Meet Your Psychiatrist: He Makes You Rich — Warren Wiersbe

I suppose there isn't one person here tonight who at one time or another hasn't wished that he was rich, if I were a wealthy man. And yet all of us realize that the material riches of this life are really but an opportunity for getting greater riches.

It's good to have the things that money can buy if you don't lose the things that money can't buy. And money of itself cannot be eaten, can't give you five minutes of extra life unless you exchange it for something else.

The Spirit of Grace and the Riches of Christian Living

There are spiritual riches that you and I have in Jesus Christ that come to us through the Holy Spirit. We have been looking in these Sunday evenings at the names of the Holy Spirit in the Word of God.

And there is one very wonderful name of the Holy Spirit that is buried in the midst of one of the most severe warnings in the Bible. I am not going to deal with the warning, I'm going to deal with the name.

Twice we find in the Scriptures, once in the Old Testament and once in the New Testament, the name, the Spirit of Grace. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 29, and at the end of the verse, and he has insulted the Spirit of Grace.

And back in Zechariah chapter 12 and verse 10, talking about that future day when Israel shall be saved. And I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of Grace and of supplications.

Now, grace, as you know, is God's kindness to people who don't deserve it. Everybody here tonight realizes that when somebody does you a favor, the first thing you want to do is return the favor. Isn't that right?

Every time someone does something for you, instantly you feel guilty and obligated. It's so difficult for us just to receive grace. I recall my second pastorate when I was an associate pastor for six months before the senior minister went home to be with the Lord quite suddenly.

And the people there, like God's people are, were very generous. And I came to him one day and I said, you know, doctor, it's embarrassing sometimes how kind these people are. And in his wise way, he looked at me and said, well, God's people have to learn to receive with grace as well as to give with grace.

I suppose this is true. But somehow you and I feel guilty when someone does us a favor. God's grace means God's favor, God's kindness to undeserving people. You don't earn it. You don't deserve it. You don't merit it.

God does it. Now, the Holy Spirit is associated with grace. Twice he's called the Spirit of Grace. I think it's important that we distinguish four particular ministries of the Holy Spirit. Then we'll talk about the Spirit of Grace.

First of all, there's the gift of the Spirit. Now, don't confuse the gift of the Spirit with the gifts, plural, of the Spirit. The gift of the Spirit is when you trust Christ as your Savior, you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit comes into your body, and you belong to Jesus Christ. The gifts of the Spirit are those very special spiritual abilities that the Holy Spirit gives to people. Every Christian has at least one spiritual gift.

Some have more. These have to do not with salvation, but with service. God gives us spiritual gifts that we might be able to serve each other. Some people have a gift of prayer. Some have a gift of wisdom.

They can give counsel. Some have a gift of knowledge. They understand the Word of God. There are various gifts. So the gift of the Spirit is salvation. The gifts of the Spirit, that's for service. Then there are the graces of the Spirit.

This has to do with Christian character. The Holy Spirit of God wants to make me more patient. He's working at that so hard. More loving, more understanding. He wants me to grow in grace. These are the graces of the Holy Spirit.

Then there are the governments of the Holy Spirit. This has to do with offices in God's Church. You don't have to have an office to have a gift. Nor do you have to have an office to have a ministry. Everybody who's saved has the gift of the Spirit and gifts of the Spirit.

And these gifts can be used in the Church, among the body, for the service of the Lord Jesus Christ. But the governments of the Spirit have to do with those special workings when the Holy Spirit of God calls people for special offices.

He calls some to be pastors and teachers. He calls some to be missionaries. He calls some to be elders, some to be deacons, some to be teachers. Now, tonight we want to deal with the Holy Spirit of God as he relates to the grace of God.

And our theme is simply this. Through the Holy Spirit, you can have everything you will ever need for Christian living. Now, if that sounds like a drastic statement, we'll back it up with Scripture. Grace means God provides what I need.

Someone has made an acronym out of grace. God's resources available to Christians everywhere. Or, God's riches at Christ's expense. You see, God the Father is the God of all grace. He has the complete supply of grace.

God the Son is the channel of this grace. And God the Holy Spirit is the one who applies this grace to our lives. And so we say it again, the Holy Spirit of God can give you and me everything we need for Christian living.

We have available to us spiritual riches beyond our comprehension. In fact, Paul prayed that the Ephesians might know the riches that God has available for them. Now, I think the thing we ought to do tonight is to page through the Bible and to identify the various kinds of grace that God wants to give you.

Now, we can't begin to exhaust the theme. I certainly don't want to exhaust the congregation. But tonight, I want to share with you just some of the kinds of grace that God makes available to you. Now, remember, God the Father is the God of all grace.

