I know what you mean about somebody cutting you off in traffic. Wooo.. instantaneous grace needed here, just to bite my tongue!
Looking at the dozens of times the word "grace" is used in the NT, I would say (rough reckoning) that 2/3 of the time it's used in a blessing ---"Grace and peace be with you, " "May the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ abide with you," "Grace be with you all," --- so the Apostle Paul, and other apostles as well, are praying for grace to be extended to all their new converts and co-workers. This is surely the principal way that one "administers" grace --- the word that Paul used in Ephesians. The APostle, as pastor, intercedes, he prays that others may have an even greater measure of it.
Peter says grace has various forms, and again refers to his co-workers as God's stewards. And of course, what a steward does is assist with the ongoing distribution:
1 Peter 4:10
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.
Peter says that in speaking, in serving, they are now doing so with the words of God, and in the strength of God. As members of Christ's Body, the Church, they are becoming participants in the very life and activity of God. This is true sanctification. This is grace.
There is nothing contradictory between having instant access to grace anytime to ask (and sometimes when you don't!!!) --- and receiving God's grace through the blessings invoked by the Apostles and their co-workers and successors, --- and receiving grace through others' intercessory prayer.
God accomplishes His works through His Body on earth,the Church. Paul says,
1 Corinthians 12:28
And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues.
And then again:
Ephesians 4:11-12
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.
So it is God who has placed all these offices in the Church. Can we say we don't need them? Paul's constant plea for the Body of Christ is this:
1 Corinthians 12:21
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!”
So I don't see how it's God-pleasing to say you don't need the Church. It would be uncomprehending or ungrateful, I think, for me to say "Jesus, it was pointless for you to have given us all this. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, unnecessary. Intercessors praying for me, pastors blessing me by praying for Your grace, unnecessary. Your Church is unnecessary."
And there would be a certain pridefulness for me to say that this Church, which, after all, is His provision, is just extraneous. It's like Naaman the Syrian saying, "The Jordan? You want me to waddle on down into the mud and bathe in that dirty little creek you call the Jordan??! No great God would use, nor need to use, such paltry material things, such paltry physical actions."
The whole OT is one example after another, in book after book, via prophets,press and kings, that God's grace and favor ae dispensed or apprehended or activated through physical actions. The OT is almost content-less, if that is not so.
God has given us multiple great signs that He indeed uses physical "stuff" and physical actions. Peter affirms that baptism was foreshadowed by the salvation of Noah and seven other people in his family at the time of the Flood; also by the parting of the Red Sea and the liberation of Israel from the midst of Egypt; also the crossing of the Jordan so the people could enter and occupy the Promised Land: God saves us by water; by Water and the Spirit.
And the same is true of all the Sacraments: enumerating them all would almost overwhelm Jim Robinson's bandwidth. God has always used these outward signs, and used them to convey the grace of salvation.
I don’t say that I don’t need the church.
The church exists and I am part of it. I need other believers. There is need for accountability to other believers and those whom God has called into leadership position.
What I’m saying is that attending church, Sunday worship services, should not be the mainstay of the Christians spiritual growth.
The OT is a different covenant than the new. It was a covenant of Law. Under the OT, the covenant was *If you do this, I’ll do that*. God actions were determined by the actions of man to a degree. The Law was bondage to man.
Under the new covenant, the covenant of grace, God’s actions are not determined in any way by ours. He is free to be faithful to us even when we are faithless. We are free from having to obey the requirements of the Law to receive God’s grace.
The whole purpose of the Law was to lead us to Christ. It never was intended as a means of salvation. It was to show us that we COULDN’T keep it and show us our need of the Redeemer. Everything in the Law pointed to Christ.
The problem many people encounter in life is trying to apply the OT principles to NT living. We still have this mindset that what we do influences God’s treatment of us. That’s why when things go south, people wonder if God is punishing them for something they did. Or if things are going bad, they get into the mindset of thinking *Well, if I just do this thing that I think will please God, then He will do ________*.
It doesn’t work that way any more. God gives us grace because of the new covenant, not because we performed actions that triggered the desired response from God. The Law of grace supersedes the Law of works.
Baptism and communion, under grace, are physical declarations of the spiritual reality the believer has already experienced. Because it is not under the old covenant, they do not CAUSE the spiritual reality.