Pro-Active Living

The title of this sermon is a proactive living, and I always have to come over the title about late Thursday, early Friday, and sometimes the titles don't fit anything, I have to say, because after I study a little bit more, I kind of change direction or things shape a little differently. But what I'm getting at by this proactive living is so much Christian living is reactive, and I've been really stirred about this lately. When I see Christians who've been in the faith for some time, and then come into times of difficulties, of challenge and temptation, trials, and they crumble under it and abandon their former commitment as Paul puts it. It really disturbs me, and it makes me wonder what's missing in this, what's missing in what we're doing and making disciples in this church, and in the church of Jesus Christ. I think it's really true that a lot of Christians live the Christian life in a reactive way. It's like, we have no plans for getting prepared to meet the challenges of life.

We just assume the way you live the Christian life is, is you trust Jesus, have your sins forgiven, and then when you come into a great trial, you're going to try real hard to trust Him. It's kind of like, it's as though you have a person who knows they're going to the Olympics and running the 100 meter dash, and they do no training. They don't prepare for it. Maybe they even have some natural speed, but they get there, and they're 40 pounds overweight, and they get to the starting line and assume that they can get out of the blocks and run a world-class level 100 meter dash. That's how ridiculous it is for believers to not prepare to live the Christian life, to simply react to situations and assume that I don't have to worry about getting prepared for anything in the Christian life. I just trust Jesus when it comes along.

Well, of course, that is exactly opposite of what Jesus Christ taught in what the New Testament epistles teach. In fact, notice this in 1 Timothy, chapter 4. Paul says to Timothy, but have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. I'm sorry, ladies. There are no old women here, but if you're tempted to believe he's talking about you, I assure you. I have no idea how to get around that phrase.

I've thought about actually modifying it at times, but there it is. But look at this comparison on the other hand. In other words, in contrast to trafficking in world fables, instead of trafficking in conspiracy theories and arguments over the peripheral issues of Christian theology that have absolutely nothing to do with the heart of the gospel, instead of wasting your energy chasing this thing and that thing, he says, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.

Now, godliness is the ability, listen to this, godliness is the ability to give to God what he deserves in every given situation. What does God deserve in the midst of trials? What does God deserve when your child rebels against you? What does God deserve when your mate abandoned you? What does God deserve when you lose your job or lose all your money? What does God deserve?

That's the question. That is what godliness is. And he says you are to discipline yourself.

Now, discipline yourself means that there's a regimen of life that you follow in order to be able to live a godly life in all the circumstances of life. He says because bodily discipline is only of little profit. It is profitable, but it's of little profit on the larger scale of things, but godliness is profitable for all things since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. Dallas Willard in his little book, The Spirit of the Disciplines in a chapter that's entitled The Secret of the Easy Yoke. It's about what is this easy yoke that Jesus calls us to?

Now, you know what a yoke is in that context. All you that are weary and have a laden come unto me and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, learn of me. You'll find rest in me because my yoke is easy. My yoke is easy. What does that mean?

When you yoke up with Jesus Christ and you pull alongside of Jesus Christ, how could it be easy? Well, Dillard is dealing with that and he said, Willard, I'm sorry, Dallas Willard says, Asking ourselves, what would Jesus do when suddenly in the face of an important situation simply is not an adequate discipline or preparation to enable one to live as Jesus lived? It's no doubt we'll be some good and it's certainly better than nothing at all, but that act alone is not sufficient to see us boldly and confidently through the crisis and we could easily find ourselves driven to despair over the powerless tension it will put us through. The secret of the easy yoke then is to learn from Christ how to live our total lives, how to invest all our time, all our energies of mind and body as he did. We must learn how to follow his preparations, the disciplines for life and God's rule that enabled him to receive his Father's constant and effective support while doing his will. We have to discover how to enter into his disciplines from where we stand today and no doubt how to extend and amplify them to suit our needy cases.

