Grace for the Race

How has your prayer life been lately?  Regardless of your answer…spiritual and strong…worldly and weak…or absent altogether…I have good news for you from the lips of our Lord Himself when He said to Peter, “I have prayed for you…” (Luke 22:32).  In this account between Peter and Jesus, it is infallibly recorded for us that Satan was after Peter to “sift him as wheat.”  Satan set his sights on the disciples of Jesus then and he sets his sights on the disciples of Jesus now.  This will not end until Jesus returns.  Until then, find comfort in what Jesus is saying to all of us today…I HAVE PRAYED FOR YOU!

We will not know until we get to the other side what we truly owe to our Redeemer for His constant and never-ceasing intercession.  He is advocating our cause before our Father in heaven and notice with me this incredible God-centered, Gospel-saturated, grace-filled truth…

Jesus advocated Peter’s cause to His Father in heaven

BEFORE Satan advanced his attacks against him!

Beloved in the Lord find great comfort in this truth today regardless of the difficulties you are facing.  The Prince of Peace holds not His peace when it comes to preemptive prayer for His people…and that includes you!  Whatever difficulties you are facing today Jesus is pleading preemptive prayer on your behalf.  Could it be any other way when His nailed-scarred hands pressed together in prayer bear witness to the wicked wounds He welcomed on our behalf?  I think not!

It’s important to note that Jesus did not promise to pray for Peter.  He did not wait for Satan to “sift him as wheat” before he prayed.  He prayed preemptively for Peter and He is doing the same for all of us today.  Your Savior has pleaded your cause to your Father against every enemy you face…both seen and unseen.  There is nothing you cannot face today when this truth sinks deep down into your bones.  When you cannot but lift a sigh to heaven, our Prince of Peace is shielding you from Satan’s snare with supernatural supplications.

Oh, one final point.  You will remember that Satan in some sense did indeed “sift Peter as wheat” as Peter denied Jesus three times on the night he was betrayed.  So what was the result of this preemptive prayer?  It was the enabling power of the Holy Spirit for Peter to “turn back” and feed the sheep of the Good Shepherd after he had turned away.  If this finds you groaning under the weight of the conviction of sin…do what Peter did and “turn back” to Jesus.  The preemptive prayers of our Prince provides both the enabling grace to turn away from sin and to turn back when we have sinned.  NEVER FORGET THAT…AMEN!    

What have you been living for lately?  If you are living for anything less than your Savior you are committing what I call “spiritual suicide”.  When you live for self, choosing to do what you want to do rather than what God wants you to do, you are actually dying a slow death.  When you hold tightly to the advancement of your agenda, your cause, your story, instead of His agenda, His cause, and His story, you are slowly shrinking the size of your soul.  The promise of having it all when you are living for yourself is actually a promise of ultimate death.  To be sure, achievement and acceptance may give you what seems like “life” for a while, but in the end you will be engulfed, enslaved, and ultimately extinguished by them.

“For whoever would save his life will lose it,” writes Mark, “but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:35).  Here we are confronted with the truth of the Gospel that says the only way we can be assured of life is to die.  We must die to our preferences.  We must die to our priorities.  We must die to our privileges.  We must die to our possessions.  We must die to our purposes.  To live for these things is to live for something smaller than Christ.  It is seeking living water from dry wells. 

The Gospel calls us to be willing participants in the death of the personal claims we have to our lives.  So powerful is the pull of desire in the direction of living for the self, death is the only way to life.  Christ calls us to die that we might live because there is no life outside of Christ.  Seeking life outside of Christ is simply shrinking life slowly into a downward spiral of ultimate spiritual suicide.  Die to self…live for Christ.  This is the Gospel that gives you all the grace you need to run the race set before you.  NEVER FORGET THAT…AMEN!

“Be strong in the grace,” Paul exhorts Timothy, “that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:1).  The grace you need for the race set before you is without measure because it flows from within the Master.  Like a fountain, grace flows from the Prince to His people in abundant supplies.  Grace to recapture your heart.  Grace to renew your mind.  Grace to restore your soul.  Grace to rehabilitate your marriage.  Grace to resurrect your parent/child relationship.  Grace to refresh your single life.  Grace to re-start your church service.  And this grace is not reserved for a few super “spiritual” saints.  It is poured out on every blood-bought child of God regardless of the station in life for two reasons…God’s everlasting glory and your eternal good. 

