Blog — Trinity Grace Church

Due to the forecasted rain, we are moving the Easter Egg Hunt to Saturday, April 19th.

October 27: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

Love

Teaching Text:  James 2: 14-26

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction?As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

  • The Crown of Life: Meditations on the Book of James

  • Faith Without Deeds is Dead

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

  • Think of a person you might know who is clearly living very practically what they believe

  • Is it possible that you can see what everyone believes by their actions?

  • James is trying to write in a way that gets our attention. 

  • He says faith without works is dead.

  • Paul said: 

    For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 

    – Ephesians 2: 8-9

  • Is James saying something utterly different here? 

    • James stayed in Jerusalem. He was talking to a specific group of believers who were at risk of their faith becoming only tradition, only a belief system. 

    • James is writing to combat any assumption that may have grown up that faith in Jesus was just about arranging thoughts about God in your head.

  • He is writing to make sure that his readers knew there was no place in Judaism or Christianity that simply involved an inner state with no outward expression.

  • James knew what Paul wrote to the Galatians…

    • “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” 

      – Galatians 5: 6

    • Phillip Maliagnon, the apprentice of the monk Martin Luther, said centuries later

      “We are saved by faith alone but not by faith that remains alone”

  • NT Wright commenting on this passage said…

    “It won’t do simply to tick the box saying ‘I believe in one God’ and hope that will do. It won’t. Without a radical change of life, that ‘faith’ is worthless, and will not rescue someone from sin and death.”

    – NT Wright

  • The Gospel invites us to active friendship with God 

  • Active friendship with God matures through obedience 

  • Friendship with God means God’s concerns become our concerns 

  • James gives three examples in this short section to make his point…

  1. How we treat the poor

  2. How we are when God asks us something that seems impossible 

  3. How we are in God asks us to act on our faith when its dangerous 

  • When the Gospel unites us to Jesus, we cannot ignore the poor or escape with just sentimentality.

  • Abraham’s faith led to a life of action that built a friendship with God.

  • Rahab took action that was a huge risk.

  • You cannot do enough to make yourself Holy like God is Holy, that would be a serious diminishment of God’s Holiness, but you can be brought in. Adopted in God’s family on the accomplishments of Jesus, His life, death, and resurrection.

  • But then you learn to live out your adoption. You learn to live the Way of Jesus. 

  • Jesus promised His power - all authority in heaven and earth 

  • And His presence - surely I am with you to the end of the age 

  • If you say you trust Jesus but you don’t take the actions Jesus calls you to, it shows that you don’t really trust Jesus.

  • If you say I trust Jesus with my eternal soul, but not my Tuesday, something has gone wrong.

  • “ The Gospel is utterly free and it will cost you everything.”

  • Actions give definition to our faith, but we aren't defined by our worst moments or worst mistakes. Thank God.

  • What shape does unbelief take in your life? What does it look like on a monday morning?

  • What areas of your life does your belief and behavior divert from one another? 


Parents:

  • Belief is something that needs a practice to become visible

  • Ask your kids about some of the things they believe. 

  • Ask them what it means to live that belief every day.

October 20: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

Love

Teaching Text:  James 2: 1-13

My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong?

If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.

Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

  • The Crown of Life: Meditations on the Book of James

  • Doers of the Word

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

  • Describe every day situations where favoritism exists in our society.

  • “Christianity revitalized life in Greco-Roman cities by providing new norms and new kinds of social relationships able to cope with many urgent urban problems. To cities filled with the homeless and the impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachments. To cities filled with orphans and widows, Christianity provided a new and expanded sense of family. To cities torn by violent ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for social solidarity. And to cities faced with epidemics, fires, and earthquakes, Christianity offered effective nursing services.”

– Rodney Stark

  • The growth of the early church is arguably the most remarkable sociological movement in history.  

    • The prayer meeting before Pentecost 120 or so Christians

    • In AD 40:  Approximately 1000 - 4000 Christians in the Roman Empire

    • By AD 350:  53% of the population had converted to the Christians faith

  • Believe in God or not, this is a staggering sweep of momentum…

    • How on earth could a Jewish political rebel, crucified on a Roman cross, become the Savior of the Empire that killed him

    • Something changed about the way they did life. This wasn’t a mass media movement, this was a grass roots community emergence.


  • For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, and therefore all died. And 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. 

    So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. 