When I read to you this morning from Luke chapter 6 which is another form probably of the sermon on the Mount, when you hear those words, I'll guarantee every one of you they just they roll off your back because they're so radical, give to everyone who asks of you, lend and don't expect anything in return, are you kidding? Is Jesus kidding? You mean he wants that kind of people? That's the kind of people he's shaping, people that are loyal and committed and faithful and merciful, who willing to lay down their life, who can love the worst sinner. Is that the kind of people Jesus is creating? Some people think Jesus is creating the kind of people who manage by condemnation.

The way they manage life is they condemn everybody because they see what's wrong with you and as soon as they figure out what's wrong with you then they feel superior to you and they feel like they're still in control. There's a lot of Christian living like that but when you read the words of Jesus Christ what he has called us to it's so radical, some have called it the upside down kingdom who can live like this, only people who are being transformed into the image of Christ and the process is never completed. In other words nobody's going to be able to live like this to any degree unless we are being shaped through discipleship with Jesus Christ. If our inner life is not being transformed into the inner life of Jesus Christ, if we are not beginning to be more like him in our lives we cannot live like this and so don't be surprised. Don't be surprised but you know what Jesus wants. He wants people who are the kind of people who would do exactly what he commands with great delight.

Now the good news of that don't feel depressed. The good news of that is that's exactly what Jesus is up to in our lives. That's what he's wanting to produce in us. That's what he is available to produce in us but we can't live a life that's simply reactive. We have to live a life that's proactive. We have to prepare ourselves, discipline ourselves for godliness.

Now we've seen in chapter 5 a lot of wonderful truth. We have been justified. We have peace with God. We have the love of God in our hearts. We have hope. In fact in this context in Romans chapter 5 we have two tenses of salvation emphasized so far past and future.

We have been justified in the past and we have hope of being saved from the wrath of God in the future. It's wonderful truth. The New Testament teaching is this. The believers acceptance of salvation is absolute and final. Yes, we believe in eternal security, maybe better, the perseverance of the saints. We believe that God saves for eternity when He saves.

It's final. We also see in scripture that salvation is not incomplete until the body is redeemed and glorified. Romans chapter 8 tells us on that day we'll have the redemption of our bodies. Salvation will be completed. We look forward to that. We look forward to Christ saving us from the day of wrath that's coming upon this world.

The Bible also says that both these are through Christ. We were justified through His blood. We shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. Christ is the key and we call this. The Bible doesn't call it this but well the Bible does call it this.

Now we are the children of God but it does not yet appear what we shall be. That's the already not yet phase of salvation that we are in right now. We have been saved. We shall be saved in the future.

But what about today? That's what Paul is going to deal with in the text that we're going to look at this morning. It has to do with our lives today. How do we experience salvation today? Today. Look with me.

Romans chapter 5 verse 9, much more than having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. Because if while we were in enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be in the future. At the last day, be saved by His life.

But then notice verse 11 and not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now today received the reconciliation. Now Paul lays down alongside these other truths about our past salvation, our future salvation. He lays down this soul satisfying present tense of salvation. Coming to Christ, there is a promise in coming to Christ that you will experience salvation every day through faith, through the work of Christ. Just as we have been given justification by faith in Christ in the past and just as we hope, we will be saved and that hope is firm and sure that we're going to be saved from the wrath of God in the future so we can taste the sweetness of salvation each and every day in between His this day that we were justified in the day that we shall be glorified. So you've been in the faith for a long time.

My mother is 83 years old. She's been in the faith. She's been a believer since she was eight years old. So what is that? 75 years? 75 years in the faith. I was talking to the other day. She's going through some health problems and sometimes she just can't even get out and she was really broke down as she was telling me this.

Just tears of joy about how God has shows her in these days, these present days that she's in, that the glory of His presence can be experienced in a little studio apartment when she can't even get out in the sunlight. That His presence is so overwhelming that all she can do is weep with joy at this God who has come to walk with her throughout all of her journey. Well, I want to do this morning in looking at this text first. Let's compare these two words. I want us to see the distinction and see the implications of what it means to be reconciled to God today tomorrow next week and next month and next year. Justified is a legal term.

