now now we come to the major issue that we have to deal with and that is in some detail how this happens and I'm going to go over this in a general way now and then in the meetings later I will talk about some of the particular things that we can do not by human effort alone okay let's settle that so not without Grace we're not talking about about bringing the inner transformation of the self into christlikeness by human effort okay but note the next one not without human effort we still have to act the statement grow in Grace from Peter is a command that means that we do it how do you grow in Grace that's our that's our question how do you go in Grace Grace is a gift can you control control that can you pull up to it like you would pull up to the pump at a Ser at a gas station and just download Grace well the answer is sort of strangely enough and one of the greatest difficulties that we have in our religious circles today is not understanding how effort works with Grace but you must make effort if this is transformation is to come about not without Grace and the Holy Spirit obviously but not by grace and the Holy Spirit [Music] alone that's passivity and the transformation of the inner being the righteousness that exceeds the righteousness Of The Scribe in the fa see is going to be something that will not happen passively so now notice the last line on the screen because this will give you some balance I think we're very familiar with the statement without me you can do nothing and that is true that is why there's no boasting in this matter Paul makes it very clear boasting is eliminated because it's by Grace right boasting is a terrible thing that it disrupts everything in Kingdom living so that has to be eliminated but now notice also that you can be sure if you do nothing it will be without him and there's again a place we just kind of need to stop and let that does that sit with you if we do nothing it will be without him without me you can do nothing okay yes right we agree but that's not the end of the story because in the very passage in which Jesus is saying without me you can nothing do nothing he's giving you a command do you remember what the command is it is abide in the vine that's a command that's like growing grace abide in the vine so now now this brings us to this issue that we've brought up several times and now we need to try to say something a little more definitive on it and that is the role of Grace in the life we're talking about so let's start with a statement about what Grace is and just try it on folks I'm not you know I'm not trying to dictate to you I give you things that you can see um how they work so let's go with this idea of Grace and see if if that is going to do the job Grace is God acting in our lives to bring about what we cannot do on our own that's Grace that's God's grace God acting in our lives to bring about what we cannot do on our own is it UNM merited favor of course it's unmar favor but if you just say grace is unmetered favor you don't say what it does and this is where the teaching of Grace can easily slip over into the default gospel that says Grace just has to do with the imputation of righteousness it has to do with Merit of Christ being substituted for your demerit to bring you out of the red and into the black with God you see so you have to say more about Grace than just that it is unmerited favor is it unmerited favor yes it's unmerited favor what does it do it does this Grace is God acting in our life to bring about what we cannot make happen on our own so now we want to look at some of these passages in a moment to see how this works but there just another point or two here that we need to make and uh the most important one is that Grace is not opposed to effort but to earning God acting in our life doesn't mean that we do nothing but Grace means that we never come to the place of saying we've earned what comes out at the end of the process earning out of the question whether it's earning your way into heaven or or earning success in your ministry or earning uh a lovely family that you have uh know Grace is involved in that you can never say I earned it you always wind up saying thank God for that because that's the activity of God on your behalf and so the effect is to eliminate pride and boasting and self-reliance and self-will it is to say to God I am dependent on you I am surrendered to you I am following your direction I'm expecting your help I'm going to do my very best but I'm not going to trust my best I will engage in disciplines but I don't trust disciplines right I will seek to know to I'll get get knowledge I'll try to keep myself strong and all of that but I don't trust that my trust is in God so Grace does not make you passive but it also doesn't allow you to be proud it does not allow you to trust yourself because you recognize that what you're involved in is something that is far greater than anything that you can do well um this last Point uh is we need to look at a a few verses on this one uh here's a case that I spoke about last night in Ephesians 3:8 you remember what Paul said there unto me the least of All Saints this grace is given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unfathomable Riches of Christ now just think about that that's a Grace does it have to do with guilt no does it have to do with God acting in our lives to bring about what we can't do on our own yes obviously that's what Paul's talking about 1 Corinthians 15:10 another statement by Paul about Grace he really does seem to