Means of Grace
The Company We Keep, prt. 6
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
June 6, 2009
2 Peter 3:18 (NIV)
18 …grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.
Have you ever been told to do something, but then felt like you weren’t told how to do it? Or have you ever been told to do something, but then you weren’t given the tools for getting it done? We’ve been talking about spiritual formation – learning to live our lives the way Jesus would live them if he were us. And I’ve taught you about the difference between training and trying. Remember – when you try you just go out and put in a lot of effort and hope that’s enough. When you train you enter into a lifestyle consisting of practices (disciplines, or habits) that will enable you eventually to do what all the trying in the world will not help you to do.
How many of you have heard of the phrase, “The end justifies the means.” Of course that means that if something turns out well, it doesn’t really matter how you went about doing it. For example, if you get information from a criminal about a terrorist attack using torture, then some might say the end (getting the information) justified the means (using torture) – that you got the result you wanted so it doesn’t really matter how you got it.
Well, as strange as it seems I want to talk to you about means today. Means. Not mathematical means. Not meanings. But means. How you go about doing something. There’s nothing worse than being given something to do, but then not being given the means to do it – that is, not getting the proper tools, the proper instructions, and the proper methods. We are told in our text for tonight to “grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ.” Okay, how do I do that? We see that the Bible tells us to grow, but doesn’t actually tell us how. Ever notice that? What’s up with that?
Well what’s up is that the “how” was handed down in the early church. They were told what to do, and they knew the “means” (the how) to do it. It’s not spelled out clearly in scripture because it was part of the community of the church. If you attended a Christian church, it was taught to you and passed on to you. Today that is no longer the case. We assume today that people who are using these “means,” these “spiritual disciplines” are an elite class of super-Christians. Somewhere we came to think it’s just about praying and reading your Bible and those who go beyond that are in a special class.
But this isn’t true. We are told to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ. But we’re not told how. Christ tells us to come with him and learn from him how to live the life God calls us to. But we’re not told how. And the traditional method of prayer and Bible reading that is such a hallowed formula for knowing God? You won’t find that mentioned anywhere in the New Testament. There’s no mention of a daily quiet time as we know it today. This is critical for us to understand. You won’t be able to pay serious attention to anything I’m saying if you think you already know what to do. Please hear me. If you are under the impression that Paul’s command to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ means to have a daily quiet time, do daily “devotions,” or something like that, that is a mistaken impression. Now I will show you how those things fit nicely into the overall picture, but that’s not what Paul is talking about and those things are only pieces (though very important pieces) of the whole.
So today we’re going to talk today about the “means” of grace. I have already defined the word “means.” Let’s define grace and once that’s done you will easily understand the phrase “means of grace.” Grace is God working in my life. That’s grace. Grace isn’t just “being saved,” or “not going to hell,” or anything like that. Grace is God working in my life. So when I talk about the “means of grace,” what I’m talking about is things you can do that will allow God to work in your life, or “how” God works in your life.
Let’s give a practical example. Let’s say we weren’t talking about the means of grace, but the means of training for a marathon. What would the means be? One means would be endurance training – pushing yourself consistently to run farther and farther. Another would be running what are called “fartleks” – exercises that increase your speed. Another would be cadence drills, which help you increase the number of steps you are taking per mile, which conditions your legs and feet to work together better. Another means would probably be a little bit of hill training. Another means would be your diet. Another would be getting plenty of rest. These are all means of training for a marathon – in other words, ways that you go about doing it.
What would be some means of learning to play the piano? Well, you’d learn your notes. You’d learn time signatures and key signatures. You’d begin working on exercises to improve the strength and dexterity of both of your hands, such as scales and arpeggios. Those are the means of learning to play the piano – it’s how you learn to play.
Well, there are means of grace. There are ways of receiving God’s grace into your life. Did you know that God’s grace in your life will be limited unless you practice means of receiving it? God cannot give you what you will not accept. Or what you cannot accept.
Now if grace is God working in your life, then how much life should a Christian want to live without grace? As I said, we often think of grace as just being the thing that saves sinners from hell, but the fact is that saints use more grace than anyone. In the words of Dallas Willard, saints burn grace like a 747 burns jet fuel. They live off it. They are constantly relying on God and on his eternal resources for living their lives. They do less and less everyday in their own strength and more and more in the strength of God. In other words, they are receiving more and more of God’s grace. Saints are like this huge open-mouth bowl, that has this massive opening in it, and grace can just pour in freely from almost any angle in quantities both large and small.