It's legal language. It's courtroom language. It has to do with one being declared accepted and treated as righteous by a court or a judge. We have been justified. God is declared as righteous. We have a right standing before Almighty God.

The righteous law giver and judge of the universe has declared as righteous through our faith in Jesus Christ. But in verse 10 we have this new word introduced. We were reconciled. This is relational language. This means that the enmity between two persons has been removed. Do you have any people in your life with which you are alienated because there is an offense and because there is enmity between you?

Well, the only way that there can be reconciliation of persons is there has to be the removal of the enmity. A relationship restored. A person enjoyed. That's what reconciliation is about. Reconciliation is not about your legal standing. It's about your personal relationship with a holy God, a righteous God.

We have reconciliation. Now interestingly, when you read about the religions of this world, you'll discover that reconciliation and this kind of language isn't used in the great majority of religions of the world and the reason is is most religions do not think of a personal relationship with a deity. Christianity is about a relationship with a father through the work of his son. There are two moments in reconciliation. The first moment is the accomplishment of it.

Second Corinthians 5. 19 Paul says God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not counting their trespasses, their offenses against them. He's reconciled. God was reconciling the world in Christ and then the acceptance of it.

Second Corinthians 5.20, he says, Paul, the same writer just written this, says, we beg you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God. There has to be an acceptance of it if we are to experience it. Now notice this, this provision of reconciliation was why we were enemies. I want to ask you something. Who was angry? Who was angry?

Well, the Puritans emphasize the fact that God was angry. Today, that doesn't even cross most people's minds. God angry? No, we're mad at God, right? We're angry at God. We need to be reconciled.

That's the way most people think because we think of God a lot of times as a codependent who wouldn't dare be angry at you. God angry at people? Well, we began the book that way, didn't we? The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. God is mad. Yes, God is angry with sin.

God is angry with sinners. The Christ has reconciled the world. God has reconciled the world through Christ by not counting those against us. There's actually an amnesty period going on. It's an amazing thing that God isn't treating the world as His enemy, though we obviously are. God is the one, along with us, that has enmity.

An example of this in Matthew 5, 24, Jesus says, you don't turn there. Jesus says to them, if you go to offer your offering at the altar and there, you remember that you have a brother that has something against you. Your brother has something against you. He's offended by something you've done. Go and be reconciled to Him.

Now, what I'm getting at is this. We have been reconciled to God not because it's just our enmity against God, but it also includes the fact that God had an enmity against us, against our rebellion, against our insurrection, against our unwillingness to bow the knee. Our enmity in Colossians 1, 21 says it says there that we were enemies of God, hostile, committing evil deeds against Him. He's reconciled us.

But God is also angry. God has an enmity. God had an enmity against us. We're told in Romans 1 that we see this demonstrated even today. How is that demonstrated?

Well, He tells us in Romans 118, it's demonstrated in the fact that God is allowing us to become more and more sinful. It's true, we really are. The world is becoming ripe for judgment as the Bible puts it. Ripe for judgment.

And so God displays His wrath the day against sin by allowing sinners to become more and more sinful in this world. So when the day of judgment comes, the cup will be full, Paul says, and He'll pour out His wrath upon this earth. So bring thoughts. This is what makes this work of reconciliation so wonderful. The culmination of God's wrath in Romans 25, the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. When the day comes, the amnesty is over.

The cease fires over and God pours out His judgment upon this world. You know, we tend not to preach the gospel that way anymore. That's the apostolic way of preaching the gospel. That's what the New Testament, that's what the book of Acts tells us. God is angry with sin and there's a day of judgment coming. And if you want to be delivered on that day, there's only one person in the universe who can deliver you from that day of judgment.

