Grace Walk Experience - Part 3 — Steve McVey

Grace Walk Experience — Part 3: Identity in Christ

Dr. Steve McVeigh, who's been with us the last couple of days, is back with us today. We're talking about walking in grace, walking in the grace of God. Steve, what areas are we going to discuss today?

Two Truths That Transform Christian Living

Today we're going to cover two truths that the Lord used to really transform my life. And the first one is that in order to, you must first know who you are to change what you do. Okay. That's very important because we tend to get it backwards.

We often think that what we do defines who we are. It's going to define who we are. But this is who we are defines behavior.

And the second one is that we don't have an evil twin living inside us.

Thank you. Some of us think we've got a Siamese twin on the inside with the other color. Anyway, we'll take a break and I want you to stay with us. It'll be a great hour. Dr. Steve McVeigh is our guest again today.

He's been with us for the last several days. We're talking about grace, about the walk of grace, and there's a book that he's recently put out. It's really an eight-week, it's kind of like a workbook, Steve, isn't it?

The Grace Walk Experience.

It's 240 pages, so it's very thorough. It has a lot of substance in it, but this book is built around eight truths that God used to transform my life, and now I'm hearing from many others who attest to the same, that their lives have been transformed by understanding these eight truths.

It's broken into eight chapters or eight weekly studies, and each week is divided into five daily studies designed to take about 15 or 20 minutes a day so that you can assimilate the truths and allow the Holy Spirit to change your paradigm.

So just walk this thing through, it will make a big difference for people.

You know, we all have what once sociologists called plausibility structures. We have this, a plausibility structure is the underlying belief system that we have that we see as being so self-evident in its truth that we don't even question it, and a lot of us have had a viewpoint of what the Christian life is, that we're wrong, and they've kept us in bondage.

So what this book does is it faces straight on some of the faulty beliefs in our belief system and challenges us through Scripture on allowing the Holy Spirit to change our plausibility structure, our paradigm.

I like the way you put it because one of the things, as we've been chatting for the last couple of days, is realizing how the very nature of humanity is one that believes a lie rather than the truth in some of these areas.

In other words, you're going to be confronting some of the things that we find naturally want to go there. Our natural tendency is to want to do some of these things that seem so, I mean, the biblical way is so contrary to our natural way.

That's right. Okay, that's what I'm finding. That's right. You know, we sometimes say, well, where did this bad truth come from in the first place? I'm going to blame some teacher somewhere, and the truth is, the more I'm talking, I'm realizing this is almost inherent in every one of us, and so there's something, there's a bent in me that wants to believe a lie rather than believe the truth.

And that bent is called the flesh. That's right. That's right.

I think it's there. Absolutely. Absolutely it is. And again, you know, we're born out of the spiritual gene pool of Adam himself, and the gene pool that we were born into the first time is one that generates in us the characteristics of self-sufficiency, of religion, you know, trying to be religious.

Because we want to reconnect with God, because Adam lost it, and there's a desire to reconnect with him somehow, and we think we've got to do it. That's right.

But then when we become a Christian, we die out of the family of Adam, and we're reborn into the family of God through Jesus Christ, and now we have a new gene pool. And the truth is, when we become a Christian, we don't get a lobotomy.

We don't forget that life that we had in Adam. And so the key, we get a new spirit at salvation, but the key is we need to begin to understand the truth, and there has to be this paradigm shift in the way we function.

We believed a lot of lies before, and now, unfortunately, a lot of folks in the church, we still believe the old lies. And so what the Grace Walk experience is intended to do is to confront us with the truth, because Jesus said, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

I wrote this book for any Christian who says, you know, I love Jesus Christ, but I want to enjoy my Christian life more, and I want to be more consistent in my walk, and I want to feel that my life is more aligned with the kind of Christianity that I find described in the New Testament.

I want to be free from nagging feelings of self-condemnation and inadequacy. That's who I wrote this for. And I'll tell you, Willard, again, it's all grounded in Scripture and what the Bible teaches.

And it's not just my life, but many have used these resources, and they attest to the fact that their Christian walk has been transformed after many years of living in bondage. And so that's the key. We're just offering freedom to folks through Scripture and Jesus.

