GRACE-FULL HELPING
Life Group / ~Grace – Full Helping~/ Matthew 25:37-40 New King James Version (NKJV)
37“Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? 38When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You?39Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’
It’s not about us…
It’s all about Him.
{Grace}
Grace as defined by
1.eleganceorbeautyofform,manner,motion,oraction:Wewatchedherskatewitheffortlessgraceacrosstheice.Synonyms:attractiveness,charm,gracefulness,comeliness,ease,lissomeness,fluidity.Antonyms:stiffness,ugliness,awkwardness,clumsiness;klutziness.
2.apleasingorattractivequalityorendowment:Helackedthemanlygraces.
3.favororgoodwill.Synonyms:kindness,kindliness,love, benignity;condescension.
4.amanifestationoffavor,especiallybyasuperior:Itwasonlythroughthedean'sgracethatIwasn'texpelledfromschool.Synonyms:forgiveness,charity,mercifulness.Antonyms:animosity,enmity,disfavor.
5.mercy;clemency;pardon:Hewassavedbyanactofgracefromthegovernor.Synonyms:lenity,leniency,reprieve.Antonyms:harshness.
Lord We Love You and We Desperately Need You Each Moment!
The Jesus way: Grace-full and truth-full helping
We do well to keep grace-radical, amazing grace-and truth-radical, transformational truth-at the forefront of the helping ministry.
Jesus is our Model!!!
Jesus was grace-full. Compassionate and merciful, He turned the myth of the “self-made man” upside down when it came to salvation and being made whole and right in God’s sight. There is no good so good this side of Heaven that can get you in and no evil so evil it can keep you out. Faith is the key-repentance and turning to God. “Jesus turned around, and when he saw her [the woman with the bleeding disorder] he said, ‘Daughter, be encouraged! Your faith has made you well.’ And the woman was healed at that moment” (Matthew 9:22)
He, the sinless Son of God, did not defend himself against the charge that he was a friend of tax collectors and other sinners” (Matthew 11:19). In fact, perhaps no phrase so succinctly captures the whole scope of the ministry of Jesus as Friend of Sinners, especially when we consider how He defined friendship: “The greatest way to show love for friends is to die for them” (John 15:13, CEV). Grace is rare in our culture (with its core values of rugged individualism, pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, the self-made man, you get what you pay for, practice makes perfect, don’t get mad get even, you get your just desserts). Against that cultural backdrop any helping strategy based on grace is radical even by the standards of our Protestant churches. We affirm the Reformers’ credo sola gratia (“by grace alone”) in our belief statements and preaching but sometimes (tragically) give grace little attention in practice.
- Grace-full helping always affirms the person’s dignity. It means seeing people’s problems-whatever their origin-in the light of their dignity, their worth and value as beings created in the very image of God! It means knowing that the person behind all that trouble (even trouble brought about by poor choices and sinful behavior) is infinitely valuable to God and was worth the cross to Jesus. Jesus never lost sight of the priceless value of human beings-and neither should we. Ever notice how the only people Jesus ever really laid into were “good” religious folks, self-righteous and smug, the scribes and Pharisees, teachers of the Law (and the onerous traditions they added to it).
- Grace-full helping is forward-looking—oriented toward the future rather than the past. Hope is always future. If the roots of the problem lie in the past the seeds of the re-solution lie in the future, which starts right now, in the present moment. This is an important point. Many hurting people are stuck—stuck in the past or stalled in the present. They psychoanalyze themselves: “Where did it all begin?” It began with the diagnosis…or when Sue died…or when I lost my job…or when I had an affair or the abortion or walked out.
Though it is important to understand when the issue started and what caused it (and sometimes the first step on the path to healing comes when a hurting person confesses the origin of the problem and how it all began to a caring person in a helping relationship), any helping strategy based on Jesus’ approach will point to the future. Emerson said “genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead.” In helping we say that it’s not genius but grace that looks forward, which is why God put our eyes in the front of our heads not in the back.
To the woman taken in adultery Jesus said, “Go and sin no more.” He didn’t pull a Freud and wallow in her checkered past. The Pharisees were the ones doing that, and what was their answer? “Stone her.” Jesus forgave her past in the present and pointed the way to a brighter future.
Similarly, when the disciples asked Him why a certain man was born blind, Jesus said, “It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins. This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.”
Grace-full helping is about helping people get in touch with the enabling power of grace to get up and go on in the wake of devastating life events.
- Grace, because it is undeserved, or unmerited, is never bestowed on a quid pro quo basis.
Jesus did not help people because they were good but because He was good. For too long we Christians have given the patently false impression that people must somehow clean themselves up before they come to church. The temptation is to right that wrong with another—“come to church and then clean yourself up.” We don’t really clean ourselves up at all. We must rely at every turn for the enabling grace of God that justifies and sanctifies us. (Sanctify – To make holy; to purify or free from sin)
Healing is not something we get in exchange for…anything. Let’s not reinforce the tendency of hurting people to bargain with God. “Lord, if you’ll just take this pain away, I promise I will do or not do this or that… .” As the Apostle Paul discovered God’s grace is sufficient come what may—in wholeness and in infirmity. So in our helping we need to always beware of giving the impression that healing is a transaction based on something we give to God. Lord help us not join in with those who wondered whether a man’s blindness was a punishment for his sin or his parents’ sins. It’s not usually that neat. There are very few simple lives and so we must resist the temptation to come too quickly to simple explanations and simple solutions. When it comes to helping another child of God, we truly see through a glass, darkly (1 Corinthians 13:12). People sin; forgive them. Grace-full helping is ever hopeful and forward-looking and relies on God’s grace alone!
