If you’re no stranger to these weekly Sermon Prep posts, you know that every week ends with, “See you Sunday, Grace. Come hungry.” The implication is that one of our preaching team has prepared to encourage and feed us from God’s word and that we are coming ready to receive it.

This Sunday is our first Reflection Service for our Acts series With All Boldness and Without Hindrance. So, in the place of our preached message, we will turn it over to many of you to reflect and share publicly how the word has been at work in your heart and mind and life. Just recently in Acts 11, we read this about Barnabas’ arrival in Antioch, where the hand of the Lord had been with some unnamed ministers of the gospel.

When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose (Acts 12:23).

The grace of God can be seen in the fruit that the word of God bears. Luke doesn’t tell us specifically what the grace of God was that Barnabas saw, but it made him glad. It reaffirmed to him that the Lord is risen and that the Holy Spirit is at work. And our reflection services can gladden and edify us in a similar way. Hearing testimonies of how the grace of God is bearing fruit through the ministry of the word can…

• Help us see something we might have missed, but needed to see the first time through these passages in Acts.
• Strengthen our faith by reassuring that it’s still just as true today that as “the word goes out, the Spirit comes down.”
• Remind us that the “cloud of witnesses” that encourage us to keep running the race set before us are not just those who have gone before us to heaven (i.e. the song we often sing: “As saints of old still line the way retelling triumphs of His grace, we hear their calls and hunger for the day when, with Christ, we stand in glory”), but also those who stand among us every Sunday.
• Deepen our love for one another as we learn more about the different races of faith those around us are running.
• Glorify God who deserves all the glory for all the growth.

Kenny Clark and Junior Jamreonvit will facilitate our time of congregational sharing and prayer following a time of sung worship that will take us back through a refresher of Acts 1-12 led by Walt Harrah. Here are a couple of suggestions for how to come prepared this Sunday.

• Read back through Acts 1-12 prayerfully.
• If you missed a sermon along the way (or want to relisten to one that made a particular impact on you), go track it down here and listen (or relisten) to it.
• If you are a note taker, find time to sit and read back through your notes to remember how the Lord has impressed you and taught you in this series.
• If you have heard someone at Grace share about a specific way the book of Acts has been encouraging, admonishing, and bearing fruit in his or her life, encourage them to have the boldness to raise their hand and share this Sunday.

See you Sunday, Grace. Come hungry AND MAYBE EVEN with something to share!

 

Song of the Week

Oh, the Mighty Hand by CityAlight

Praise to God, for the world He made
For the Son He gave, for the price He paid
Praise to God, let the song be raised
Up to God, my God, and the One who saves