Why Improved Behavior Cannot Produce Christian Victory

Okay, well, the first program we talked about the fact that working harder or changing my behavior won't necessarily bring more victory in my life. That's right.

Truth number one, improving your behavior will not give you victory in the Christian life.

Yeah, that's not what brings you more abundance in living. That's right. Harder you work doesn't make it happen. That's right. Number two, we talked about the fact that the problems I go through may become the best thing that happens to me.

That's right. That is truth number two. How does that work out? That's truth number two. And we spent time on that yesterday. Today, we're talking about

Well, today, we're going to kind of combine, excuse me, chapters three and four. We're going to do an overview. We don't have time to do everything. We want to touch on chapters three and four. Chapter three, the truth is, you must know who you are to change what you do.

We'll talk about that. That's backward from the way we tend to see it in the church. I always used to think, I need to change what I do so I can become a better person. But this chapter three, the truth is, you must know who you are to change what you do.

And then number four, you don't have an evil twin living inside you. That's truth number four in the book. Because, again, many of us feel like we're almost schizophrenic Christians. We tend to think that there's this good guy, bad guy living inside me, and they're constantly battling for preeminence.

And we need to talk about that in this program. Okay. Well, let's get there.

Knowing Who You Are Before Changing What You Do

Well, let's start off with the first one then, but knowing who we are in order to change what we do. Yeah.

Let's contrast this for a minute. Let's talk about the traditional view that a lot of us have held and show what we have believed. And I say we because I think I believed it for a lot of years, and I think I'm typical in so many ways.

A lot of us have developed the mindset that in order for me to become the person that I need to be and ought to be, then I need to change what I do. I need to stop doing these things, and I need to start doing those things.

And that's a very common viewpoint. And every week in churches all over the world, people come to God in prayer, and they promise Him that they're going to try to do better. And they ask Him to help them to change what they do so that they can become a better person.

And in reality, we already are at the core of our being who God wants us to be. And the key is not changing what we do out here so that we can become a better person inside, but the real key from a grace perspective is that we need to understand who we are at the level of our spirit.

And when we understand who we are, then that life that is in us will begin to spill over through our soul, our personality, and out through our body and our actions. And so understanding who you are is the foundational truth of the grace walk.

Spirit, Soul, Body, and the Source of Identity

All of us were created as threefold triune being, spirit, soul, and body. We have a body, but that's not who we are. We live in a body. It's just a temporary dwelling place. We have a soul. The soul consists of our mind, will, and emotions.

But the soul is not the core of our identity. Your personality is not who you are. You have a personality, but that's not the real you. We are a spirit. That's what separates us from the animal kingdom, from cats and dogs.

They don't have a spirit. They have mind, will, and emotions, but they don't have a spirit. The spirit is that part of us that connects us to God once we know him and we trust him. But we're born into this world with a dead spirit, a spirit filled with sin.

We inherited that from Adam. And consequently, we behave like who we are when we come into the world. We behave like sinners because we are sinners. You don't become a sinner the first time you ever do something wrong.

To the contrary, the first time we ever sinned, the reason we sinned is because that was true to our nature. You see, you live out of your nature. You live out of your nature. Now, here's an important thing, too.

Understanding Nature as Essence

Let's talk about the word nature for a minute. What does the word nature mean? I mean, describe it. I mean, there are a lot of ways we could define the word nature, but let's talk about that. Okay.

How would you? My nature, I would say it's The nature of anything. The nature of this book. What is the word nature? The substance of it.

The substance, that's good. That's right, the substance, the core.

At the very essence of what it is. There you go.

If you boil something down, so to speak, to its very essence and get it down to its most fundamental composition, that's its nature, right? Let's take the cover of this Bible beside me. Excuse me. The cover of this Bible has, as its nature, leather.

It's not part water, part leather. It's not sort of wood, sort of leather. You come down to its most basic element, and it's leather. The word nature, by definition, means it can only be one thing, right?

Okay, down to its basic item, element. It can only be one thing.

