Grace And The Performance Treadmill

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Father we thank you that we can come this morning and Quiet our hearts before you and worship
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The one and only true God as Christ himself said this is eternal life that they may worship you that they may know you the
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Only true God in Jesus Christ whom you sent Father we thank you because you have revealed yourself to us you have unveiled and made yourself known to us through the scriptures and We give you all the praise
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Glory and honor this morning help us this morning Through your spirit as he opens the
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Word of God to us That the divine author would reveal things to us that would Continue to help us to grow in the grace and knowledge of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen who can tell me the difference in the business financial world between Chapter 7 and chapter 11 bankruptcy any
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One in Brian Okay, great. So chapter 7 you don't get to keep anything you you lose everything at all gone
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Whereas chapter 11 bankruptcy is not like that You get to keep some and get to pay back a portion of it so we could say
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Chapter 7 is permanent bankruptcy whereas chapter 11 is temporary bankruptcy.
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But I want us to think about it in light of spiritual bankruptcy, not financial bankruptcy.
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As I begin this series on grace, I want us to consider that this morning.
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So listen to this quote as we talk about spiritual bankruptcy. This is from Jerry Bridges' book,
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Transforming Grace. So as you listen to this, I'm going to ask you for your response and reaction to what you hear, okay?
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Bridges writes this in terms of our spiritual bankruptcy. You and I and every person in the world are spiritually bankrupt.
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In the business world, financially troubled companies forced into bankruptcy have two options, popularly known as chapter 7 and chapter 11.
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Chapter 11 deals with what we would call a temporary bankruptcy. This option is chosen by a basically healthy company that, given time, can work through its financial problems.
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Chapter 7 is for a company that has reached the end of its financial rope. It is not only deeply in debt, it has no future as a viable business.
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It is forced to liquidate its assets and pay off its creditors, often by as little as 10 cents on the dollar.
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The company is finished. It's all over. The owners or investors lose everything they've put into the business.
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So what kind of bankruptcy did we declare? To use the business analogy, did we file under chapter 7, which is permanent bankruptcy, or did we file under chapter 11, temporary spiritual bankruptcy?
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He continues, was it permanent or temporary? I suspect most of us would say we declared permanent bankruptcy.
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However, Jerry continues, I think most of us actually declared temporary bankruptcy.
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Having trusted in Christ alone for our salvation, we have subtly and unconsciously reverted to a works relationship with God in our
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Christian lives. We declared temporary bankruptcy to get into his kingdom, so now we think we can and must pay our own way with God.
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We were saved by grace, but we are living by performance.
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End quote. Any reaction? What do you think? Is Jerry crazy?
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Is he on? Let's start out back. Stephen, go ahead.
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Say that last part again, Stephen. So his first comment was, yeah, we have declared permanent bankruptcy, chapter 7, but we carry the idea with us in our
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Christian life that Jesus will love us more if we are more obedient. Okay, good point.
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Brian? Yes? There's a VBS meeting going on, right?
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Okay, VBS meeting going on for those who are VBS volunteers, so the half of you can go upstairs now.
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What room is it? The IBS room. So if you're going to be helping with VBS, please go to the IBS room. Thank you, Brian.
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Okay, and what was your comment about the quote? No, just kidding. Okay, anybody else? Any thoughts or ideas about what
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Jerry wrote? So how many of you exercise on a regular basis?
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Okay. How many of you who raised your hand have a propensity towards lying? Okay. So because of my age and my knees,
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I've had surgery on my knees, but I don't like the treadmill because it's too much pounding on my knees physically.
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The elliptical is better, I think. But I think also in our
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Christian life, I've entitled this Grace and the Performance Treadmill. I borrowed that phrase from Jerry's book on transforming grace, the performance treadmill, because though we claim verbally that, no,
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I'm permanently bankrupt before God spiritually because of total depravity, and yet somehow we constantly revert to running the performance treadmill in our
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Christian life. And so that can be very pounding on our spiritual knees, so to speak. So to go back to what
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Stephen mentioned, somehow we think that, okay, if I'm more obedient towards God, that requires
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God to be more loving towards me. So let's ask and answer that question a little bit further.