If you know Jesus Christ as your Savior, He is the channel for this grace. And the Holy Spirit who lives within you is the one who applies this grace to your life. Grace is not something that you weigh, or that you count, or that you measure.

Grace is something that you experience. It's not a feeling, although feeling is involved. It's a confidence. It's an ability. You're in a situation and you just don't have the wherewithal to do what you're supposed to do.

And so you draw upon the inexhaustible grace of God, and He supplies through the Holy Spirit what you need. Now, this convicts me because there are times when I reveal my spiritual bankruptcy. There are times when you reveal your spiritual bankruptcy.

There are times we get impatient. There are times we get critical. There are times we're super sensitive, and regardless of what anybody says, we're hurt. There are times we're discouraged. We're ready to quit.

There are times when everything is so gloomy and dark, we wonder what in the world the Lord is doing. And it's in those hours that we reveal our spiritual bankruptcy. But it's also in those hours when we can draw upon our spiritual resources.

Saving Grace: Salvation by Grace Through Faith

Let's talk about that now. There are several different kinds of grace that are available to you. Let's begin with the most obvious and the most important, saving grace. Everybody knows Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 and 9.

For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. This is where it starts, saving grace. Now, I believe that the Holy Spirit of God can meet every need that I have.

And because unsaved people don't have the Holy Spirit, they have to depend on substitutes. It's interesting to watch what people turn to when a crisis comes. I have been with many, many people during times of crisis.

And you know, of course, a crisis does not make a person. A crisis reveals what a person is. And I have had to go to people and say, Now, I have some bad news for you. I'm very sorry. Here is what has happened.

And the unsaved person has no resources to turn to. And so he reaches for a bottle, or he gets angry, or he takes it out on somebody, or he collapses. Now, I'm not saying that we as Christians don't occasionally feel like collapsing.

What I'm saying is this. The born-again Christian, that's the only kind the Bible knows about, the true believer in Jesus Christ, has the Holy Spirit. He has experienced saving grace. And having experienced saving grace, he has all the rest of God's resources available to him.

Now, Jesus said the world will not receive the Holy Spirit. The world can't see him, and the world doesn't know him. You see, this world receives only that which it can see and understand. The world can't see the Holy Spirit.

They can see us. They can discover how real the Holy Spirit is through our lives, but the world doesn't understand the Holy Spirit. When you talk to unsafe people about what the Holy Spirit can do in their lives, how he teaches us the Bible, and how he gives us the strength that we need, and the courage that we need, they just shake their hands and shake their heads and say, we don't understand that.

And they don't. Now, if you've trusted Christ as your Savior, you have received the gift of the Holy Spirit, and you have experienced saving grace. My friend, were it not for the Holy Spirit, you wouldn't be saved.

We talk about the grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men. And my Heavenly Father is the God of all grace. He's so gracious. He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.

Aren't you glad for that? And Jesus Christ is gracious. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor. But think about the grace of the Holy Spirit.

God the Father, in His grace, planned salvation and gave His Son. God the Son, in His grace, came down here and lived for some 33 years and died on the cross, was raised from the dead, went back to heaven.

That's grace. The Holy Spirit of God is the Spirit of grace. He has been on this earth for almost 20 centuries. That takes grace. He's been living with me since May the 12th, 1945. That takes grace. He's been living with you.

That takes grace. You see, the grace of the Holy Spirit is saving grace. Now, how does the Holy Spirit apply salvation? Well, He wrote the Word. The Word of God speaks to your heart and tells you you're a sinner bound for hell, needing a Savior.

The Holy Spirit reveals Jesus out of the Word. In revealing Jesus, He convicts the heart of the sinner. You see, nobody ever was lost because of any other sin than rejecting Christ. Nobody ever went to hell because of drunkenness or adultery or thievery or lying.

These can be forgiven. There's only one sin God cannot forgive, the sin of rejecting Christ. And so the Holy Spirit applies the Word to your heart. I cannot forget that night I gave my heart to Christ.

The Holy Spirit was at work. A simple gospel message at a youth rally. And I heard the Word of God, and the Word of God convicted my heart. And the Holy Spirit said to me, Believe on Jesus Christ. And I believed on the Lord Jesus.

And the Holy Spirit applied the work of Calvary to my heart. And I was born again. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, and it's all by grace. Have you tonight experienced saving grace? Now, if you haven't, why don't you?

You say, what do I have to do? Just open your heart to Christ. You can do it while I'm preaching. You can do it during the invitation hymn. You can do it after the service. They'll be waiting in the prayer room.