    – 2 Corinthians 5:  14-21


  • Our old way of evaluating each other is gone, has been replaced with a new way of love.


  • We are agents of God’s welcome, ministers of reconciliation, God became nothing to make us everything, so we are ending our small parades of self-righteous pride, to join the march of God’s healing love offered to anyone who wants it.

  • James knows we cannot sink back in to the old world’s way of just looking out for people who are like us or only having energy and time for those who can obviously improve our status.

  • James knows whatever ideas we have about God in our head, the people we text back, and the people we invite over, and culture of our welcome says what we actually believe.

  • In fact, this ethic of compassion finds its origins as we know it in the Christian movement. We take for granted in some sense what the early church spent their lives for.

  • Our culture’s view on equality has largely been shaped by the Christian view. It was not always this way. 


  • If God has made you family, extend the welcome to all.

  • My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 

    – James 2: 1-4

  • The Kingdom of God is often upside down - especially regarding human appearances and status 

    • Often being aware of our need is easier for the poor

    • At times the wealthy have many more levels of self-sufficiency to work through and let go 

  • We all need mercy and we all pass on what we have received


  • Our actions (how we treat other people) should communicate the Gospel, not just our words. 


  • “Mercy triumphs over judgement”


  • Do we have a culture of the Kingdom of God?

    • The kingdom He promised those who love him?

    • an outpost of the Kingdom of God

  • Extending the rich welcome - do you practice this personally?

  • The first are last - where in your life is this really difficult to live by?

  • Mercy is our lifeblood - Where do you lack mercy?

  • What does this do in your heart?

  • Where has your heart been bribed by status?

  • Where do you need mercy?

  • Where do you need to give mercy?

Parents:

  • How does favoritism take shape in your childrens lives? Where are they faced with temptation to show favoritism? 

  • How can you talk about it with them around the dinner table?

October 13: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

Love

Teaching Text:  James 1: 19-27

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

  • The Crown of Life: Meditations on the Book of James

  • Doers of the Word

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

  • Describe someone in your life who has been a source of wisdom to you.

  • “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.” 

    – James 1: 19-21

  • The dangers of overconfidence

    • We can hear and hear and hear and remain unmoved, locked in to what we already think and do what we have always done.

  • Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry for the anger or people does not produce the righteousness of God.

  • God’s word is like this slow seed that is planted and grows up into fullness and life and nourishment and blessing.

    • The most direct equivalent picture is from Psalm 1 about the person who meditates on God’s word day and night….

      • “That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,

        which yields its fruit in season 

        and whose leaf does not wither— 

        whatever they do prospers.”

        – Psalm 1: 3

  • Watch out for 

    • Closed Ears, Quick Words, and Anger 

    • Thinking Agreement is the Same Thing As Action 

      • Beware of thinking hearing is the same thing as obedience 

    • For the temptation of Ignoring the Fruit of Our Heart 

  • Malcom Gladwell was warning us in 2009 that a person who talks a lot, doesn’t really listen, and uses anger to get things done may be celebrated as a great leader.

    • But that will not produce the realities of God’s Kingdom and character and love.

  • Watch out when you are so full of belief but you cannot really listen to anyone except a select few you are already sure you are in complete agreement with 

  • Watch out when you are a zealous for the bread and the cup but you forget Jesus and drag someone out of line 

  • Watch out when you are prepping a sermon on James and swearing in texts to your wife or blowing up on your kids cause they left the sink full of dishes

  • Be careful if you know the Scriptures but dont live them. If you can quote chapter and verse but dont look anything like the one who is called THE WORD OF GOD.

  • Watch out when you’ve got a million words to explain yourself but no compassion for anyone else.

  • Watch out when you try to bend the word back to you being in control which was never the same anyway.

  • JAMES HAS SOME PROVERBS LEVEL WISDOM FOR US.

  • James is saying you will be tempted to move that wrench back control and refuse to wait.

    • Unwillingness to listen - watch out if you are slow to listen 

    • Words disconnected from soul - watch out if you just vomit words to shape your world or protect yourself or control other 

    • Using anger to control - watch out for what your anger actually produces. It feels so right in the moment, but look at what grows

  • An unavoidable reality of God’s Kingdom is we mature by obedience.

    • We really struggle with this as Americans. 

    • But obedience to God is trust that God made life and knows how to make life work.

    • It’s trust that God wants what is best for us.

      • That God loves us more than we could possibly fully grasp.

