Communities of Grace, Part 2

If Communities of Grace are those which not only teach the gospel but live it out, I should say very clearly that the opposite is equally as true. Communities of Grace are not simply those who live lives of service and care for others, but who actually teach the gospel.

It is very popular to promote service, love, “grace,” and social justice as if it were the end all of the church. There are those who present a false dichotomy: teaching or living, and suggest that teaching is really unimportant (or even contrary) to gospel lives. So the teaching of the gospel can, indeed often is, offensive and therefore does not appear to be complimentary to a community of grace. For the gospel clearly teaches that all men are evil, wicked, and hateful and deserving of God’s wrath. That God sent His Son to bear that punishment for sinners and that all must submit themselves to God, confess that they are wicked, and trust totally in Jesus’ death and resurrection in order to escape judgment. It’s not exactly a message we, in our nature, applaud.

But communities that only practice grace have missed the all important motivation for their grace when they downplay or ignore the gospel. There is no cause for grace unless God has been gracious to us and calls us to that response. Furthermore to live grace without teaching grace is to suggest to non-Christians (and Christians alike) that grace is really a virtue of their own making, and not a result of the life changing work of the Spirit of God. So to be a community of grace we must avoid the moralistic teachings of the world and centralize on the true gospel of Jesus explained in deed and WORD.