http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/16513373/heart-of-my-own-heart

If you were to ask me to name my favorite hymn, I’d probably hem and haw, then list a bunch of favorites, and end up saying, “It depends.” I mean, how do you choose a single favorite hymn? But if you were to ask me what hymn I sing most often when I’m alone with God, that would be easy: “Be Thou My Vision.” If that makes it my favorite, so be it.
For me, it’s become a love song, kind of like the familiar phrases I default to when telling my wife how much I love her, which over time have become infused with great depths of emotional meaning. The verses of this hymn give voice to my intimate delight in and longing for the Lover of my soul. When I sing it in private, just me and my piano, it’s rare when I can sing it without tears.
Typically, when a song touches me deeply, I’m curious to know more about who wrote it and why. I guess it’s easier to take hymns somewhat for granted. I’ve loved “Be Thou My Vision” for decades, but I never thought to look up its backstory until recently.
I discovered that this hymn’s origin is veiled in the misty past of ancient Ireland. We do know that the hymn’s progenitor is a poem that’s more than a millennium old, composed in Old Gaelic and consisting of sixteen couplets. Irish tradition claims its author was a beloved sixth-century Celtic poet named St. Dallán Forgaill, but scholars have linguistic reasons to doubt this claim. All we know is that the writer certainly was a poet and sure seems to have been a saint.
Thank God for Scholars and Editors
My search wasn’t in vain, because it revealed people God used to turn that ancient poem into the precious song we have today. Thank God for Mary Byrne (1880–1931), who dragged the poem out of academic obscurity by translating the ancient Gaelic into English. And thank God for Eleanor Hull (1860–1935), who chose twelve of the sixteen couplets from Byrne’s literal translation, and then skillfully crafted them into rhymes.
And thank God for the editors of the Irish Church Hymnal, who selected ten of Hull’s couplets, combined them into five four-line verses, and then, with a stroke of inspired genius, paired those deeply moving verses with an achingly beautiful Irish folk tune they named “Slane” (in honor of St. Patrick’s famous Easter festival fire on Slane Hill, which he burned in defiance of a pagan Irish king).
The hymn was first published in the 1919 edition of that Irish hymnal, and the rest, as they say, is history. “Be Thou My Vision” soon appeared in hymnals around the world, many of which trimmed it down to the four verses most of us know and love today.
Why do so many, like me, love this hymn so much? Because it gives poetic voice to our deep love and longing for the triune God, who is the Light of our lives (John 8:12), our ever-present, indwelling Word of life (1 John 1:1), the great Treasure of our hearts (Luke 12:34), and soon the Heaven of heaven for us forever (Psalm 73:25–26).
Thy Presence My Light
If the ancient author ever titled the poem, that too has been lost to the mists of time. For centuries it was known simply as “A Prayer.” But it’s hard to imagine a better title than the poem’s first four words, “Be thou my vision,” which in Old Gaelic read, “Rop tú mo bhoile.”
Verse 1, in my view, begins just where it should: a prayer for God to enlighten the eyes of our hearts that we may be filled with his hope (Ephesians 1:18). Listen to how beautifully the lyrics convey the biblical metaphor of light as understanding:
Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art;
Thou my best thought, by day or by night;
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
Implicitly woven into this verse are the New Testament references of Jesus as “the light of the world” and “the light of life” (John 8:12). But the words also carry an echo of one of my favorite verses from the Psalms:
With you is the fountain of life;
in your light do we see light. (Psalm 36:9)
Everyone who has known deep darkness of any kind — the darkness of sin or grief or pain or depression or loneliness or spiritual oppression — and has seen, however dimly, the Light of life shining in their darkness, understands how meaningful this verse can be. It resonates with the hope that this light will not ultimately be overcome by our darkness.
Be thou my vision, O Lord, for you are the light of my life.
Thou My True Word
The prayer of verse 2 builds on the prayer of verse 1, asking that God would fill us with the riches of his wisdom and knowledge (Romans 11:33):
Be Thou my wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father; I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.
Notice how simply this verse expresses the profound and mysterious New Testament teaching that requires pages to unpack in prose: that Christian wisdom comes from the Father and Son (our true Word) dwelling inside us through the Holy Spirit (John 14:23, 26), a gift we receive through our adoption as sons (Ephesians 1:5). The wisdom we’re praying for here is clearly not “a wisdom of this age,” but a wisdom that can only be “spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:6, 14).
Be thou my wisdom, O Lord, for you are the ultimate Truth.
My Treasure Thou Art
Now we come to my favorite verse of this great hymn, the one most likely to prompt tears:
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise;
Thou mine inheritance, now and always;
Thou and Thou only first in my heart;
High King of heaven, my treasure Thou art.
Verse 3 is my favorite — not because the other verses are less true or less hope-giving or less precious, but because Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:34). Our treasure is whatever we love and long for most — what most satisfies, enthralls, and therefore captivates our hearts. And in this fallen age, where even our best love for our great Treasure is defective and lacking, our love is almost always accompanied by a desire to love him more perfectly, more completely. Hence, my tears, a sweet, melancholic mixture of love and longing.
So, I love this verse, the heart of the hymn, the Love Song within the love song. Because God, as the next verse will say, is the Heart of our hearts — the Treasure that makes his light beautiful, his wisdom desirable, and his heaven so heavenly.
Be thou my Treasure, O Lord, first in my heart now and always.
O Bright Heaven’s Sun
Verse 4 ends the hymn just where it should: with the great “blessed hope” of the Christian life (Titus 2:13), when “we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
High King of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun;
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.
If our heart is always with our treasure, and if God is our Treasure, then the Heaven of heaven will be the Heart of our heart. And the Sun of heaven will enable us to see more light than we’ve ever seen, “for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Revelation 21:23). And so it will be, always and forever. To which we say, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).