You see, grace does more than give eternal life.  It gives “every day” life and it gives it in abundant supply.  Moment by moment, God has given you all the grace you need to do all He is calling you to do.  Yet many Christians forsake the grace of God and instead choose to live lives built upon the twin pillars of self-confidence and self-sufficiency.  Self-confidence is really no confidence at all.  Self-sufficiency is really not sufficient.  These are enemies of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ which demands we depend upon Him and not ourselves for all that we need in both life and death.  When Jesus told His disciples, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5) He was making it clear that we are dependent upon His grace for everything. 

So what have you been depending on lately?  Have you been living portions of your life apart from Christ?  Have you been working in your strength or in the strength of our Lord?  Have you been depending upon your wisdom or the wisdom of the Word of God?  DON’T BE FOOLED into thinking that you don’t have a problem with relying on yourself rather than His grace.  Paul would have never exhorted Timothy to be “strong in the grace of Christ” if our natural tendency to rely on ourselves was not so powerful and pervasive.  Paul knew by way of personal experience that it is woven into our DNA.  Paul told his spiritual son Timothy that the only real source of true strength to shape his life was to be found in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.  God-confidence, not self-confidence is true confidence.  God-sufficiency…not self-sufficiency is all sufficient for everything you need in both eternal life and every day life.  NEVER FORGET THAT…AMEN!  

Our message on God Replacements from Monday was well received.  Today, by God’s grace, we are going to drive the roots a bit deeper into the soil of the sanctified life. 

The heart of the believer is the battleground where all our fights are fought.  God replacements (idols of the heart) battle for supremacy of the heart and in the heart there is only room for one supreme ruler.  Make no mistake, whatever rules your heart runs your life.  Moment by moment, either God or one of your God replacements will be on the throne of your heart exerting inescapable influence over every area of your life.         

In the Bible, the word “heart” describes the inner person or your “spiritual” self…“that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being” (Ephesians 3:16).  Inasmuch as we are caught in a world that looks at and overemphasizes the outer person (physical self) at the expense of the inner person, the heart is the “real” you.    

Because the heart is the source of all that we think, do, and say only a total transformation of the heart will lead to lasting change.  If you are facing external pressure, internal guilt or great incentive…A change in attitude can be a good thing.  A change in language can be a good thing.  A change in behavior can be a good thing.  A change in circumstance can be a good thing.  But without a change of heart done by the Great Physician through what I call “Open Heart Surgery” all change, as positive as it may be, is only cosmetic and temporary. 

Jesus by His death on the cross, sought it, caught it, and bought it with His precious blood.  Forgiveness alone was not enough.  Jesus had to fight His way into our hearts.  Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus enters the heart of every believer, claims it as His own, and racially changes it for His glory.  How?  Not by rehabilitating the desires of our heart but by recapturing our heart and reorienting our desires to love and serve the One who did for us what we could not do for ourselves.  NEVER FORGET THAT…AMEN!

We were designed by God for God so why do we so often exchange our Creator for created things?  In a word…sin.  Sin has seduced us into believing that created things, idols of the heart, can give to us what only our Creator can give.  They promise what they cannot deliver and when we seek to find our identity in things smaller than God, we eventually become smaller than God has called us to be.  “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25).  Sin has sent all of humanity into a downward spiral of serving an endless supply of God replacements. 

Sin has driven us away from the Creator and toward the creation..away from the spiritual and toward the physical.  In exchanging the truth for a lie, we have exchanged our vertical relationship with all things horizontal.  The problem is not that all things horizontal are evil.  Relationships are good.  Jobs are good.  Hobbies are good.  Service projects are good.  They only become evil when we use them as replacements for our relationship with God.  We are never to find our identity in created things.  We are only to find our identity in our Creator.  As my pastor Tullian likes to say, “Good things become bad things when they become ultimate things!”    