There's no other name, no other name, only one person who can deliver you from the day of judgment. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ. But notice this, He says, and not only this in verse 11, not only this, He has talked about our exaltation. We have exalted back in the early part of this chapter in verse 2, we exalt in the hope of the glory of God. We exalt in the fact that God has taken rebels, those who had broken His laws, belittled His glory, neglected His fellowship, broken trust with His promises, rejected His right and authority to lead us. We are rebels and alienated, but long before we arrived on the scene, God had accomplished reconciliation in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The worst rebel you know, the most outrageous rebel that you know today wasn't even born, He wasn't even a thought in His parents' mind when God reconciled this world to Himself through Christ. He accomplished that reconciliation, but now He says, we have a new exaltation. This new exaltation has to do with this reconciliation. Verse 2, we exalt in the hope of the glory of God. We're going to be changed. We're going to enter into the presence of God.

Verse 3, we exalt intribulations because we know the pains of life are used by God to purify our faith so that we can actually experience and enjoy and have confidence in this day of salvation in the future. But now, He says something different, there is a new exaltation. And it's based upon a gift. Look at verse 11 again. Not only this, but we also exalt in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have received the reconciliation. The main point of this verse is that Christians exalt in God, that is we rejoice, we boast, we glory in God through Christ.

And notice this, He says, not only this, and that's just telling us there's an advance here. We exalt in the hope of the glory of God, we exalt in pain and tribulation, but now He says we're exalting in something even greater. In verse 11, the exaltation is no longer an exaltation in hope, but a present exaltation in God Himself. Do you see that? I don't want you to miss this. I don't want to say it in such a way that you don't get it.

Look at verse 11 again. This is an exaltation in something we have right now at this moment. It's God. We exalt in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have received the reconciliation.

Now this isn't, this isn't second blessing theology. This isn't a different stage of the Christian life that only the elite and the sold out have. This is for all of us, Christians. We Christians exalt in God. God is who we exalted.

Now this sheds light on something. What it sheds light on this is how do we receive this reconciliation? Notice that. He says we have received the reconciliation. We have received the reconciliation. How do you do that?

How do you receive the reconciliation? This reconciliation is for all who will receive it, but how do you receive it? How do you receive the reconciliation?

Well this says it is experiencing God. It's experiencing God as reconciled and friendly and personal and present and helpful and satisfying in all of life. Imagine that. That we receive the reconciliation by receiving the reconciled God. The gift of reconciliation with God is the gift of God reconciled. He's not angry with us.

He's not at war with us. We have received reconciliation and we have received by this faith in Christ we have received God. Receiving God reconciled. Have you ever lived in a house with a a mate who is angry with you? It's the most miserable thing in life, isn't it? Somebody that you're alienated with, the Bible says it's better to go live on a roof somewhere.

It's a horrible thing. Can you imagine living in a world with a God who's angry at you? Can you imagine walking around the face of this earth aware that God is angry with you? An angry God. We have a reconciled God through Christ. When you receive this reconciliation, you receive a God who is reconciled.

This is the stress of this text. It is receiving God reconciled. We have a God who's reconciled. That's the point of the first part of verse 11. We exalt in God. We exalt in this person who has been reconciled to us, who is not angry with us, who's been appeased by the glorious work of propitiation.

This isn't just the hope and the glory of God in the future. It is not the tribulations that strengthen us so that we'll arrive at that day, but it is we exalt in God now. The satisfying person is God. You remember, ladies, when you first got married, you anticipated that wedding day, and as you thought about it and you kept anticipating it and dreaming about it, wondering what was going to be like to be married to this man, to have this man in your life. God gave you that man. You entered into covenant with him.

He came into your life and you exalted in this man. One of the most glorifying things in the body of Christ is women who are satisfied with their husband, who are content with their husband. That's one of the greatest testimonies to the grace of God, and the reality of the gospel of Jesus Christ is a Christian woman satisfied and content with her Christian husband. That's a glorious thing. Amen, right? Amen.