have been the one who understood it best and certainly he deserves a lot of uh attention for the way for what he said says about Grace 1 Corinthians 15:10 is he's talking about how he was born out of time as a witness to Christ you remember this passage I trust he's talking about all the people who had seen Christ and um he says in verse 9 I am the least of the apostles who am not fit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the Church of of God but by the grace of God I am what I am and his grace towards me did not prove in vain but I labored even more than all of them and then he catches himself as a beautiful uh expression of the consciousness of how Grace and effort work together in the life of Paul I labored even more than all of them whoop yet not I but the grace of God with me remember our little discussion of God With Us God With Us God With Us last yesterday that's now what is Grace can have you internalize this idea Grace is God acting in our lives to bring about what we cannot do on our own Paul what is it he couldn't do on his own he couldn't have had the tremendous effect he had in preaching the go gospel on his own strictly speaking I'm sure that it's true at this time of all the apostles if you looked at the work that was done Paul was miles ahead of him miles ahead of them at that time I don't say later maybe later on some got it and caught up and went ahead I I wouldn't want to say I don't know how to judge that eternity will tell possibly but at this point there's just no question but what Paul had just gone along across the Greco Roman world like cyclone and was it him well he did something if he had stayed home it wouldn't have happened would he if he just said I'm going to stay in my cave or I'm going to sit around the Sanhedrin down here and though they're a Christian I'll sort of haunt them no he got out he went 2 Corinthians 9:8 is a really good passage this is a discussion of the macedonians uh giving and U he she's talking here about how they had given far beyond what they were able and given not grudgingly or under compulsion but they had just given and uh so this is an offering situation if missions offering or something like that look at verse 8 in 2 Corinthians 9 and God is able to make all grace abound to you that always having all sufficiency everything you may have an abundance of every good work every good deed for every good deed you see what Grace is there is that guilt are we talking about dealing with guilt no it's not just for Guilt Grace is for Life guilt is one of the things we need it for but when we're done with dealing with that we still need Grace see the person who is living fully in the kingdom of God is consuming if you wish consuming Grace all the time but not just for Guilt The Sinner needs Grace for forgiveness yes to deal with guilt there's no doubt about that but compared to the grace that the saint uses in their lifetime that's nothing the saint Burns Grace like a 747 Burns fuel on takeoff see they're burning it in quantities because what they're doing is always accompanied by grace and much more is being accomplished than they could possibly do on their own and then one of the most famous passages on Grace is Paul's statement my grace is sufficient for you this was not to make up for Guilt it was to it was to supply the strength that Paul needed in his weakness to do the things that he needed to do and because this was such a wonderful thing you have the statement of Paul most gladly therefore I would rather boast here's where boasting comes in about my weaknesses that the power of Christ May dwell in me my weakness is an opportunity for the grace of God the power of Christ is the grace of God God is God is acting in the life thank God I'm weak now try that on would you thank God I'm weak why because when I'm weak I get to know the power of God working in me look at what the man says therefore I'm well content with weakness with insults with distresses with persecutions with difficulties for Christ's sake for when I'm weak then I'm strong now wow we have to put that into ordinary life and we think about all the things we might suffer from the attacks that we might imagine a person who is being attacked in their Ministry or their work or and they say thank God for that someone's being insulted that actually happens in the church doesn't it thank God I'm being insulted thank God I'm being attacked thank God I'm weak can you even imagine that why would one be thankful because they expected to see God acting in that situation and that is better than them being able to control control it themselves that's what Paul is talking about now um this is a kind of holistic picture of spiritual growth and I have to give it because we want to have all the picture all the factors in place and uh if we have these factors in place our mind is centered in the mind of Christ and we will gradually take on that mind and we'll have it you start at the top this is the action of the Holy Spirit you don't go anywhere without that that's Grace in action down here at the left are the ordinary events of life that means you take where you are you accept where you are you say this is the place this is Jacob saying I did not know God was in this place God was in this place and I didn't know it this is the Gateway of Heaven well that's what Paul is saying when he talks about taking pleasure in his weaknesses he's saying same thing so we don't throw our Temptations away we don't flee to a monastery we live in ordinary life and there we experience