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Is God's blessing, I'll rephrase it in a different way, is God's blessing in my life and your life dependent on our performance?
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Okay. Jerry puts it this way in the same book, Transforming Grace. We are legalistic by nature.
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We'll talk further about that next week, legalism. We are legalistic by nature, he says.
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That is, we innately think that so much performance by us earns so much blessing from God.
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Not only are we legalists by nature, our Christian culture reinforces this attitude of this.
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We find the Bible filled with exhortations to do good works and pursue the disciplines of spiritual growth.
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Again, because we are legalistic by nature, we assume our performance in these areas earns
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God's blessings in our lives, end quote. So he's saying that we think because of that tendency in us by nature and because of our culture, even
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Christian culture around us, that if I perform a certain amount that I somehow, not salvific -wise, but in my
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Christian life, God needs to give me these temporal blessings because after all, I've been obedient. How do you think
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Joseph would have fared if he thought that way? Not too good.
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And we know that Joseph didn't think that way because look what came upon him. And yet he walked uprightly before God and look what his brother came upon.
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But we know he didn't think that way because as we know at the end of the story, Genesis 50, he says, you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.
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But he could think that way, he could have that right mindset because he didn't say to himself, what am
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I doing in here, in Egypt? I don't deserve this based upon my performance.
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Question, when we assume God's blessings in our lives is dependent upon our performance, what does it reveal about what we believe about the character of God?
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When we think that God's blessing in our lives is dependent directly upon our performance, what does that say about what we think about the character of God?
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Corey, in what way? We think he's a lot like us. I'm just repeating it for the recording.
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Okay, so we turn him into one of the Greek gods that if we do, Corey, get personal with me over here.
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But if we do enough, it can be completion. We can change his mood around and his view towards us by doing that.
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We won't actually say that, right? But by our attitude, our mindset, the way our actions, it says that.
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Very good. Somebody else? Stephen? Okay, excellent. So it highlights the character of God that we call,
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God is unchangeable. We call that what? He is immutable. And that's true.
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It doesn't depend on us. And it affects us when we're born again by God that in our
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Christian life, as Stephen was saying, if we are disobedient, we don't lose our salvation.
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It affects our fellowship with God in the same way as a parent does to a child. Those of you who are parents understand this with your children.
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When your children disobey, you don't say to them, I'm all about grace and not performance, so go ahead and do whatever you want.
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You don't say that. But yet, as I try to do with our kids, after there is discipline and we talk about it, say, no matter what you do or don't do, my love for you will never change.
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And it's sort of, as Stephen said, our relationship with God as our Abba Father and we are His children.
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Though we know that salvificly in terms of being born again, but then we carried over that mindset, unfortunately, into our
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Christian life. Jerry continues and he says this to kind of highlight this from a different angle.
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He says, quote, we are saved by grace. We all acknowledge that, correct? We are saved by grace, by sovereign grace, by distinguishing grace.
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But we are living by the sweat of our own performance.
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We give lip service, he says, to the attitude of the Apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 15, 10, but by the grace of God, I am what
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I am. But our unspoken motto is, God helps those who help themselves, end quote.
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We would never say that, of course. If we had a doctrinal or theological discussion, a biblical discussion, do you believe
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God helps those who help themselves? Oh, absolutely not. But what do your actions say? What did your mindset say in terms of performing in the
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Christian life? Or the other extreme might be, let go and let God, right?
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God started working in this area of my life back in, and He still continues to do so, but back in seminary, back in the early 90s, so much so that I pursued an intensive study on the topic of grace from the
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Bible. And I recall a funny story that when I graduated at commencement,
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I put on my cap the reference, not the whole verse couldn't fit, but 1 Corinthians 15, 10. I wrote 1
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Corinthians 15, 10, that by the grace of God, I am what I am. That wasn't only the Apostle Paul's testimony.
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It ought to be our testimony, not only for salvation, but throughout the entirety of our
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Christian life. It was funny because one of the guys next to me says, you know, I have a lot of family here. They don't know where I'll be standing.
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Can I just tell them that I'm going to be standing next to you so they can see your cap? I said, you can do that. That's fine. I'll be gracious to you.