What a priceless gift, this hymn. Thank you, Lord, for that ancient Celtic poet whose God-entranced heart overflowed so eloquently through his quill. And thank you for those throughout history whose collective labors have made this great song of love and longing available to us. And thank you for the gifted Celtic folk musicians whose sweet, haunting melody makes it so wonderful to sing.
But most of all, thank you, Lord, for being the Light of our lives, our ever-present, indwelling Word of life, the great Treasure of our hearts, and someday the Heaven of heaven.
Yes, O Lord, be thou our vision, now in this darkened age, and soon — may it be soon! — in unveiled, eternal glory with unclouded eyes.
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Do Christians Still Have Evil Desires?
Audio Transcript
Happy Friday, everyone. Today, we have a question from a listener named Mary. Actually, I should say we have several questions wrapped into one, from Mary. “Pastor John, hello! I have a hard question, and I’ll articulate as best as I can. The apostle Paul commands Christians to ‘put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.’ We are to put these sins to death because, as Paul says, ‘on account of these the wrath of God is coming’ (Colossians 3:5–6). We are commanded to die to sin impulses that remain in us. So, something earthly remains in us, and yet these same sin impulses, things like ‘evil desires,’ warrant God’s eternal wrath.
“So, is the ground of judgment the acting out of sins, beyond merely harboring the impulse within? Or is this very tendency in us, a diminished but still present earthly desire towards sin’s allure, also ground for eternal judgment? Or is putting to death sin the complete eradication of evil desires from in us? Or is it (by grace) tamping down those desires that will always be there, but not acting out consistently on those impulses? If so, how would that apply to not just the acted-out sins, but specifically to ‘evil desires’?” Whew! What would you say to Mary?
My goodness, those are five good questions. She’s really overflowing with questions, and they really are quite good questions. She asks, “Is putting to death sin the complete eradication of the desires?” And I think I would start with that one because that one’s easy. The answer is no. No, it’s not. If that were the case — in other words, if by the first prayer, by the first act of holiness or act of obedience, we totally eradicated all evil desire in our lives — this passage would read very differently than it does.
Paul would not be writing to Christians to get on with their warfare against sin if that were the case. Colossians 3 is not written as if during your first week as a Christian, you put a sinful desire to death, and then for the rest of your life, you never deal with it. That’s not the way the New Testament reads at all. But to see that, we’d better read these verses.
Away with the Old
Let me read Colossians 3:5–10. “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you.” — now literally, it says, “Put to death your members that are on the earth,” which is very odd. What it means is that, to the degree that your tongue or arm or sexual organ is about to be taken over by a sinful impulse, treat it as dead and unresponsive. So, let me start over.
Put to death therefore [your members on the earth]: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must [here’s the imperative] put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed [not a done deal] in knowledge after the image of its creator. (Colossians 3:5–10)
“The Christian life is to become what we are — to become in desire and in practice what you are in union with Christ.”
There is a new self — that’s what it means to be born again, to become a new creation in Christ, to be united to Christ so that his life is our life. This is a done reality for all true Christians. And the rest of the Christian life is to become what we are — to become in desire and in practice what you are in union with Christ. Or as Paul says here in Colossians 3, to put off the old self and put on the new self, or put to death the old and to walk in the newness of life.
But there’s no thought here that the absoluteness of the new self implies an absoluteness of emotional or behavioral perfection in this life. So, that question we can just put aside. There is a complete eradication of sinful desire, but that will happen when we die and go to be with Christ, or if he comes back during our lifetime. It’s not going to happen while we’re living in this fallen age.
Behaviors and Desires
Now, the next question that I think is also relatively easy to answer that she asks is this: Is the wrath of God a response to the behavioral outworkings of inner evil desire, or do the desires themselves bring down the wrath of God?
I assume the reason this question feels urgent to Mary is that my answer to the first question, which I think she already knows and agrees with, implies that we still have those old desires that have to be battled with, which raises the question whether the wrath of God is going to come down upon us because of the desires that God hates rising up in us.
Now, the answer to the first part of that question is yes, the wrath of God comes upon both behavioral sin and upon sinful desires that lie beneath those behaviors. And I say that simply because that’s exactly what the text says in Colossians 3:5–6. It says, “put to death,” and then it names five things:
sexual immorality — various acts of the body contrary to the will of God; sinful sexual bodily actions
impurity
passion
evil desire
covetousness, which is idolatryAnd then it says that “on account of these” five realities — both the actions and the desires — “the wrath of God is coming.” These refers back to all five of those things, the behavior of sexual immorality and impurity, and then three references to desires — passion, evil desire, and covetousness. All three of those last desires precede, and are beneath, behaviors.
And Paul says, “On account of these” — both the behaviors and the desires — “the wrath of God is coming.” Which brings us then to the most urgent question, which I think is implied in what Mary’s asking — namely, “Well, if evil desires continue to rise up in the hearts of born-again people, how will we escape the wrath of God, which is coming up against such desires?” And the answer has two parts.
Evil Desires Forgiven
First, becoming a Christian means that God unites us to Christ by faith so that his death, Christ’s death on the cross, becomes the payment for all of our sins and the ground of all of our total forgiveness for all the sins we will ever do, whether desires or actions.
Just a few verses earlier, Paul said this: “God made [you] alive together with [Christ], having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13–14). So, the entire record of debt for all the sins that we will ever commit — that’s behavior sins and desire sins — was nailed to the cross. That’s just breathtakingly wonderful.
“Wrath comes upon unforgiven evil desire. Christ bore the wrath for forgiven evil desire.”
So, the first answer to the question of why the wrath of God will not fall upon us for the sins of our remaining evil desires is that Jesus paid the penalty for them and secured complete forgiveness. Wrath comes upon unforgiven evil desire. Christ bore the wrath for forgiven evil desire. Therefore, it won’t come upon us because we are forgiven.
