Grace Boys, Works Boys And Puritan Boys

Now, this is not going to be a homiletic exercise this morning, all right?

I'm not going to preach to you, so if you have a question, you want to raise your hand, or if you're outraged and you'd like

to just jump up and down on your seat or whatever, that would be okay, all right?

And I'm going to do what, if you were in my homiletics class, I would never allow you to do.

I'm going to practice the bailout school of homiletics, which means when it's time to be

done, I'm going to bail out.

Or if I run out of things to say, I'm going to bail out.

Or if one of you passes out and falls on the floor, I'm going to bail out, okay?

So that's how we're going to do it, whether we are at the

ending or not.

Actually, this is going to be a two -parter.

You're going to have to endure this for another week, next week, and we'll go from there.

Okay, let's talk about Grace Boys, Works Boys, and Puritan Boys.

I have been watching with interest the discussion that has been going on with these

Presbyterians.

And the problem appears to be, particularly by the guy that wrote the article entitled

Grace Boys, the problem appears to be that there are some in their group that are

basically preaching, look, if you find that your

life is not maturing in Christ, let me throw out the theological term.

You're a well -taught church, so you will understand the term sanctification, correct?

Your sanctification.

If your sanctification doesn't appear to be proceeding as you had envisioned at some

point, then what are you supposed to do?

Where does the sovereignty of God intersect with the human responsibility that Harry talked

about earlier this morning?

Those that, and I don't know the names of any of these Grace Boys, all right?

I thought I detected possibly a Reformed Baptist lurking in the background, but he was not named.

And so, I don't know any of their names.

I've only been watching this with interest.

But it brings up the whole business of what about sanctification?

Because this is a great problem in the lives of many believers, and so we're going to at least

use that as the springboard to get there.

The problem seems to be that the Grace Boys are teaching that if your sanctification is not

proceeding as you think it ought to proceed, here's what you do.

You go back to the gospel.

More gospel.

You go back and rehearse your justification.

You go back and rehearse all that led to you being saved, and that will move you

in the direction of looking like Jesus.

And let us say about sanctification right now so that we get it.

I'm talking about your progressive sanctification.

You do understand that when you came to Christ, and I'm presuming that everyone in the room here

has come to Christ, that I'm talking to Christians this morning.

If by some chance you wandered in here thinking this was a seeker -sensitive service, even though there was

no merry -go -round or Ferris wheel in a parking lot,

and you are outside of Christ, you are not a believer in Christ, then I encourage you just to listen, okay?

Your problem probably is that you have not considered the universal question as yet.

If you're a young person particularly, since you're still in indestructible mode, you have not considered the

universal question, which is, how do I get off of this planet alive?

All right?

And that answer is found in the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone.

In any case, the folks that are having nervousness about

the Grace Boys are saying this, well, yeah, that's true.

We need to work off of our position in Christ.

We need to reconsider all that has happened for us to be justified in Christ.

That's true.

But listen, there are a lot of places in the Bible where you are given warnings and where you are given

instruction, and so there's sort of a carrot -and -stick approach in the Bible.

There are carrots.

Our justification, you know, is something that we ought to concentrate on that would move our

sanctification.

But there's also warnings in the Bible, and sometimes we need to be warned.

And indeed there are.

There absolutely are.

On Sunday evenings, Judy and I are teaching a little Bible study over in Hardwick.

That's for those of us out in the wilds, okay?

And so we do that, and we're in 1 Peter.

And let me say this, too.

I do not suggest that the people that are writing sort of critically of the grace boys,

that they are works boys.

But the whole idea does bring up the two ends of sanctification.

And the two approaches to sanctification that have obtained in the

church, for all of its history, are these.

Over here we have the folks saying, I do nothing.

If God can catch me, He can sanctify me, okay?

If the Lord can move in on me, He can make me look more like Jesus Christ.

This is what I would call the flake out before the father school.

I'm just out.

If the Lord can move on me, He's free to do that.

I'm not going to resist that.

But there's nothing for me to do.

Over here on the other end of that whole spectrum are the Avis folks.

You know the old Avis ad, right?

We try harder.

And I think both, some place, the intersection of the sovereignty of God and the

responsibility of man comes in some place in between those things.

