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Freedom’s Gift: Grace
From the Lent sermon series: Freedom: Costly and Conflicted
Text: Isaiah 42:3; Luke 23:34
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Lent V, March 12, 1989
Transcription of the spoken sermon
He will not break a bruised reed, or snuff out a smoldering wick. Isaiah 42:3
Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing. Luke 23:34
Of all the remembrances of Jesus recorded in the Gospels, none is more startling
than the prayer of Jesus on the cross,
Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.
There is perhaps no other word or action of Jesus that so embodies his
understanding of God, of himself, of humankind. There is no clearer expression
of his freedom, freedom to live out his own truth, freedom for God and freedom
for others, than this prayer for the forgiveness of those who were crucifying him.
Father, forgive them... With these words, we are shocked into awareness of how
little we have learned the gospel and how poorly we have mediated the radical
grace of God. Father, forgive them... Words that contradict every natural impulse
of our being.
Jesus modeled out a magnificent freedom, a freedom that transcended outward
circumstances, enabling him to live a life of active love and grace rather than
anxious and hostile reaction. Impaled on a cruel Roman cross, he was yet free.
Taunted and spat upon and held in derision, he responded with grace, absorbing
the evil and not responding in kind, thus breaking the vicious cycle of vengeance.
Well, you say, but Jesus was different. Was he really? Is not the mystery of the
incarnation, of God-with-us-in-Jesus, the story of God present in a genuinely
human life? The freedom Jesus lived which issued in such grace was not some
“given” of divine nature. No, it was a freedom won, a freedom costly and
conflicted. To be sure, it was the result of his rootedness in God. Remember the
scene at his baptism -the voice from heaven claims him, the Spirit descends upon
© Grand Valley State University
�Freedom’s Gift: Grace
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
him. This was, to be sure, God’s beloved Son. But, for all that, there was nothing
magic about the process of Jesus gaining a sense of identity and vision for
ministry.
In the Wilderness he struggled with the Tempter – what kind of ministry would
he carry out and how would he do it?
John the Baptist had designs for him. John hoped he would fulfill Malachi’s
prediction of the return of Elijah who would bring fire, the judgment of refining
fire, to the earth, signaling the end of the world, the damnation of the wicked and
the vindication of the righteous.
Jesus had to overcome the obstacle of John’s expectation.
Coming from the struggle in the wilderness, Jesus announced a ministry
patterned after the Servant of Isaiah - a ministry of healing and liberation and
Good News.
John was concerned and confused. He sent his disciples with the question, “Are
you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”
Without argument or offense, Jesus simply pointed to his work. He went on to
affirm John and John’s ministry but it was also clear that he was saying, “John, I
am the one you were hoping for, but my mission is one of grace, not judgment.”
He announced his ministry of grace and healing in his hometown synagogue and
the radical grace far transcending the narrow exclusiveness of Jewish religion
was an offense to the hometown crowd. If John was confused, they were angry,
ready to lynch him on the spot.
But again, his inner strength and calm assurance rooted in God’s call enabled him
to move through the hostile crowd unharmed.
When the religious leaders called him mad, beside himself, his mother and
brothers set out to seize him and bring him home. But, once again, without anger
or breaking of relationship, he simply lived out of his own vision and truth and
said, “My mother and my brothers and my sisters are those who do the will of
God.”
The masterful freedom with which Jesus lived was costly and conflicted. He lived
out of an inner vision and thus was able to embody the grace of God in all
circumstances of his life.
The grace of God Jesus mediated is the only power for human transformation.
There are other ways and means of controlling and coercing human behavior, but
only grace as the active outflowing of God’s love really changes persons from the
inside out. This was what Jesus’ whole ministry was about - the promiscuous
© Grand Valley State University
�Freedom’s Gift: Grace
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
proclamation of the prodigal love and grace of God. The portrait of Jesus’
ministry in the Gospels makes that clear.
The Gospel portraits of Jesus portray the radical grace which was his hallmark.
Just after reporting the question of the imprisoned John and Jesus’ response,
Luke tells the story of the dinner party given by Simon, the Pharisee. Without
questioning Simon’s motivation in inviting Jesus, it is clear that he wanted to see
firsthand this teacher who was causing such a stir with his gracious ministry and
who seemed to have so little regard for the punctilious religious observances
which securely bound the sect of the Pharisees. Could Jesus really be a prophet?
Was he someone that must be taken seriously or was he just another upstart
itinerant preacher? He got his answer, but not as he expected. During dinner a
prostitute came in off the street because she learned Jesus was there. She
intended to anoint his feet with oil of myrrh, but her emotions overtook her and
she began to weep, her tears falling on Jesus’ feet. She wiped the tears with her
hair, kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment – a scene of great
tenderness and deep emotion, but a scene hardly in place in Simon’s house or on
such an occasion.