I'd have the men stand up and say, Amen, it's the truth. Well, we have something even better as believers. We have a God, a God who is entered into our life as a gift and he is reconciled. Some of you Christians live as though God is not reconciled. You live as though God is always, he's kind of like you. He's always finding out what's wrong with people.

Always looking into the flaws and shortcomings, trying to figure out what's wrong with this situation. What's wrong with this person? You have a God who's reconciled. Someone has said that God has more faith in you than you have in him and it's true because God has entrusted more to him than you've entrusted more to you than you've entrusted to him. It's an amazing thing. God proves his love for you.

He demonstrates his love for you on the cross. You think, why does he do that? I should be demonstrating my love for God.

Well, you should. But this is a reconciled God that you have received by faith in Jesus Christ. Exalt in him.

Let me illustrate this. I've stolen this illustration from John Piper. He says somebody comes to you with a gift. Somebody that's very wise and powerful and loving and profound. He brings you a gift, a person that you know understands life. He brings you this beautiful gift that's wrapped perfectly and he gives it to you and he says, if you receive this gift, it will go well with you and you'll be satisfied and you will rejoice and you take the gift and you say, wow, look at this gift.

I've been given as been given to me by this person that I respect so highly and he says this gift, if I receive this gift, it will go well with me and I'll be satisfied and I will rejoice in life and it's wrapped so beautifully and so you take it and you feel better and then you take it up into the attic and you put it up on a shelf. You don't even want to ruin the wrapping and so you just put it there on the shelf and then you begin to live again and you think, wow, this is pretty neat, you know, this gift I've received. I do think I do think I feel a little bit better and you go along in life and then you hit some rough spots and once in a while you open the attic door and look and see in that gift still there and you remember he promised if you received this gift, life will go well with you and you rejoice and you'll have peace but you don't open the gift. Is that Christianity? No, that's not Christianity, that's magic. Christianity isn't God giving you a gift that you never unwrap.

He wants you to open the gift and delight in the gift. He wants you to exalt in the gift. Let's suppose that the gift was a box of light bulbs. I mean super light bulbs that last forever and you have a few light bulbs out and you go, oh thank you so much, it's just going to make my life so much better. I can have light in that back bedroom now and you go and you replace a few light bulbs, you take the box of light bulbs, you put it up in the attic and you go along and then every time you hit a spot where it gets dark in a room, the light goes out, you go, oh yes, the gift and you go and you pull one of those light bulbs out and you go and you screw it in and you go, wow, this is so great. You know that's how a lot of people live the Christian life.

That's how a lot of us live the Christian life. We don't know anything about exulting in the gift. All we see the gift is a means to accomplish certain things. We think of this gift as God doing stuff for us. God says, I want you to open the gift and I am the gift. The gift is me.

Exult in me, he says. Exult in a reconciled God. This is what Paul is getting at. We exult in God through Christ because Christ, it's through Christ that we have received this reconciliation. This is what the gift of reconciliation is. It's not God doing things for you but God offering you Himself and I want to ask you what difference does it make?

What difference does it make in your life? Do you exult in God? Do you know how to exult in God? Why did He give us this gift? To put up in the attic when we have a few problems made to plug these things in and get some solutions to our life? No, it's clear in this verse, very clear in this verse that why God gave us Himself reconciled is that we might exult in Him.

Not mainly in His gifts, not mainly in His benefits, but in Him, exult in Him. Well, then we need to be honest. How do you do this? How do you actually do this?

Well, He tells you right here in the verse through our Lord Jesus Christ. We receive reconciliation through Jesus Christ and we exult through Jesus Christ. In other words, Jesus Christ is the key to exulting in God.

Now, this is crucial that the agency of Christ is at the center of all this. We exult in God through Jesus Christ. We have received the reconciliation through Jesus Christ. It took nothing less than Christ coming into this world in order for us to exult in God. Exulting in God. There's two pieces to this.