It can't be two things. It can't be leathery water or watery leather. Its most basic composition is one thing, one single thing. All right, now let's go back to when we were born into Adam. Came into this world in Adam.

We had one nature, and what was that nature? What was Adam's nature? Adam's nature. The nature of Adam, yes. Ephesians chapter 2 says you were born, you were dead in your trespasses and sins. You were by nature children of wrath.

So we came into this world with a nature of Adam, a sin nature. And because of that, we lived like the sinners that we were. That's how you and I acted, like a sinner.

So what we were doing was being consistent with who we were. That's exactly right.

Living out of our nature. You know, sometimes people in the modern church have as their goal to make sinners stop sinning. I mean, you know, folks at work, they'll say, I wish I could. You know, on my job, I'm working on cleaning up their language.

You know, I'm trying to get this guy to quit doing drugs.

I'm trying to get this guy to stop abusing alcohol and using foul language and all of these things, you know. But the truth is, if we could get... First of all, it's impossible. You're not going to get a sinner to stop sinning.

You're asking them that contrary to their nature. And even if we could, what have you accomplished? You know, I worked in a nursing home when I was in high school. When I was a teenager, I worked in a nursing home, and I worked on a wing of the nursing home where there were indigent patients.

They had no families. And they were just destitute, pitiful, you know, circumstances. It was a very sad situation for these people. And a part of my job was, when these people would die, these men would die, it was my responsibility to take that man's corpse and get it ready for the funeral home.

I'd take these dead corpses, and I'd take them and put them in a geriatrics chair and tie their body in the chair, and I'd wheel them down to the shower. And I'd take the corpse of these old men, these guys that had died, and I would wheel them into the shower, and I would bathe their bodies.

And I would shave these men, and I would comb their hair, and I would dress them, and I would have them lying in their bed waiting for the funeral home attendants to come and get them. And I don't mean to sound disrespectful toward those men that died, but I'm telling you, some of those guys, when they were lying there waiting for the funeral home attendants to come get them, they looked better than they'd looked in years.

Their hair was in place, their face was at rest, their clothes were clean because they weren't drooling or dropping food on themselves. They looked great, better than they'd looked in years, but they only had one problem.

They were dead. They were dead. And so I'm saying that people in Adam are born spiritually dead, and they sin because it's their nature to sin. And even if you could take those folks at your work or wherever and clean them up.

They're still sinners.

They're still dead. They're still sinners. Dead in that part of their being, the spirit part of their being. That's right. They're still spiritually dead. So now what happens at salvation?

That was you and me before. Well, Ephesians says, such were we all. That's right. We all were in that condition. And I say this as a parenthetical thing, and that is, and I mean this lovingly, but I say this to Christians whose crusade is to change people's behavior.

Quit worrying about how people talk and act at your job or wherever, whatever environment you're in. Because it's not our role to change people's behavior. It is our joy to point them to Jesus Christ.

They don't need, they don't need reformation outside of Christ. What they need is resurrection. And there's only one person who can give them that, and that's Jesus.

Resurrection Rather Than Behavioral Reformation

You know, I mean, it's an interesting thing you're bringing up here because we want our world to change. I want my environment to change. So I want people to change their behavior because that'll make my environment more comfortable.

That's right. Who are we trying to change them for, for themselves or for us?

We're really trying to change our society and make it nice for me. Yeah. But you see, Jesus wants their hearts transformed. That's right. Because eternity is what's in his heart.

And a part of our reason in wanting to change people's behavior who don't know the Lord is because it's a fear-driven motivation on our part. When I grew up in the South, in Georgia, in the states, in the state of Georgia, you can tell by my accent, I'm not Canadian, I'm sure.

I kind of figured that one out. We had a thing when I was a kid. You know, when I was a young boy, you know, there's a time when you're a young boy. Now, you outgrow it, but there's a time where you don't want a girl to touch you.

Because if a girl touches you, we had a saying in the South. I don't know if you ever heard it in Canada, but we'd say you get cooties. Did you ever hear that here? Did not know that. Cooties was like germs.

Okay. Like girl germs. And you don't want to be touched by a girl. You might get cooties. And those in the states will understand this, especially in the southern states. But sometime I think it's that way in the workplace.

