Learning Holiness by Grace
My notes on a sermon by Dr. Bryan Chapell at Basics 2003
Part I
Book, Holiness by Grace, a journey of my own life as a pastor.Started pastoring the oldest Presby. Church in Illinois, founded before Illinois statehood.
which had only 3 pastors in its first 150 years! It was an honor to pastor a historic church.
People thought it was wonderful to have a young man as a pastor, and aren't you a wonderful preacher! But I worried: Why wasn't my preaching helping them? People seemed to not even want new people to come into the church. They knew the code here, but newcomers didn't know it. I got mad at them, til I realized the problem was with me. My message was always, "Shape up, do better," week by week. I was preaching the word, consecutively.
But I was preaching the law without grace. Grace is the enabling and motivating factor of the law. Even if I knew grace, it didn't FUNCTION REGULARLY in my ministry. I didn't know how to make Grace function beyond justification. I didn't know how it functioned in sanctification. So sanctification was all about "trying harder", not grace.
Much of what I do now is take people back to the gospel DAILY, not just at the beginning.
Luke 17, later Galatians 2.
Luke 17:7-19 "Would he say to his servant, come eat... rather, serve me... You should say We are unworthy servants"... 10 who had leprosy... one who gave thanks.
"MOM ON STRIKE" -- in a yard in Belleville, a mother Michelle Treebow, got tired of her family and all the backtalk, posted the sign and moved into her tree house.
If we think what we do can make us acceptable to God, we're barking up the wrong tree. We want God to be real and present in our ministry. How do we get him to come down to us? How can we make up to him, when His standard is so high?
How high is His standard? Look at Lk 17:1-3: "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. 2 It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. 3 So watch yourselves."
God's first standard: "Cause no sin." Look at your impact on others... This is a very high standard!
Not only cause no sin, but rebuke others for their sin! (Lk 7:3) For their sake and the gospel's.
He goes on, "If he repents, forgive him.... even 7 times a day". "Increase our faith!"
V.6, if you have faith like a mustard seed, you can uproot mulberry trees by faith.
Faith in what? See the parable in vv7-10. "So you also when you have done everything you were told should say, `We've only done our duty'." When we've done everything, it still doesn't make us worthy of his affection. He doesn't have to say, "Well done, good servant". We're still unworthy.
Let's compare it to our own day and age. Imagine that after working all day, you go out to Dennys, and the waitress who is also tired, serves you and then sits down at your table to have dinner with you.
To set at the master's table (in ancient times) meant you had the rights of the owner, as if your realtor assumes that because she helped you, she can move in too.
I don't like hearing that my work is only my duty to God, and that it isn't some leverage I have with God now. We are faithful in preaching, so we think God has to be faithful to us too, on our terms.
God is no man's debtor. After all we've done, we are still unworthy servants. It goes against my reflexes. I want to trophy my goodness.
A pastor had animal trophies all over his house. Zebra skin, antelope, elephant foot stool. The pastor was apologizing for these endangered species. He didn't shoot them, his father-in-law did. God would say, "That's wonderful. By the way, have you caused no sin? Have you confronted others in their sin? Have you forgiven all sins against you?" What are your trophies if you have failed in these?
Westminster Confession: Because of the great disproportion between our sins and God's goodness, Not only do our works not merit God's reward, they are also deserving of his judgment.
What moves God? He is not moved by your deeds. V.11, "Have pity on us." And Jesus DID have pity on them. He was not moved by their deeds, but by their desperation. When we go say to another, "You owe me"... it is not the same with God.
A pastor's older son reached his mid-teens, turned away from faith and obedience and his family. He caused great pain, but great embarrassment, repeatedly. His mother said, "I'm not even sure I love my own son any more." Yet he protested, "Its not so bad. I'll do better." She couldn't take it any more, she just left the room. As he sat alone in the room, he looked at the picture album. He called for his mom. "When I look at this picture, I know why you can't love me any more." Their eyes in the pic were linked in tenderness. "I have dashed all your hopes."
Master, have pity on me. Our desperation is what moves his heart.
Who can reach the standard? Recognize the Father knows all our failures and has pity on us. To know the power and nearness of heaven, I MUST come and confess my weakness and failures.
We twist it: If God will love me when I am not good, then why should I BE good?
Jesus shows us: v.13, he told them to go, and "as they went they were cleansed". One saw he was healed, came back praising God in a loud voice! Threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him... and he was a Samaritan. What moved him? DELIGHT in what Jesus had done, and THANKS.
The Samaritan: risked
- a change in his health, before he was declared "clean", risked his future to go back to Jesus. He was compelled powerfully to praise Jesus. He wasn't motivated by gain.
- losing his pride before Jesus, who was NOT a Samaritan. The implication was the other 9 were Jews. Jews were his enemy. He wasn't driven by self-protection any more.
What we know to be true of people in our churches: what motivates them? Why do people "serve God"? Many serve God so the ogre in the sky won't get them, out of self-protection. Who are you really serving then? Self. It is self-protection, and also BLASPHEMY.
Others serve to get more good stuff, either here or in the life to come.... a bigger mansion.
You cannot serve God till you come to the profound conviction that your best works merit you nothing. Why, if you believe this, would you do good works?
Heidelberg Confession: "Q. Since we are saved by grace through faith without any merit of our own, why should we do good works? A. So that with our whole lives we may show ourselves grateful to God and give Him praise."
Why is this strength, the rescue from desperation, so powerful?
When I know forgiveness, I know Joy. Joy is the strength of true obedience in the Christian life.