First is that He Christ is the one who reveals the Father to us as the Father really is. All kinds of distorted goofy perceptions of who God is, but Jesus reveals to us who He really is. Christ has come into the world to reveal to us who He is. And 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verses 4 and then verse 6 Paul describes conversion in two different ways. Listen to this. In the first way in verse 4, He says, it's seeing the glory of Christ who is the image of God.

Conversion is the seeing the glory of Christ who is the image of God. But then in verse 6, He says, it is seeing the glory of God in the face of Christ, the personal presence of Christ. We have Christ who is the image of God and we have God in the face of Christ here. In other words, to exult in God, you exult in what you see of God in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But where do you find that? Well, you find it in His Word. God has revealed Himself in Christ. You want exult in God that you have to discover who He is and you can only discover who He is through Christ. Imagine this that 2,000 years ago the Son of God left the third heaven, a throne of glory. He laid aside His glory, the free manifestation of His deity and He comes and He puts on, takes on the form of a servant and takes on a humanity so that we can see God in the flesh.

Jesus put a face on God. If you want to know who God is, then you discover who Christ has revealed to be in the Word of God. And the Spirit of God takes His Word and He opens your eyes and your heart begins to be filled. This is what Romans chapter 5, 5 is talking about. The Spirit of God takes His Word and He gushes forth in your heart, the love of God. You begin to understand who God is by looking at Jesus Christ.

But there's another step and the second step is this. Jesus Christ is the one who trains us to exult in the Father. No one knows how to exult in God like Jesus Christ. This is what discipleship is. I want you to notice something. Here's the essence of discipleship.

They probably never thought this verse tied to discipleship, but it is. This is a picture. It's a negative picture, actually. Because in the context, he describes a lifestyle of the Gentiles. Those have no connection with God through Christ and they live like this and he describes it, kind of like normal life on the streets of America today. And then he says, but you did not learn Christ in this way.

If indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him just as the truth is in Jesus. How many of the people who attended the church at Ephesus had ever seen Jesus Christ with their physical eyes? Zero. None of them. And yet what he says happened to them was they learned Christ. They were taught by Christ, the truth that is in Jesus.

Discipleship. Discipleship is learning from Christ. Somebody has called this the great omission of the great commission and teach them to observe all that I have commanded you. Teach them how to obey me. How can we learn how to obey His command? He says to you, when somebody curses you, you bless them.

How in the world do you learn how to do that? By learning from Christ, by being yoked with Christ, by becoming like Christ. How did Christ learn how to exalt in the Father? And you go, learn? He's from all eternity. He's been with the Father, but he took on a real humanity.

And remember Romans 8, 3 says that he came in the likeness of sinful rebellious flesh. Now, I believe in the impeccability of Christ, but that verse says he came in the likeness of sinful flesh. And he brought his humanity before the Father and lived before the Father in such a way that he exalted in God. How did he do it? Will have you ever paid attention? Have you ever looked really close at how Jesus did it?

Have you ever looked at the disciplines of His life? Have you ever seen what Jesus actually did in living before the Father? Well, he did things, for example, big decision. You got a big decision tomorrow. You face a big decision tomorrow? What would Jesus, what did Jesus do when he faced a big decision?

Well, he spent the whole night in prayer. This past week, I was talking to somebody who's having a real struggle, and we were talking about his Christian life, and somebody out of the area. And so, a particular problem that I said, I was talking about this whole thing of growing as a disciple of Christ, being equipped to face these kinds of challenges that he's facing. There's no shortcuts. You've got to discipline for it. If you want to be a world-class runner, the only way to do it is to discipline yourself, to train.

The only way to be a godly person is to train. The only way to live a life of godliness is to train. If you don't think that's true, then just be honest with each other today. Let's get in some small groups and let's start telling each other the truth about our lives. Those of you who are in bondage to various kinds of sins of the flesh, just be honest about it. And then let's think this through.

