Come and See the Grace of God

Something has been happening at Cornerstone this year.

Thirteen people have put on Christ in the waters of baptism. New families have found a home among us. And if you've been in the building on a Sunday morning lately, you've probably felt it — a warmth that's hard to put into words, the unmistakable sense that God is at work, adding to his church right here in our midst.

It would be easy to let something like this slip by without ever stopping to name it. So this Sunday, that's exactly what we're going to do.

We'll open to Acts 11 and meet a man named Barnabas.

The early church had just been handed a surprise. Persecution had scattered the church out of Jerusalem, and in Antioch, everyday Christians started telling people about Jesus — and a great number believed. Word got back to Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to go and see what was happening.

Luke tells us what he found: "When he arrived and saw the grace of God, he was glad."

He walked into a room full of brand-new Christians — people who didn't share his background, didn't know the songs, hadn't been raised the way he was raised — and he could have seen a hundred things that still needed fixing. Instead, he saw grace. He saw the kindness of God, with faces on it. And it made him glad.

This Sunday we'll sit with a couple of questions that Barnabas puts to every growing church:

When you look around a room full of God's people, what do you actually see — the grace, or the things that still bug you? And when God is clearly at work, are we willing to do the unglamorous, joyful work of walking alongside the people he's bringing in?

We won't answer those in the abstract. We'll answer them about us — about what God has done at Cornerstone this year, and what he's inviting all of us into next.

Whoever you are, this Sunday is for you.

If you've walked with the Lord for decades — come and be reminded what your faithfulness is for. If you came up out of the water just weeks ago — come and hear how a beginning becomes a life. And if you're not sure what you believe yet, but you've been watching all of this from a distance and wondering what it is — come and see for yourself. What you're looking at is grace. And the same God who has been so good to this church is holding his hand out to you, too.

Bring a friend. Bring your questions. Come and see the grace of God.