And I say about the Puritan boys, I'm going to get to the Puritan boys in a minute, because as we often find,

it is the Puritans that strike the balance that is correct.

How many of you have Valley of Vision?

That ought to be mandatory.

Can't be members of Bethlehem.

Okay, no.

All right.

You ought to get Valley of Vision.

It's a collection of prayers of the Puritans.

And let me say about that, the Puritans are perhaps the high point

of at least the period of the Reformation in my view.

Their English, they were masters of the English language.

Their English is elegant, masterful, economical.

They say a lot in brevity.

And so they were masters of the language, but they were also at the same time masters of the Scriptures.

Puritan pastors of Jonathan Edwards' day, for example, Puritan pastors

exhorted their parishioners, exhorted their people to

write their prayers.

And some of those, I suppose, have worked their way into what we call Valley of Vision.

And you will find in Valley of Vision, as you read that, you will go, Oh, yes, that is

me.

That is exactly what I think, but I couldn't figure out how to say it.

Okay, and these guys say it.

Well, I read one of those as I was keeping in mind the Grace Boys Works Boys

discussion.

The whole idea of over here I do nothing to be sanctified.

God has to do that.

Over here I do everything to be sanctified, and that is equally as destructive.

I found this, and there is a folder here, and I have had

a copy reproduced for every one of you.

If I could have a couple of guys come and just give one of these to everybody, I think we

would go from there.

Out in Hardwick, in this Bible study that we are having on Sunday night, we are in 1 Peter.

And one of the things that strikes you when you come to the epistles is that there is sort of a general

organization to them, whether it is Paul, whether it is Peter, even James to some

degree, or John.

You always find that they begin with the exaltation about what we are in Christ, what we have

become because we have come to Jesus Christ.

And then when you get toward the end of those passages, of those letters,

you begin to see, okay, now because you are in Christ, this is what it is

supposed to look like.

And that is a great problem for a great many of us because we don't look like what the Bible says

it is supposed to look like.

We are coming to look like what the Bible says we are

to look like in Christ.

We are not there yet.

We will not be there until we see Him, and we are as He is, as John

says in his first letter.

That is when it will all be complete.

In the meantime, we are all learning to become what God says we already are,

and that process is called our progressive sanctification.

Understand this.

There is a sanctification of your position.

We are all positionally sanctified if you are in Christ, okay?

And that means you have been set aside.

You have been set aside by God because you are in Christ.

You have been set aside by Him to become like Christ.

And so sanctification takes in two things, your position in Christ and your

progression in Christ.

And we want to talk about that progression in Christ.

I suppose this is going to take a couple of Sundays.

I was struck by this last Sunday.

We came to this passage in 1 Peter out in Hardwick

because we are now in the part of Peter where we are in the, what does it look like, part,

okay?

And this is where things really get messy.

It's great to preach on our position in Christ.

I love nothing more than preaching on Romans chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,

8, and all of that, okay?

It's great to go through Ephesians, and the first part is just fantastic.

And then the writer almost invariably begins to meddle.

I read this, 1 Peter chapter 2, Be subject

for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor, the crazy emperor of

Rome at the time, as supreme, the emperor as supreme,

or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil, to praise those who do good.

I'm going through this on Sunday night, and I'm thinking, oh man, this is really

hard.

It's hard for me.

I have trouble with emperors, okay?

I have trouble with kings.

I have trouble with presidents who may believe they are kings.

And you can tell from my commentary that Peter is beginning to meddle in my head

here as we go on.

And I just have trouble with this kind of thing.

So if you go through here, and I'll just pull some of the quotes out, the word subject, subject, subject

keeps coming up.

You be subject, okay, to crazy emperors, to governors,

by anybody they send.

Honor everyone.

Love the brotherhood.

Fear God.

And then he ends it with honor the emperor again, okay?

Now the problem that all of us have with these things, it's going to go on to say, servants be subject to your masters and so

on.

Wives be subject to your own husbands.

Husbands, live understanding with your wives and all.

And we have a list of things when we have come to Christ that we are to be that are

absolutely counterintuitive to everything that we are.

I don't want to be subject to a crazy emperor.

I don't always want to be subject to whoever employs me.

I don't want, you know, you get it?

These things do not come to us naturally.

These things certainly do not come to us when we are outside of Christ.

Then we come to Christ, okay?

