Exploring the Mystery of Grace
10-19-2017
This Sunday, we'll be celebrating communion...which is always a highlight of our Sunday services. What a privilege to have the opportunity to corporately pause and remember the grace of God on display in sending his Son to die in the place of ruined sinners! As I've prepared for our gathering this week, I've been struck again by the mystery of Grace...the wonder of it all that Christ took our place as the substitutionary sacrifice, the propitiation, to satisfy the wrath of the Father. So many of the truths we hold so dear at Grace Church are endlessly amazing and full of mystery. These truths make us want to ask "Why" and "How" over and over like a little kid who doesn't understand. And the beautiful thing is, the more we learn, the more we're amazed at the mystery of Grace. The deeper in we go on this journey of "...grow[ing] in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ..." 2Peter 3:18 (ESV), the more mystery there is to see. Jonathan Edwards explained it like this:
"’Tis so not only in divine things but natural things. He that looks on a plant, or the parts of the bodies of animals, or any other works of nature, at a great distance where he has but an obscure sight of it, may see something in it wonderful and beyond his comprehension, but he that is nearer to it and views them narrowly indeed understands more about them, has a clearer and distinct sight of them, and yet the number of things that are wonderful and mysterious in them that appear to him are much more than before, and, if he views them with a microscope, the number of the wonders that he sees will be much increased still, but yet the microscope gives him more of a true knowledge concerning them."
So this weekend, as you prepare to come and worship the Lord, embrace the mystery of grace. Zoom in, come closer to them, and be more assured and more amazed by the grace of God poured out on you. And let's come on Sunday, ready to celebrate how amazing the grace and love of God is, that we should be his children.
Here are the songs we'll be singing this week.
This Is Amazing Grace
His Mercy is More
Grace and Peace
Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery
And here's a Spotify list of those songs so you can know them well and sing them loudly with us on Sunday!