Vanishing Grace (Teaching Series)

View fullsize

Christians have proclaimed the good news about Jesus for centuries. But the good news isn't sounding so good these days, at least to some. Let’s acknowledges the problem and then explore how we can respond with both grace and truth.

---

Amazon Link

Purchase the Book

Vanishing Grace: Bringing Good News to a Deeply Divided World

By Yancey, Philip

Buy on Amazon

Reading Plan
The readings for Sunday

• 2/19/23 - Justice

  • Exodus 17:1-7
    Hebrews 12:12-15
    John 4:5-26, 39-42

• 2/26/23 - What Can We Do About It

  • Jeremiah 1:4-10
    1 Corinthians 13:1-13
    Matthew 5:38-48

• 3/5/23 - Who are the Grace Dispensers

  • Deuteronomy 26:1-11
    1 John 3:11-18
    Luke 4:16-21

• 3/12/23 - Is it Really Good News?

  • Isaiah 52:7-12
    Hebrews 13:1-16
    Matthew 13:31-35

• 3/19/23 - Holy Subverses

  • Exodus 19:1-6
    1 Corinthians 9:19-27
    Luke 4:1-13

• 3/26/23 - Holy Subverses

  • Exodus 19:1-6
    1 Corinthians 9:19-27
    Luke 4:1-13

• 4/2/23 - Holy Subverses

  • Exodus 19:1-6
    1 Corinthians 9:19-27
    Luke 4:1-13

• 4/9/23 - Holy Subverses

  • Exodus 19:1-6
    1 Corinthians 9:19-27
    Luke 4:1-13

[Sunday] Beautiful News - Vanishing Grace

Jesus was tempted in the wilderness in every way that we are. This story right at the beginning of Luke's gospel foreshadows the way it ends: Jesus taking all our sins and struggles and giving us grace and victory over them all. Now that we have been freed, we can live knowing that grace is for all.

Questions for this week.

1. How have you seen God’s good news physically affect someone in a positive way?

2. Read Luke 4:1-13.   How is Jesus tempted by the devil?  How have you been tempted in the same way?  How does Jesus free you from these temptations?

3. Who might you love this week, and how might you bring them good news?

---

---

What Had happened at Grace this week. 

The Urgency of Grace - Family Relationships [Video]

Week 4 Vanishing Grace Together Groups

Pastor’s Thursday Together Group

Together Group Video Week 4

---

Discussion Guide | Week 4

[Sunday] Beautiful News - Vanishing Grace

What does beautiful news look like? Perhaps, it looks like ordinary, dare I say, small things, like providing for someone who's hungry, loving your spouse, and being a good neighbor. Perhaps these small things provide the cooling shade of a great tree for us to rest under.

Questions for this week.

1. When is a time when you have received good news?

2. Read Isaiah 52:7 and Hebrews 13:1-8.   What does it look like when God’s good news comes?

3. Read Matthew 13:31-35.  How does good news come like a “mustard seed?"

4. What is a small “mustard seed” way God has used someone to bring good news to you that really affected you?  

5. What might you do to bring a “mustard seed” of good news to someone this week?

---

---

What Had happened at Grace this week. 

Week 3 Vanishing Grace Together Groups

Together Group Video Week 3

---

Discussion Guide | Week 3

[Sunday] Love Laid Down - Vanishing Grace

This is how we know what love is, that He laid down his life for us. This love is like a cool breeze on a hot day, good news when surrounded by the bad, and liberty to the oppressed.

Questions for this week.

1. When are times that you’ve been able to share good news with someone?

2. Read 1 John 3:11-18.  Why did Cain kill his brother?  How does a similar attitude prevent us from truly loving our neighbor?

3. What does Jesus do to enable us to simply love our neighbor?

4. What impact do you think Jesus' followers would have on the spiritually uncommitted people if we--pilgrims, activists, and artists, all united as a church community -- carried out John’s charge to “not love with words or speech, but in actions and in truth?"

---

---

What Had happened at Grace this week. 

I Like It, So God Would Too

Egocentrism in Believers’ Estimates of God

Read The Whole Article at I Like It, So God Would Too - Mockingbird (mbird.com)

eligion is often seen as a moral compass — it is frequently used by believers as a guide to doing and believing the right thing. People may disagree on social issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, and the death penalty and back their opinions by invoking God as the ultimate advocate of their beliefs. But how do people reason about God’s beliefs? In an interesting set of six studies by Nick Epley and colleagues, it was argued that people are remarkably egocentric when asked to infer about God’s beliefs — that is, people seem to draw on their own beliefs about these issues when asked to infer what God’s beli……………………………………..