Why? Why is this true? Why are we riddled with this? Why is there so much fleshliness in our lives? Why is it we can't give up things of the flesh in order to grow in Christ? It's because we don't discipline ourselves to godliness.

It's not because you're not saved. It's not because Christ didn't die for your sins. It's not because you're going to be safe in the final day of judgment. It's because we're not disciplining ourselves. For godliness. Maybe you're disciplining yourself for something else.

You know, I've been trying to play the guitar for a long, long time, bang on a guitar, you know, Bible studies, things like that. But I've never learned how to play the guitar well. And there's only one reason. And that is I don't discipline myself to do it. I know they just sit down and drive my wife nuts with what I'm playing on the guitar. And a lot of Christians like that.

And then when the trial comes, when the challenge comes, they fall flat on their face and they end up in a scandalous life. You know what scandalous means? It comes from the Greek word scondolan, and it means a stumbling block. A stumbling block. It scares me to death. The Apostle Paul says, I fear that after teaching others, I myself might become disapproved.

And so I buffet my body. I discipline myself for godliness. Discipline myself for godliness. Discipleship is the primary work of the church. Look at the goal of discipleship. A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained.

In other words, when the process is completed, he will be like his teacher. Who is that? Well, in our case, it's Jesus Christ. You want to be a person who lives a godly life? Then be trained by Jesus Christ. He'll teach you how to pray.

He's unveiled to you in his word, how he prayed. We have the eyewitness accounts. We have the eyewitness accounts of him who often went apart by himself and spent hours in prayer. We have the account and scripture of a man who was drenched in the word of God. The reason that Jesus could quote from anywhere in the Old Testament wasn't because he was God. It was because he was a man who disciplined himself for godliness.

Jesus didn't cheat. He didn't get to a place. He couldn't remember something, so he just turns the switch and brings in his deity and all of a sudden he remembers the entire Old Testament. He was in the word. He was in prayer. He spent time alone.

He took seriously this walk of godliness because he exalted in God. Being a disciple fully trained to be like Christ means not that you can raise a dead and walk on water. You never will.

Well, until we get to heaven, I guess, and then we come back to earth, maybe you will be able to walk on water. I have no idea, but you won't in this life. But what it means to be discipled by Jesus Christ to be like your master is to have your inner life conformed to the inner life of Jesus Christ. So that when you read these things in the Sermon on the Mount, instead of saying, that can't be for this time, there's no way that Matthew 5 through 7, Luke 6 can be for us. That's got to be for another time.

Well, I just challenge you what time is it? Where? You see, the reason that stuff sounds so outlandish is we have such a long ways to go. Imagine coming to the place where you exalted in God so much that your material possessions would mean so little to you that all the energy you spend in protecting them would no longer be a big deal. When people came to you, you would be able to deal with them in a way that you wouldn't be afraid and you were going to give away the store. You'd be like Jesus.

He was never threatened by needs. When people came to him, he understood that God, his father, had unlimited resources. And if he wanted to use him to dispense the grace of God into that life, it didn't fill him with fear. He wasn't afraid to make commitments. Some Christians are afraid to commit to anything in Christian service. It amazes me.

We get to the place where you have to sign people up. Well, would you be willing to serve every fifth Sunday of the month? Or would you be willing to serve for 10 minutes right before class just to be standing there so nobody steals one of these kids? It drives me nuts. And the only answer is we've got to be disciplined for godliness. That's got to be more important to us than all this other stuff.

I know we're rich and wealthy. We have so many wonderful things. And I love computers and PDAs and I love the home I live in. I'm rich.

But it's not going to bring any eternal satisfaction. Is it? The only thing that matters is the life of godliness. That I have to be willing to put it all into the hands of Christ, the hands of God. And I can't do that. I'm not that kind of person.

I'm too stingy. I'm too parsimonious. I'm too careful. Too conservative. Too fearful.

And so what's the solution? I got to be changed. I need to be changed into a different person. Don't you? Don't you? We need to be changed.