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But truly, but by the grace of God, I am what I am. We say that for salvation, but do we say that post -salvation?
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Now, let's look at it from a little bit more theological paradigm.
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Okay, salvation, the full orb picture of God's salvation in our lives, it begins with what?
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God declares us righteous. We call that what? Justification. Then when we leave this body and we receive our, that's called what,
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Larry? Glorification. And everything in between is called what? Sanctification, which literally means to be set apart, to be made holy, to become more
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Christlike. So looking at it from that vantage point, Jerry writes this, All true
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Christians readily agree that justification is by grace through faith in Christ.
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We all agree that. If we stop to think about it, we also agree that glorification is also solely by God's grace.
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But sanctification, the entire Christian experience between justification and glorification, well, that's another story.
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At best, the Christian life is viewed as a mixture, at best, he says, as a mixture of personal performance and God's grace.
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I mean, we don't want to get rid of God's grace. God forbid that, but it's a mixture.
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We've got to add a little performance. I mean, from the time we were kids, you know, we talk about kids who play sports and they receive awards and are grading.
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You know, everything is based on performance or on the job if you don't perform well. It's all related to our culture.
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And then we take that mentality, subconsciously maybe we don't think about it, and say, yes, oh, for sure.
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Obviously, we're justified by God's grace. Obviously, we're going to be glorified by God's grace. But in our sanctifying process, is it all by God's grace or are we running the performance treadmill?
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Question. Why do we see our justification and our glorification as by God's grace and yet we see our sanctification based upon performance or human merit?
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Why is it easier to see the other two tailings of our salvation by God's grace and yet everything in between our lives here on earth as, go ahead,
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Amelia. Okay. Okay.
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Okay. Okay, good.
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So she's talking about the distinction between scripturally, biblically, between positional sanctification that we are sanctified, we have been set apart, we have been made holy versus progressive sanctification.
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Okay. Now, here our line of thinking is we're talking about progressive sanctification.
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Positionally, that can't be changed. But we're talking about our progression in sanctification, our continuing in growth in the
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Christian life. But we have to distinguish, as she said, between positional and progressive sanctification.
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But why in progressive sanctification do we seem to resort without maybe even understanding that, oh,
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I've got to perform somehow. It's not by God's grace as justification and glorification is.
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Why do we let that creep in? Corey? Okay, naturally prideful.
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Right, of course. Yes. Works -based salvation, yes.
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Okay. So his main thesis is that we do that in progressive sanctification in the entirety of our
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Christian experience of growing and maturing in Christ because of pride. Though we might acknowledge, though sometimes as people,
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Corey said, have a hard time with justification, that before God I have to be declared righteous by some kind of effort of my own.
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Yet as God opens our eyes and saves us, yet we know it's by God's grace, salvation, not by works.
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Yet in the entirety of our Christian growth and experience, sanctification, we can go down that slippery slope.
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Ferdy? Okay, good. So you're kind of highlighting a little bit on the broader perspective what Stephen mentioned earlier, kind of in a solution.
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You're getting to them, which is very nice. So what do we do? How do we help ourselves in a way to not get into that slippery slope?
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And it's to focus even not just for justification, as Ferdy said, but even in our progressive sanctification to focus on the character of God, who he is.
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I mean Stephen highlighted the immutability, that aspect of God's character, but to highlight his character even throughout our
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Christian experience here on earth, which that will help us not to fall prey to the trap of I've got to perform, perform.
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Turn with me just on that since we're talking about justification, sanctification, and glorification. Romans 8, if you will, and I'll have somebody read that.
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So grace and the performance treadmill, as I'm trying to highlight, are mutually exclusive. They're not even in the same
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Venn diagram. I was a math major. I mean there's no crossover whatsoever. And I'm not just talking about here.
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We're not just talking about justification. I'm talking about sanctification. But let's look at Romans 8 here for a second.
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Specifically, let's see, verse 30, if somebody can read verse 30.
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It's kind of a combination from verse 28 on. Nice. Go ahead. Well, yes, brother.
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Thank you. The apostle Paul's writing. Is he writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? You sure about that?