Embarrassed though he was, the rules of hospitality must prevail. Simon endured
the scene. But at least his question about Jesus was answered. This was no
prophet for, if he were, he would have known the immoral character of this
woman and would hardly have tolerated such a display of bad taste. Jesus
surmised Simon’s surmisings and proceeded to tell a story of two debtors, one
owing a small amount and the other a large amount. They were alike, however, in
that neither one had anything with which to pay. The creditor therefore freely
forgave them both their debts. Jesus’ question to Simon, “Which one will love
him most,” was given the obvious response by Simon: “I should think the one
that was let off most.” Jesus said, “You are right,” and then proceeded to apply
the story to the present situation. Simon, Jesus pointed out, had been proper in
his behaviour but had failed to offer the kind of courtesy and care that bespoke
deep kindness and love.
The woman, however, had been a veritable gusher of emotion, revealing the
deepest level of love. The application was obvious: Simon had little sense of
gracious forgiveness; he loved little. But the woman whose sins were many had
experienced grace and, consequently, loved deeply.
Certainly Luke used this incident to illustrate Jesus’ ministry of grace and he set
it against the background of John’s question, “Are you the one or should we look
for another?” The story illustrates the vision of ministry Jesus was living out, a
ministry not of judgment but of grace, a ministry not to call the righteous, but
sinners to repentance. Luke is the evangelist who recorded Jesus’ inaugural
message in his hometown – a Good News message. Here he shows that ministry
in action, a ministry that offers grace and thus transforms human life. Jesus knew
that only grace transforms; only grace changes persons.
© Grand Valley State University
�Freedom’s Gift: Grace
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
Breathing the heady atmosphere of freedom that comes from surrender to the
gracious God, Jesus was able to mediate grace that transformed persons.
Whoever the woman was that wept over his feet, this was not the first time she
encountered him. Somewhere, sometime his words of grace had found their mark
in her soul. Perhaps he caught her eye or mediated grace in a touch that healed.
She knew the forgiveness of sins and her outburst of love was the consequence.
Jesus’ freedom in God enabled him to mediate grace.
But what is at stake is bigger than the transformation of persons; grace mediated
out of freedom alone can save the world. How tragic that the Church has never
been able to live by radical grace for very long. Throughout the history of the
Christian tradition there have appeared those who have glimpsed that grace,
experienced the freedom grace bestows and out of that freedom proclaimed the
grace of God in all its radicality. We think of Paul - the Pharisee who lived
blamelessly according to the legal prescriptions of Jewish religion until grace
broke upon him with all its liberating power, setting him free to announce the
Kingdom’s Good News. And Martin Luther’s experience of grace gave him the
inward strength and freedom to stand against the whole establishment of the
Christian Church much as Jesus did in his day.
Still, for the most part, the Church has fallen back into the bondage of religious
observance, legal prescription and self-righteous performance. There has been all
too little joyous celebration of Good News, all too much gloomy demand and
threatening coercion. The Church has not been a haven for the broken and
battered, the fearful, the guilty, the crippled and the captive. Too often, it has
crippled and cramped and burdened and broken. Rather than letting grace flow
in a mighty tide, the impression the religious community has made on the world
at large is one of self-righteousness, judgmental disgust and militant
condemnation.
Religion has bad press in the world and it has richly deserved it, for it has been
characterized by binding and breaking rather than by the commission of the
Servant of the Lord in whom Jesus found his identity and vocation. Isaiah speaks
of the Servant anointed with God’s Spirit who
... will not break a bruised reed, or snuff out a smouldering wick.
Rather, the Servant is called,
To open eyes that are blind,
to bring captives out of prison,
out of the dungeons where they lie in darkness.
Reflect for a moment on religion in these waning years of the twentieth century.
What a surprising phenomenon it is. With what resurgence it has stormed into
center stage. As the century opened, one might have thought that the classic
Protestant liberalism would alone survive, accommodated as it was to the
© Grand Valley State University
�Freedom’s Gift: Grace
Richard A. Rhem
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dominant culture; there seemed only a narrow gap between enlightened Western
civilization and the Kingdom of God. Then the terrible disruption of violence and
war shattered the easy optimism of the liberal vision. Yet, near mid-century,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer could speak out of the chaos of a Nazi concentration camp of
“a world come of age.” But what do we see? An angry, militant fundamentalism
under various names, yet one in spirit, whether Christian, Jewish or Islamic.
