[Bible Study] The Great Divorce ch-14

RLC Sermons and Services

RLC 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.

Red Letter Challenge! New Series in August

By putting God's words literally into practice, you will find the life God has made for you!

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• August 15th Intro

  • Day 1: Tuesday

• August 22nd

  • Being Day 6

• August 29th

  • Forgiving Day 13

• September 5th

  • Serving Day 20

• September 12th

  • Giving Day 27

• September 19th

  • Going Day 34

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August 15th we are starting the Red Letter Challenge.

Red Letter Challenge is a dynamic 40-day experience that helps people more effectively follow Jesus Christ!

The RLC is unique because it takes Christ’s literal words and gives you practical daily challenges based on those words.  The RLC will give you targets to shoot for to help you measure how you are practically following after Him.  RLC believes that Jesus followers want to be the best Jesus followers that we can be not out of obligation, but out of gratitude for what Jesus has done for us!

Do you have what it takes to really follow Jesus?  To truly do what He said?
I believe you do!

The RLC will help you:

1)     Have a deeper relationship with Jesus.

2)     Receive God’s forgiveness in your life and give grace to others.

3)     Give you a greater heart of service.

4)     Help you become more generous.

5)     Give you confidence to speak about what Jesus has done in your life.

Ready to take the challenge?

Purchase the Workbook

• RLC Recommends 1 Book per person,

  • This is best case however the book is expensive, and I believe it can be shared.

• The church has ordered some RLC books.

  • The books cost the church 24$ Per Book

  • As with everything if 24$ is too much please take one.

• Both Amazon and RLC both are selling the book

  • both links are included.

    • Amazon may be faster,

    • RLC will be cheaper.

Buy the Book on Amazon

Red Letter Challenge - A 40 Day Life Changing Experience

By Zach Zehnder

Buy on Amazon

Buy the book on Red Letter challenge Site

[Sunday] Peter - Ordinary Sinners

Action Item:
This week look for the way God is working through your weakness to bring goodness to the creation.

Questions for the Week

1. Senses can bring back memories.   Describe a time when smells or other senses brought back vivid memories in your life.

2. Read John 21:9-14.   What do you think this scene smelled like?   What memories might this bring back for Peter (See John 18:17-18)?

3. Read John 21:15-19.  What does Jesus do for Peter?  What does Jesus do for other ordinary sinners today?

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What Had happened at Grace this week. 

Simply Human: Don't Believe The Hype

Read the whole article here https://mbird.com/sports/simply-human-dont-believe-the-hype/

If there’s one thing I can’t stand, one thing that makes me cringe in sympathy, one thing that makes me nauseous with foreboding or dread — it’s hype. Anyone who follows sports knows what hype can do to a kid and has likely seen dozens of bright young prospects in any major sport chewed up and spit out onto the ash heap of history. If those once can’t-miss prospects are still remembered at all, it is only for the potential that went unfulfilled. That forever defines them in the public’s eye. But it even haunts the great ones too. Hype is a toxic friend to have.

In basketball, my preferred sport, big prospects often……………….

[Bible Study] The Great Divorce Book Study Ch 10-11

The Time St Peter Got the Yips

Read the Whole Article Here https://mbird.com/sports/the-time-saint-peter-got-the-yips/

This article comes to us from Jason Mehl:

The yips. The twisties. Last week, the theater of sports invited us, through comic imaginary and tragic reality, to participate in the drama of a rare athletic phenomenon and the two quirky words used to describe it. The comedic world of Ted Lasso featured gifted striker Danny Rojas succumbing to and overcoming a public case of the yips, described by Coach Beard as “when, just out of nowhere an athlete suddenly can’t do the basic fundamentals of their sport.” A few days later, Simone Biles experienced the twisties with results that were thankfully not physically tragic, but were visually shocking, emotionally devastating, and personally (for her) tragic. As the Washington Post explained,

When gymnasts have the “twisties,” they lose control of their bodies as they spin through the air … And after experiencing the twisties once, it’s very difficult to forget. Instinct gets replaced by thought. Thought quickly leads to worry. Worry is difficult to escape.

Jacob Palmer Baptism 8/1/21

Pics of Alzheimer's donations.

Hi, photos taken at the ACC presenting activity mats. Lap blankets, & shawls. Gloria, Laura, Sabina and some staff at our ACC 7/28/2021.

[Bible Study] The Great Divorce Book Study Ch 9

Read through 11 for next week

[Sunday] Paul- Ordinary Sinners

Action Item:
This week look for places where some have made mistakes that affected you and forgive them.

Questions for the Week

1. What are you zealous for in your life?

2. Read Acts 8:1-3.  What is Paul zealous for?

3. How can being zealous make you miss Jesus?

4. Read Acts 9:1-9.  What do you think Paul realizes when he sees Jesus?

5. How does Jesus’ zeal for you change how you relate to others?

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What Had happened at Grace this week. 