So what have you been using as God replacements in your life lately?  Your work?  Your mate?  Your children?  Your church service?  Your physical attractiveness?  Your finances?  Created things were never designed by God to sustain us in this life or the next.  They were never designed to do what only God can do…provide eternal meaning, purpose, and significance.  Let us examine our hearts today and take all of our God replacements, lay them at the foot of the cross, and replace them with God.  This is life.  This is the gospel.  This is grace for the race.   NEVER FORGET THAT…AMEN!   

In Matthew 5:13 Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth.  But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?”  When I served in the Hollywood Fire Rescue Department I was given the privilege of cooking for the men at my station.  Salt was an important ingredient during the preparation of the meals to enhance the flavor of the foods.  It never ceased to amaze me to watch many of the men vigorously shaking the salt shaker all over the food I had labored hours over preparing and cooking before even taking the first bite!  Yet, the primary importance of salt was not so much to add flavor but to act as a preservative.  So what is Jesus talking about in this verse?    

Jesus was telling His disciples that their lives were to be poured out in faithful service to others to hinder the corruption in their sin-stained, self-centered, and spiritually-dead world.  He is saying the same to us today.  When Jesus laid His life down for sinners, He was giving us the model of what a disciple is to look like.  Being a disciple is not about living a life of self-protection, self-absorption, and selfish ambition.  It’s about living a life marked by self-sacrifice. It is trading a life of ease for activity, consumption for contribution, materialism for the Master.   So are you a “salty” saint or have you lost a bit of your saltiness?

Oh, one final point about this “salt” Jesus is talking about.  Salt is a singular ordinary ingredient that makes an extraordinary contribution to the whole.  Every grain of salt is as important as every other grain of salt which means…YOU ARE AS IMPORTANT AS EVERY OTHER SAINT!  You have gifts, talents, and abilities that are uniquely yours, given to you by God to be used for His glory and the good of others.  Never underestimate or under value the transforming impact God is calling you to have in the lives of all people living in this hurting and broken world.  NEVER FORGET THAT…AMEN!

What kind of pressures have you been facing lately?  What has it been producing in your life?  The longer I walk with Jesus the more I am convinced that there are some blessings that can only come as a result of intense pressure.  God puts us in the pressure cooker not to drive us into the ashes of defeat, but to demonstrate His radical and disruptive grace in our lives.  In 2 Corinthians 12:9 we read, But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

God’s grace is most magnified when we are navigating the waters in the storms of life.  It all comes down to trusting God…even when we cannot trace Him.  Whether pressures in our…singleness – friendships – marriage – parenting – school – work – church service…we all face them and we are responsible to deal with them in a way that glorifies our God.  When we do, we can be certain that the pressures we are facing are producing fruit that will last.  James tells us that “pressure produces perseverance” (James 1:3).  Hammered out on the anvil of pressure, God is honing, shaping, and molding His adopted children into the likeness of His precious Son.  What more could we ask for. 

When you squeeze an orange you get orange juice.  When you squeeze a tomato you get tomato juice.  What do those around you get when you are squeezed by the pressures of life?  God’s commitment to you, demonstrated on the cross, makes it clear that pressure is merely a passageway into producing deeper fellowship with the Prince of Peace.  NEVER FORGET THAT…AMEN!     

Have you ever wondered, “Is this all there is?”  I think we all have at one time or another for one simple reason.  Deep down inside of each one of us there has been placed an unquenchable desire for more.  We all want to be part of something bigger than the narrow borders of our own lives.  We want to live lives that truly matter.  We want to feel that we are doing something that is making a difference and will live on long after we are gone.    

God has made us for more.  The problem comes in when we are seeking that “more” without the Master.  In this fallen and broken world some do it by seeking “more” in their work.  Some do it by seeking “more” in their recreation.  Some do it by seeking “more” in their relationships.  Still others do it by seeking “more” in supporting some special cause.  But seeking “more” without the Master is actually seeking so much less.  It is exactly what Adam and Eve did in the Garden when they bought into Satan’s lie of “more.” 