In my mind it is not at all clear that the world is more endangered by the threat of
nuclear war than by the threat of zealous religion. It even seems more likely to me
that the next great human catastrophe will evolve from some form of religious
fanaticism than from a nuclear confrontation.
Let me remind you of the recent book by Charles Colson, Kingdom in Conflict,
where he imagines a scenario in which a fundamentalist Christian is elected
president and, because of his literal reading of certain Old Testament prophecies,
fails to act to stave off an attack by a fanatical right-wing group of Jews on the
Dome of the Rock - the sacred shrine of Islam in Jerusalem. It is an imagined
scenario, but highly conceivable.
Of course, the most obvious representative of the religion of coercion and legal
prescription is the Ayatollah Khomeni. I confessed in a previous message the
anger that rises in my being when I see the totalitarion grip he holds on the
masses and the vile hatred he breathes into their hearts. But the Ayatollah is only
a radical example of what religion always tends to be - controlling, coercing,
prescriptive, demanding, burdensome and binding. The Ayatollah has a book
from the prophet who got the word straight from God. In that sense he differs
little from the fundamentalist Jew or Christian. The book binds. Thus, when the
book says he who defames the prophet must be killed, Khomeni without qualm of
conscience says Salman Rushdie must die because his novel Satanic Verses
defames the prophet of Islam.
Is it any different than the established Judaism of Jesus’ day, which said we have
a law and according to that law, he must die?
It is all of a piece - all cut from the same cloth.
But, Jesus was free of the bondage of religion, free of the coercive legalism and
ritualism of the religious institution. Jesus was rooted in God and therefore free
from every human bondage and, in that freedom, mediated God’s grace to all
without condition - the grace alone that can bring redemption to a broken world
torn by ideological strife and religious hatred.
Rushdie must die, demands the Ayatollah. He defamed the prophet; kill him.
Protect your religion; protect your prophet; protect your God.
See Jesus on the cross in anguish experiencing the very worst hell that
humankind can create. As they mock him, taunt him, jeer and spit upon him, he
© Grand Valley State University
�Freedom’s Gift: Grace
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
prays. He prays out of the freedom of his own truth. He prays out of the vision of
his calling; he prays consistent with his whole ministry; he prays,
Father, forgive them...
For Jesus knows that it is grace alone that transforms persons; he knows it is only
grace lived out in freedom that can save the world from its own destruction.
Father, forgive them, he prays.
Father, forgive us.
Set us free to forgive – to be the agents of such grace in our world.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
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1981-2014
Format
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
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Event
Lent V
Series
Freedom: Costly and Conflicted
Scripture Text
Isa 42:1-7, Luke 23:34
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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KII-01_RA-0-19890312
Date
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1989-03-12
Title
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Freedom's Gift: Grace
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Text
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 12, 1989 entitled "Freedom's Gift: Grace", as part of the series "Freedom: Costly and Conflicted", on the occasion of Lent V, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isa 42:1-7, Luke 23:34.
Forgiveness
Lent
Nature of Religion
Non-exclusive
Radical Grace of God
Way of Jesus
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PDF Text
Text
Free to Care
From the series: The One Covenant of Grace – The Salvation of the World
Text: Galatians 6:2, 9-10
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Thanksgiving Sunday, November 22, 1987
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Help one another to carry these heavy loads, and in this way you will
fulfill the law of Christ… So let us never tire of doing good…let us work
for the good of all… Galatians 6:2, 9-10
I am all excited again about being Christ's Community. You may respond, "You
have been excited about it for nearly 17 years," and, of course, you would be right;
I have been. But one goes through stages; sometimes the vision is clear and the
movement strong. At other times the direction seems less clear. Sometimes the
energy flows with great spontaneity; at other times it seems like an uphill grind.
Sometimes the focus is clear; at times I get sidetracked with peripheral matters
and I lose focus.
These past weeks have been rather difficult for me. The preparation to preach has
been a struggle. I take this business very seriously and I have experienced more of
the agony than the ecstasy of preaching.
We have been wrestling with the very center of what Christ Community is all
about. We have a unique identity. It is not the only possible identity for a
congregation. Every congregation has a distinct personality. Every congregation
has its niche. When I say we have a unique identity, I am not boasting. I am
saying, however, that for us, identity has been worked at intentionally and
deliberately. We are self-conscious, self-aware. We have worked at that biblically
and theologically over the past decade and a half. We re-named ourselves in May
of 1971 and we did that in the midst of an explosion of the Spirit's power and
grace. The name spoke a vision of what we wanted to become and it became a
formative influence in our becoming what we are – Christ Community.
Not a community church which represented the lowest common denominator of
biblical and theological understanding. Rather - Christ's Community - a
community of people united in Jesus Christ.