We're afraid we're going to get sinner cooties. And I mean that as a metaphor for saying we're afraid we're going to get contaminated. If this guy uses bad language around me or if this guy has bad habits, it might contaminate me.

And so, we try to change his behavior or else insulate ourselves from the people. But sin, it's not the way of Jesus. Jesus didn't just know sinners. He was a friend of sinners, right? And he wasn't worried that they would contaminate him.

I know. He didn't have any fear of that. He knew who he was. And he wasn't fearful they would contaminate him. So, I say it again. Let's stop trying to change people's behavior. And instead, let's be Jesus in the midst of our circumstances on our jobs or wherever we are.

Can we be resurrection life where they are?

That's our challenge. Can we be a signpost that points to resurrection?

Yeah. Because the resurrected one lives in me. Exactly. So, what does that look like in the middle of death? That's...

Go ahead. Well, I think that would so much change our approach to evangelism, wouldn't it? Because instead of trying to change people's behavior, if we would just be salt and light, as we're called to be, we would create in them a thirst for Jesus Christ.

And the world feels condemned enough without us heaping condemnation on them. We all know John 3, 16, but what about verse 17 that says that he didn't... the son didn't come to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.

The gospel is a proclamation to the people we work with. And I use that arena to make my point. When we're around unbelievers, the gospel is the proclamation that Jesus has come. The cross has dealt with your sin.

And it's the proclamation that through Jesus Christ, your sins have been addressed. And Jesus said, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. And so we proclaim to people that there's life in Jesus Christ.

We don't come to condemn them and to cause them to feel estranged from us. We want to invite them into the party, which is experiencing the life of Jesus Christ. And so we've talked about who we are in Adam, but we need to move forward, because you and I were born into Adam.

But then when we were born again, what happened is God took the person that you were and that I was, and he placed that person into Jesus Christ at the cross, so that the person that we were in Adam died with Jesus.

And this chapter that we talk about here, Chapter 3, you need to know who you are to change what you do. Here's the problem. A lot of us in the church don't know who we are. We think we're schizophrenic.

We think we're Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We believe that when we trusted Christ and that now we're split personality, with the life of Adam and the life of Christ both residing in us. And that is not true.

The Bible says that when we were placed into Christ at the cross, the person we were in Adam died. We died the old person we were. Romans 6, 6, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be destroyed.

Colossians 3, 3, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ and God. Romans 6, 3, for as many as were baptized into Jesus were baptized into his death. I know we're coming up on a break, but I want to make this point very clear.

The person as a Christian, the person you were is dead now. The person you used to be died with Jesus Christ. And in that place, God has given us new life, which is the resurrection life of Jesus.

You know, Steve, that's, it's very true. I believe that. Hard for me sometimes to comprehend when I see, see, we look at behavior and judge nature out of behavior. Absolutely. And what a tragedy that is.

But we do. And so when I, so I've got behavior that looks like, it really looks like it belongs to where I was instead of who I am. Okay. And now I want, I assume that that's who I am. Okay. You know, and I know we're going to, you'll, you'll deal with these issues.

We'll talk about it.

Let's talk about after the break. Why, if, if the old person that we were died with Adam, then why do we still behave in ways that do not reflect who we are in Christ? That look like Adam instead of Christ.

That's right. Like Jesus. That's right.

There's a contrast there. I think that's really, really important. We'll take a break. We're talking to Steve McVeigh. The book is The Grace Walk Experience. And it's available from him at his website, which is gracewalk .org.

Org. Got it. I can even, I can say that. Okay, good. We'll take a break and be right back. We're back here with Dr. Steve McVeigh. Steve, by the way, is from St. Well, Tampa, Tampa Bay. Yeah, Tampa Bay area, St. Petersburg.

I don't know what, there's clear, is it, is it Clearwater? No. Clearwater is.

Yes, north of you. Clearwater is the northern part of Pinellas County, Florida. And I live in the southern, the very southern tip of Pinellas County. So it's a string of barrier islands. Okay, how close to the bridges?

There's a bridge that goes across. I live five minutes from the Skyway Bridge. Yeah, that you're talking about. Sunshine Skyway.