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I don't know because it seems to me if my theology is correct. He went from predestination to calling to justification to what then?
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Where's sanctification? It seems to have been bypassed there by the apostle who's under the inspiration of the
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Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God knew what he was doing. He's trying to say that as one package, apart from the other truths that are in this text that relate to Romans 8, that salvation we think about when we say we've been saved, we usually refer to what?
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Justification, don't we? That God by his great has declared us righteous. But in the Bible, many times, sometimes it distinguishes whether it's justification, sometimes it talks about glorification, sometimes about progressive or positional sanctification.
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But here he's just saying from beginning to end. It's all of God.
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That's why it's secure. Sure. So the point is that we're justified as we're talking about that by faith.
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We're not robots. It's our faith that before and in Christ alone that brings. What's that?
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That it's voluntary. Yes. Yes. So it is my faith.
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It's not somebody else's faith. But at the same time, as the scripture highlights to us, a person who is,
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I mean, I just recently did a blog and we were just reminiscing through the scripture about who we are, not in Christ, but in Adam.
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And I mean, it's just a plethora of truth there, that we are dead in trespasses and sin, falling the course of this world, falling the prince of the power of the air, children of wrath.
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Our hearts are callous where our father is the devil. We don't do what
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God wants us to do. We do what we want to do. And yes, it's voluntary. But in order for it to become voluntary for faith in Christ, God takes an unwilling heart, a heart of stone that will never in and of its own, not because it will never, but it cannot.
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So not only is it total in a person cannot, but a person will not. And then eventually when
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God changes the heart, that person comes by faith to Jesus Christ.
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So as we continue talking about sanctification and not looking at it as by our performance, but continuing to think of it by God's grace, listen to what
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Jerry continues to say here. From the whole gamut of our salvation, from justification to glorification, he says in his book, continuing transforming grace, quote, we are brought into God's kingdom by grace.
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Now notice these five other things. He says we are sanctified. The process of growing in our faith to become more like Christ by grace.
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We receive both temporal and spiritual blessings by grace. We are motivated to obedience by grace.
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We are called to serve and enabled to serve by grace. We receive strength to endure trials by grace.
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And finally, we are glorified by grace. The entire Christian life is lived under the reign of God's grace.
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So let me ask you some questions. He begins with being brought into the kingdom by grace and being finally glorified by grace.
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But in between he makes some five comments. And I want to ask you about each of these.
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He says we receive both temporal and spiritual blessings by grace. How is that by grace?
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How is the blessings that we receive, Stephen kind of highlighted earlier, that oh, you know, if I obey
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God more consistently, you know, he's going to love me more. And I highlighted it earlier that my obedience towards God somehow is determining how much
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God is going to bless me. But how is God's blessings in my life not contingent on my performance, but it's based upon grace?
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Brian? Okay. Okay. So Brian is saying that even in our progressive sanctification, he mentioned two verses,
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Philippians 1, that he will begin a good work in you when we are cold and dead and stone -hearted, that he will complete it.
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But also he referred to the reference that I had from 1 Corinthians 15 where Paul continues to say, I worked harder than all of them, referring to the apostles, but yet it was not
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I but the grace of God. Very good. How about in terms of serving the
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Lord and serving the church? He says that we are called to serve and enabled to serve by grace.
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I mean, we talk about service usually about, you know, it's not an easy thing sometimes.
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It requires our effort, our time, our sacrifice when we serve other people. But how is serving by grace?
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Who can help us out with that? Corey? Yes? Okay.
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The second part, that God is the one who prepared them, we are his workmanship. Interesting word in the
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Greek, workmanship, is a word where we get the English term poem. So once God saves us, we are his poetry of grace as he continues to work in our
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Christian lives. Excellent. How about also, Jerry mentions, strength, which will segue into my next section, that the strength we need when we go through trials, when we go through a difficult time, when we're faced with the trials of life, which is guaranteed in the
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Scripture, Jesus did not say to the disciples, John 16, 33, in this world you may have trouble.
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No, he didn't say you may have trouble. In this world you will have trouble. What did James say?
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Consider it pure joy, my brother James 1, if you encounter various trials, when you encounter various trials.
