A Community Of Grace

A Community Of Grace

Upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.

Matthew 16:18

THE MOVIE LONE SURVIVOR is the true story of some guys who decide they want to become Navy SEALs. They go into training as tough “I don’t need anyone but me” individuals but soon realize they do need each other. The mission they’ve signed up for is so big and so challenging that they can’t do it on their own. They need to link arms and become a community.

And that’s exactly what happens. They become a united community.

It’s a different kind of community than most people might ever experience.

Their community is unique in that it’s a community on a mission. Typically, people join a group because it’s good for them. Membership has its privileges. And if there aren’t enough privileges, people don’t want to be members.

But not the Navy SEALs. The SEALs aren’t about serving themselves, but serving others. They are a community that exists to protect those who are not part of the community. They keep the mission first. To accomplish their mission, they have to support each other. We see this in the movie as four of the SEALs go into action in Afghanistan. Things don’t go as planned, and as they face seemingly insurmountable odds, they constantly encourage each other.

Their community is also unique in that it’s a community of grace.

Toward the beginning of their surveillance mission in Afghanistan, the four SEALs are in the woods, spying on the Taliban camp, when they’re accidentally discovered by an elderly shepherd and two teenage goat herders. The SEALs realize that if they let these three civilians go, they will run and alert the Taliban to their presence. The Taliban will soon show up, and the SEALs will probably die.

The other option is to save themselves by killing the three civilians.

To most it would seem like an easy decision: save yourself! But it’s not so obvious for these men. Ultimately they choose grace—to let the shepherds go, even though it may lead to their own deaths. And letting them go . . . goes badly. The shepherds run and alert the Taliban, who show up, guns blazing. Still, one of the Navy SEALs says, “I think we did the right thing. We let our love light shine.”

In the battle, three of the four SEALs die.^a And the lone survivor of this community of grace, Marcus Luttrell, ends up being saved by a different community of grace.

Marcus is severely injured. A local named Mohammed Gulab and his son come along and rescue him. They take Marcus to their village and care for him. When the Taliban come looking, Gulab risks his life, his family, and his entire village to protect Marcus. He explains to the Taliban that his tribe’s tradition of hospitality requires them to protect Marcus at all costs.

So Marcus, who led his team in making the decision to be a community of grace to the three shepherds, is now saved by a community of grace.

A Unique Community

Maybe you learned, as I did, to be an “I don’t need anyone but me” individual. It sounds so good. Then life happens. And, well, some supportive friends might be nice.

Then we decide to follow Jesus. And the scope of our mission seems overwhelming, and the temptations and confusion assail us, and we realize that we can’t do this on our own.

That’s why we need the church. A lot of people say they can be Christians without being part of a church. Technically that may be true, but in the daily grind of real life it just doesn’t work. We need one another, and God wants us to become part of a unified community. He wants us to link arms with a church. And the church is a different kind of community than many people have ever experienced.

Like we see with the SEALs in Lone Survivor, the church is unique in that it’s a community on a mission.

A guy named William Temple once said, “The church is the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members.” Christians can treat the church like it’s a purveyor of religious goods and services, and they are the customers, but, um, that’s wrong. The church exists to love and serve and share truth and hope with those who don’t yet belong. The goal is to bring people into God’s family. Until people become God’s children, the church exists for them. Once they do, it no longer does.

It may sound like Christians get the raw end of the deal on that one. We want things to be for us, to serve us. But once we start living life in the upside-down way of Jesus, we realize we’ve had it all wrong. Jesus was right; it is better to serve than to be served.^b And becoming a part of a community on a mission fills our lives with purpose and adventure.

The church is also unique in that it’s a community of grace.

There aren’t many places dealing grace in this world. Seems like everywhere you go you’re accepted based on your merits or rejected because you don’t measure up.

Grace is giving someone better than they deserve. It’s giving love even when the person may not deserve love. It’s offering acceptance to people you may not be keen on accepting. The Bible says, “Accept each other just as Christ has accepted you.”^c How does Christ accept you?

He doesn’t ask how much money you have or how intelligent you are.

He doesn’t ask if you were voted most attractive or most likely to succeed.

He doesn’t ask what kind of car you drive or how many square feet you live in.

He doesn’t ask if you’ve been a good boy or girl.

No, Jesus’ only question is, “Do you want my love?”

Jesus came to establish his church,^d and his church is to be a community of grace where the only requirement is that you’re willing to be loved—by God and by the other members of the community.

And that is exactly what you need. You need to get better than you deserve. Because we’ve all blown it. Because none of us are good enough if we’re judged on our own merits.

You need to find and become part of a community of grace, and you need to start wholesaling grace—for free—to everyone you can.

(What are you waiting for?)

(Go do it.)

Now What?

• Read Ephesians 4:1-16.
• How do you see the church being a community of grace and on a mission? Who has God put in your life or in your community whom you could show some grace to? Is there some way you could team up with other people from your church to show a ton of grace to some people who really need it?
• Ask God to help you see today the ways that you don’t show grace to other people. Ask him to show you people who need to experience his grace through you.