Evil Desires Fought
Now, the second part of the answer for why the wrath of God will not fall upon Christians, even though we have remaining sin in us, is just as essential, though not as foundational. The wrath of God will not fall upon true believers because we confirm our union with Christ — and our state of acceptance with God and our forgiveness — by the war we make on our sinful desires.
Many people do not understand this. They think that if they are secure in Christ, then the battle against sinful desires is not essential. Now that’s wrong. It is essential; it’s necessary, because if the battle is forsaken, and we make peace with sin in our lives, then we fail to confirm that we are united to Christ. We fail to confirm that we are a new creation because the new creation in Christ was created for good works, for holiness (Ephesians 2:10). Therefore, the failure to pursue good works, the failure to fight sin in ourselves, to fight for holiness, shows that a person is not a new creation.
Here’s the way Paul says it in Romans 8:13: “If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” In other words, if the Holy Spirit dwells in you, you will make war on sin in your life, and the result will be the escape from wrath and the enjoyment of everlasting life — not because the warfare against sin provides forgiveness (it doesn’t work like that), but because it shows that we are forgiven, we are in Christ, we are a new creation.
So in summary, no, there is no eradication of all evil desire in this life. Second, yes, wrath is coming upon both sinful behavior and sinful desire. Third, that wrath will only come upon unforgiven sinful behavior and desire, and we confirm that we live in the safety of God’s forgiveness by hating and making war on our sinful desires by the Holy Spirit.
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Why God Makes Much of You
Audio Transcript
Well, last Wednesday we looked at what makes Pastor John tick. There he gave us a glimpse into his ministry and his aims. That was APJ 1769. In today’s clip, I return to that same sermon, because he goes from that point to talking about how God makes much of us, his children, and why he makes much of us.
First, the point: God makes much of us. He does. And he does so beyond our wildest imagination! In fact, we will see that point next week in greater detail — how God makes much of us. So hold that thought for now, because here, in this Wednesday sermon clip, I want you to see that, yes, God makes much of us, but his plan aims at something far greater than merely making us feel loved for the sake of us feeling loved. You’ll see why here in just a moment.
Again, as we dive into this sermon clip, for context, this comes from a sermon preached two weeks out from John Piper’s eight-month leave of absence from his church in 2010. These are part of his parting words, so to speak, to his church. And in them, here’s Pastor John to explain how God makes much of us — and why he does it that way. Here’s Pastor John.
My shorthand way of trying to help the nominal Christian wake up to their real condition and then plead for regeneration, plead for an awakening, so that at the bottom of their souls is Jesus and not self, is to say, Do you feel more loved by God when he makes much of you, or do you feel more loved by God when, at great cost to his Son, he frees you from that horrible bondage to self in order to enjoy making much of him forever, so that the peak of your joy is to see him, savor him, show him?
He Loves Us for His Sake
Now, all that’s introduction. Today, I am really jealous that this concern of mine that I just described does not undermine the immeasurable way that God loves you, including his making much of you. He makes more of you, Christian — true, born-again, struggling Christian — than you ever dreamed he could or would.
“God makes more of you when he makes much of you for his sake than if he were to make much of you only for your sake.”
I want you to see and feel that you are more loved by God when he loves you that way than any other way. He makes more of you when he makes much of you for his sake than if he were to make much of you only for your sake. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t preach this sermon. God is making more of you when he makes much of you for his sake than if he only made much of you for your sake. More is being made of you, and I hope to show you that.
I said that God reveals himself relentlessly in the Bible as loving you for his name’s sake. I’m going to give you just a few examples so that those of you who may not be as familiar with this as others will get on board with me. You’ll know, “What are you saying? What do you mean by that?” I’m going to give you four or five examples.
1. God adopted us for his glory.
God shows his love for us by predestining us for adoption into his family. Every one of these feels like the greatest act of love to me. I want to say this is the greatest. Well, I want to reserve that for the cross, I think, but man, this is big. That God, in eternity, looked upon me — foreseeing my fallenness, my pride, my sin — and said, “I want that man in my family. I’ll do anything to get him in my family. I will pay for him to be in my family with my Son’s life.” That’s love, folks. That is mega, off-the-charts love.
And the verse is Ephesians 1:5–6. “He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ.” Get that: he predestined us for adoption into the divine, universe-ruling family “according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace.” Does that ruin it? Does that ruin it? No. He did it. He said, “I’m going to have John Piper. I’m going to have you in my family. I’ve decided this before the world is created. I’m having you to the praise of the glory of my grace.” I hope that doesn’t ruin it for you. I want it to make it more — more, not less — that he did it for his glory.
2. God created us for his glory.
God shows his love for us by creating us. If we didn’t have existence, we couldn’t enjoy him or anything else. So, he loved us into being. Why? Isaiah 43:6–7: “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory.” Don’t let that diminish the love of God for you in your creation that you came into being for his glory.
3. God sent Christ for his glory.
God shows his love for us by sending us a savior. The angels say,
“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find the baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest.” (Luke 2:11–14)
“We get the Savior, he gets the glory. We get the great joy, he gets the honor.”
A Savior has come. Does that bother you that they would sing that way instead of saying, “Glory to the men for whom he’s dying; glory to the women for whom he’s dying”? Instead, they sing, “Glory to God. A Savior came to rescue sinners. God, God, God — what a God!” I just want you to get inside this so bad. We get the Savior, he gets the glory. We get the great joy, he gets the honor. Is that okay? Goodnight, it’s okay. It can’t be any other way if there’s a God and a sinner like me. It can’t be any other way. This is the greatest news in all the world. A Savior has come for me, and the angels are praising God.
