August 21st, 2011 Community Life Together – Grace

Beginning a new series on one of Elevation’s core passions…Hang Out. After a while the honeymoon stage of being a church family wears off, but there is incredible power if we stick with it and forge depth and unity in our relationships.  So how do we deal with it when community life together gets hard?

If you want a study tool to go along with the podcast, see Lift Notes here:

Community Life Together: __________ & __________

August 21, 2011

We believe there is incredible power in investing in relationships with one another.  But after a while of hanging out and doing life together, we are ____________ going to hurt, offend, bother, and annoy each other.

This is ___________!  Anytime two humans move beyond surface level niceties and press toward deeper friendship, there is some form of ___________.

How do we deal with it when community life gets hard?

Colossians 3:1-15 addresses that…

Paul’s tells  them that sometimes in community life together we need to __________ ourselves to take of that old self with each other cuz its not who we are anymore and not who we are becoming, we are moving in a new _________ and in God’s eyes have a new __________

Therefore, as God’s chosen people holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.                               Colossians 3: 12-15

How do we deal with it when community life gets hard?   __________!

Grace is _____________ ________________.

Jesus is our model in community life together.  Even to the traitor who had betrayed him, he ________ ____ ______ with humility and grace.

So, bear with one another…and forgive as the Lord forgave you.

How has the Lord forgiven you?   From what?

 

 

 

 

 

That’s your list of things to have grace on ___________ for!

A big part of cultivating of community of grace is not being quick to __________. (Matthew 7:1–6)

Do not judge, or you too will be judged…“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”  Matthew 7:1, 3

Jesus is drawing a contrast: either we can spend most of our time and energy pointing out problems in _________ people, or we can deal with our _______ stuff and spend our time and energy asking God to reveal and redeem our junk.  In other words, be slow to judge!

4 reasons to be very slow to judge and instead start with GRACE!

  1. I don’t ________ _______________ that you are going through.
  2. I haven’t ___________ in your  ____________.
  3. I don’t have your _____________ ________________.
  4.  I don’t have your ________ and ______________. 

Our natural default is to assume everyone should think, act, talk and respond like ___ would.

But Jesus invites his followers to instead show GRACE!

jessecraig