Just open your heart to Christ, and you'll experience saving grace. That's the beginning. Now, we don't stop with saving grace. That was Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. Look at Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 7.

Ephesians 4, 7. But unto every one of us is given grace. Every one of us is Christians. Grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. When He ascended up on high, He gave gifts to men. And verse 11 tells us about these gifts.

Some apostles and prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. For what purpose? For the building up of the saints unto the work of the ministry. Unto the building up of the body of Christ. Here we have serving grace.

Serving Grace and Spiritual Gifts

Now, saving grace and serving grace go together. The old slogan we used to see so often many years ago. Saved to serve. We've forgotten that. Not saved to be decorations. Not saved to brag. Saved to serve.

And so Paul says saving grace leads to serving grace. God has given every believer the measure of the gift of Christ. And God has said to us, in the fellowship of the church, our job is to perfect one another.

To mature one another. And by maturing one another, build up the body of Christ. And by building up the body of Christ, reach unsaved people with the gospel message. That's serving grace. Now, the Holy Spirit of God gives these gifts the way He wants to give them.

Paul says we should seek spiritual gifts as we grow in the Lord. And he says some gifts are more important than others. Serving grace. It's amazing how many Christians are not serving. I don't mean by this you have to be a preacher or a choir member.

Some of us can't carry a tune. Or a Sunday school teacher. But, you know, there's some ministry that God can use you to perform. I was visiting in the hospital recently. Had a lovely conversation with a believer in Christ.

And I was just utterly amazed at her spiritual perception. Because she had not been saved a long time. And I asked her, I said, you have grown so tremendously. How did this happen? And she told me, a certain believer has sort of been helping her along and meeting with her and teaching her and praying with her.

This is what Ephesians 4 is talking about. Serving grace. I give thanks to the Lord that the ministry of Moody Church is not localized in this pulpit. We couldn't begin to tell a congregation what our people are doing all week long in touching the lives of other people.

There are people from Moody Church who are visiting in difficult places encouraging people. There are folks down at the rescue missions winning souls. There are people out in the streets passing out tracks.

There are in the jails visiting, in the hospitals, down in the county hospital, going from ward to ward, and in homes, and over the telephone, and praying, and giving, and serving. Our camp program gets underway this summer and behind the scenes are all kinds of people serving.

This is serving grace. Now it takes grace to serve. Over in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul makes a beautiful statement. 1 Corinthians 15, verses 9 and 10. For I am the least of the apostles, that am not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain. But I labored more abundantly than they all. Now it sounds like he's bragging, but he's not. He goes on to say, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

Paul said, I couldn't have done what I did apart from God's grace. That's serving grace. We have many students who come here to Moody Church. Let me just drop a word of warning into their hearts. As you go out to serve the Lord, whether it be in teaching, or preaching, or your practical Christian work assignment, or whatever it may be, don't depend on your own strength.

You'll never make it. Depend on His grace. I certify to you tonight, there have been times in my own life when I have thought it was impossible to serve God. There have been times when physically and mentally it was impossible to stand in a pulpit and preach.

And you just simply say, Holy Spirit of God, supply the grace, and God does miracles. Now, this doesn't mean we tempt the Lord. It doesn't mean you wear yourself out and then ask God to do a miracle. There are those times in our lives when we cannot get it done even if we did have the strength.

But even in those other times when we think we do have the strength, you better depend on God's grace. Paul did. Paul accomplished what he did because of God's grace, serving grace. Whenever a Christian worker is tempted to resign, my Sunday school class is just too difficult.

I get letters from pastors saying, do you know of some place where I can go and preach? I have these problems in my church. And I write back and say, bless your heart, you'll find those same problems in the next church.

Suffering Grace in Weakness and Affliction

Whenever people are tempted to quit, we ought to turn to the grace of God, serving grace. Now, 2 Corinthians 12 gives us a third kind of grace that God can supply to us through the Holy Spirit, suffering grace.

It takes grace to suffer. Now, it may surprise you to discover that suffering never made anybody better. Suffering by itself will destroy you. But when you take suffering and you mix it with the grace of God, then God can do something.

I've talked to people in hospitals who were going through tremendous suffering and they hated God. Suffering doesn't make a heart mellow unless the grace of God is there. Suffering doesn't mold a will unless the grace of God is there.

Suffering doesn't make anybody more holy unless the grace of God is there. And Paul talks in 1 Corinthians 12 about suffering grace. Now, Paul tells how he was caught up to the third heaven and because he'd had this tremendous experience up in heaven, God had to balance it with some suffering.