And then all of a sudden, you know, the health and wealth preachers on TV will tell you, you know,

if you just say the prayer, walk the aisle, your bus will wait, whatever, okay?

If you'll just do these things, send us money, that's a biggie, okay?

If you'll just do that, then you will be

blessed.

And you come to Christ and life will go on.

Hey, listen, when we come to Christ, we come to war.

And the war, a lot of it, is right inside of ourselves.

And as we get to the ends of these epistles, it comes up over and over and over again.

Consider Galatians chapter 5.

Paul is a real meddler in Galatians chapter 5.

I'm sure it's here.

These modern translations, you never can tell.

Okay.

You know this one.

Galatians chapter 5, beginning at verse 16.

Well, that's why that didn't look like it, because it was Ephesians.

All right.

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

Oh, that's me, I want to walk by the Spirit.

And so do you.

For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh.

For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

You come to Christ, you're coming to war.

Not to, I got richer, I got a bigger car, I got a better business, I got a hunky -dory marriage

now, and all of that.

I mean, I hope you have all those things.

But when you came to Christ, you came to war.

Not to those things, primarily.

But if you're led by the Spirit, you're not under the law.

Now the works of the flesh are evident.

Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger,

rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.

And when we all sit here in church on Sunday morning, we go, well, we're not subject to any of those kinds of things.

Yeah, maybe.

Maybe.

All right?

Paul said to the Ephesians, and you guys were just like all of that before you came to Christ.

And a lot of us are learning not to be that.

Now look, I am 74 years old.

And I thought by this time I would be this mellow old man.

Okay?

See that little thing about fits of anger there?

How many of you remember Dr. Eric Frickenberg?

Some of you may.

Some of you would be only teenagers when he preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church.

Baptist Church.

Okay?

You guys are all Baptists.

Just face it.

Okay?

All right?

And Dr. Frickenberg was a missionary in India.

He lived up in Gardner.

Okay?

And he would come down and he would preach.

He was 75 years old at this time.

I was not.

Okay?

But I'm getting closer.

He was 75 years old at this time when he would come down and speak to our church.

And even the young people.

It just got quiet when Frickenberg started to speak.

And the young people would say, We sense in his spirit.

You know, he's reaching us in the spirit.

Some of them shared with me.

Well, he wasn't driving anymore.

So I'd have to go up and get him up in Gardner.

So I'd go up to Gardner one day to get Dr. Frickenberg to bring him

down here to preach at Bethlehem.

And as I go up, I pick him up.

He's down there in South Gardner, up there in South Gardner someplace.

And he comes and gets in the car.

And then we start down Route 68.

You're all familiar with that.

As you start down Route 68, you come to this place where there's a giant flea market.

You know that place?

Okay?

And by the time we are coming back down to that place, by the

time we're coming back down to there, Dr. Frickenberg and I are

stopped by hundreds of people streaming across the road.

I'm about to blurt out, Look at these turkeys.

Okay?

But before I got it, the Lord just went, Put your hand on your mouth.

Okay?

And Dr. Frickenberg said, Oh, these poor people.

They don't know anything about the Lord Jesus.

And I went, Thank you, Lord.

Okay?

For that.

All right?

That was the spirit of that man.

I had thought, You know, I'm one year from where Dr. Frickenberg was at that time.

That I'll be a mellow old spiritual giant like that when I'm 74

years old.

But I find that when Paul says, He gives this whole list of sins, Which

many of us were involved in.

Some or all of them.

When he gives all of that, I still find there's echoes of that in my life to this day.

And it's not a pretty sight.

It's not a pretty sight.

And then, of course, the capper is, But the fruit of the Spirit is, Love, joy, peace,

patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, Self -control against such things.

There's no law.

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with His passions and desires.

And we read that stuff and we go, Whoa.

That's not me.

I'd like it to be me.

But it's not me.

I'll tell you this.

One of the things the Grace Boys have going for them, Is that they understand,.

They apparently understand.

I don't know.

Because I don't know any of them.

All right.

They apparently understand that as we conduct our Christian lives, We work out

of our position in Christ, Not out of our behavior in Christ.

If you are on the Avis plan, I try harder,.

That when you read things like I have just read to you, You may walk out of here,.

And if I'm not careful, If I were preaching this morning, If I'm not careful, I may say to

you,.