    • When we hear so much that we dont put into action we deceive ourselves.

      • WE MISTAKE AGREEMENT FOR ACTION

  • We look in the mirror and then forget what we look like 

  • James says pay attention to what is growing out our you heart….

    • “Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” 

      – James 1: 25-27

  • What do I do when this is my struggle? 

    • James gives us a clue…

      • “humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.” 

        – James 1 v 21

    • James is pulling from Israel’s prophetic tradition, specifically here drawing from Isaiah 55…

      • “As the rain and the snow 

come down from heaven, 

and do not return to it 

without watering the earth 

and making it bud and flourish, 

so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 

so is my word that goes out from my mouth: 

It will not return to me empty, 

but will accomplish what I desire 

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” 

– Isaiah 55: 10-11

  • Jesus is the Word of God.

  • Jesus will accomplish the purpose He was sent for.

Parents:

  • How do you teach your children the value of wisdom in the sea of information access, which is our current reality? 

  • How can you connect obedience of God to the  love God has for you? 

  • Pick one thing from the commands of God that you can DO together as a family(prayer, confession, service, affirmation, etc.)

October 6: Groups Guide

About This Guide

The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.

Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.

pdf download

Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.

Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.

more Resources

Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.

Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.

Love

Teaching Text:  James 1: 13-18

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all He created.

Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

  • The Crown of Life: Meditations on the Book of James

  • The Truth about Temptation and Desire

Formation 

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

  • Do you still notice temptation in your life? 

  • Where did you get tempted this week? 

  • What is your go to response when you are faced with temptation? 

    • Give in

    • Avoid/Escape

    • Justify

    • Other…?

  • James, from his endurance in the fire of trials and with the help of the Holy Spirit, writes this letter.

  • “Consider it pure joy my brothers and sisters when you face trials of many kinds…”

  • He says “hey watch out if you find yourself blaming God” for the difficulty you are going through, that does something to us. Namely, it turns us away from the person who is our comfort and help.”

  • Now he writes about temptation.

    • When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

      – James 1: 13-15

  • God can always be turned to in a time of temptation because God is not the cause of temptation.

  • It’s worth mentioning just briefly, this dynamic though, that there is a difference in our life with God between TESTING and TEMPTATION.

    • TEMPTATION very often works on a desire that really does need to be met in our life and a suggestion of how to meet that desire without God or in conflict with God and God’s way.

      • Appetites, Approval, Ambition

      • Consumption, Security, Status

      • These are archetype temptation areas of the human life.

  • God will allow us to be tested, sometimes even lead us into testing. But God does not tempt us to sin.

  • There are times when testing is essential

    • Before we are given more power and responsibility 

    • When it needs to be determined if you are ready 

  • If God brings you into a time of testing, it almost always because God wants to trust you with more.

  • One of the more difficult aspects of maturity is learning to deal with the reality that not everything your mind and heart produces is worth trusting and worth acting on

  • There can be powerful impulses in our life that are deeply deceptive.

    • Cultures says:

      We need to learn to trust what we want.

  • Now this takes some nuance to parse because of course there can be good instincts, and wisdom, and true longings that grows up within us

  • BUT ALSO the long testimony of the Scriptures says that desires can come into our consciousness, into our field of consideration, that if we follow them will not lead where they initially seem they will.

  • We seek the satiation of our appetites, or the satisfaction of our souls, without considering God and God's way.


  • The image James uses is graphic; there are certain desires that get you pregnant with death.

    • There are desires that when followed diminish your genuine human life

      • The desire for revenge, gives birth to violence, which leads to physical loss of life.

      • The desires to seek comfort over and over again in a harmful numbing or mind altering substance, leads to addiction, which leads to many deaths before then actual physical death.

        • workaholism, envy, distraction, lust

  • How these idols work:

    • In the beginning there is a great promise and small request

    • Over time the requests get more and more and the shine comes off the promise 

      • The job, the relationship, the alcohol, the grudge, the envy.

      • Laziness asks more and more of you gives less and less

  • “Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.”

    – James 1: 16-18

  • If it's good in this world, it originated with God

  • Have you been in a place where you have been following desires that lead away from God?

Parents:

  • How do you talk to your kids about desires?

  • Do you help them recognise desires and help them think through how to be patient and find healthy satisfaction?

  • Can you help your children be aware of temptation? 

  • How can you help them see the prize of delayed gratification?