Verse 7,. And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.

And for this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore, says Paul, will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities. Doesn't mean he became masochistic or sadistic. No. He simply says, I've learned that there is joy in suffering when you have the grace of God. I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake, not for my own sake, for when I am weak, then am I strong.

Suffering grace. Now, Christians suffer. Some Christians suffer simply because of the sinless infirmities of the flesh. Enjoy your health while you can. Take good care of it. If you've got good health, thank God for it.

The day may come when you'll have to start modernizing the old body just a little bit. Thank God for good health. There comes a time in our lives we start to feel it just a little bit and a little bit more.

There are the sinless infirmities of the flesh. We can't run as fast as we used to run. We can't climb the stairs five at a time. We can't keep going like we used to. There are also the disciplines of the flesh.

Sometimes God has to send disciplines to us. And sometimes there are disciplines that come because we sin. Now, God sent suffering to Paul not because he sinned, but to keep him from sinning. The next time you suddenly get ill or something happens and you just can't follow through with your plans, say to yourself, you know, the Lord may be preventing me from doing something I was going to do that was wrong.

I've often thought whenever we've had flat tires on the highway, well, the Lord may be sparing us an accident down the road. You can't tell. God gave to Paul a thorn in the flesh to keep him from sinning.

We may regret. We may complain. We may say, Lord, why do I have this infirmity? But you know, God may be using that infirmity to make us better people. It can happen through the grace of God. There is such a thing as suffering grace.

Once again, suffering by itself will not make us better people. It could make us bitter people. But suffering plus God's grace can make us better people. All of us know some bitter people. All of us know folks who say, I'm mad at God.

Why did God take away my loved one? Why did God permit this to happen? I had a long letter this past week from a Songs in the Night listener saying, why has God given to me a handicapped child? Well, why is an easy word to ask and a difficult question to answer.

But this we know. Paul knew it. And Jesus knew it. And the apostles knew it. And Jeremiah knew it. And David knew it. And the saints of God down through the ages have known it that when you take suffering and mix it with grace, you have growth and glory.

That's what Paul is telling us here. There is such a thing as suffering grace. Now where do you get this suffering grace? From the throne of grace. Doesn't Hebrews 4 verse 16 tell us, let us come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in the nick of time.

That's what the word means. Find grace to help in the nick of time. He gives us the grace when we need it. Somebody here tonight may be facing something three weeks from now. And as you anticipate this thing coming up two or three weeks from now, you say, I'll never make it.

I'll never make it. My friend, you go to the throne of grace, you'll get the grace you need when you need it. God does not ask us to store up the grace and then bring it out of our deep freeze. He said, I'll give you the grace when you need it.

You go to the throne of grace and you boldly, not timidly, boldly say, Father, I need grace. I need suffering grace. Oh, how the devil loves to use suffering to make us bitter and critical and to lose the blessing.

Sacrificing Grace and Generous Giving

But oh, how the Holy Spirit can take grace and mellow us and sweeten us, take the barb out of us. Suffering grace. Now we're in 2 Corinthians. Go back to chapter 8. There's a fourth kind of grace that the Holy Spirit makes available to us.

Sacrificing grace. 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9 deal with the offering that Paul was taking that we've been talking about on Sunday mornings. Paul was going throughout the churches of Macedonia, Corinth and Thessalonica and Berea and Philippi and other places and taking up an offering to give to the Jewish believers in Jerusalem.

And he writes 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 to encourage the Corinthians to finish their offering. They've made a good beginning. He said, now finish it. Ten times in these two chapters, Paul uses the word grace, not in the English, but in the original Greek.

And each time he's talking about giving. Now the word give and the word grace are first cousins. Grace means giving. Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia.

How that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded under the riches of their liberality. Now there is a formula no chemist could analyze. Affliction plus poverty equals joy and liberality.

Now I can just hear the people in these churches saying, look Paul, we're broke. There's a recession going on in Macedonia and they haven't really straightened things out yet. Paul says, here are a group of churches made up of people who were poor.

Slaves and other folks who just didn't have it. And yet he said, something amazing took place. They were going through affliction, they were experiencing poverty, but something happened that created joy and liberality and they begged us to take their money.

Now I've never studied chemistry too avidly, but I understand there's a thing called a catalyst. A catalyst is some kind of a substance that helps to bring about a change. The catalyst here was grace.

They called the church business meeting and they said, you know, we're taking up this missionary offering and our goal for missions is such and such. And some dear sanctified obstructionist gets up and says, but we can't meet that.