4. Christ died for us for his glory.
God shows his love for us when Christ died. This is probably the biggest — isn’t it? — in the Bible. The death of Christ is the biggest display of the love of God. Let me give you just one verse. This is 2 Corinthians 5:14–15:
The love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all [here comes the purpose clause] that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
Christ died for me. He put himself between me and the bullet, me and the sword, me and the flames, and he took it, though I deserved it and he didn’t. He took it, and he did that so that I might no longer live for my “magnificent” self and would now die and enjoy living for him forever. That’s why he did it. That’s love. It’s a bigger love than if he hadn’t done it that way.
5. God saves us for his glory.
This is Psalm 79:9: “Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for your name’s sake.” Born-again people pray like that. “Save me for your name’s sake. Deliver me, atone for my sin, for your name’s sake.”
That’s the way born-again people think. “It’s all going back; every grace that comes to me is being reflected back. And I love it — I love it. That’s why I’m alive.” This is the greatest thing in all the world: that I would be rescued from immersion in Piper — yuck! — to be freed a little bit, a little bit, to just know him and love him and give it all back and let him be God for me.
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Where Jesus Travels: Introducing the Means of Grace
Here’s a little outline of where we’ll be going in these sessions. In this first one for the Sunday School hour, we’re just going to talk about the idea of means of grace. First of all, that God is gracious and that he has his particular, chosen, appointed means for our lives to live in the supply of his grace. Then the sermon this morning will focus on God’s word as a means of grace. Jonathan Edwards called the word of God the “chief” and “soul” of the means of grace.
Tonight the topic is fellowship, and we’ll also have a special accent on the Lord’s Supper as part of the means of grace that are related to the fellowship of the local church. And I believe we get to celebrate the Lord’s Supper together tonight. Then tomorrow night will be a focus on prayer and on fasting. Fasting in particular is an accent to prayer.
My heart for these sessions is that I would love to clarify, simplify, and inspire, and here’s what I mean by that. I want to clarify the source of the Christian life as God’s ongoing grace. Christianity is not to encounter grace in the past and then live in your own strength; Christianity is to live on God’s ongoing supply of grace. So we want to talk about those means. What are the means that God himself calls us into, to live on the ongoing supply of his grace?
Then I want to simplify the pursuit of his grace. Sometimes we think about spiritual disciplines and we make a long list, like, “Oh, there’s 12 things you need to do, or actually 18, or more like 24.” Think of your full list of spiritual disciplines. If you were to try to do those disciplines at all times in your life, it would be your full-time job. So what I want to do is simplify that list and ask, what are the main principles? What does God want us to know about his ongoing means of grace? And then how might we, in our various seasons of life, with our particular bent and our particular calling, see the principles of God’s grace be operative in our lives without just checking off somebody else’s boxes from some long list of spiritual disciplines?
Then lastly, I want to inspire you to cultivate habits of grace through varying seasons of life, and to do so for a lifetime. So I’ll speak about the grace of God, then the means of grace, and then “habits of grace” is my way of talking about our own lives, our own application, and the ways in which we access God’s timeless means of grace in our various seasons of life, so that we might know and enjoy him, and in enjoying him, we glorify him in our lives through our actions and words.
My hope is that I want to put and keep the gospel and the energy of God at the center of this whole pursuit of spiritual disciplines or means of grace. And as I hope we see tonight, by taking a full session to emphasize the corporate dynamics of the Christian life, I want to emphasize those corporate dynamics in a way that I think often gets overlooked in discussions about spiritual disciplines. Often spiritual disciplines are really focused on what I do and what I do alone, like Bible reading and prayer by myself. And I think a very important dynamic — we’ll see this in biblical texts and we’ll talk about it at length tonight because it’s critical in the Christian life — is the covenant fellowship of the local church that we are means of grace to each other. And then I want you, however old or young, to know, to enjoy, and to glorify Jesus, and to have some sense of how to do that for a lifetime.
It is my prayer that this seminar would help you make God’s means of grace, and your own habits that develop around his means, not just accessible and realistic but truly God’s means for your knowing and enjoying Jesus for a lifetime. And you see there how the connection is made between looking at Jesus (seeing him), as we prayed before with Bill and Dan, and savoring him. I love that language. We want to employ the means of grace as a means to that end.
Faucets and Light Switches
So here in session one then we want to talk about the means of grace. I love this encouragement from Jonathan Edwards. We’ll get to the quote in context here in a few minutes. He says, “Lay yourself in the way of allurement.”
When I talk about means of grace, it’s helpful for me to think about faucets and light switches, maybe because as I was teaching this material to college students, I was becoming a homeowner for the first time, and I was beginning to think about things for the first time that I hadn’t thought about before. You grow up and turn the faucet and the water comes on. With the light switch, somebody else takes care of that. If you have the problem of turning that faucet and no water comes out, somebody else is going to deal with that. When you’re a homeowner, ain’t nobody else going to deal with that. You have to take care of what’s going on there.
The main thing that’s helpful about faucets and light switches (though it’s not a perfect illustration) is that it helps to demonstrate what means of grace are like in the Christian life. Because for me, I don’t provide the water. For me, the city of Minneapolis does that, and I’m not a plumber. I didn’t put it in my house, and I don’t know how to fix it if it goes awry. Fortunately, I married into the family of a plumber. My father-in-law is a plumber, but he’s two hours north. If we start to have a problem, that’s a long time before he can get onsite. I feel this now as a homeowner.
When I turn that faucet on and water comes out, I don’t celebrate what I did, saying, “Look at me, I turned the water on.” As the kids go to the sink to get water, as they shower, as they do whatever they do in the house, I don’t say, “Look what your dad did. Your dad gave you water.” They turned on the faucet and they engaged the means, the appointed means. The water was there waiting, and the power, the electricity, was there waiting because somebody else is supplying the power and we need to just release that power in the appointed place. We don’t walk around the house saying, “Water,” and water comes out. No, if you want water, you turn the faucet. If you want electricity, you flip the switch, or tell Alexa to turn the light on. But you do the appointed means to release the supply of power.
