Given Grace: Overcoming Sin

Grace is on the table. With generations of Christ's followers, we come to the Lord's table with profound gratitude for grace. How will this time of gratitude change the way we live? Paul taught the Corinthians that our gratefulness for grace empowers us to overcome sin. Message based on 2 Corinthians 4:15; 1 Corinthians 10:13-17Quotes:Tim Chester writes:  Paul talks about “the table of the Lord” in 1 Corinthians 10:21. We are hosted by Jesus. In the New Testament it is not the bread that is the host (of Jesus) but Jesus who is the host (of us). So the host is not on the table but at the table—it is, after all, the Lord’s Table. For Jesus is present by the Holy Spirit, and he invites us to eat with him as an act of friendship and a sign of love. The people who serve are simply Jesus’s way of getting the bread from the table into your hands.J. I. Packer:  Christian fellowship is two-dimensional, and it has to be vertical before it can be horizontal…The person who is not in fellowship with the Father and the Son is no Christian at all, and so cannot share with Christians the realities of their fellowship.Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Baptism incorporates us into the unity of the Body of Christ, and the Lord’s supper fosters and sustains our fellowship and communion … in that Body.Robert Holdain: Until a sin is mortified in conscience it cannot be mortified in the flesh." Until I know I am pardoned by the grace of God, I have no strength to fight the sin. But when I know God has forgiven me, he releases me from the guilt of my sin, and the power to fight it comes.John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem about Jonathan Walker"Then lift that manly right hand, bold ploughman of the wave!Its' branded palm shall prophesy, ' Salvation to the slave'."Duane Brooks: Jesus had scars in his palms, too. By grace, we live in the freedom of God’s forgiveness. To discover more messages of hope, go to tallowood.org/sermons/.Follow us on X and YouTube @tallowoodbcFollow us on Instagram @tallowood.baptistFollow us on FaceBook @tallowoodbaptist