Not just cleansed any more, but saved! "Your faith has made you well." What faith? He didn't state Jesus' divinity or the Apostles creed. All he did was praise Jesus for making him well. You did this all. This was his faith.
Not a thing in me saved me. Everything that's right about me, Jesus did.
Part II
Gal 2:20 -- I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
What would it look like for the power of God to come down? I don't think it would look like worldly success. It would be God fulfilling his purposes among his people. It would look like
FAITHFULNESS WITH JOY
A history of preaching: Common denominator of great preaching, expository preaching is new. More commonly it was topical preaching. Puritan preaching was so unlike preaching nowadays.
The historian said: Great preaching always gives hope.
A necessity for that hope is the topic here. The prayer I have now: "May God bless my discovery of the powerful means of holiness so far as to save some from killing themselves." The prayer of Walter Marshall, in "The gospel mystery of sanctification". Marshall was grieving because of his ministry. The more I try to preach and live before them as a holy example, the more some despair. The more we speak about holiness, the more they know they cannot live it, can never catch up with other Christians. Some in Marshall's congregation began to hate their sin so that they began to mutilate their own bodies.
Modern evils of porn and sexual expression, compulsions of materialism and erosion of the family, even we long for the destruction of our bodies to be rid of the sins we hate in us. So, "May God bless my discovery of the powerful means of holiness so far as to save some from killing themselves."
What was that powerful means of holiness? Marshall found it in Gal 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
Marshall felt this was something for all people, not just ministers. Marshall recognized that we are united to the death of Christ. "I no longer live". V.19, the law put me to death so I might live to God. The path to God of holy living was only a dead end. The means to life was deadening.
V.15 -- we who are Jews by birth, who really know the law, KNOW that a man isn't justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. Our only hope is faith in Jesus' obedience to the law on our behalf.
This also has to come to fruition in us till we cease from believing in OUR performance of the law.
I am not merely dead, but I am crucified ... with Christ.
What drives some is the sense that we must do this or that to have right standing with God. They must be better than the next guy. They evaluate their own status as better than others. They don't know they are crucified with Christ.
Walls between us and others in our church go up because of the recognition of my own performance.
Yet, my spiritual deficits don't destroy me before God. The dead don't get credit, and don't have debts.
We are here to tell people: "Your guilt is real and true, and it is nailed to the cross."
"My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, O my soul!"
I bear it no more because I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. We aren't just united with his death, but also with his LIFE! If you are dead and Jesus' lives in you, then who are you? We're not little gods, but by a forensic act of God, the identity of Jesus has been accounted to you. Not only his death, but also his life and all that it contains, all His active and passive righteousness, is yours!
Phil 1:21 -- For me to live is Christ.
Col 3:4 -- Christ is my life
Eph 2:6 -- we are seated in heavenly places, where Christ is at the right hand of God
Yes, there is a "not yet" dimension to these things, but we inherited these. The righteousness of Jesus Christ has been applied to me.
Bunyan's magic mirror, which reflects all our own blemishes, but on the other side of the mirror is Jesus' visage.
Jesus' life is MINE! What does that mean? Jesus has become for us wisdom, holiness, righteousness and redemption from God! God calls me His son. All that was earned by Jesus has been given to me.
We struggle with this, in the context of sanctification. There is a progressive nature of sanctification, there is also a definitive nature to it, what is called positional sanctification. We ARE His.
I didn't learn in seminary: How messed up most people's lives are! Because they think they are worthless, they are helpless.
When I know that I am in union with Christ, which has made me beautiful to God, it becomes the motivation and joy and glories of what God has done, equips me to obey.
The way out of besetting sins is to know my worth before God!
How do I actuate that Union with Christ to become power in my life? Paul answers in v.20: "The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
Our status does not change, but our ability does change. Our status before God: I am living as a consequence of Christ's action. My ability today to live a sanctified life is based on what Jesus did. My sanctification is based on my justification, not vice versa. People who base their justification on their current level of sanctification have it wrong. Your ability to live is based on what Christ has accomplished.
When Christian disciplines are performance standards, prayer, fasting, etc., I'm reaching down into the well of God's grace to get some for today. But we're trying to manufacture [or mine] grace.
The grace is here, like air, all around us, when we pray and read a devotion, we just breathe it in. The glory of breathing!
How does our ability change? He says, "but Christ lives in me". Before, we could not BUT sin. Now we're able not to sin. The Spirit reveals to us our sin and enables us to confront it. God made us new creatures! Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.
I don't feel new. But prove it to them: point out the time in their lives when they sinned and did not care at all. Now when you sin, you HATE sin. When you grieve the Spirit, it grieves you. This is evidence of the new creature.
The knowledge that I can be different gives me courage to TRY to serve him, and to delight in it!
Don't tell people to just try again. They'll take advantage of it. Confess again, and again, and again. When you learn how vast is the grace of God, you fall in love with the Savior. THAT is the compelling power of holiness.
Bunyan, if you keep assuring God's people of God's love, they'll do whatever HE wants them to. Not only are you wiped clean of sin, that's only half the gospel. Now you have riches of heaven, and the righteousness of Jesus to your account. Knowing this wealth is what provides willingness, strength and joy in service of Christ.
We are in union with the Risen Lord. This gives great, great hope.
Anecdote about the learning expert and the boy with the writing disconnect, who learned that he was not stupid! Our knowledge is greater still: now we know we CAN serve God.
Teach this to your people. They are in union with Christ and CAN serve Him. This is their power for holiness.
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