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So it's guaranteed. So knowing that that's going to happen, how is the grace of God help me through those trials?
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Bob, excellent. So Bobby's mentioning the passage in 2 Corinthians 12, which is what
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I have next in my notes, a good segue about how Paul highlights, Bob said, that it's not through our own strength, but in our weakness, in the time of weakness, when
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God's power, his grace is sufficient, as the Holy Spirit enables us. So let's look at that a little bit further.
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Let's define, if somebody were to ask you, I'm going to do a little bit maybe twist on the term of grace, somebody came to you and asked you, can you define grace for me?
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What would you say to them? You're helping somebody. They're a new Christian. And they say, would you disciple me?
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Help me understand grace. What would you say to them? Brian. Okay. So Brian says a lot of times people don't understand when we ask for somebody for a favor, what that means.
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And grace is really bestowing somebody a kind of favor, expressing to them a sort of love that's demerited.
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They don't deserve that. So in that sense, it's a favor in expressing love to somebody who has demerited that, has not merited that at all.
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Very well. Somebody else? What is grace? Grace is every breath we breathe.
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Okay. Amen. Grace is every breath we breathe. When you wake up in the morning, by God's grace, right?
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Every breath that we breathe is by God's grace. Let me give you a little different definition.
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If you think I'm a heretic, we can talk later. Defining grace, here it is.
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And we'll look at the scriptures on this. Grace is, and again, we're talking about progressive sanctification, but I'm going to show you how this applies to the whole of salvation, from justification to sanctification to glorification.
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Grace is this, God's strength, God's power, His divine enabling in our weakness.
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Grace is God's power, God's strength, His divine enabling in our weakness.
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Let's look at it first from the salvific side, from justification. Turn with me to Romans 5, verse 6.
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Familiar passage, Romans 5, 6 through, but we're just going to read verse 6.
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Somebody read that for us? Yes. Thank you.
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While we were still weak, okay, at the right time
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Christ died for the ungodly. The term weak there in the Greek is asthenes, which usually nowadays it refers to in contemporary
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Greek language, it usually refers to, when we say somebody is asthenes, it means they're sick, they're bedridden, physically speaking.
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But here, of course, the initial meaning, the original Greek, they put the A, as you know, in front of a word, it negates what it says before that, right?
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And the key word there, stenos, means to strengthen, to be strong.
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So A, asthenes, means the opposite, to not be strong, to be literally weak, to be, as some translations put it,
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Romans 5, 6, while we were yet powerless. Powerless to do what?
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To save ourselves. We had no power, no strength in and of ourselves. We were too weak to save ourselves.
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How weak? How weak is a dead person? That's how weak we were. So now jump to 2
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Corinthians 12, the passage that Bob referred us to, and we'll see the same term used here.
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2 Corinthians 12, 9 through 10. Do you mind reading that, Bob, since you mentioned that? Please.
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What term there do you think is the same word that Paul used in Romans 5? Did you catch that?
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Where is it? Weakness, same exact term, asthenes, to be without strength, to be literally spiritually bedridden, to be spiritually sick, to be weak, powerless.
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So Christ, the risen, resurrected Lord Jesus Christ at this point talking to Paul, for my power,
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Christ's power, my grace, he's talking about grace here, grace not just for salvation, for the start of the
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Christian life, but now continuing, Paul is saved already. My grace is sufficient not only for salvation but for sanctification.
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Why is it sufficient? Because my power, Christ's power, in our weakness, in our current weakness, in our progressive sanctification.
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So therefore when we come to that realization that we're not by the performance treadmill in our sanctifying life here on earth, but it's by Christ's sufficient grace, then we can say, of course, the context in the midst of the thorn and the trials that Paul was facing, then we can say, like Paul, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses.
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There's that same term again. I mean boasting, if you just did a topical study on boasting, we're supposed to boast in the cross, right?
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Galatians 6, we're supposed to boast in Christ alone, 1 Corinthians 1. But how many of you when you wake up in the morning say,
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Lord, I'm going to boast in my weakness today? No, we want to boast in our performance.