How are we going to be changed? It isn't a second blessing. It's not zapped theology. I got this blessing. I'm going to pray on you and the spirit's going to slay you down on your right side and you're going to be a changed person dedicated commitment. You're never going to again have a fight in the Christian life.

What a bunch of baloney. The only way you're going to change is through discipleship. The only way you're going to change is through disciplining yourself for godliness.

Let me just ask you. Let me be blunt. Please take this to heart. I started to say something while I go about this conversation with this man. I finally said to him, well, let me just ask you something. Describe to me what your Christian life is like.

And he goes, well, what do you mean? I say, well, just kind of describe me. What's the flavor of your Christian life? How do you live? He goes, well, if you mean do I pray and read the Bible every day, no. I said, do you go to church? No.

Do you think he needs medication? Do you think he needs a psychologist? Do you think maybe he's got some kind of chemical imbalance? Or maybe it's just the fact that he's not disciplining himself to godliness. Is it possible? Sorry.

Discipline involves the discipleship involves the disciplines. You got to discipline yourself to godliness. Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing. Dallas Willard says, he could have also said, if you do nothing, it's going to be without me. I remember I was in a church, years ago in a Pentecostal church, a kid in this pastor used to say, the Holy Spirit came to church today. If you didn't come to church, then he left you and came on to church.

You're there by yourself. Well, I don't believe that. I believe when you stay home or you don't participate in the life of the fellowship or you don't do what you ought to do, the Spirit of God's right there. I know he is because he is there grieving in you and working on you, isn't he? Not only did God purchase our reconciliation through the death of Lord Jesus, not only did he enable us to receive this reconciliation that is to receive a reconciled god. Jesus did this for us, but he says here that we exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Think of this. Jesus paid his life's blood for our reconciliation. It cost him everything to bring this reality into your life, to give you this gift. You've been given a gift. You've been given God. God has come to live within you, a reconciled god.

Do you know him? Do you talk to him? Do you spend any time with him? Do you know how to exult in God? Are you disciplining yourself or godliness? Do you discipline yourself in your prayer life?

In the Word, you need to. I need to. I need to change. Man, I want to change. I want this decade of my life. This may be the last decade of my life.

I want this decade of my life to be spent being transformed by the power of Jesus and I know it's only going to come through the disciplines of discipleship. No other way. The reason I'm so exercised is because I'm so disgusted and seeing Christians come into places in their life where they fall flat on their face and it says though they hadn't grown an inch and I know they have and I can't figure out what is going on here. I know what's going on. I know what's going on. It's we play games with God.

We don't open the package. We put him on the shelf and when we need him in a very dark hour we run and try to discover something from him to help us at the moment. We are reactive. I want you to be proactive and I know you're not as bad as I'm saying but I really do want us to grow. You know if we don't produce disciples in this church let's just shut the doors. What's the big deal?

So we can get to two, three, five, 10,000 people. What's the difference? Build a building and do all those things. If we're not making disciples, this is garbage, right? It doesn't mean a thing. If we're not making disciples.

If we're not becoming disciples of Jesus Christ, we're going to sing one song but I want to pray as they come for you. Father, I thank you that you stir us. You shake us when we need to be shaken. I confess to you my own sin and lethargy. God, I don't want to become a castaway. I don't want to become disapproved.

I want to walk in holiness and I know the only way I can walk in holiness is if I discipline myself for godliness and I know it's true of every single one of us. So we pray, Father, that you would work in our hearts. That you would take the word itself, not not my haranging but the word of God and use it to cut deep into our hearts. May it be like a sword, a two-edged sword that pierces to the dividing of the sun, of the soul and spirit. You get down to the real issues of our life. Lay us bare before you, the one to whom we must give an account.

That when we stand before you on that day, we will hear you say, well done, now good and faithful servant. We long to hear those words, Father. So we pray to help us to discipline ourselves and prepare ourselves. So we will hear those words in Christ's name. Amen.