Both words are significant:
© Grand Valley State University
�Free to Care
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
Christ - The one through whom the grace of God has come to us.
Community - A fellowship of mutual love and support in which we share
life together.
A community of openness and healing for all persons needing the grace of God; a
community consciously seeking to transcend the limits and barriers to fellowship
- ethnic barriers, denominational barriers, confessional barriers, social barriers.
A radio jingle we used for a long time said it well - "A community that cares about
people."
That community finds its source in the radical grace of God. Radical grace is an
old, familiar theme here. Yet in these weeks I have wrestled with it anew. For
whatever reason, the messages have not come easily. But, now at the end of this
series, I sense a deeper grasp or a new conviction about the nature of what we are
and what we must continue to become. For me the focus has become very sharp
again. We are called by Jesus Christ to be a community of care.
If radical grace is our theme, then radical love issuing in radical care must be our
life.
I was struck with the power of the insight that came clear to me last week. Just as
we find in Paul's Galatians letter the statement of a radical grace issuing in
freedom, so we find in that same letter a statement of our radical obligation.
Galatians is about freedom and obligation. Grace sets us free. There is no hedging
on that. Paul's strenuous defense and exposition of God's radical grace issues in
his climactic charge:
Christ has set us free, to be free people. Stand firm, then, and refuse to be
tied to the yoke of slavery again.
You, my friends, were called to be free persons.
Free! That is our state in the grace of God - God's unilateral action binding us to
Himself quite apart from anything we are or any performance on our part.
But, is that not dangerous? Will we not take advantage of such grace that asks
nothing but simply sets us free? Certainly we might do that; we do do that! Paul
was not unaware of the possible abuse of grace. He anticipated the objection to
his understanding of grace in his letter to the Romans. He raises the objector's
question:
What shall we say, then? Shall we persist in sin, so that there may be all
the more grace? (Romans 6:1)
His answer is swift and direct:
© Grand Valley State University
�Free to Care
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
By no means!
Recognizing the danger, however, does not cause Paul to moderate his insistence
on radical grace. He will not tolerate a compromise – a mixture of law and grace.
Rather, he speaks of the obligation of the person set free by grace in as radical
terms as he had spoken of grace. God's people are called to be free, but, Paul
adds:
…Only do not turn your freedom into license for the flesh, or, for the selfprinciple, but be servants to one another in love. For the whole law can be
summed up in a single commandment: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
Radical grace issues in freedom to love radically. The parallel is very interesting.
In relating his own experience of grace and thereby pointing to the fundamental
experience of grace, Paul wrote:
I have been crucified with Christ: The life I now live is not my life, but the
life which Christ lives in me.
Paul died. The old Paul who so strenuously sought to fulfill the obligations of the
law, thereby justifying himself, was dead. He looked away from self; he looked to
God Who justifies by grace.
Now he is equally dead to self when it comes to the life he now lives. He looks
away from self to the neighbor. Self-ish existence is past in terms both of selfjustification and self-serving. Freed from self, the one graced by God is free for
the neighbor.
Only a free person can give self away. A person engaged in a self-project, a project
aimed at self-justification, self-validation, self-vindication has self at the center.
There is always the compulsion in a multitude of ways to guard, defend, enhance
and authenticate the self. A person who has died to self, having been given the
gift of life by the grace of God, no longer focuses on the self.
The graced self has no need to prove itself, defend itself, promote itself. The selfprotecting, promoting, validating project is over and done with. The terrible
driving, compelling need to be liked, recognized, rewarded is dead. Now one
possesses one's self by grace. God gives one one's life. That self can now give itself
away.
And Paul says the obligation to love is as unconditional and radical as is the grace
that frees and gives new life. One is never through with the obligation to love.
To live by law is easier and much neater. If there were a set of legal obligations I
must fulfill and thus find favor with God, then it would follow that there would
likewise be certain legal obligations incumbent on me in regard to my neighbor.
© Grand Valley State University
�Free to Care
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
We could probably come up with a code of duties to neighbor. But if it is a legal,
contractual obligation, then I can check off the list of duties and finally have done
with it.
But, if I am loved unconditionally, must I not love unconditionally?
If my obligation is to love my neighbor, I am never through with it. The radical
nature of my obligation to love my neighbor simply follows as a matter of course
from the radical grace that flows from the infinite love of God.
Galatians 6 deals with the obligation to love in terms of caring for one another in
the community of faith and beyond. Life in the community of God's people is
quite in contrast to the situation of human society as a whole. Listen to Paul:
We must not be conceited, challenging one another to rivalry, jealous of
one another.