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By the sweat of our performance, I've made it in the Christian life. Now in the last remaining moments we have,
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I want us to focus on if we succumb to this kind of thinking, what are the negative results of running this treadmill, of running the performance treadmill?
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If we're going to think that my Christian life, yeah, I was saved by grace initially, but now it's based upon the sweat of my performance.
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What are the negative results of this performance treadmill? I'll give you two, and then
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I'll give you some questions that can kind of determine, well, you know, is that me?
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Am I on this treadmill? I'll give you some questions for you to consider towards the end to see if you are.
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Two results, let me give you the first one. If you're running the performance treadmill for your sanctification, your progressive sanctification, the first negative result is this, self -righteousness.
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In another book that Jerry co -wrote, The Bookends of the
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Christian Life, he says this, when we respond by resting in the assurance that we're successful enough, we harbor self -righteousness.
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Not self -righteousness in the sense of the Pharisee and the tax collector, that he's talking about the only time, by the way, where Christ uses the term justified, justification.
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He said who went home justified that day? The tax collector, because the Pharisee was self -righteous for the sake of salvation.
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But here in the context of what Bridge is writing, he's talking about our progressive sanctification.
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You might say to yourself, you don't know, I've been a Christian a long time.
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I've been walking with God for years. What would Jerry say to that? Quote, even long -standing believers can fall into a similar trap, not with regard to our salvation, but with regard to our perception of our standing with God.
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Unless we're vigilant about this, we're unlikely to recognize the remnants of self -righteousness in our lives.
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At times, our approach to God becomes like preparing a resume for a job application. I like this.
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We carefully include all our accomplishments, anything that might present us in a good light and make us more acceptable.
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Gradually, before we know it, our Christian life consists of continually trying to update our spiritual resume to remind
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God and others of what we've done and not done.
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But in reality, the whole of our resume is either sin or filthy rags, Isaiah 64, 6.
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So every time we approach God in prayer or worship or any other spiritual discipline, we must see our resume only as he sees it, overlaid by Christ's perfect resume.
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End quote. And again, I remind you, as he said here, not with regard to salvation, but with regard to our standing before God in our sanctification.
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You would not claim, if I asked you, Andrew, are you right before God for eternity because of your own self -righteousness within yourself?
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You would say, no, of course not. It's a foreign righteousness, a righteousness outside of myself. Philippians 3, that's
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Paul's testimony, right? By faith in Christ, not having a righteousness of my own, but that which is through faith in Christ, the imputed perfect righteousness of Christ.
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Okay, but how about through the rest of your Christian life as you progress in sanctification? John Owen, Puritan, gives us great insight.
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Listen to this from a book, Communion with the Triune God. Listen to what Owen writes. Quote, when we have our quiet times for the day, when we have given a tithe, we are confident of God's love toward us.
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But when our days become crowded and personal devotions end up neglected, we start to avoid
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God, saying that we are under his wrath and anger. We imagine that God is waiting for us to get ourselves together before we again enter his presence.
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Such thinking, John writes, betrays our failure to grasp the security of our union with Christ and the depth of God's love and consequently disrupts our communion with him.
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Making God's love contingent on our action is a sad but common misunderstanding in the church.
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Remember, a believer's union is never in jeopardy, he continues to write, for God's love is an eternal love that had no beginning, that shall have no ending, that cannot be heightened by an act of ours, that cannot be lessened by anything in us.
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While our sense of communion with God may fluctuate, his love does not grow and diminish.
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And he finishes this portion with this, listen carefully. The wrath of God against the sin of saints was completely exhausted on the cross.
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Do you believe that the wrath of God for the sin of saints was completely exhausted on the cross?
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When we say forgiveness of sins, what are we talking about? Sins past, present and future, which if I'm not mistaken would seem to refer to our
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Christian life, our progressive sanctification, does it not? Freddie, go ahead. Yes, that's a good insight.
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Yes, sometimes we've mistaken the wrath of God because we're not under the wrath of God. We're covered by Christ's blood, but Hebrews 12 you're referring to, right?
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That whom the Lord loves, he disciplines. And I kind of alluded to that earlier, as parents even we do that.
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We discipline our children, but our love for them is just like Jerry Ohio, his love for us is not contingent upon his blessing on us, is not contingent upon our performance.
