Past, Present and Future Grace

Grace: In it’s simplest terms, grace is God giving us what we don’t deserve. Grace is God is God blessing us with His favor. For it is grace that flows out of the abundance of His love for us. As we reflect on the occasion of our second anniversary as Rock Springs Church, we are going to look at God’s grace to us in three ways. First, its my privilege to take us on a journey on what God has done through our second year together, hence, “past grace.” Then we will look at what God is doing in and through our people with what I want to call “present grace.” Then we’ll wrap up our celebration together by looking ahead by taking a look at some future grace that hopefully God has in store for us in the days and months ahead. So, lets get started celebrating by looking at

Past Grace: Great are the works of the LORD; they are pondered by all who delight in them. Psalm 111:2 This past year God has done some great works among us. One of the more encouraging things was seeing God move from 2 to 8 Journey Groups. It was especially encouraging to see approximately 60 people participating in journey groups this past year.

Another encouraging note was to see how God was bringing people to us. In April we celebrated Resurrection Sunday with our largest attendance on a Sunday morning of 175. But over the winter months last year we saw our average attendance increase to 110 people per Sunday. And really we just saw God continue to bring people throughout the Spring, Summer and Fall, so that our average weekly attendance on Sunday mornings increased by 30% over the previous year.

Last year we also became Incorporated as a Church, and moved from a Church Plant, to the next stage, for what is known in Church Plant circles as a Developing Church

Also in April we had our second baptism celebration, where we heard the faith stories of four people, one of whom was the grandson of Lou and Betty. To hear how God is changing lives and having people follow him was so encouraging.

In May, we had an all Church Barbecue and sing-a-long at the home of Rick and Donna Shepherd.

In July we adopted a new Church Plant to support with prayer and finances: Regeneration Church which launched services at Easter is located in Ocean Beach, California (San Diego) and is Pastored by Mark Porter. Mark came and spoke on Sunday in August so our people could get to know him and get a sense of what God is up to in Ocean Beach.

In July we also had fun connecting at our first ever Pool Party at the home of Rick and Becky Helton. One thing I can say about our church, we do like to have fun!

In August we had our Third baptism celebration as a Church, with the baptism of Debbie Hatcher. And one of the more powerful moments was when everyone there laid hands on Debbie in a prayer for her healing.

In October, it was so cool to see so many of our women who led or participated in the Woman’s Prayer Retreat. As a result, we have an incredible praying church with a significant participation on our prayer team.

Also in October we fleshed out Our Place in God’s Story, by working through the Great Commission and how that plays out in our Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the Ends of the Earth. Two specific highlights out of this is our now ongoing commitment to support Regeneration Church as part of our Samaria Strategy, and our commitment to helping Santa Cruz Valley Food Bank. With our special offering in October, we were able to fill their freezers with beef and chicken, provide 100 Turkeys and groceries for food baskets at Thanksgiving, and 100 Hams and groceries for food baskets at Christmas. We have already built quite a team who are purchasing groceries and helping out each month at the Food Bank.

As far as our Ends of the Earth Strategy goes, we gave 5% of our offerings to what is called The Great Commission Fund, which goes to support missionaries in countries that have a 1 to 2 percent gospel witness. As a result we gave over $7,500 to support world missions this past year.

In November our church gave, boxed, and helped ship over 700 Operation Christmas Child Shoe Boxes to help spread the joy of Christ and bring the gospel to over 700 children!

Finally we finished out the year celebrating the birth of our Savior with our first Christmas Eve Service here at Robson Ranch. All I can say in response to all what God has done in and through His people who call Rock Springs Church their home is: Great are the works of the LORD; they are pondered by all who delight in them. If you are like me, I’m in a bit of awe of how God has blessed us to be a blessing with one another and with our world in some great ways this past year. I’m so grateful for the love of God that is alive amongst us. I am so thankful for all who serve from setting out signs, to ushering, to welcoming people each week, to setting up communion, to those leading us in worship, running the multi-media, guiding Journey Groups, our amazing prayer team, and for your overall enthusiasm and generosity towards all that God wants to do in and through us. As we get ready to take our offering today, lets’ just give thanks to God for all He has done through us.

Now as we come to the second part of our focus on God’s grace to us, we want to focus on His present grace to us

2.Present Grace: In Psalm 115:1 the psalmist proclaims: Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.

Our world like to shell out accolades and rewards to individual achievement and great acts of courage. It seems like this year we have all kinds of award shows as well that put the spotlight on people and raise them to some kind of an elite status in our world. But that’s not the way of God’s people. One of the marks of God’s people is humility and the desire to give credit and recognition to God – to give glory to God. Hence the psalmist saying, Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.