trials so the ordinary events of Life turn out to be trials or Temptations oh we're not distressed about those why well because we expect God to act in those situations okay but now wait a moment it may not be possible for us to hold still and let that happen that's where this side comes in plan disciplines to put on a new heart when you fail what are you going to do try harder no see what you require in this process of the transformation of the inner person in the righteousness that is beyond the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisee what you try what you need here is not just trying you need to put yourself in a position where you can train and receive help and that is where plan disciplines to put on a new heart come in second Peter 1 5 through1 is a story about a progression add to your faith add to your virtue knowledge and sew up the line until you get to Agape again but the plan disciplines here are crucial and this is the I think the the area where when we're thinking in terms of what we do in the religious life we are most apt to miss we are most apt to miss the understanding that we have to take practices that enable us to receive Grace in The Ordinary events of life to keep our mind centered in the mind of Christ and acting with the Holy Spirit be the kind of person that Jesus has called us to be and gives us to be you plan for this them the them principle I'll talk a little more about that this evening but these are the this is the outline of spiritual growth if you're going to change personally any in any way way if you're going to learn to speak French um dance the poer um Carry On conversation save money lose weight any kind of change that you want to go through you have to have these three three elements if you don't have them and they're not rightly related probably change is not going to happen if you have them and they're right related change can happen even at a natural level you have to have the vision of the goodness of what you're after you have to be convinced that's a good thing and the educational illustrations are again the most familiar and I think the most Illuminating back to our talk about learning algebra or calculus earlier if you have a vision of the goodness of it then you're ready to move on to the intention to realize the vision if you don't have that the intention won't won't form now I have a very nice exercise machine at home it is relatively unused and I can tell you why it's relatively unused I bought it once when I thought it would be a good idea but but I had no vision and no intention to go with it so it sits there and it's a means it would work if I had the vision and the intention I'm told that there are other people who have that same sort of thing um I understand it that's how it works truthfully it just doesn't mean that to much that much to me and I don't think it's that important I do try to watch my health I try to be careful about eating and getting some exercise and so on and I can ride that thing once in a while but I don't do it consistently because I don't have the vision and I haven't formed the intention I just have the means now that's where when we come back to the gospel gives us the vision if we don't have a vision that's provided a gospel that provides a vision of something to be done in this case we're talking about living in the kingdom of God if we don't have the vision we won't form the intention we won't decide to do it and I spoke earlier about intention when I said the reason why we don't for example learn to bless those who curse us is because we never intend to do it we don't intend it it isn't the law of gravity it's simply for the the failure of any intention why does the intention fail we don't have the vision of the goodness of it see when we get gripped with the vision of the goodness of it then the intention will follow and once we have the intention then the means comes in and we find the means and actually it isn't all that hard um and the means aren't they don't fall in the are are of righteousness and things we have to do to obey Christ Christ doesn't tell us uh to go into Solitude he went into Solitude and one of the things that suggested to me I should go into Solitude was that if he needed it I might need a little of it myself so I got to thinking about well maybe there's something here and that's what led me as I said earlier when I was concerned about being able to preach effectively and realized that prayer was connected to that and realized I couldn't pray in the condition I was in then I moved more or less by accident into Solitude and discovered what Solitude and silence could do to build those connections but that's all means now my intention in that case or my vision my vision was a soul winner preaching to bring people to trust Christ and so that intention to do that based on the vision of this as good things led me eventually into means I had to back my way into it see I thought Solitude and silence sounded awfully Catholic and I wasn't into that bag at the time in fact I was young and full of spiz and I thought they were all wrong and I hadn't I had no experience of it I had to work my way back soon then reading helped me see things things differently then practice back and forth between leads into means so that my intention to bring to pass a certain Vision the vision changed as it went along because I began to realize that perhaps it was very important what kind of person I was and not just a whizbang preacher I used to preach like a machine gun until a man once said