Pride, competitiveness, jealousy - so characteristic of human society – are not to
be present. They are the consequences of a society of selves at war. But in the
Christian community, self has died.
And what if someone falls and really messes up his life? Ostracize? Criticize?
Trample? Not so! Rather,
... set him right again very gently.
Scott Peck opens The Road Less Traveled with the words, "Life is difficult. Paul
would agree. So he counsels:
Help one another to carry these heavy loads...
Again in verses 9 and 10 he calls us to the radical obligation to care.
So let us never tire of doing good… Therefore, as opportunity offers, let us
work for the good of all…
Do we grow weary of caring?
Sure we do. Compassion fatigue is a common experience. Paul knew that, too.
What are we tempted to do when we grow weary in well-doing? We are tempted
to short-circuit the obligation. We are tempted to say, "Well, I went the extra mile
but no one can expect me to do more." Or, "I tried, but I give up.”
But we can't get away with that with Paul. We ought to be honest. Let's not kid
ourselves. Let's simply admit when the nerve of compassion is cut. Let's
withdraw, find some space to be renewed and then go at it again. But, let's not kid
ourselves that any amount of effort, of care, of compassionate outreach fulfills the
© Grand Valley State University
�Free to Care
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
obligation. We are never through with loving and caring and we never finally turn
away from another human being having completed the claims of love.
We are graced - given life as a gift.
Therefore we are free of any need to perform to win God's favor. Therefore we are
free to love, free to care. And there is no end to it. In humility, with compassion,
we serve one another in love. We never miss an opportunity to do good to our
neighbor.
That word "opportunity" translates the Greek word Kairos, which is the word for
time, not in the sense of ongoing time, but in the sense of significant time – the
moment filled with opportunity, freighted with eternity. Paul's meaning is that
this time of the new age between Jesus' resurrection and His coming again is a
time for loving and caring.
The call to good to all persons concludes the paragraph that began with the
warning about trying to fool God. Paul reminds us that that simply is not
possible. God is not fooled. What we are is transparent to God and finally, in
God's presence, will be apparent to us ourselves. Within Paul's uncompromising
claim of God's radical grace there is as well his insistence that our lives will be
reviewed. This is not a threat; it is simply reality. How could it be otherwise? Life
is serious. It matters how we live. Grace sets us free from condemnation. It gives
peace with God. We are free from the driving compulsion to measure up – we are
loved just as we are and declared righteous in Jesus Christ. Precisely that
wonderful news changes us, frees us, sets us about responding joyfully to act out
what has been enacted in us, for us, in Jesus Christ.
There is no fear in judgment. Pain there will be. Regret there will be.
Refining fire will be necessary to finish the work in us until we are perfectly
conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. One day we will be just like him and
today is the day of opportunity to walk toward that goal by loving as we have been
loved and caring as we have been cared for.
I am excited all over again about what Christ Community is all about, about our
initial vision and our constant concentration. We are in the business of loving and
caring for people – all kinds of people in all sorts of conditions.
I was reminded this week of what I personally experienced through this
congregation. When I thought it was all over, you invited me back, believed in
me, trusted me, healed me, fed me, clothed me.
Remember my commitment to this congregation was not to a thriving 3,000member church, but to 678 persons in a village congregation. No vision of
grandeur, just a spontaneous response to love and care.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
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Rhem, Richard A.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
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1981-2014
Format
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Thanksgiving Sunday
Pentecost XXV
Series
One Covenant of Grace - the Salvation of the World
Scripture Text
Galatians 6:2, 9-10
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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KII-01_RA-0-19871122
Date
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1987-11-22
Title
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Free to Care
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
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Sound
Text
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 22, 1987 entitled "Free to Care", as part of the series "One Covenant of Grace - the Salvation of the World", on the occasion of Thanksgiving Sunday, Pentecost XXV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Galatians 6:2, 9-10.
Community of Faith
Freedom
Judgment
Radical Grace of God
Unconditional Love to Others
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fb8c6bec6cd294ef2ff65cc401ae050f.mp3
d62763b3e0846384eb0a3d1a0ed23894
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f22e932b2fed18f1ba8240114ebff78f.pdf
7b529091afad68a7c8811676da181a8d
PDF Text
Text
The Gospel of Radical Grace: No Human Invention
From the series: The One Covenant of Grace – The Salvation of the World
Text: Galatians 1:11-12
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Music Ministry Sunday, October 18, 1987
Transcription of the spoken sermon
…The gospel you heard me preach is no human invention… I received it
through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Galatians 1:11-12
As the people of God, we are here to celebrate the radical grace of God. We come
here week after week, not simply to fulfill the Sunday obligation; we come here
week after week, not simply out of custom, or habit, or out of a sense of duty
which has become onerous duty; we come here not begrudging the time or the
effort that it takes; we come here week after week to celebrate the radical grace of
God. We are a people who celebrate and now for many years we have had it
printed on our Order of Worship - Worship is Celebration. Worship is singing
and dancing and proclaiming joyfully the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. We are a people who come here week by week in order to focus upon God,
in order to have God in our minds and before our hearts. We are a people who
come here week after week in order to lose ourselves in wonder, love and praise.