And you people need to try harder,.

Because you're all a bunch of rascals,.

And I know it, and you know it,.

And all of God's children know it,.

And so you need to try harder.

And so here's what we're going to do for the Try Harder program.

This week, Everybody at Bethlehem, No Bible,.

No breakfast.

Okay?

Twenty minutes of prayer every morning, Not after 5 a .m.

And we all go, Oh yeah, man, we can do that.

All right, that lasts until about when?

Tuesday.

And then we, you know,.

And then we go, That didn't work well.

Next week, Pastor Bob will give us another program, That we can try, And we'll move on.

Okay, now let's move on toward the,.

And then Hebrews, I got Hebrews 12, 14 jotted down here.

It talks about holiness, Without which no one will see the Lord.

All right?

Do you ever feel like, You know you're a believer, But you still wonder how in the world it will ever be that you'll see the Lord?

Okay, it won't be because you tried harder and were successful.

Now let's go to the Puritan boy.

It's in this thing that you have given out.

My Father, When Thou art angry, We have to stop right there, Okay?

How would one know if Father was angry with me?

Because we live in a very touchy -feely culture, Okay?

And we are very prone to act on our emotions.

We would say, I know when Father is angry with me, Because I just feel so bad.

We may even say, My conscience is just going crazy.

And I know Father is, You know what?

There are people that believe Father is angry with them over everything.

Everything.

There are other people, There are other people who think, Father is never angry with me because I never do

anything wrong.

And so let us just say from the get -go, That the only way we might know that Father

is angry with us, Is by knowing Father's standard.

And it is in the book.

And we measure our behavior and our feelings, Not by our feelings, But by the book.

And so as we are in the book, Or the Word is preached, Or whatever it is, We come to the conclusion, I'm not doing this

right.

Whatever it is.

But it comes from the book.

It doesn't come from my feelings.

It doesn't come just out of my experience.

It doesn't come out of my success or lack of success.

It comes out of God's standard in the book.

And of course we've read that messy standard in Galatians chapter 5, Just

recently.

Well, the Puritan prays, My Father, when art angry towards me for my wrongs,

I try.

You want to underline that.

I try.

He says, I try to pacify thee by abstaining from future sin.

We're not going to have a raise your hands exercise here.

Okay.

How many of you have said, I am never doing that again.

Or I am going to start doing whatever it is.

You can fill in the blank.

Okay.

This man prays, I try to pacify thee by abstaining from

future sin.

I purpose that I am not going to sin in the way that I have ever

again.

And you know how long that lasts too.

All right.

But, and I want to stop right there before we get to the next part.

But, I try.

But, here's what happens in the try program.

And this is why the Grace Boys have something to say to us that is real.

Because they are saying, Trying doesn't get it.

And trying doesn't get it.

Okay.

Working up your determination doesn't get you there.

In fact, it is not a cooperation with the Lord.

So, he says, But, he's going to say something, but I'm going to interrupt him for a minute.

Okay.

When I try successfully, when I try successfully, I have had moments of success

at self -sanctification.

Okay.

I've even had two or three days at a time of success.

At self -sanctification.

And I'll tell you what.

You do one of those things like no Bible, no breakfast.

And you go a week.

And you have read the Bible every morning before breakfast.

You are going, Whoa!

I am on my way now.

And I'm quite certain that the rest of the people at Bethlehem probably blew it off by Tuesday.

But, I am here now on Friday.

And I'm still going.

And I'm going to keep going.

And it's Bible before breakfast every day.

In fact, we're going to start memorizing memory verses.

Nothing wrong with that.

We're going to start memorizing memory verses.

We're going to have 45 minutes.

Man, next week is going to be something.

And what happens when we are self -sanctified, when we are on the Tri Program, and it is

successful for as short a time as it usually is.

Okay.

One, we get proud.

We get puffed up.

And this, this is especially appealing for the late 20th century and early 21st century.

And my self -esteem is just wonderful when I'm doing all this stuff

successfully.

Well, the next week comes.

On the next week, it's supposed to be Bible before breakfast.

And then we're going to have meditation.

And we're going to memorize verses.

And we're going to have 30 minutes of prayer.

And that's just way more than I can chew.

And by Tuesday, it is all in the dumper.

