Grace For Your Day July 31

The opening part of our Vision Statement says:

Our vision is to proclaim "grace upon grace" to Chilliwack, British Columbia and to the ends of the earth. John 1:16-17 says, “For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.”

At Grace Fellowship, we believe that salvation is all of grace and not of works. We believe it is something that God alone accomplishes in our lives, and nothing we contribute to ourselves. We believe it is unmerited favor, where Jesus earns the Father’s approval and, in His mercy, gives us the benefits of that through His shed blood on the cross and victorious resurrection from the tomb. Since we have received all of this, it is our vision as a church to proclaim grace upon grace in several ways:

We proclaim grace upon grace through the Bible.
We proclaim grace upon grace through worship.
We proclaim grace upon grace through evangelism.
We proclaim grace upon grace through service.
We proclaim grace upon grace through counselling.
We proclaim grace upon grace through leadership.

We have talked about each of these points in previous years. If you would like to hear any of those sermons on this topic, they can be found at the following link (CLICK HERE). However, this week, we would like to review the second point about worship because that part of the document tells us that:

Because God’s grace is so prevalent in the Bible, we are also committed to emphasizing it in our worship. Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” We take that admonition seriously. As we hear the Word of God preached and taught, we respond to it in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. We are so thankful for all God has done for us that we cannot help but proclaim it through music and through the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

In other words, worship is a high priority for us as a church. It is something that we take very seriously here at Grace because we are so grateful for all that the Lord has done for us. We consider it such a blessing to be redeemed by the blood of Christ that we cannot help but praise Him for it in song every time we are gathered together.

The reason I want to talk about this subject with you this week is because we are coming to Hebrews 13:15 which says:

Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God…

The author says this towards the end of the letter because it is one of the closing thoughts of the Book of Hebrews and that is that you need to praise God. After you read about all that Jesus has done for you in Hebrews 1-12, you have no choice but to worship Him not just once in a while but “continually.” You need to do it constantly which is not the way most of us look at the issue of worship because we do not see it as a constant thing. We think it is something that should only be done between the hours of 9:30 and 11:30 on Sunday morning and then forgotten about the rest of the week.

However, the worship God requires is so much more than that because Jesus died to save every moment of our lives. He did not go to the cross to merely redeem what we do on Sunday mornings but to redeem every second afterwards so that is what we need to praise Him which is a convicting thought. We all fall short of it somewhere but that is why we need to carefully study a text like this one which is what we are going to do this week at Grace Fellowship Church.

Our service begins at 9:30 on Sunday morning and it will take place at 46024 Riverside Drive in Chilliwack. If you have a desire to grow in your worship of God but you do not know how, please join us for this message because it will be helpful for you. Second Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God …so that the man of God may be…thoroughly equipped for every good work” including this one (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The Lord has given us His Word in order to equip us to worship Him and I look forward to talking about that with you over the weekend.

– Jeremy Cagle