We are a people who come here expecting that the pageantry of corporate
worship will catch us up so that we will lose ourselves and so that we will be
transported into the very presence of God, so that we will leave this place, if not
with an intellectual proposition that we can repeat, nonetheless with an
experience that we cannot deny. We come here to present our whole being before
the being of God, to experience the Word of His grace, to hear again the joyful
proclamation that God is for us, and together to lift our voices and to become
joined through that union that the Spirit creates so that we know that we are the
people of God and that God is for us, God is with us, God is on our side.
We are a people for whom worship is celebration, and there are all kinds of
worship. Sometimes the experience is one of silence when we are overcome with
the sheer beauty of it all; sometimes the experience of worship is one of
contemplation as we reflect quietly on the grace of God; and sometimes the
experience of worship is one of such exuberance that we simply cannot be silent,
© Grand Valley State University
�The Gospel of Radical Grace: No Human Invention
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
that we simply cannot sit still, for we are literally lifted out of ourselves
experiencing the joy of the truth of the grace of God.
I suppose that it is true that what I have just described is the ideal, and I suppose
that the ideal at Christ Community only happens now and again, and I also
believe that the ideal happens across the country in the Christian Church rarely,
for it is true that the Christian Church has so often become terribly dull and
boring and trivial. When you think of the wonder of the Gospel, when you think
of the drama of the proclamation, when you think of the fundamental reality to
which we point and to which we seek to enter, then for us to be so dull and so
drab is a contradiction of the reality we claim.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a Gospel of radical grace and that is the most
fundamental truth of all the world. We come here to celebrate the truth. We come
here to enter into reality. We come here in order to be in touch with that which is
elemental, fundamental, basic reality. We come here to present ourselves in the
presence of God and to worship because of that revelation of Himself in Jesus
Christ which assures us that God is for us and God is with us and that we are the
objects of His radical grace.
The Gospel of radical grace is no human invention. Paul says that in so many
words. Had I read the scripture lesson in the New English Bible translation, he
would have protested against those who were against him.
The Gospel you heard me preach is no human invention. I did not take it
over from any man. No taught it me. I received it through a revelation of
Jesus Christ.
And then a little farther down he says,
But then in his good pleasure God, Who had set me apart from my birth
and called me through His grace, chose to reveal His Son to me and
through me.
The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, strongly declared that the Gospel
of radical grace is not a human invention, but is rather the revelation of God. And
it is that Gospel, that good news, that reality that we celebrate when we come
together for worship. That is why worship must never be boring, never be dull. It
is the experience in which we, the people, together, corporately, lose ourselves in
the praise of God, because the face of the matter is that God is gracious, God has
reached out to us, God has embraced us. It is the bedrock, fundamental,
elemental reality that that with which we have to do is the Gospel of radical grace
which is no human invention, but the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. The
Apostle Paul in this Letter to the Galatians, as in no other place, rings the changes
on the radical grace of God. It has been our theme at Christ Community Church.
We have celebrated it over and over again over the years. It is, as I have admitted
to you many times, the one string on my banjo and I will be happy to be buried
© Grand Valley State University
�The Gospel of Radical Grace: No Human Invention
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
with the tombstone saying, "He believed; he lived; he preached radical grace."
Because that is the heart of the matter.
Over the centuries the Church has encrusted the Gospel with all kinds of
subsidiary considerations; over the years, the Church has been tempted to move
away from the Gospel of grace, institutionalizing itself, setting up structures and
forms, degenerating into a kind of moralism that is nothing more than the Boy
Scout motto of being good and kind and always prepared, as fine as those things
are. The Church of Jesus Christ has degenerated into simply a social club that has
celebrated the fact that we ought to be good people, decent people, moral people,
and it has so often fallen off its one dramatic, marvelous proclamation that God is
gracious, that He has intervened into our history, that He has penetrated into our
lives with a message that transforms and frees us, a message of His grace.
And when Paul wrote this letter to the Galatians, he was struggling against that
which has proven to be the peril and the temptation of the Church down through
the centuries – that is, to move the Gospel of Grace to a religion filled with
obligation and duty and structure and form, failing thereby to live constantly in
amazement at the grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ that has set us free.