Even Your Doubts Are invited to the Party

Read the Article at Even Your Doubts Are Invited To The Party - Mockingbird (mbird.com)

The Nicene creed is something you may or may not have learned growing up. And if you did grow up with it, reciting it may feel like repeating the basic dinner prayer. Actually, quickly saying grace at the table so that you can shove mashed potatoes in your mouth is a lot like monotonously chanting the creed so that you can hurry on to post-church brunch. Either way, we have memorized many phrases at church.

[Sunday] Nehemiah - Ordinary Sinners

Action Item:
This week look for places where some have made mistakes that affected you and forgive them.

Questions for the Week

1. Describe a time when you expected something to be perfect but it ended up being a failure.

2. Read Nehemiah 13:23-31.   Even though Nehemiah has brought great reform, what do the people go back to in their behavior?  

3. Why do you think Nehemiah responds with such anger?

4. How can the last verse where Nehemiah says, “Remember me, O my God, for good,” be a good prayer for us and help us see Jesus better?

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What Had happened at Grace this week. 

[Bible Study] The Great Divorce Book Study Ch 7-9

Read through 11 for next week

[Sunday] David - Ordinary Sinners

Action Item:
This week look for places where some have made mistakes that affected you and forgive them.

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What Had happened at Grace this week. 

[Bible Study] The Great Divorce Book Study Ch 5-7

Read through 8 for next week

[Sunday] Saul - Ordinary Sinners

Action Item:
This week look for places where some have made mistakes that affected you and forgive them.

Questions for the Week

•  Share about a time when you or your neighbor thought you were right in a decision but actually were in the wrong. What effect did this have on those around you?

• Read 1 Samuel 15:1-9.  How did King Saul, not do what God had commanded?

• Read 1 Samuel 15: 10-15.  How does King Saul react, when God’s prophet Samuel, calls out what King Saul did wrong?   

• Read 1 Samuel 15:20-23. What does God require?  What are some ways you can better obey the voice of God?  

• How has Jesus obeyed the voice of His Father for you? What hope does this give you?

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What Had happened at Grace this week. 

Photos of LWML Convention

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A Penny and God's Goodness by Martin Luther

For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ So the last will be first, and the first last” (Matt 20:1-16).

The substance of the parable consists not in the penny, what it is, nor in the different hours; but in earning and acquiring, or how one can earn the penny; that as here the first presumed to obtain the penny and even more by their own merit, and yet the last received the same amount because of the goodness of the householder. Thus God will show it is nothing but mercy that he gives and no one is to arrogate to himself more than another. Therefore, he says I do you no wrong, is not the money mine and not yours; if I had given away your property, then you would have reason to murmur; is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?

Now in this way Christ strikes a blow first against the presumption of those who would storm their way into heaven by their good works. These all labor for definite wages, that is, they take the law of God in no other sense than that they should fulfill it by certain defined works for a specified reward, and they never understand it correctly, and know not that before God all is pure grace. This signifies that they hire themselves, out for wages, and agree with the householder for a penny a day; consequently, their lives are bitter and they lead a life that is indeed hard.

Christ strikes a blow first against the presumption of those who would storm their way into heaven by their good works.

Now when the gospel comes and makes all alike, as Paul teaches in Romans 3:23, so that they who have done great works are no more than public sinners, and must also become sinners and tolerate the saying: All have sinned, and that no one is justified before God by his works; then they look around and despise those who have done nothing at all. Then they murmur against the householder, they imagine it is not right; they blaspheme the gospel, and become hardened in their ways; then they lose the favor and grace of God, and are obliged to take their temporal reward and trot from him with their penny and be condemned; for they served not for the sake of mercy but for the sake of reward, and they will receive that and nothing more, the others, however, must confess that they have merited neither the penny nor the grace, but more is given to them than they had ever thought was promised to them.

Therefore, if one were to interpret it critically, the penny would have to signify temporal good, and the favor of the householder, eternal life. But the day and the heat we transfer from temporal things to the conscience, so that work-righteous persons do labor long and hard, that is, they do all with a heavy conscience and an unwilling heart, forced and coerced by the law; but the short time or last hours are the light consciences that live blessed lives, led by grace, and that willingly and without being driven by the law.

Therefore, we clearly see, if we look into their hearts, that the last had no regard for their own merit, but enjoyed the goodness of the householder. The first however did not esteem the goodness of the householder, but looked to their own merits, and thought it was theirs by right and murmured about it.

The substance of this gospel is that no mortal is so high, nor will ever ascend so high, who will not have occasion to fear what may become the very lowest. On the other hand, no mortal lies so low or can fall so low, to whom the hope is not extended that he may become the highest; because here all human merit is abolished and God's goodness alone is praised.