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But yes, there is discipline for those whom he loves. Exactly. So how do I know?
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How can I know? Okay, I'm not clinging to any self -righteousness for salvation, for justification.
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But is there any left over in my sanctifying life, in my progressive
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Christian life? Here's some questions you can ask yourself. If these are true of you, you might be clinging on to some self -righteousness in your
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Christian life. Do you live by a list of do's and don'ts? Does your
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Christian life do this and or don't do this?
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Now, before I move on, these are questions that Jerry poses. These are not my own. So these are questions he's written in his book,
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The Bookends of the Christian Life. Can't improve them, so they're very insightful. But let me say this. Some of you might be thinking, okay, and it's a right thought to think, okay, but what do you mean?
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If I'm going to live my Christian life by grace, does that mean? So if I go to you and say, so what have you been reading in the
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Bible lately? Oh, you know, Pastor, I only live by grace. I don't read my
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Bible. I live by grace. Well, when Paul wouldn't have time to look at it, when he met with the
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Ephesian elders and he exhorted them, he said, for three years, I didn't stop crying night and day for the savage wolves that would come into the church and draw people away from them.
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So he told the Ephesian elders, be on your guard for yourself and for the church of which the
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Holy Spirit has made you overseas and of the church which Christ bought with his own blood. But you know what his ending part to that?
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We never look at it is in Paul says to them in Acts 20, 32, I now commend you to the word of his grace.
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He refers to the word as the word of his grace. What is prayer after all? How does the writer of Hebrews talk about prayer?
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Hebrews 4, the throne of what?
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Grace. The Puritans and early reformers used to refer to the disciplines as the disciplines of grace.
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So if I am relying on God, if I'm not in the word of God, I'm living by the sweat of my performance because I'm not relying on the grace of God that I need through the scripture.
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If I'm not in prayer, my spiritual breath, I'm relying on my own performance for the Christian life because I'm not drawing on the throne of grace.
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So that's one question to ask. Do I live by a list of do's and don'ts for self -righteousness? Another question, do you assume that practicing spiritual disciplines should result in God's blessing?
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In other words, is it a cause and effect relationship? Third question, do you resent it when others point out your spiritual blind spots?
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How about if it's your wife who does that? Do you readily recognize the sin of others but not your own?
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Which is really an immature thing, I think. I know with my children, I have a policy
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I've told them. I said, when you come to me, I don't want you to tell me what your sister did wrong. I don't want to hear about it.
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I want to hear what you did wrong. And then they said to me, well, how are you going to know what my sister did to me?
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I'll find out from her, but she's not going to tell you anyway. That's my concern, not your concern. That's something we've picked up as children.
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Oh, but you know, last question, do you seldom think of the cross?
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Not for salvation, but for your sanctification. Second result besides self -righteousness.
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If you're running the performance treadmill, the other end of the spectrum of self -righteousness is this.
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Persistent guilt. Jerry puts it this way. Quote, when we respond with anxiety over the inadequacy of our performance, we harbor persistent guilt.
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If it's all about performance and we haven't performed where we think we ought to be performing,
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I've got to do better, I've got to do it longer, I've got to do it deeper, then there's a sense of guilt. I love this interesting scenario.
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Bob George, in a book called Classic Christianity, talks about what he refers to as the phantom
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Christian. It's funny, but it's true, unfortunately, many times.
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He says this. There's a certain mindset that is especially destructive called the phantom
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Christian. The phantom Christian is that imaginary person that many of us are continually comparing ourselves to.
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He is the super spiritual man who gets up every day, 4 a .m.,
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so he can pray for four hours. Then he reads his Bible for four hours.
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So let's do the math. From 4 to 8 he's praying. 8 to noon he's reading the Bible. Doesn't stop there.
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He goes to work, at which he is top in his field, where he effectively shares Christ with everyone in his office.
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He teaches several Bible studies, goes to church every time the doors are open, and serves on several committees.
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He is also a wonderful spiritual leader at home, a sterling example of a loving husband and father, who leads stimulating family devotions every day for his
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Proverbs 31 wife and perfect children. So if this is what
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I'm expecting, and I don't reach that performance, the result is overridden guilt, which will paralyze.