Everywhere Paul went he proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and those who
believed found their lives transformed, and those whose lives were transformed
formed a community of faith. Paul would go on to another place and another and
another. But every place he went there would be others who would come in and
who would not deny that God is gracious, who would not deny that God had
revealed Himself in Jesus the Messiah, but who would deny that all one needed
was Jesus Christ for salvation, who would suggest to those who had come out of
the darkness of paganism in that ancient world that God was gracious, that Jesus
had come and died for them, but what they also needed beyond their faith in him
was to submit, for example, to the Old Testament rite of circumcision, to follow
the Old Testament dietary laws – in a word to add to Jesus, Moses. The critical
issue in the first century was whether or not one had to become a Jew in order to
become a Christian, whether the vestibule into the sanctuary of the people of God
passed through Moses, whether or not all of the Old Testament legislation and
ceremony had to be added on to one's faith in Jesus Christ.
Paul said, "Absolutely not!" Christ alone. Jesus reveals the grace of God, and by
faith in him we are redeemed. And in this letter to the Galatians, he claims in the
very beginning that that gospel of radical grace is not a human invention, but was
given to him by revelation. If you would go through that first chapter carefully
you would find that Paul argued for the authority of his gospel on the basis of his
call and the revelation that God gave to him. Paul argued for his authority for the
Gospel that he preached on the basis that it came through no human
consultation, not by discussing it with the Apostles, not as the result of some
church ecclesiastical court, but simply as the revelation of God in Jesus Christ to
him. And Paul submitted his Gospel to the Apostles; he met with Peter and he
met with the other disciples 14 years later, and he checked the Gospel out with
© Grand Valley State University
�The Gospel of Radical Grace: No Human Invention
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
them, and they gave him the right hand of fellowship and they confirmed that the
Gospel that he preached was indeed the Gospel that they understood through
Jesus Christ. The thing that Paul continued to maintain was that that which he
preached was not the result of consultation, it was not a human commission, it
was not data and information, it was a revelation from God through Jesus Christ
himself. In his own experience he said, "Look. Look at me as one who has been
changed by the Gospel. In the first place, I persecuted the Church. The record is
there. And in the second place, I was zealous for the traditions of my fathers far
beyond my contemporaries; I outstripped them all."
Sometimes we make out as though Paul was a miserable, guilty, guilt-laden
sinner. There's nothing in the New Testament to indicate that. Paul says, "I was
zealous for the traditions of the fathers. I was so zealous for the tradition of my
fathers, that I even persecuted the Church, but it pleased God to reveal His son to
me." It is in that revelation of Jesus Christ that Paul learned the Gospel and
experienced his call to proclaim it. The revelation of God in Jesus Christ is the
revelation of radical grace, and Paul would have nothing added to it. Down
through the centuries the Church has added to the Gospel, encrusted the Gospel
with all kinds of secondary matters, domesticated the Gospel, but the reality of
the situation is simply this – that God in Jesus Christ had provided for salvation
to be received by us by faith, adding nothing to it. And that Gospel, Paul said, is a
gospel for which I'll go to the stake. He wouldn't compromise it.
It was not that Paul was hardnosed. Paul has gotten bad press, to be sure.
Sometimes Paul comes off as not a very nice guy, and maybe he's not the kind of
person you'd choose for a roommate, but at least he cared about something. At
least he committed his life to something. He wasn't cool. He wasn't laid back. He
wasn't nonchalant. But neither was he just another religious bigot and dogmatist
for, if we look at his letters and his writing, we'll find, for example, when he wrote
to the church at Corinth, he said, "When I deal with people who are under the
law, I am as one under the law, and when I deal with people who are without the
law, I am as one without the law. I am all things to all people, that by all means I
might win some."
There were all kinds of things about which Paul did not care. In his letter to the
Romans, he deals with the question about which day of rest should be observed.
Should it be the Sabbath Day, the seventh day, or should it be the first day, the
Lord's Day? And Paul says, "Really, it doesn't matter. Would you like to worship
on Monday?" Religious people have gotten all hung up on all kinds of things. Paul
says it doesn't matter. The day doesn't matter. When he wrote to the Church at
Corinth, there were some people who went to the butcher shop that was
connected with the Temple and they bought a pot roast and the pot roast had,
first of all, been offered to the pagan idol, and there were other Christians who
saw them buying that pot roast that had been offered to the pagan idol and they
said, "Oh, you can't eat something that's been offered to an idol." They said,
"Well, let's ask Paul." Paul said, "Who cares? The idol isn't anything. Wave it in
© Grand Valley State University
�The Gospel of Radical Grace: No Human Invention
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
front of the idol as often as you want to. It won't affect the meat. If it's US Prime,
it'll be good!"
