Study

What Does It Mean To Live as a Christian?

Louie Giglio

8 Days

Extend Grace

Day 3

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How do we reconcile with grace and truth? Are we really to extend grace? Won't that make people take advantage of it? In day three, we will look at what it truly means to extend grace.

The two are not pitted against each other, they support each other when used properly and in the right spirit. Jesus defined Himself as the Truth in John 14:6, so He is definitely not against it. But He also is the epitome of grace and introduced us to it through stories and parables.

Today, we are going to take a deeper dive into grace and discover why, if we are to be true Christ followers, we will extend it.

Summary

So far, we have learned that to live like a Christian, we are going to be Christ-like and be in love with God. Today, we will focus on the third point: extend grace.

John 1:14 says that Jesus is both grace and truth. No one is preaching to abuse grace and do whatever you want to do. Jesus is truth, but He also offers grace, and that is something the world has never seen before.

In Luke 15:18-20, we are told the parable of a son who so disrespects his father that he might have well said, I wish you were dead. He asked for his inheritance early and went and blew it on women and wild living. Eventually, the lost son came to his senses and acknowledged that he had sinned and asked his father if he could be a hired servant rather than be accepted again as his son. Why? Because he grew up in the law and had no concept of grace. That's why when the father ran to him it was so shocking! A mature, Jewish father would never be caught running, especially to a son who had ruined his life. The father was introducing grace and lavished his goodness on the son.

God does not give us what we deserve. He gave that to Jesus and gave us what Jesus deserved: grace. Therefore, a Christian should lead with grace because we remember where we came from and know we have a long way to go until God is finished with us. God gives us grace every day. He cares just as much about truth and consequences, but He met us with grace this morning. He tells you the truth, but He meets you with grace.

What's next?

As a whole, the culture seems to have put truth and grace at odds with each other. If you are heavy truth, than no one can live up to that standard and you are stuck striving in a life that usually leads to legalism. If you are all about the grace, and truth doesn't matter, than you are free to do whatever you want because there's always grace. There's no standards, no expectations, you just do you and use up all the grace you can. No one is actually preaching that from the pulpit, but people want to take sides on the issue. How have you seen grace be exploited or truth be taken to the furthest degree?

Think about the grace you have been shown in your life. Recount at least three ways that the Father has shown you grace, where you received what you didn't deserve.
Why is it so important that we show this to others? If we remember how far we have come and how much further we have to go, how does that inform how much grace to extend?
Is there a person you need to extend some grace to this week?

Scripture References

20I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

14For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.

15And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

27He answered, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

11For the

Lord

God is a sun and shield;

the

Lord

bestows favor and honor;

no good thing does he withhold

from those whose walk is blameless.

14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.

Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.

In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

12Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,

13for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

14Do everything without grumbling or arguing,

15so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky

16as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.

6For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

9“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.

16For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.

He said to them,

“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

18Then Jesus came to them and said,

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.

Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.

If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’

For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Louie Giglio

Louie Giglio is the Visionary Architect and Director of the Passion Movement, comprised of Passion Conferences, Passion City Church, Passion Publishing and sixstepsrecords, and the founder of Passion Institute.