said to me why do you preach so fast why don't you give people time to think about what you're saying I realized I didn't want them to think I wanted to keep keep them back on their heels I wanted them to respond I didn't want to give them time to think I wanted to manage them and manipulate them and get them to do what I wanted to get them to do so I had to go through a whole process of rethinking that so the vision shifts I think improves in some measure as we go along and as it does then Our intention has to change and so I became intent more on who I was than what I was doing I'm still concerned about what I was doing I'm concerned about results but I now believe the most important thing that God gets out of my life is the person I become actually I think the most important thing I get out of my life is the person I become that the things I might accomplish in the way of ministry they're very small compared to the importance of my becoming Christlike I actually believe that the more Christlike I become the greater my results will be but that's not why I do it so now that goes back to the statement I said earlier today that the church problem is never that we need more money more influence more people the problem is always was with the quality of the people who are there and that begins with me if there's a problem that begins with me what is the quality of my life now of course there are meaningful questions to be raised about other things but uh uh that I think is really fundamental um well let me just I think uhu I think the last thing I can get done in the time I have is just look at this list and um and then um maybe just an additional point or two and we'll have to quit uh there are many ways of classifying disciplines I I think it's really helpful to understand them in terms of disciplines of abstinence as opposed to disciplines of Engagement disciplines of abstinence refers to things you abstain from that you need to step out of in order to allow things to shift around in your soul and your body and in particular to allow you to break free of old patterns that keep you enslaved um now I I started over here you see study worship celebration service prayer Fellowship confession and those are good things but the thing is I didn't know those were disciplines I didn't know what a discipline was so I just trying to do those now if that's all you got that's a short recipe for Burnout that's what that is so you grind away at those and especially in a in a social context where people have all sorts of things for you to do uh that's going to burn you out because it will not put you in touch with the things that will nourish you and grow you it will not allow you to have a joyous strong Walk With Jesus in order to get that you have to shift over and you have to practice some of these other things and I've mentioned the importance of Solitude and silence is very important fasting uh Solitude silence and fasting are the big ones on the list the others are more like hygienic exercises they're important very important but they don't have the importance of those first three you begin to move into them you begin to practice them and as you do they begin to sustain you usually with something like Solitude it begins very quickly and I would encourage anyone to begin to try to have substantial periods of time every week when they're simply alone doing nothing Solitude primarily means doing nothing Solitude is connected to Sabbath and Sabbath is still one of the big deals one of the big Commandments as often people think that was the ritual law and not the moral law no it turns out to be moral law because it has so much to do with your well-being and the well-being of others that you're related to and Sabbath means means you do no work and Solitude is for most people the only way they can start practicing Sabbath is to go into Solitude because as long as they're around others the others will keep them in keep them working so you need to move over to that side and begin to experiment with them and as you experiment with them they will begin to confirm themselves to you you can talk endlessly about them but when you you really come to know them by practicing and so you enter into them experimentally you you enter into them expecting the Lord to lead you and be with you and he will this will be a part of his teaching presence with you don't try to force things don't try to make things happen be gentle be experimental if you don't succeed with this for some reason don't worry about it find out what went wrong try to fix it and try it again I say these are not righteousnesses they are wisdom they're not laws they're wisdom and as you enter into them you will begin to experience from God and from your own nature and soul a kind of renewal and strength that will then put you in a position to engage and study and worship and celebration in a way you've never done it before and out of this will come a richness of your life in the Kingdom that will allow you you to do the things that Jesus said at a walk and all of the struggle and the tension will gradually move out of your life and you'll understand what it means when Jesus says my yoke is easy and my burden is light but now remember this is not behavior modification that's one of the differences between a wonderful program like alcoholic Anonymous and spiritual disciplines Alcoholic Anonymous is aimed at behavior modification this does not aim at be mod behavior modification but it has as its result incredible behavior modification but that's not