There are similarities in the Christian life. We can be prone to think, “Oh, I want God’s power. I want to walk in the wilderness and have God give me his power.” But God has given us appointed means. He has provided water, and he has plumbed the house, and he has put in a faucet, and he has told you, “That’s where the water comes from.” He has provided the electricity and he tells us where the switch is, as if to say, “That’s where it happens.” And get this, it’s not automatic. Just because I flip the switch doesn’t mean the lights will always go on. But if I don’t flip the switch, the lights aren’t going to turn on. Likewise, with God’s means of grace he has given us his regular places where he wants us to go to access his ongoing supply, his ongoing grace for the Christian life.
The Grace of God
Here is our outline for session one. We want to talk briefly, but not just briefly, about the grace of God. I don’t want to skip over this. I don’t want to assume this. We don’t want to say, “Oh yeah, God is gracious, move on.” We want to linger over the God of all grace and his graciousness. That’s so important in coming to him, because our awareness, our consciousness matters to him. He doesn’t want to just supply grace anonymously. He loves to give donations of grace that are connected to the name of his Son. So we want to talk about his grace. Then we’ll look at his appointed means of grace. And then at the end, I’ll say something very briefly about our cultivation of habits to regularly access his means of grace. Then I have to talk about the end of the means again. We want to end with that.
I’ve already given you a glimpse of the end of the means, but let’s come back because we have means, and means are means to some end. Means means something, and it means going to some end, and we’ll rehearse that at the end.
The Grace of Justification
First, let’s focus on the grace of God. It is so important that we duly acknowledge God and appreciate him in all his import, as he’s revealed himself to us as the God of all grace. That’s why I have 1 Peter 5:10 here. It says, “After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace . . .” Brothers and sisters, this is the God who made you. This is the God who is, this is the God who sent his own Son, this is the God who has appointed means and wants to sustain you in the Christian life. He is the God of all grace. All true grace for your life, for your ongoing health, and for your ongoing survival as a Christian, is in him. He provides the grace. He’s the God of all grace. He has called you to his eternal glory in Christ. He himself will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you in suffering and in times of life that aren’t acutely difficult. In all seasons, he’s the God of all grace, supplying the grace of our Christian life.
But let’s say that with a little more specificity. We can do this big category of grace in general, but what are some of the specific manifestations of his grace in the Christian life? First and foremost, let’s rehearse the foundation of his grace. Before we do anything or participate in any way, he has a foundation of grace, and there is 100 percent acceptance of us apart from what we do in Christ Jesus. We call this the grace of justification by faith. We could go to many texts, but let me give you two and summarize the grace of justification by faith alone. This is Romans 4:4–5:
Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due (we’re talking about a gift; wages are not the way to pursue acceptance with God). And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
We all need righteousness to stand before the living, holy God. We cannot, as sinners and as humans, provide that righteousness. But God sent his own Son to live out that righteousness in our human flesh, and die for us to cover our sins, so that being joined to him by faith we might have our sins paid for in him and have his righteousness in order to be fully, 100-percent accepted before his Father. This is the foundation of the Christian life in the grace of justification by faith. Before we do anything, before we act (we don’t deserve it in any way), he justifies us by faith by connecting us to his Son, in whom is righteousness.
Titus 3:4–7 says:
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness (hear the language of righteousness that is not by works and is the foundation of our acceptance), but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace (justification is a manifestation of God’s grace) we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
First and foremost, God’s grace meets us before we’re engaged. We receive by faith. Before we’re engaged with our will, our energy, our actions, and our works, he justifies us in Jesus. This is remarkable grace.
The Grace of Sanctification
Sometimes people stop there. It is amazing grace, the grace of forgiveness, the grace of justification by faith. May we no way ever minimize the grace of justification by faith. And God’s even more gracious than only to justify us and accept us fully based on the righteousness of Christ. Calvin and the Reformers had this Latin phrase: duplex gratia.
Anybody know what that means? It means double grace. It’s grace times two. We all want God’s grace and justification. Amen. Never minimize it. And, what Calvin emphasized — probably with Luther’s weakness in the background — is that we believe in double grace. He gives us the grace of full acceptance in Christ and the grace keeps going. He gives us the grace of being practically rescued from the misery of sin. It would be an amazing grace to have our sins covered and then still have to live with the misery. But the double grace of sanctification now begins to remove us from the misery of sin.
Sin is not a good thing. It’s not joyful in the end. Pleasurable as it may feel in the moment, it will not be good for you in the long run and for eternity. It is a double grace to be rescued from the power of sin, not only pardoned from your sin. This is the grace of sanctification, and I rehearse it because it relates to means. These means of grace, we locate them in the part of the Christian life that is about sanctification, about becoming more holy, about being engaged in the progress that the Holy Spirit is making in us. Justification is apart from works, apart from our means. We’re not doing anything. We’re not reading any Bibles or doing any prayers for justification. But in sanctification we have the dignity of being engaged, of discovering the joys of holiness.
Here’s Titus 2:11–12. The appearance language is very similar to Titus 3:4–7. Titus loves to talk like this. Before he said, “God our Savior appeared,” and down here we have, “the grace of God appeared in Jesus.” So grace for the Christian has a face. Grace came. The God of grace has come in grace incarnate in Jesus.
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people . . . (Titus 2:11)
Think of how that corresponds with the aspects of grace that are in justification and forgiveness. He continues and says this grace is “training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age . . .” (Titus 2:12). So grace not only receives us apart from our training to get us right with God, but grace also then begins to go to work on us. Grace trains. It’s like an athlete being trained. You engage, you work, and you train, and it changes shape over time. The person is changed. They become a better runner, a better player, or a better actor as they do the training. Likewise, grace begins to work on us, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright godly lives in the present age. There’s a double grace here — the grace of salvation coming and the grace going to work on us that trains us. Grace trains us.