That's it, that's it. It's been so many years since I've been in that part of the country. Hey, I bet that. Yeah, you were right in my backyard there. Okay, well, you weren't living there then, though.

No, that's right. Okay, anyway, Steve, we're talking about this why, the why problem. Why, when I've been made a new, like 2 Corinthians 5 .17 says, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away.

Behold, all things have become new. Okay, so there's a new nature that I have when I, I believe in Jesus as my, the one who's redeemed me from my sin, broken the power of sin in my life. The cross has made the difference.

His blood has been, has cleansed me.

You know, that's, that's right. And note that the verse doesn't say if any man is in Christ, he ought to be a new creature. No, no, it says he is. But you know, I say that because a lot of folks, I used to teach this in church.

You ought to be a new creature. You ought to change. You ought to be different. No, the Bible. Show that you're a new creature. Right, the Bible says you are a new creature. If any man is in Christ, he's a new creature.

And let's look at the word creature. The root is the word create. It means to bring into existence something out of nothing. Create. It's not to make. To make is to take some material and work with it.

Right, to take substance and reform it. And design something. But to create means to bring into existence something out of nothing. Here's what happened at salvation. And this is, this is, this is, this is all in chapter three, truth number three.

Here's what happened at salvation. And that is, God took the person that we were in Adam. And he placed that person into Jesus Christ at the cross. And all of the wrongdoing that we would ever commit.

And more importantly, our very sin nature was absorbed into Jesus Christ. He took it and wrapped it all up in himself. And when he died on the cross. Again, Romans 6 .6, our old man was crucified with him.

Romans 6 .3, we were baptized into his death. Colossians 3 .3, we died with Christ. All that we were before in Adam died with Jesus Christ. We died with him. We were buried with him. And then the Bible says we were raised to walk in newness of life.

That's at that moment when we became a new creation or a new creature. We were given the divine nature of Jesus Christ. And so now at the core of our being, we have the life of Jesus in our spirit. Before, sin filled our spirit, so our identity was that of a sinner.

Now, Christ is in our spirit. So we have the new identity, and the identity is that of a Christian. And the reason we still sin, Willard, is twofold. First of all, it's because we do have a new nature, and that nature is righteous.

Romans 5 .17 says, by the abundance of his grace, he's given us the gift of righteousness. That nature is holy. First Corinthians 3 .16 .17 says, you're the temple of God, the spirit of God dwells in you.

And then it goes on and says, the temple of God is holy and that is what you are. We're one with him. First Corinthians 6 .17, he that joins himself together to the Lord is one spirit with him. We're a divine work of art.

Ephesians 2 .10, you're his workmanship in Christ Jesus. We're not who we used to be. But then why do we still sin? Two reasons. Number one, because we do still have in our bodies the power of indwelling sin.

And I don't have time to teach the whole thing. You just have to get it. I mean, I'm plugging the book again, but I go into depth for five days on this. In session four, chapter number four, you don't have an evil twin living inside you.

The reason we still sin, though, is because we have the power of indwelling sin in the members of our body. Our spirit has been made new. Our soul is being redeemed, but we still have the same old body we always had.

And so we have that residual power of sin dwelling in our members. Paul says in Romans 7, multiple times, the sin which is in my members. So there's still the propensity to sin because I've not yet got my glorified body.

Right, so the lust thing that comes up every once in a while, or the pride, or whatever that is that comes up in me, that's residual to my body, to my members. That's right, Paul says it.

I'm not making this stuff up. He says it in Romans 7, verse 11, verse 13, 17. He says it's in my members. Paul talked about, we know that classic passage where he said, I don't understand myself at all because I'm doing the things I don't want to do, and not doing the things I want to do.

And then he goes on and says, I find then that evil is present in me, the one who desires to do good. He didn't say I am evil. He said evil is present in me. It's in me, but it's not me. Here's the thing we need to understand.

The power of indwelling sin is in my members, but that doesn't define who I am. Do you know when we died with Jesus, we received that new nature at salvation? And now how many natures do we have? Remember what we said about nature?