And then I have a reaction to that.

And the reaction is, it's not successful.

I'm depressed.

I'm discouraged.

I'm thinking maybe I ought to just throw this whole thing over.

This isn't going to work.

Okay.

That's the problem.

I don't suggest that the people that are critical are the grace boys or works boys.

I'm not saying that.

I think they are correct when they say people are all different.

And so some people need to be kicked once in a while.

And some people need to be encouraged.

But I do say this.

Self -sanctification is not going to get us there.

And we will not look like Christ.

We will look like proud, arrogant Christians that drive off

people who might come to inquire about the gospel of Christ.

Or we will become discouraged Christians whose testimony is, I tried that, man.

And it just does not work.

What does the Puritan say?

He says, I try, but I'm successful or

unsuccessful.

No.

He says, but teach me.

Teach me.

And that little phrase right there, he's going to go through a bunch of teach me's now all the way down.

It is an echo of David over at Psalm.

We were just reading in Psalms yesterday, or listening to Psalms yesterday.

And Psalm 119 .30, David

says this.

Put false ways far from me and graciously teach me your law.

See that?

Teach me your law.

You, God, teach me your law.

I have chosen the way of faithfulness.

I set your rules before me.

I cling to your testimonies, O Lord.

Let me not be put to shame.

I will run in the way of your commandments.

Did David do all those things?

Always?

Absolutely not.

Absolutely not.

But he set out to do them.

He says, when you enlarge my heart.

And then at verse 33 he says, teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes.

So there is teaching that has to go on here.

And this business of our sanctification, our growth in Christ is a teaching process.

And it's going to take time.

Time, time, time for that to happen.

So he says, teach me what?

You know, I can't get it by trying.

So, teach me that I cannot satisfy thy law.

I got that.

I'm 74, I got it.

I cannot satisfy God's law.

I have tried it every which way from loose.

And I know that I cannot satisfy God's law.

I'm not just talking about in a theological sense in which I cannot satisfy God's law to become

righteous enough to get to heaven.

I need the righteousness of Christ to get to heaven.

And by the way, you understand you cannot go to heaven if only your sins are forgiven.

If you do not possess the righteousness of Christ, then you can't go to heaven.

All right?

So Christ is our righteousness.

I get all of that.

I get all of that.

But I'll tell you what, in a practical sense, I understand.

I cannot satisfy God's law.

And there's a lot of times when it seems like it's not getting any better.

All right?

That this effort, Avis program, I try harder.

That this effort, now here's what the Avis program is.

This effort is a resting in my righteousness.

I'll tell you what, if anybody's resting in my righteousness, my righteousness, you are

in deep weeds.

You are in big trouble.

If you are resting in your own righteousness, and I'm not talking here about salvation to get to heaven.

I'm talking about maturing in Christ.

I'm talking about sanctification.

If you have arrived at the point where you are saying, and I have arrived at the sanctification

thing.

I am a growing Christian.

You are possibly, maybe probably, resting in your own righteousness.

And you can stand by for a ram.

Until you are driven to, I cannot satisfy thy law.

But he goes on.

I cannot satisfy thy law.

This effort is resting in my righteousness.

That only Christ's righteousness, ready -made.

Got that?

Is that good?

Christ's righteousness, ready -made.

Already finished.

Can Jesus Christ be any more righteous tomorrow than he is today?

Go ahead.

Somebody can blurt out an answer to that rhetorical question.

Can he be?

No, he cannot be.

That righteousness is already finished.

Now here's the deal.

When I came to believe in Christ, I am in him.

His experience becomes my experience.

Father sees him first, me second.

So because I am in Christ, the righteousness that is in view is not my

righteousness, which will fail every time.

But it is Christ's righteousness, ready -made, already finished.

It's the only thing that is fit for that purpose.

That thy chastising me for my sin is not that I should try to reform.

Do we get that?

This guy's right.

Your chastising me for sin is not that I should try to reform.

I don't suppose anyone here but me has been in the situation of, Man, oh man, the wheels are

coming off here.

Nothing is working right.

I must have done something to displease the Lord.

Okay, I'm sure none of you have had that, but I have.

You're far more mature than I am, no doubt.

Okay, you know what that sounds like?

That sounds like the tribal people that were in South America to whom our colleagues

ministered.