So this is the time in our worship today, where we get to do that through sharing with an open mic.   This is our opportunity for giving glory to God for His love and faithfulness through the people of Rock Springs Church. Perhaps its something as simple as expressing your thanks for those who prayed for you in a difficult time, or how God changed a heart, redeemed a relationship, encouraged your faith, answered a prayer, or worked a miracle. This is your time to praise Him or give God the glory for His love or faithfulness!

What does God want to do in the future? How does He want to continue to bless us and form us as His people? That’s how we want to end this day, by looking at

3. Future Grace And to do that, let’s look together at what God did at the forming of His Church in Acts 2:42-47 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common.  They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

I just want to make a couple of observations from this text as we look to how God wants to help us become more and more the people He has called us to be. The first observation is this: The early Christians were fully devoted to four things: to learning the apostles teaching, to the fellowship of the Spirit, to the breaking of bread and prayer. What does it mean to be devoted in the sense that these first Christians were devoted? It means to be “steadfast” “strong” “persistent” “constant.” They kept at these four things! But there’s another aspect to their devotion. When you are devoted in this way, you have a deep-seated passion. You’ve heard people say, “Well, his heart is not into it.” Well, all their hearts were all in! And as a result you could say that each of these four activities became passions of the heart – or habits of the heart.

So what were they passionate about? First, we see that They were passionate about learning the apostles teaching. They were committed to learning the way, the truth and life of Jesus. Now, we’ve made this a focus of our Sunday mornings these past two months as we’ve been looking at the Hero of our Story: Jesus.   But the way we want to help every person learn to follow Jesus is through our Journey Groups. The idea is to connect three or four people of the same gender and have them help each other follow through on what they are learning from Jesus. Christianity is not a lone ranger religion.   God has put us together in His church and calls us to a mutual accountability in following Jesus.   I need you to grow. You need me to grow. That’s His design.   Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it this way: “The Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself, he cannot help himself without belying the truth.”  We need each other.

The writer of Hebrews put it this way: See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. Hebrews 3:12-13 It’s pretty hard to daily encourage a brother or sister in Christ if you only ever see them on a Sunday morning. That’s why we are committed to helping you connect with one another in a Journey Group.

This is the future grace God calls us to: to have a few fellow travelers to follow Jesus with. To learn together, pray together and share together as Jesus begins to reveal to you the life He has for you.   To have a friend who encourages you and helps you as you are learning to live and love like Jesus. To have friends to ask your questions with and who will help you discover answers. And then maybe for the first time in your life really learn what it looks like to follow Jesus in everyday life. To come alive in your faith, and help others along the way. Isn’t that something you could get passionate about?

That’s why over the next few weeks we are asking God to help us grow our Journey Groups. Right now we have four men’s and three women’s groups, but we need at least two more men’s and two more women’s groups so we can grow in our devotion to the apostles teaching. That’s my first observation. Now the second.

The second observation comes from the early church’s devotion to the fellowship of the Spirit. They were passionate about doing life together. You see they had all experienced this new reality of the Holy Spirit in their lives. They had a new life in them – God’s life. And they shared this in common. They were now spiritually alive with the Spirit of Christ guiding them, filling them, renewing them and encouraging them to live this new life.   And the most encouraging thing of all was that the Spirit of God witnessed with their own spirit that they were now children of God. They not only experienced this new reality, but they now all shared the same Father in heaven. The Holy Spirit in them made them kin – they were now brothers and sisters in this new family of God. So they began to do this new life together – to share with one another, pray with one another, and they to worship together in the temple courts and from house to house. They began to eat together and serve together. And as they did life together, God did something too. He began to add to their number daily those who were being saved.

You see, those around them began to see these new followers of Jesus love one another in word and deed. This is what Jesus said would happen: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.“ John 13:35, and this is what Jesus asked to the Father to have happen: “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” John 17:20-21

This is the future grace God calls us to. Rock Springs is not just a worship service on Sunday mornings. No, we are the people of God. And what was true in Jesus’ day is still true today: people are looking and wondering if there is an alternative way to live. And Jesus shows us the way – it’s to love one another as He has loved us. And when a person encounters this kind of love, it makes a difference. Because Jesus’ love is a no-strings attached kind of love. It’s a love that’s patient and kind. It’s a love that keeps no records of wrongs. It’s a love that’s quick to forgive. It’s a love that sees a need and does something to meet that need. It’s the kind of love where one sacrifices for the needs of another. And it’s a love our world so desperately needs today.

This is the future grace of the fellowship of the Spirit – of God’s people living and working together in harmony, in unity and with a purpose – to love our neighbors in this community.   God wants to empower us to love one another. And as we do, God will bring people to Jesus. It’s just that simple. So over the next little while, we are going to move toward launching our first Neighborhood Groups, where we are going to learn to do life together, to love one another and become a blessing to our neighbors!

So as we celebrate what God has done… just know this: He is just getting started with us! And He has already given us what we need to grow and become His people in this place. He’s given us Jesus. And its upon this rock, He will build His church!