But the point of it all was this – Paul was very flexible, very open; he was not an
uptight religious person. Paul was not picayunish. Paul was not small and narrow
and mean. Paul didn't go around excluding people from the Kingdom because
they parted their hair differently. Paul says the freedom of the Christian person in
Christ is grounded in the grace of God. Live it out how you will. Determine how
you'll live it out and then do it out of faith, but don't denounce one another and
judge one another and condemn one another. Be free in Christ and be of good
heart, and then do as you will before the face of God. And so, Paul was not really a
bigot, not a dogmatist, not a hard-nose, except on this one thing – he said if you
want to turn the grace of God into a religious system full of obligations and duties
thereby completing salvation, be accursed. Paul knew that everything was at
stake on this pivot point. And this Gospel, he said, is the truth of God.
It's not so popular today to talk about the truth. We live in an age in which we
have learned to tolerate differences of opinion, and that's good. We live in an age
which values tolerance and it is a value. But there are some things, my good
friends, that are either true or false, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is either the
expression of the radical grace of God Who is for us and in Jesus Christ has
redeemed us, or it is something else, but it's not a gospel. Paul says they preach
another gospel which is not another gospel because there is no other gospel.
This I received by revelation of Jesus Christ.
Now you say, well, that's all fine, Paul. If I were to be able to be smitten with a
bright light on the way to Damascus, I would book passage tomorrow. But it
wasn't just that. Paul didn't learn about Jesus Christ in the Damascus Road
experience. First of all, remember he was battling the followers of Jesus. Brilliant
as he was, don't you think that Paul learned about Jesus Christ more than those
that he was battling? Don't you think that he had gotten himself well-briefed?
Don't you think that he understood every fact about Jesus Christ, even when he
was battling? The Damascus Road experience convinced him that Jesus was alive,
that Jesus was the Son of God. It was the transforming moment. But when he
wrote to the Church at Corinth, he said, "The tradition I received I pass along to
you...." He also mentions the tradition when he speaks of the institution of the
Lord's Supper in his letter to the Corinthians. He says, "I pass along to you the
fact that has been passed alone to me."
It wasn't as though he was some Lone Ranger that went off to Damascus and had
a message in the sky. Paul was, in that sense, not so different from us who have
had access to all of the data and all of the information. Do we not know the
Gospel? Any one of you could stand up and you could announce the facts, that
data of the Gospel. But what is the Gospel? It is more than the tradition. It is
more than Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, was raised on the
third day. It is more than the hard facts that you get out of the book. When Paul
© Grand Valley State University
�The Gospel of Radical Grace: No Human Invention
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
says “by revelation,” he says that all of that suddenly came into focus. "And in a
moment I was transformed and I realized that all the data pointed to the
stupendous truth - that God, in His grace, through Jesus Christ, loved me." And
that the one solid, bedrock, fundamental, basic, elemental truth is that God is
gracious, that God is a Saviour, that God has loved us, that all that has to be done
has been done, that salvation is complete, that there is nothing we can do for it,
nothing we can do to it, nothing we can do to merit it. There is nothing we can do
to warrant it! It has been done! It has been done! It is done! Christ has died.
Salvation is ours. We are a people loved and graced and all we can do is sing,
"Alleluia!" That's why St. Augustine says that a Christian is a person who says,
"Alleluia! from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot."
And where do we get off with our dullness, with our boring worship, with our hohum attitude, with a strong song of praise that elicits nothing more than a yawn?
Shame on us. Shame on us for living in the light of the one great reality, that
which is true, and being so blasé about it! Ah, this, my friends, is a celebration in
a world that is filled with claims and counterclaims about what is true and what is
important and about what ought to have the priority, in a world that is sated with
information and data and newscasts and news analysis. In a world like that, this
is true – God is good, God is gracious, God loves us, God is the strong foundation
of our life, God holds us in His hand and He'll never let us go. And all of His
people said,
Amen!
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Pentecost XX
Series
One Covenant of Grace - the Salvation of the World
Scripture Text
Galatians 1:11-12
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01_RA-0-19871018
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1987-10-18
Title
A name given to the resource
The Gospel of Radical Grace: No Human Invention
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on October 18, 1987 entitled "The Gospel of Radical Grace: No Human Invention", as part of the series "One Covenant of Grace - the Salvation of the World", on the occasion of Pentecost XX, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Galatians 1:11-12.
Community of Faith
Presence of God
Radical Grace of God
Tradition
Transforming Love
Worship