25] Speaker A: That means the church is not called to stand at a distance from a [00:01:28] Speaker B: broken world, but to move toward it. [00:01:31] Speaker A: We are called to reflect the heart of Christ, to forgive as we have been forgiven, to love as we have been loved, and to extend the same [00:01:40] Speaker B: mercy we ourselves have received. [00:01:42] Speaker A: Be kind to one another, tender hearted, [00:01:45] Speaker B: forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Ephesians 4:32 this is how grace continues, [00:01:54] Speaker A: not as an abstract idea, but as a lived reality expressed through people who [00:01:59] Speaker B: have been changed by it, through acts [00:02:01] Speaker A: of compassion, through words of truth spoken in love, through lives that reflect the character of Jesus. The church at its best is not a place of performance or perfection, but a living expression of grace where the broken are welcomed, the the weary are restored, and the love of Christ is made visible. And this calling belongs to all of us, because grace didn't end when we [00:02:25] Speaker B: received, continues through us. [00:02:29] Speaker A: Thanks for listening. [00:02:31] Speaker B: If you are being fed and or [00:02:33] Speaker A: uplifted by these messages, we encourage you [00:02:35] Speaker B: to like, comment, share and subscribe. These things help us spread the message of grace.