Read The Whole Article at I Like It, So God Would Too - Mockingbird (mbird.com)

Week 2 Vanishing Grace Together Groups

Pastor Cris Together Group [Bible Study]

Together Group Video Week 2

---

Discussion Guide | Week 2

[Sunday] Uncomplicated Love - Vanishing Grace

The young man who pushed aside his family now thinks of only their love as he longs for the pig feed. We tend to make love more complicated that it needs to be, but perhaps its simple.

Questions for this week.

1. Describe a time you’ve felt most fulfilled in life.

2. Read 1 Corinthians 13.   According to this passage, when we speak and act without love, what do we produce? And to what extent might we deserve the unpleasant words people use to describe Christians?

3. What does love always do (v. 7), and what impact will these actions have on our relationships and interaction with those who do not acknowledge God?

---

---

What Had happened at Grace this week. 

Christmas & Brain Heath Seminar Photos

Great Christmas season at Grace

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

Mark Driscoll and My Desert Temptation

Read the rest at Mark Driscoll and My Desert Temptation - Mockingbird (mbird.com)

We were driving our rental car around cactus-lined streets on the first day of our snowbird getaway to Scottsdale, Arizona when we realized exactly where we were. We were only a few blocks away from a place of podcast infamy and evangelical intrigue: Trinity Church — AKA, Mark Driscoll’s new church.

It’s not every day that I am near the church of a man whose rise (and fall) was the topic of thousands of Twitter threads, blog posts, and podcast episodes about podcast episodes. That Sunday, we learned, Driscoll was starting a new sermon series titled “Real Romance: Sex in Song of Songs.” Perfect…………………………….

Read the rest at Mark Driscoll and My Desert Temptation - Mockingbird (mbird.com)

Week 1 Vanishing Grace Together Groups

Pastor Cris’ Together Group

---

Together Group Video Week 1

---

Discussion Guide | Week 1

[Sunday] Wells of Grace - Vanishing Grace

Jesus was sitting by a well, and she showed up. All by herself, she carried with her the weight of so much struggle. While it would be so easy to belittle her, Jesus instead is a well of grace that is like a cool drink of water on a hot day. Maybe we can be like that.

Questions for this week.

1. How do you interact with people who are antagonistic to your faith in Jesus or living a life full of sin?

2. Read John 4:1-42.  Why would the woman be at the well in the middle of the day?  How would people in her day viewed Samatarians? How does Jesus respond to her?

3. What are some ways you can be a grace dispenser this week?

---

---

What Had happened at Grace this week. 

Vanishing Grace Together Groups

New Together Group Weeks Released Sunday at 11am

We are stronger together and any challenge is better when helped.
I encourage you to meeting with other people to watch each week’s video and go through the discussion questions.

1 Samuel 18-20 Bible Study

Philip Yancey on Facing the Canon [Good]

Philip Yancey, author of Vanishing Grace is a great interview about his love of Grace.

[Sunday] Following Light - The Book of Advents

The Magi followed God’s light of a star. Wait, those foreigners were following God’s light? Surely God’s people will follow the light rather than going back to darkness.

Questions for this week.

1. In your own words, before rereading in the Bible, tell the story of the wise men.

2. Read Matthew 2:1-12.  Now retell the story of the Magi.   

3. How does Herod and all Jerusalem respond to the news that the Magi bring? 

4.  Why do you think they respond that way?

5. Read Isaiah 60:1-6.  How can we follow the light of Jesus, as he brings the nations and Magi of the world to him?

---

---

What Had happened at Grace this week. 

Ringing in the New Me

Read whole article at Ringing in the New Me - Mockingbird (mbird.com)

t’s the time of year when our New Year’s resolutions slowly begin to unravel. It doesn’t usually happen all at once, of course. A cheat day here, a provoked outburst there, compounded by the multiplication of days and weeks, and what once felt possible eventually becomes fanciful. Even my best intentions can’t always hold up to the temptation of a Chick-fil-A milkshake. 

Every new year is filled with hopeless optimism that I can truly change. At the beginning of this year, I took time to look back and reflect on all the ways that my life is different than it was just 365 days ago. I moved to a new state, I got a new job, I got engaged. Life has changed in some sizab………………………

1 Samuel 16-17 Bible Study