Okay, everything had happened.

Oh, we've messed up.

We've displeased God.

We've crossed somebody.

The black bird went the wrong way over the trail when I was moving in this direction.

The babies die and the potatoes won't grow because we didn't sacrifice the right number of goats

at the beginning of the growing season and all of that.

When we get into that mode as Christians and we say, Things are not going right.

I must have displeased God.

You may have displeased God, but that's not what it's about.

His call to you is not to try to reform.

But here's His call, and this old Puritan has it correct.

His call is when I am chastised by the Lord,

it's not to be reformed because that won't work, but it is that I may be more humbled,

afflicted, and separated from sin by being reconciled and made

righteous in Christ by faith.

And in our Presbyterian friends' discussion, this is what the Grace Boys have going for them.

That they understand that their success, if it can even be called success,

springs out of the righteousness of Christ which they possess because they are in Him.

And to the degree that we need to meditate on that and some other things that we'll get into probably next week,

to the degree that we are camped there, things will begin to, we will

begin to mature in Christ.

Now I want you to notice the five things that he lists there, that I may be more humbled,

afflicted, separated from sin by being reconciled and

made righteous in Christ by faith.

Those are the same things that were true of you when you came to Jesus in the first place,

that I may be more humbled.

Think about Peter's fiery sermon on the day of Pentecost.

He gets to that part where he says, and you by the hands of guilty men have crucified the Lord,

and so on.

And what is the testimony over there in Acts chapter 2?

They were cut to the heart and said, men and brethren, what must we do?

That was a humbling experience for them to hear the

accusation and assent to it.

Assent to it, so they were humbled first.

Then they were afflicted, men and brethren, what must we do?

What do we do?

Okay, yeah, right, we are the guilty guys.

What do we do?

And what was Peter's response to them?

Repent.

Change your mind.

50 days ago, it was on the day of Pentecost, 50 days ago you were shouting, crucify Him, crucify

Him.

You shouted, crucify Him, crucify Him, because?

Why?

Because He was an imposter, a blasphemer, and certainly not the Son of God which He claimed to be.

You need to change your mind about that.

Okay, and then 50 days ago you thought you were righteous and correct to

call for His crucifixion.

You were not.

You were deeply involved with sinful men in doing that.

You need to change your mind about that.

It says on that day at least 3 ,000 of them changed their minds, and they were separated from

sin, and it was evidenced by their being baptized.

They were reconciled then to Father because they believed.

They believed.

Okay, and they were made righteous in Christ by the faith that they

exercised in Him on that day.

And they were, we'd say on that day, they were justified.

Well, guess what?

In the matter of our sanctification, it's the same thing.

When we are afflicted, when we are wrong, when we sense that God is angry toward us from

the Word, the object is not, you've got to do better.

The object is, you've got to be humbled.

The object is, I need to be afflicted.

I need to take that seriously.

Okay, the object is, I need to change my mind and to be separated from that sin.

The same thing is true in my maturing in Christ, in my sanctification.

Now watch what he says after those five things.

The object is that those things should happen, not that I should try harder and be reformed.

Okay, that a sense of my sufficiency and ability in Him

that is in Christ is one means of my being immovable.

Now look at that carefully.

This man is praying for a sense of his sufficiency in Christ, a sense of his

ability in Christ, and he says that that is one means of his

being immovable.

Okay, so I say that's where the Grace Boys in this Presbyterian conflict, that's where the Grace Boys have something

to say.

When our spiritual life looks very much like a Twinkie,

you get it?

When our spiritual life looks like that, we don't need to get over here and say, I've got to try

harder.

We need to get back here and say, who am I in Christ?

What has happened to me?

The same humbling that brought me to the cross needs to be the humbling now, and there is a means to that humbling, which we'll get

into probably not this week.

There is a means to that so that I can continue on, and God will grow

me into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I think I want to hold it right there and close with this, because we're not supposed to be out here by quarter of an hour, right?

No, we were supposed to be out here by 1030.

Well, you're not going to make it.

Okay.

Judy and I grew up in Southern California.

I think I even mentioned this just sitting in a class in here.

Grew up in Southern California amidst thousands of acres of orange trees.

That's when Southern California had thousands of acres of orange trees and not thousands of acres of

houses.