This is what Jesus was all about. We see it time and again in the Gospels when Jesus was helping a broken, fallen, hurting person. Jesus knew what was in man, say the Gospels, knew everything about every man, woman, and child He ever encountered. We don’t have that advantage. But we do well to remember that “there, but for the grace of God, go we.”
Jesus’ grace-full helping style is exemplified beautifully in John 8:1-11 when He ministered to the woman caught in adultery:
“Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd. ‘Teacher,’ they said to Jesus, ‘this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?’
“They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, ‘All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!’ Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
“When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, ‘Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?’
“ ’No, Lord,’ she said.
“And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I. Go and sin no more.’ ”
Grace is free but it is not cheap. In fact, it is precious, so valuable, so priceless that there is nothing we can give in exchange for it except gratitude (which comes from the same root as grace, gratia). God heals us not because of what we do but because of who He is and how very much He loves us!
PRAYER
Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for blessing certain members of Your body with caregiving gifts of mercy, encouragement, wisdom, discernment, shepherding, and healing. Thank You for giving them tender hearts that are moved with compassion to minister Your love, grace, mercy, and truth to those who suffer. Thank You for calling them to care, Lord. Lead them now to the perfect place of service where You can use their gifts to the full. Make them instruments of Your healing. Give them eyes to see the hidden scars, ears to hear the silent cries, and a heart broken for those who suffer. Let Your Holy Spirit, the Comforter, give them loving words of truth to speak into the lives of those who are hurting. Be with them always, blessed Lord. In Jesus’ name,
Amen.
- Shepherding Care Groups Part B, by Scott Philip Stewart, PhD; Grace-Full Helping; pages 5-10
Listen
When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving me advice…
You have not done what I asked.
When I ask you to listen to me and you feel you have to tell me
Why I shouldn’t feel that way…you are trampling on my feelings.
When I ask you to listen to me and you feel you have to do something to solve my problems, you have failed me, strange as that may seem.
LISTEN! All I asked was that you listen.
Not talk or do—just hear me.
Advice is cheap, 50 cents will get you Dear Abby and Billy Graham in the same newspaper, and I can do for myself; I’m not helpless.
When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself, you contribute to my fear and weakness.
But when you accept as a simple fact that I do feel what I feel, no matter how irrational, then I quit trying to convince you…and can get about the business of understanding what’s behind the irrational feeling.
And when that’s clear, the answers are obvious and I don’t need advice.
Irrational feelings make sense when we understand what’s behind them.
Perhaps that’s why prayer works, because God is often silent and He doesn’t give advice or try to “fix” things. He listens and often silently helps you work it out.
So please listen and just hear me, and if you want to talk, wait a minute for your turn and I’ll listen to you.
Anonymous
- Shepherding Care Groups Part A, by Scott Philip Stewart, PhD; page 123
~Grace Bible Verses~
1 John 3:18-20 (NLT) 18Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. 19Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God. 20Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything.
John 1:17 (NLT)17For the law was given through Moses, but God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians 8:9 (NLT)9You know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty he could make you rich.
2 Corinthians 12:9 (NLT)9Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.
2 Corinthians 13:14 (NLT)14[a]May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Galatians 5:4 (NLT)4For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.
Ephesians 1:7 (NLT)7He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.
Ephesians 2:8-9God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.
Psalm 84:11 For the Lord God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory. The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right.
Psalm 144:12 May our sons flourish in their youth like well-nurtured plants. May our daughters be like graceful pillars, carved to beautify a palace.
Proverbs 1:9 What you learn from them will crown you with grace and be a chain of honor around your neck.
Acts 20:24 But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.
Acts 20:32 “And now I entrust you to God and the message of his grace that is able to build you up and give you an inheritance with all those he has set apart for himself.
Romans 1:7 I am writing to all of you in Rome who are loved by God and are called to be his own holy people. May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.
Romans 5:21 So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 6:14-15 Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace. Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not!
Romans 11:6 And since it is through God’s kindness, then it is not by their good works. For in that case, God’s grace would not be what it really is—free and undeserved.
Romans 12:6 In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you.
Romans 16:20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.
1 Corinthians 1:3 May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.
2 Corinthians 1:2 May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.
2 Corinthians 1:12[ Paul’s Change of Plans ] We can say with confidence and a clear conscience that we have lived with a God-given holiness and sincerity in all our dealings. We have depended on God’s grace, not on our own human wisdom. That is how we have conducted ourselves before the world, and especially toward you.
2 Corinthians 4:15 All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.
2 Corinthians 8:9 You know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty he could make you rich.
2 Corinthians 9:14 And they will pray for you with deep affection because of the overflowing grace God has given to you.
2 Corinthians 12:9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.
2 Corinthians 13:14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Galatians 1:3 May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.
Galatians 1:15 But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased him
Galatians 2:21I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.