Week 1 – Jeff Maness – February 3, 2019
Grace & Truth: Posture
Side A = Affirming
Side X = Ex-Gay
Side B = “The messy middle”
John 1:14 (NIV) The Word (Jesus) 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. Truth without grace is mean. Grace without truth is meaningless. Truth and grace together are good medicine. — Pastor Chris Hodges
Big Idea: If I believe the right things but respond the wrong way then what I believe won’t matter.
Big Question: How should I respond to all people?
Main Scripture: Luke 19:1-10
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Luke 19:1 1 Jesus entered Jericho and made his way through the town.
Luke 19:2-4 2 There was a man there named Zacchaeus. He was the chief tax collector in the region (the worst of the worst), and he had become very rich. 3 He tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way.
Luke 19:5-10 5 When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today.” 6 Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. 7 But the people were displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled. 8 Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!” 9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
1. Change what I see
2. Challenge what I show
There was not a ragged beggar in Jericho who would not have thought himself degraded by putting his foot across the threshold that Jesus now says He will cross. His example is to be our pattern. A Christian church which does not imitate Jesus in its continual willingness to associate itself with the degraded and the outcast has no business to live; and Christian people who are too proud of their righteousness to go amongst the unclean and the degraded are a great deal more of Pharisees than Christians. Self-righteousness gathers up its skirts in holy horror; perfect righteousness goes cheerily and without fear amongst the outcasts, for where should the physician go but to the sick, and where should Christ be found but in the house of the tax collector? — MacLaren Commentary
3. Choose what to stand on
Side B = Accepting but non-affirming
Historic Christian Sexual Ethic = Marriage is intended for two sexually different people (man and woman), and any sex or sexual activity is intended for and blessed only in that union.
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