what you aim at you aim at the inner transformation of the cell and then that comes to pass as your efforts and your uh experience grows and this is what it means then to grow in Grace because as you enter into these things you increasingly receive grace through your knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ how does one practice the disciplines well you decide to live as Jesus students you begin to obey his teachings You observe why you fail and you will fail and then do in Reliance on the spirit what will remove the causes of these failures you will find that they are disciplines now list is not a complete list there are other things that also are disciplines and I'm I I noticed that I did not give the standard definition of what a discipline is and you have to have the concept so let me just give it to you now a discipline is something in power that you do a discipline is something in your do in order to enable you to do what you cannot do by direct effort it's something in your power that you do in order to enable you to do what you cannot do by direct effort so the principle is indirection you find the things that will help you grow and change and you do those and then as a result what comes out of you different because what is inside you is different so that's the way you do it if you don't decide to live as Jesus's student you're not a disciple and disciplines are for disciples they can do you a little good here and there if you're not a disciple but still if you're going to take an orderly approach uh to the change or the transformation into christlikeness you need to do this now churches that are making motions in the direction of discipleship and transformation always find that they have to organize their program of spiritual growth and development around the disciplines of course that in church that includes church and giving and other things like that but it's always much more you cannot get growth in Christ likeness out of church as usual there just isn't enough there you have to do more a couple of hours in church some giving um it isn't enough so you have to plan for more so many churches like the ones I've mentioned are making available more intensive uh experiences for example instead of having a group that instead of just going to church on Sunday they take them to a retreat and they have a Friday through Sunday evening Retreat and they allow them to be practicing some of these disciplines and that's one way of going Beyond things as usual the result will be you'll get out of improper subordination in yourself where body is running the show soul is subordinate to that the mind to the soul and the spirit to the mind and God to the whole sheing that's the situation that people live in sometimes they just leave out God and and live for their body and the prominence of the body in human life is the result of that then the proper subordinate shifts those puts God first the spirit is the will it puts the will under God then the mind at the direction of the spirit thoughts and feelings then the Soul begins to respond to the mind and to the uh uh the spirit and to God and the body finally uh takes its place under the soul rather than driving the soul which drives the mind which drives the spirit which tries to drive God which doesn't work very well so what does all this have to do with being saved we have to come back to that question because as long as you think it has nothing to do with being saved it will precisely amount to nothing and I don't need to go back and talk about the situation that we find ourselves in for the most part uh in our culture and in our churches where uh discipleship is one thing and being a Christian is another but the way this works is regeneration New Life from above comes at the new birth now we're entering into an interactive relationship with God and his son Jesus and in his kingdom since that has happened then forgiveness justification is an appropriate thing we are forgiven I don't mean to suggest that you have to worry about which of these comes first but they do come together then that life which comes in regeneration naturally develops into sanctification sanctification means simply the established relationship Walk With Jesus and all of the parts of the self are involved in it that that naturally progresses to glorification glorification has already begun done remember Colossians 3 again when Christ who is our life shall appear then you will also appear glorious well that Glory begins to shine in you already and when you're walking this path you're going to look differently and there's going to be something in you that people can see and they will respond to it and they will want to know where it comes from and they'll want to have it themselves there will be a Beauty in you you ever hear that song Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me you ever hear that song anyone it's a wonderful song Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me I should stand up and sing it but probably you couldn't stand that and being saved is not a matter of where you're going but who you are now you are a participant in the life that Jesus is now living here and that's what what salvation is and that all fits together you see once you start at the right place and keep Jesus in the right place in all of this namely Central and you see him as king over a kingdom in which he invites you to live with him now and God then as Colossians 1:13 says we are transformed from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son