And you never saw the owner of an orange

grove go out in the grove and say to those trees,

Trees, come fall...

Well, we're going to ship these oranges off to the east, okay?

Come fall, you trees are supposed to have oranges on you.

This is an orange.

This is what one looks like, okay?

Now, get it firmly in mind.

And I want to exhort you, trees, to do everything you can to

grow a large bunch of these oranges.

And I'll come back every week or so, and we'll have a little cheerleading time so that you

trees can get with it.

And I don't want any trees producing apples, by the way.

They do that in Washington.

You trees, this is an orange.

This is what they look like, oranges, all right?

You say, that would be just ridiculous for them to do that, for him to do that.

Yes, it would be.

So what does the grove operator do when he's looking for the crop of oranges?

Well, first of all, he feeds the oranges.

You know, they fertilize the oranges.

They irrigate the oranges, make sure they have plenty.

They nourish the oranges.

That's what's to go on here every Sunday morning.

That's what's to go on in every Bible study.

That's what's to go on every time we come together corporately.

There is a nourishing that goes on that produces trees.

You know what an orange tree looks like most of the year?

It's like a green tree.

It's like a lot of these trees, green trees.

We don't know what's on them, okay?

But all the time that farmer is working, understanding that in the fall when it comes

time to pick those oranges, get them off for the winter crop to send back here to the east when

there's three feet of snow on the ground, okay?

He understands that when he does that, when he nourishes them and cares for

them, and by the way, part of that care is in Southern California when the temperature plummets to 20

degrees and all Southern Californians feel that they may just die, okay?

When the temperature plummets to that, then he has to warm those trees at the same time,

okay?

He is confident that they will do what?

Produce oranges.

Why?

Why?

Because they are orange trees.

That's exactly right.

But he keeps going back to the basics to make sure that they are nurtured and nourished and protected

and all of that.

He doesn't go out and have cheerleading sessions in the orange grove to encourage them to bear

oranges, does he?

The same thing is true, I think, for our own lives.

We are in Christ.

We are new creatures in Christ.

We are perfect in Christ.

You say, what?

No, I don't behave perfectly.

I am perfect in Christ.

You say, who thinks that?

God the Father thinks that.

That's who thinks that, and His opinion is the one that counts.

All right?

So I am perfect in Christ, and I can be confident, and you can be confident, that

because we are in Christ and our life comes from Him, that we will

bear the fruit that the Scriptures call for, and we will cast off the things that

the Scriptures list that we ought not to be involved in.

We will bear that fruit.

But we won't do it because we try harder.

We will do it because we understand increasingly who we are in Christ, what He has

done for us, and all of that.

Does that mean that I should have no desire for a godly life, that I can just wait

over here, and maybe somebody will splash some spiritual water on me, throw a little fertilizer my way,

and all of that?

No, it doesn't mean that at all.

I need to desire a godly life.

Our Puritan friend is going to talk about that, and he's going to get to that, but he's not going to get to it until next week.

So don't lose these handouts that I have given you.

All right?

And we'll get to it next week also.

Okay.

Anybody want to throw in or throw out at this point?

Okay.

Let's have a word of prayer.

Heavenly Father, we're grateful that we are alive in Jesus Christ, and because we are

alive in Jesus Christ, it opens up the possibility that we can grow

and will grow to be more like Him daily because we

are in Him.

We pray that You would remind us of that often.

We pray that You would not allow us to indulge ourselves in the extremes

that people go to when they think about maturity in Christ, neither in the extreme that says, I do nothing,

God does everything, or the extreme that says, I do everything, God does

little.

We pray that You would cause us to understand who we are, to exult in who we are, to live

in Jesus Christ who has given us life, righteousness, and everything needed

to please You.

We pray it in His name that this week as we walk out of here, we celebrate Memorial Day tomorrow,

and then we go on to the rest of a week of work.

We pray, Lord, that because we are in Christ, we will

even to our joy see fruit of His presence in our

lives.

We will see fruit of the indwelling Spirit in our lives, not because we try

for it, but because we desire it and You will produce it.

Remind us often, Lord, of this, Hebrews 10, 14,

He has made perfect forever.

Those who are being made holy, Lord, let us rejoice in

being made holy because we have been made perfect forever.

We pray it in His name, for His glory, and for Yours, Father.

Amen.