Find Rest. Live Restored. Respond With Compassion.

Jan 9

This series of messages highlight the flow of grace we long for everyone to experience at the Urban Refuge.

Grace Comes Down So We Can Find Rest

Nothing in this world can truly satisfy us because we are made for another world. But we were without God and without hope in this world. And as sinners there was nothing we could do to commend ourselves to God. But God. Because of his great love for us, grace comes down in Christ and it meets us right in the mess of all our sin and spiritual exhaustion. We turn away from all attempts to commend ourselves to God through self-made religion. We turn to Christ and receive his all-sufficient and all-satisfying grace. We find our sins are forgiven and we are given a new identity as a child of God. Here we find true rest because in Christ the work is finished. We are complete in him and so we can rest in him.

A Family Rises Up that Lives a Restored Life

But grace is not done. God’s grace gives us not only a personal identity in Christ, but a corporate identity in Christ. We have received the gift of a new family. Behold what manner of love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God! This new family is a new creation in Christ that can stand against all the old divisions. This family love testifies to a divided world that we are the followers of Christ.

Compassion Goes Out

But grace is not done. This new family is characterized by love for the lost and compassion for the hurting. The family of Jesus bears the name of Jesus and overflows with the compassion of Jesus for a lost and dying world. We take Jesus at his word that he has other sheep that he will gather into the fold and there will be one flock and one shepherd.