Oh, we'd never make that. There's one in every crowd. They say, look, let's pray about it. Let's ask God for grace. Affliction plus poverty plus grace equal joy and liberality. Now by nature, you and I do not want to sacrifice.

When we're born, we're born grasping. And that little crib that we're in is the center of the universe and if they don't jump when we holler, there's something wrong. And we parents spend a number of years teaching our children that life does not mean a closed fist fighting or a grasping hand getting.

It's an open hand giving. Some of them never do learn that. Some Christians never learn it. By nature, we don't want to sacrifice. By nature, we're selfish. By nature, we're grasping. But when you get saved and you experience saving grace, we also experience sacrificing grace.

And this sacrificing grace enables us to give. That's why ten times in these two chapters, Paul talks about grace, grace. He says this offering is not loot. I'm not out twisting arms. It's grace. Oh, more of God's people need to experience sacrificing grace.

God makes a promise to those who do experience sacrificing grace over in chapter 9 and verse 8. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you that ye always, having all sufficiency in all things, may abound every good work.

You can't beat a promise like that. A promise like 2 Corinthians chapter 9 and verse 8 is better than a million dollars in the bank. When the million dollars runs out, you're done for. This promise will never run out.

Look at those universals in there. All grace. All ways. All sufficiency. All things. Every good work. That's a great promise. But you can't claim that promise unless you're experiencing sacrificing grace.

You and I are so anxious for God to give us more grace. God wants to give us grace to give more. You say, well, pastor, I can't give any more. Ask God for grace. You see, these people didn't give out of their liberality.

They gave out of their poverty. And God turned their poverty into liberality by his grace. We'll not dwell on that except to ask you to pray about it. That God might give to us sacrificing grace. Finally, there is such a thing as singing grace.

Singing Grace in Suffering and Worship

Colossians chapter 3 and verse 16 talks about it. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

I would like to spend a lot of time on that verse because singing is so misunderstood. Do you have the idea that when we sing in a service we are just preparing for the message? These are the preliminaries.

I don't believe that. I believe that the singing, whether it be the choir or the congregation or special soloists, is just as much a part of the ministry of the word of God, if it's done in the spirit, as the preaching of the word of God from the Bible.

You see, in Colossians 3 .16, he says it takes grace to sing. He says you get this grace to sing by knowing your Bible. You cannot separate the hymn book from the Bible. It can't be done. When I was first saved, I was enamored of the kinds of songs that were very experience-centered and joyful and a little bit shallow.

But you grow out of those things. Children love to sit and listen to the same songs. You've noticed this, haven't you? They'll just sit and turn the crank on their music machine or their little record player and listen to the same thing over and over again.

Then they get a little bit older and discover there's something else beside these little songs. And you hope that as they grow in their knowledge of life and the world, they grow in their appreciation of music.

This is true of Christians. The gauge is the word of God. I've discovered that certain songs in this book and other books that I just didn't appreciate a few years ago, I appreciate now. You say it's a part of your culture.

No, it's not a part of my culture. I don't know any more about music today than I did it yesterday, perhaps. But I hope I know more about my Bible. As you grow in your knowledge of the word of God, you find you can't express your worship and praise to God with the same songs.

And Paul is saying here there is such a thing as singing grace. And you say, I know it takes grace to sing some of the songs we sing. Well, bless you for doing it. I don't know of a congregation anywhere that has been more adventuresome and cooperative in learning some new songs, even some you may not especially appreciate yet.

Singing grace. I can remember times in my life. You can remember times in your life when it took a lot of grace to sing. I did a very stupid thing once. I've done many stupid things, but this was especially stupid.

When I tell you what it was, you will say to yourself, Pastor, you're right. In my early ministry, I had a funeral service one evening. It was an evening service because they were going to take the bodies to mother and daughter.

They were burned to death in an apartment fire. A beautiful little girl who had gotten saved in our church just a few months before. And we had the mother and the daughter there at an evening service.

Then they were going to take the bodies down to Kentucky to bury them. But somebody who was a distant relative said, you know, we ought to close the service with a hymn. Have the congregation sing a hymn.

That's the only time in my life I think I have ever asked a congregation to sing at a funeral. With the exception of when our pastor died, Dr. Estep, and we had a worship type service and the congregation did sing.

That was just a little different. That was the worst singing I have ever heard. How do you sing at a funeral? Here is a precious little beautiful girl who has been burned to a cinder. And there she is in that closed casket.

And there is her mother, both of them taken off to glory. Kind of hard to sing. Even though you are a Christian, kind of hard to sing. It takes grace to sing sometimes. It took grace for Paul and Silas to sing in that prison.