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Bridges gives these questions to see if you or I are running the performance treadmill in such a way where there is persistent guilt.
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These are the questions he asks. First, are you discouraged or depressed by your failure to measure up?
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Do you find yourself discouraged or depressed for the reason that I'm not measuring up? Second question, does it appear
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God can use others, but he can't really use you? Do you fear that your past will come back to haunt you?
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Do your difficult circumstances seem like God's judgment for your sin?
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What kind of Ferdie alluded to earlier, the distinction between God's wrath and judgment and his discipline.
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Do you stay clear of intimate relationships or small group discussions? And the last question, same as the first result, whether it's self -righteousness you're struggling with in your sanctification or persistent guilt, do you seldom think of the cross?
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Let me finish with this encouraging story from the same book. It's of a pastor, but irrelevant.
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It's true of all of us. It can be true of all of us, pastor or not, in our Christian life.
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I recall before I read this story as I close, I remember as a young Christian in college, Pastor Bob Bowman knows him and so does
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Bobby Dunn. My spiritual mentor, Carl, used to tell me all the time, and I'll never forget it. He used to say,
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Harry, the Christian life begins by grace, but it didn't stop there. And it is to be lived out by grace every day of your life.
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So on that note, let me read the story of a pastor who came to grips with this. He says,
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I found it to be incredibly challenging to give up the belief system that has sustained me so long, one built on an initial forgiveness and then fed through a powerful combination of pride and fear.
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Pride that stemmed from the performance of spiritual disciplines. Pride that pointed to the obvious signs of success.
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We were, after all, named in the fastest -growing 100 churches in America. And most of all, pride that was fueled by the approval of others.
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But fear may have been an even greater motivator. Fear of being exposed is less than what people expect.
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Fear of not being as smart, as spiritual, as competent as I should be. Fear of not measuring up.
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And fear of Luke 12, 48, to whom much was given, much will be required. The belief system of a pastor is bound to come out in his preaching, at least in subtle ways.
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My emphasis was always on grace, but it was also laced with a discipline of effort and inner strength to be what
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God called us to be. The result of these are pride or defeat. My preaching has changed as a result of the gospel going deeper inside me.
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The truth is I have existed as a pastor with gods in my closet. There were times when these gods sustained me, and giving them up has caused more death this year than I would like to admit.
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The closet is still not empty, but the death of these gods has made me ravenous.
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Without the gospel as my source of security and significance, I would die. So as one who has vacillated between self -sufficiency and depression, gospel -driven transformation is both liberating and terrifying.
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There are some in our church who have not yet rediscovered the gospel this way. There are others who hear the terrifying part, but not the liberating part, and they sit on pins and needles.
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Many of them will leave soon, I think, but there are many others who have felt the shackles start to fall off, and like me, they're filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.
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Rediscovering the gospel is an ongoing process. Our church is a big ship to turn.
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I would never attempt to turn it if the approval of others was as vital to me as it was a year ago, and if I hadn't been changed by the good news.
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This is a much better place to be, even if I'm rejected by some, even if attendance falls. As a sinner pastor,
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I stand in dependence on grace to plant and water gospel seeds, recognizing that God himself gives the growth.
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Like him, has the gospel, not for the sake of salvation, but for the sake of your continued progressive sanctification, has it gone deep inside you like it has with him?
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If not, you're living by the performance treadmill, and you will struggle with self -righteousness or persistent guilt.
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The solution? Preach the gospel to yourself every day.
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Father, we thank you for the truths of Scripture. Thank you, Father, that we acknowledge readily that we have been saved by your grace alone.
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But, Father, as Paul highlighted in 2 Corinthians 12, the words of our risen
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Lord, we acknowledge this morning that your grace, Lord Jesus, is sufficient for us, for your power is made perfect in our weakness.
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May we resist the slippery slope of falling into the performance treadmill, where the results will be just self -righteousness and persistent guilt, but may we rely completely on your grace to live out our
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Christian life as we preach the gospel to ourselves, and that we not seldom think of the cross, but that we often think of the cross.