It can't be two things. It can't be two. It's only one, and it's the nature of Christ. But do you know why people... I used to argue with this myself. I'd say, that guy believes we only have one nature.

That's crazy. We have two natures there at war. What's the word nature mean? No, the old nature died, and now we have a new nature. Why do we sin? Because the power of indwelling sin is still in our members.

But you know why people that... Some of you that are watching, you'll find it hard to believe this thing of us only having one nature. You know why people struggle with that? Because they confuse the power of indwelling sin, or the flesh, with the old nature, and they think it's the same thing.

I used to merge the two into one, but let me make it as clear as I can. The flesh, or the power of indwelling sin, and the old nature, two separate things. The old nature was in our spirit. The flesh, Paul said in Romans 7, is in the members of our body.

Different part of us, right.

It's not who you are. So in other words, what's happened in the spirit is one thing. What's happened in the body is a whole different ball game.

And what's in your body, your flesh, the flesh, the power of indwelling sin, doesn't define who you are. I had a kidney stone a few years ago, but I didn't tell people to start calling me Rocky. I mean, it was in me, but it didn't define me.

But it didn't define who you were. It's not who I am.

And it's true. When my physical, when I do something that's sinful, it doesn't define me as being, I mean, I did it. That's right. But that's not who I am.

I'm not sin in us. But when we sin at all, we have the power of indwelling sin in us. But when we sin, that's inconsistent with who we really are. We're saints who sometimes sin, but God took that sin nature and put it to death.

Created in God's Image Rather Than Made Holy by Works

And back to the, back to the truths now that we're drilling, zeroing in on here. Number three is, truth number three, you must know who you are to change what you do. You see, the enemy wants to turn to him.

The first lie ever told in the Bible was, here's something you can do to become more God-like. But back in Genesis 2, the scripture tells us when God created them, he created them in his image. They were like God before.

They were already like him. They were like him. He looked at them and said, behold, it's good. Yeah, that's true. But the enemy caused them to believe the lie that they needed to do something to become.

The fact that they were deficient of something that they already had. I mean, that was his lie. That's right. And that's the same lie. And that they could do something to get them to where they already were.

Exactly.

And that's the same lie that we bought into today. There are things I need to do to become Christ-like. Well, truth number three, you need to know who you are to change what you do. The truth is, just like Adam and Eve in the garden, you're already created in his image.

You're already like him. You don't become holy by doing certain things. We must understand we are holy. It doesn't get more clear than 1 Corinthians 3, 17. The temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.

It doesn't get more clear than that. 1 Corinthians 3, 17. But when we know who we are, then that becomes the catalyst for changing what we do.

Well, you see, again, getting back to that trick of Satan, is that if he can get you to define or the fact that you'll change your behavior to become something, then on the other hand, he'll use the same lie, which says, your behavior tells me that you're something different than you are.

That's right. Okay, like it's a two-edged sword, that thing. It's wrong both ways.

That's right. Our identity doesn't come from our behavior. Exactly.

Because as soon as I believe that, now the devil can convince me I'm anybody. I mean, I'm really evil.

He will make us, if we don't know the truth, it sets us free. He will cause us to perceive that we are who we are based on how we act. And how you act and who you are don't necessarily coincide. But the reality of who you are is not changed by how you act.

No, that's true. And that's why it's so important to understand who we are, because otherwise, no person can consistently behave in a way that's different from how he perceives himself to be.

No, it's true. You end up going back to what your perception is of who you are. That's right. And that's why it's so important to know who we are in Christ. To know who we really are. And so therefore, if you see yourself as holy, holiness will become more and more part of your life.

That becomes the catalyst for your behavior. Understanding the holiness that you have and who you are in Christ Jesus becomes the catalyst for a change in our behavior.

And when you realize how loved you are of the Lord. That love is a very motivating thing to bring changes in our behavior. But the behavior doesn't bring us to love, where he'll love us more, it's the love that changes the behavior.

Absolutely. Here's a statement I often make.

Identity is determined by birth, not behavior. Identity is determined by birth, not behavior. That's good. And so you see, when we sin, if we don't know the truth, then what happens is we begin to think, well, I am that person.