A Holy Work Ethic
In 1 Corinthians 15:10, I love Paul’s expression of this training, changing, transforming grace. He says:
By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them . . .
You know who the “them” is here? It’s not lazy Corinthians. The “them” are the other apostles. He says, “I worked harder than any of them,” and I’m assuming Paul is not prideful at this point. I’m assuming he had such an industrious, Herculean work ethic that the differences were manifest, so that he could talk about them with humility and not brag. Everyone knew Paul worked so much harder than Peter and John. That’s okay. That was Paul’s particular gift, whatever it was. He worked harder than all of them. But you know what? It was the grace of God. He says, “Though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”
So God’s grace not only met him on the road to Damascus, changed his heart, and saved him apart from him doing anything, but the grace of God went to work in him and he was a manifest worker. Paul’s a work ethic guy. He talks a lot about work, and that work is work that is done by the grace of God. So God’s grace not only saves, forgives, and justifies, but God’s grace trains and goes to work in and through us.
Philippians 2:12–13 is another place to show this dynamic of God working and our working. We need to have a place in our Christian life where we think of how God works and we don’t. That’s the place of justification. It’s a very important category to have in our reception of grace, and seeing God as the God of all grace. And we need to have a category for God working through our working. Philippians 2:12–13 says:
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling . . .
Then we’re given the reason why. Now, notice he doesn’t say “work for your salvation.” They’re justified. They’re accepted 100 percent, based on Christ alone and not their works. He is saying, “You’re accepted, now work that out.” Don’t work for it, work it out. And here’s why. Here’s why you work it out. It’s not in your own strength. He says:
For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13)
God goes to work by the power of his Spirit in the Christian. He begins to change us, he begins to, by his word and by the Spirit, give us good desires and inspire us for holiness, and not sin. He gives us the will, and we want to work it out and do it in such a way that we’re not earning God’s favor. But because we have his favor, we are delighted to work it out with joy for his glory and the good of others.
The Grace of Glorification
Then finally, to bring this to a close in this parsing out his grace, we’ve spoken of the past grace in our experience of justification, present grace in sanctification, and now we have future grace in glorification. It’s amazing. I don’t know what the Latin phrase would be for triple grace. We should probably do triple grace too. The grace that is coming is the grace of glorification. Isn’t it crazy that we talk in that language, that God will glorify us? It’s amazing. Second Thessalonians 1:11 says:
May [God] fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power . . .
Just note here this idea of “work of faith.” Because there’s faith, the Christian works it out, and does so by his power, which is what we’re talking about in the means of grace, spiritual disciplines. And then Paul says, “So that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified” (2 Thessalonians 1:11). Yes, it’s the glory of Christ. Amen. That’s what we’re for, the glory of Christ. May Jesus be glorified. And then Paul says, “and you in him” (2 Thessalonians 1:12). May he be glorified in you, and then you will be glorified in him. He will be glorified in you according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. So God’s grace accepts us apart from our works, goes to work in us, rescues us practically from the miseries of sin, and his grace will glorify us as we glorify Jesus.
The last text here on this section is Ephesians 2:4–7. This is about the ongoing grace of God into eternity. Don’t think that first and foremost we’re saying grace is a past thing. We don’t live the Christian life in gratitude for grace, as if grace happened in the past and now we live in gratitude. That’s not how it works. And even going into the future it will be ongoing grace, upon grace, upon grace. Paul says:
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved (a reference to justification) — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages (this is future) he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
“Before we’re engaged with our energy, our actions, and our works, God justifies us in Jesus.”
It will take eternity for our God to continue to show us the bounty of his grace. That’s what’s coming. That’s a way to capture what’s going to happen in heaven, and in the new heavens and new earth. God is going to continue to show us the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Jesus Christ. He’s the God of all grace. First and foremost, we have to start with God being gracious. Don’t take that as a given or an assumption. Let’s love it and let’s rehearse it.
The Means of Grace
The second thing we will focus on is that he has appointed means. There are means of his grace. In the last generation or so, there has been a revival of this language of spiritual disciplines. Maybe it’s a revival, and maybe the first time the language has been used was in the late 1970s. Richard Foster had a book on the celebration of disciplines, and there have been many good books that have talked about spiritual disciplines. That is the subject we’re talking about here. This is about spiritual disciplines.
However, by starting with this accent on God’s grace and wanting to use that term “means of grace,” I think there’s some significance in it. I find this personally helpful. I found it helpful with college students and as I’ve talked with folks over the years. Casting it in terms of means of grace rather than spiritual disciplines puts the accent in some different places. It really helps how we think about the concept. D. A. Carson has said that “means of grace” is a lovely expression, and is less susceptible to misinterpretation than “spiritual disciplines.” You can interpret spiritual disciplines appropriately. It’s okay to have that in my subtitle. That’s the language people are using, but I really want to accent that these are means of grace.
Reading J. I. Packer was the first time I saw the connection between spiritual disciplines and means of grace. This is actually an endorsement for Don Whitney’s book, and remember that being a disciple means being a learner. J.I. Packer wrote:
The doctrine of the disciplines (disciplinae, meaning “courses of learning” or “training”) is really a restatement and extension of classical Protestant teaching on the means of grace.
Then he summarizes these means of grace in his parenthesis in an endorsement for a book. I love it. Packer endorsed many books. I think he saw these as teaching opportunities. He doesn’t typically just say, “Hey, I like this person. Get the book.” He usually sees it as a little teaching opportunity. He lists the means of grace as the word of God, prayer, fellowship, and the Lord’s Supper. I’ve already told you our outline. The word of God is the sermon this morning, prayer is tomorrow night, and fellowship and the Lord’s Supper I’m putting together tonight.