Satan’s more is self-absorption; Satan’s more is self-satisfaction; Satan’s more is self-survival; Satan’s more is self-reliance

The more that we have been made for is not more of the self.  It is more of the Savior.  As Augustine once said, “There is a God-shaped void in each one of us that can only be filled by God.”  The more we try to fill this void with the things of this world the less we will be filled.  So what “more” have you been seeking lately?  Over the next two days take a close look and as you do, answer this question, “What is your “more” that is driving your life?”  The answer will never be found in simply having a purpose.  Everyone has some kind of purpose they are living for.  The answer will never be found in a position, prosperity or pleasure.  It is only to be found in a person and His name is Jesus Christ.  NEVER FORGET THAT…AMEN!

In our Adult Sunday school class we are studying the book of Acts.  One particular lesson was rooted in Acts 10:38, “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.  He went about doing good…”  Wouldn’t that be well said of all of us…that the confession of our lives would be that we “went about doing good.”  Briefly look with me at one truth found in this remarkable passage and one personal application.

• TRUTH: Jesus did good personally!

With so many disciples and followers willing to drop everything to serve their Master, it was good that He went about personally doing good.  He went personally to cure the sick.  He went personally to give sight to the blind.  He went personally to make the lame walk.  He went personally to raise the dead to life.  Never did He need to go personally to do good.  In fact the centurion feeling unworthy to have Jesus come personally to his home to heal his servant said, “Only say the word and my servant will be healed” (Matthew 8:8).  Even when asked to speak a word of healing from a distance…He did not! 

• PERSONAL APPLICATION: We must do good personally!

If we are to be disciples of Jesus, we too must go about doing good.  Too often we are willing to pray and even give, but not go!  It was the mission of our Lord to go about doing good.  It must be our mission too.  Because of what God in Christ has done for us…reaching down to raise us from death to life, our response must not only be to reach up in worship and reach in through discipleship, but we must be willing to reach out in service to others.  What friend needs a word of thanks from you today?  What neighbor needs a word of kindness from you today?  What co-worker at the office needs a word of encouragement from you today?  What family member needs a word of love from you today?  

It is remarkable to see that nothing deterred our Lord from going about and doing good.  Not difficulty.  Not danger.  Not even death.  The ultimate good that our Lord did He did as He hung on that dirty tree.  He hung there for you and for me.  When we understand the example that He left us in both life and death, what else can we do but go about personally doing good.  NEVER FORGET THAT…AMEN!

In Colossians 1:22 we read, “He has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.”  Because of what Christ has done, all those who are by faith in Christ stand before the Father “holy and blameless and above reproach.”  Justified (counted righteous) not because of anything we have done for ourselves, but because of what Jesus has done on our behalf. 

In the eyes of God, the sinless life Jesus lived we lived.  In the eyes of God, the sin-filled death Jesus died on that cross…we died on that cross.  Think about this for a moment.  We get the credit for all that is good in Jesus because He got the credit for all that was bad…and is still bad in us.  This “Great Exchange” is greater than we could have ever imagined because it is ongoing. 

Every day in thought, word, and deed we sin.  Every day we are in need of the righteousness of Christ to cover those sins and this righteousness was never intended to be a one-time event.  Every day we must look to Christ for His robes of righteousness to wear as we stand before the Father.  Those who think they can stand before God because of the “good” they are doing just don’t understand how sinful they really are, how needy that makes them, and how dependent they are on Christ. 

The apostle Paul knew how sinful he was, and how needy and dependent he was on Christ when he said by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, “I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).  The Jesus Saul met on the road to Damascus was the same Jesus Paul needed on the roads he walked every day of his life.  Paul knew that his acceptance before God was never based on the good he was doing because he knew too much bad went along with it (Romans 7).  He looked to Jesus alone, by faith alone, which empowered him to live the life God had called him to live. 

So, have you like Paul learned to look to Jesus for your acceptance before God…every day?  Are you relying totally on Christ and Christ alone for both eternal life and everyday life?  This will be our daily experience if we understand just how needy we really are.  NEVER FORGET THAT…AMEN!