Twenty Years of Grace (Sept 2013)

This Lord’s Day, following our service of worship, we invite you all to celebrate with us 20 years of God’s faithfulness to this particular local body – to Trinity Church.  A small microcosm of what God is doing all over the world and all through this gospel age of hope, we have been blessed in countless ways.  We celebrate 20 years of grace.

In all of it, there is nothing that we can commend ourselves for.  It is all grace, from grace to grace that we have been given life, a community, our children, the Word, the singing of psalms, feasts and memorials, the Table, this location to come and worship, our discipleship, fellowship, service to one another, gifts and acts of mercy, instruction, associations with other churches in the area and worldwide, the ability to rejoice with one another, to weep with one another, to carry burdens for one another, to be the body of Christ for one another and to those God places in our midst - and on and on and on.

But central to it all is our God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the life of the Trinity bestowed upon us.  What we celebrate is our redemption, the resurrection of Jesus Christ applied to hearts here in the here and now.  What we long for is more of this – both in our own lives and in the life of the world around us.  We long to see a greater outpouring of His grace, of the work of the Gospel – and all to the glory of His grace.  Our celebration then, is much like this service of worship.  It is both a memorial of what God has done – and a heartfelt, urgent request for more – a realization that we must offer our bodies as living sacrifices to the Lord and an expectation, an anticipation that our Savior Who has reconciled the world to Himself, would and will make that more and more manifest.

And this is what He promises to give as we come here at His summons.  He will renew His covenant with us and call us to do likewise.  The Father has given the nations to His Son and calls us to join with Him in that promise and declaration to all around.  Come and worship.