The Necessity of Means
We’ll see more about this phrase. I find that J. C. Ryle is particularly helpful here. I really like the way that Ryle talks about the means of grace and the categories he puts them together in. Here’s what Ryle has to say. We’ll probably come back to this tonight as a quick summary before talking more about fellowship. He’s writing over 100 years ago, so see the timelessness of this. This is not trendy. This isn’t a big means of grace trend. This is not trendy, this is timeless. He says:
The means of grace are such as Bible reading, private prayer, and regularly worshiping God in church . . .
So at least here we have the word, prayer, and fellowship. And he talks about regularly worshiping, which is a corporate means of grace. He says, “Here, one hears the word taught and participates in the Lord’s Supper.”
You have the word being taught, and the word is the Bible. Then there is this connection with Lord’s Supper. These guys keep wanting to mention the Lord’s Supper. We’ll see why in just a minute. Ryle continues, and this is a very important sentence:
I lay it down as a simple matter of fact, that no one who is careless about such things must ever expect to make progress in sanctification.
That’s amazing. He says, “No one who is careless about such things must ever expect to make progress in sanctification.” What are the “such things”? It’s the word, prayer, and fellowship (the local church, corporate worship). He continues:
I can find no record of any eminent saint who ever neglected them. They are appointed channels through which the Holy Spirit conveys fresh supplies of grace to the soul, and strengthens the work which he has begun in the inward man . . . Our God is a God who works by means and he will never bless the soul of that man who pretends to be so high and spiritual that he can get on without them (the means of grace).
A similar observation I’ve heard before and seen in my own life is that I’ve never met a strong leader in the church or a Christian (someone who’s strong in the faith and benefits others) who has ignored the means of grace — in particular, accessing God’s word on a regular basis, praying about it, and being part of the local church. Let any of these slip, any of these three, and the matrix of strength for the Christian life goes away. And barring unusual circumstances of suffering, anyone who’s just languishing in their faith, very rarely (or ever) have I spoken with someone like that who couldn’t identify some lapse or pattern of neglect related to the word, or prayer, or the local church.
I’m not saying there’s a precise relationship where if you miss a day of devotions and you’re doing terrible spiritually. However, over the patterns of our life, there is a remarkable correspondence between attending to the ways God has told us that he has appointed for ongoing grace and spiritual health. We’ll come back to the Ryle quote.
Laying in the Way of Allurement
Let me give Zacchaeus and Bartimaeus as an example of what I mean by positioning ourselves. The title here on “laying yourself in the way of allurement” is important. Sometimes spiritual disciplines to me seem like they accent my doing. I have to take the initiative and I have to make this happen. This is on me. I need to muster up the strength and make it happen.
With means of grace, I want to accent the positioning of ourselves and the posturing of ourselves. God is the God of all grace. He has told us the places in which his grace is flowing, so the responsible response on our part is to position ourselves and posture ourselves to receive his grace. This isn’t first and foremost a posture of action, it’s a posture of reception. See that here in these back-to-back stories in Luke’s gospel about Bartimaeus and Zacchaeus.
As he drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. (Luke 18:35)
This is interesting. Bartimaeus was not wandering in the wilderness, and lo and behold, the Savior of the world comes upon him in the wilderness. He was sitting by the roadside. There was a path, and he was sitting by the path. The passage continues:
And hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” And he cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him. And when he came near, he asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let me recover my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God. (Luke 18:36–43)
Now, we can emphasize several things in this passage. The reason I’m emphasizing the positioning or the place where Bartimaeus was for our purposes regarding means of grace is that the next story is also along the path.
Positioned in the Pathway of Grace
Now let’s focus on Zacchaeus, a wee little man, maybe you know the song. Zacchaeus illustrates this better than Bartimaeus.
He entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. (Luke 19:1–3)
This comes upon Bartimaeus in a way he didn’t expect, but he’s along a path when it does. He’s the kind of guy who wants help. He’s blind and he needs help. So where do you go to get help? Where people are. Where are people? On the path. So there’s a reason Bartimaeus was there. But it’s all the more here in this passage because Zacchaeus is seeking Jesus. He wants to access grace. So how do you access the grace in Christ? You go to the path where he’s coming. The passage continues:
He was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. (Luke 19:3–4)
He postured himself and positioned himself along the path where the grace was passing. Then it says:
And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. (Luke 19:5–6)
He positioned himself to receive the grace as it came. Here’s a quotation from Jonathan Edwards:
Persons need not and ought not to set any bounds to their spiritual and gracious appetites.
Your desires for God, your holy desires for the one who made you and showed you himself in his Son, and rescued you, you need to put no bounds on those appetites. We need to put bounds on various earthly appetites, and yet in our spiritual appetites for Jesus and for God, put no bounds on them. Edwards continues on how to pursue it:
Rather, they ought to be endeavoring by all possible ways to inflame their desires and obtain more spiritual pleasures.
That’s what we’re after in means of grace. These are not mere duties to check the box, as if to say, “You must do this.” We want to inflame desire and obtain more holy, spiritual pleasure. And Edward continues on to say, “Endeavor to promote spiritual appetites by laying yourself in the way of allurement.”
Because of the nature of our God as a God of grace, and because he has given us his typical patterns, his appointed means of grace, the counsel is, “Do you want to know him? Do you want to enjoy him? Do you want to increase your spiritual pleasure? Lay yourself along those paths. Know what the paths are, and then cultivate habits of life that put you along those paths.”
The Lifeline of the Early Church
Here’s an example in the early church. This is Acts 2:42–47. What an amazing moment. It’s like the honeymoon moment of the local church before things get really bad with increasing persecution.
