February 18th 2018. Amazing Grace: Grace for Sin. Romans 5:15-21. We sing the hymn, but we may not often reflect on how amazing Grace is. The quality of grace should never become over familiar, rather it should continue to surprise us if we have a realistic understanding of how much we need it! And if we have received grace we should become a ‘gracious’ people. (By the way, one of my personal niggles is the way commonly these days people confuse the word gracious with graceful. I try to be gracious but I’m too clumsy to be graceful!). Download Discussion notes
February 25th 2018. Amazing Grace: Grace for suffering: 2 Corinthians 12:9. ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’. This is what the Lord said to Paul when Paul pleaded for his ‘thorn in the flesh’ to be taken away. How do we handle the idea of a God of Love giving us grace for suffering rather than removing it? Download Discussion notes
March 4th. Amazing Grace: Grace for living. Romans 11:6 Romans 12. Works and Grace are tensions in the Christian life and have been in Christian theology. Works stands for those ways of living that ultimately are about ‘earning’ salvation or favour from God. It’s not that these things are bad of course but they in themselves don’t ‘earn’ brownie points with God. The grace filled life however is not about not doing ‘good works’; rather these good works are the overflow of favour, not a means to find it. The actions of a disciple and the actions of a Pharisee may look identical. God looks at the heart. Download Discussion notes