They devoted themselves (habitual language) to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. (Acts 2:42)
The apostles were teaching the word, people were praying, and people were devoting themselves to the fellowship. In that context, there was the breaking of bread, which probably meant eating together. And in that eating together, they were taking the Lord’s supper together as well. We want this, and people want this. This is exciting:
And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:43–47)
We all want this effect, but do we want the means of grace? The wonder, the signs, the generosity, the sharing, and the adding to their number comes out of Acts 2:42. This is their patterns, their habits, and their devotion. It’s the apostles’ teaching, the fellowship, and the prayers.
Historic Confessions and the Means of Grace
I’ll skip through this, but I just want to mention that means had such an important foundation in the Reformed and Baptistic confessions for centuries. This is why Packer referred to the classic Protestant doctrine of the means of grace. The language of “means” comes again and again in the New Hampshire Confession of 1833, which is a Baptist confession. It’s used over and over again. It also goes back to Westminster and the Belgic Confession, which is almost 100 years before Westminster. It talks about “our gracious God” — make sure to cast him in terms of grace — who “nourishes and strengthens our faith through the means where he works by the power of the Holy Spirit.” And Jesus Christ is presented as the true object of them.
The Canons of Dort from 1619 refers to means again and again, and the Westminster Confession of Faith in 1648. Again and again it speaks of “the use of means.” And so, we come back to Acts 2:42, where they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, the fellowship, and the breaking of bread, and the prayers. These are a means of God’s ongoing grace.
Hear His Voice, Have His Ear, Belong to His Body
So here’s how I summarize them. This is what we’ll be doing in the sermon tonight and tomorrow. How do we put ourselves, how do we position ourselves along the path of God’s grace? Number one, we hear his voice in his word. Number two, we have his ear in prayer. Number three, we belong to his body in the fellowship of the local church.
The reason I’m putting them in those terms is that I want to capture the personal nature of the Christian life, the personal nature of a relationship with God in Christ. We shouldn’t think of word, prayer, and fellowship as merely things, but aspects of relationship with God and with each other. So we hear his voice. You’ll see in the sermon here, I’m not going to accent hearing his voice apart from his word. The voice that’s in your head is you. Do you want to hear God speak? Open the book, hear the book, and hear him speak by the power of the Spirit in his book. I have to stop myself before I get into the sermon.
Then have his ear in prayer. It is amazing that we have the ear of God Almighty. The fact that he revealed himself is amazing, but even more the fact that he stops, and stoops, and listens, and says, “I want to hear your response to my word.” It is such a privilege we have in prayer that we’ll linger it over tomorrow night.
And then we belong to his body. We are means of grace to each other in the body of Christ. In particular, I’m going to linger in Hebrews. The sermon this morning will be Hebrews, and these will be the texts that I’ll use in the sermon. You can talk about having his ear in Hebrews through these two big exhortation passages that parallel each other. Do you want a nice Bible study? Take Hebrews 4:14–16 and Hebrews 10:19–23 and work through them together and see the connections, and be drawn into prayer. And then the main focus for tonight before we talk about the Lord’s Supper will be to look at Hebrews 10 and Hebrews 3 about being means of grace for each other.
Habits of Grace
Let me finish quickly with this. I told you the last two points are very brief. This is about our various habits of grace. What is a habit? It’s kind of a negative word. There’s been a kind of revival of the language and it’s becoming more positive. People talk about habit formation.
There were two books that were very popular to help bring about this idea of habits and tap the neuroscience of habit formation, which is really new in the last generation since MRIs were available. I mean, neuroscience has been huge in the last 25 years, and habit formation has been part of those discoveries. Habits, scientists say, emerge because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort. Left to its own devices, the brain will try to make almost any routine into a habit because habits allow our minds to ramp down more often.
Now, here are a couple of things that are important in spiritual life related to that. I’ll summarize it in a second. The real key to habits is decision-making, and more accurately, the lack of decision-making. Part of this in trying to cultivate habits in our Christian life is to not drain down the power of decision-making that we could be putting toward God’s word, and prayer, and fellowship, and also not go through making the decision over and over again so that sometimes you decide not to make it. And then you choose other less valuable things than his word, prayer, and fellowship in their proper proportions and patterns.
Here’s a summary: Habits free our focus to give attention and be more fully aware in the moment. Habits protect what is most important; that is, they keep us persevering in the faith. And habits are person specific. I’m not trying to lay on you Saul’s armor, as if to say, “Here’s how I do my devotions and here’s how I pray. And here’s the patterns of Cities Church, and you should do the same ones.” This is not Saul’s armor. You’re not supposed to have somebody else’s armor on, but you can develop these in your season of life with your bent. And then, habits are also driven by desire and reward. Habits are formed because you are being rewarded in some way. You don’t form habits when there’s no reward, and all the more in the Christian life.
The End of the Means
So we end the morning session here with the end of the means. I want to put text with this. I don’t want to just say, “Jesus is the end, Jesus is the end.” Let’s put two texts on it, among others. We’re talking about means here. Means are means to some end. This is the end:
And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3)
That’s the essence of eternal life, knowing the Father and the Son in him. And in our means of grace, we want to move toward that great end. That’s the goal. That’s the reward that would inform and cultivate our habits.
In Philippians 3:7–8, the apostle Paul says:
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
So brothers and sisters, in talking about these spiritual disciplines (the means of grace) this morning, this evening, and tomorrow night, this is what we’re pursuing. It’s the surpassing value of Christ. It’s not the value of achievement, nor the value of feeling good about myself, nor checking boxes, nor the value of doing what somebody else told me to do, but the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord through his word, through a relationship with him in prayer where I respond to him based on who he’s revealed himself to be, and doing so in the body of Christ, in the covenanted local church community where we are means of grace to each other, so that we know more of Jesus in and through each other.