But unfortunately that’s not the everyday Christian experience. Most Christians are like this medicine dropper. It’s tiny and has a very small opening and it quickly fills up and therefore it quickly empties out. The great saints are those who have found ways to enlarge their capacity to live in God’s grace.
If you are going to learn to experience and reflect the perfect love of God, you must be practicing the means of grace – training activities you can do now that will eventually enable you to do what you cannot do simply by trying. Now I want to be careful in this next section because not for a moment do I want to sound like I am tooting my own horn. As I teach you more and more about this, you will understand this in a broader context, but for now I’m going to go out on a limb and share this with you.
A few months ago I was struggling mightily with something and had asked a few friends for advice. One of them responded this way:
I am so glad you continually seek God’s direction and wisdom. I appreciate your ability to let things roll off your back when I know they hurt your heart. I wish I could be more like that.
What I really wanted to let this person know, but I didn’t know how to without appearing obnoxious or pushy so I didn’t say anything, is that they CAN be more like that. That is precisely the kind of transformation we can EXPECT as we grow in grace! I wish I could be more like that. That is the cry of so many hearts in this room tonight. I wish I could love my enemies (people who seem to keep you from getting what you want). I wish I could forgive. I wish I could control my temper. I wish I could still love people when they have hurt me. Those do not have to remain wishes – they can happen! But only as we practice the means of grace and grow in grace. This person caught me at a good time. Sometimes I am able to move into the place where God would have me be. Sometimes I am not, or it takes a long time.
What I’m trying to tell you is that growing in grace gives you power you would not otherwise have. We’re talking here about power. Watch this.
Projectionist: [Roll clip of Luke Skywalker trying to lift X-Wing Fighter from the bog. End it after Yoda says, “That is why you fail.”]
We must understand this spiritual thing is about power – developing powers you do not currently have. The means of grace are the specific ways you develop those powers. There’s nothing strange or mystical about this. When you were an infant you could not crawl or walk, therefore you were unable to really exercise power over the floor. As you learned to crawl and then walk, you were able to exercise power over the floor. You did this as your leg and back muscles developed. But you still could not feed yourself. Eventually you developed the power to do that, as your finger dexterity improved. Later on you developed power to communicate – to talk and express what was on your mind. Development in all of life is the story of acquiring powers.
But acquiring power always takes time and effort. Loving your enemies requires power many of us don’t have. If we are ever to love our enemies, we’ll have to acquire some new powers, and it will be amazing as we see ourselves growing into this new power. Forgiving requires power we often do not have and it will be amazing to us to see this power developing. Loving those who have hurt us requires a kind of power. No one was ever more powerful than Jesus as he prayed God’s mercy on those who were killing him. You and I simply would not have the power to do that. But as you practice the means of grace, God will transform you so that you are increasingly living in a power that is not your own – the power of God. And as you learn to live in God’s power, you will increasingly find yourself able to accomplish the kinds of things that only God’s power is able to accomplish.
Often we think of the word power and we think about the forces of nature, or genies, or wizards. Get that stuff out of your mind. As you learn and begin to practice spiritual disciplines (the “means of grace,”) God’s power will work right into your life, so much so that if you aren’t looking you might miss it. It would be really easy for me to take for granted that in the case I mentioned earlier I was able to continue to love people who had hurt me. But years ago I did not have that power – not even occasionally. Through application of the means of grace, through the practice of spiritual disciplines that increasingly help me to receive more and more of God’s grace, and thus more and more of his powerful activity in my life, I was able to do what I could not do before. I could tell you similar stories about forgiveness and other qualities that I am seeing spring to life in me that I know are not anything in me but simply the working of God’s power in my life. And you won’t understand sometimes that this is happening.
Philippians 4:6-7 (MSG)
6 Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns.
7 Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.
Look at those four words there – before you know it. It will happen in ways that you won’t understand, and in ways that you might not even instantly identify as being God. It will simply feel natural – like a part of you. Because it will be. That’s how God works. When God is working, and you are working in his power, you will not make efforts to obey him – you’ll just find yourself doing it. Someone will give you credit for it and you’ll think, “What else could I have done,” while most people around you think that what you did was extraordinary.
So the means of grace are activities you can set about doing that will increase your capacity to receive God’s grace – to allow God to work in your life. As you grow in the ability to allow God to work in your life, you will increasingly find yourself doing what Jesus would do if he were living your life. So I can simplify this by saying that the means of grace are activities that will help you, over time, become like Jesus.
Now the means of grace typically fall into two categories, and the two categories are based on the two great problems that plague us in human life when it comes to knowing God. The first great problem in knowing God is that we are attached to stuff that keeps us away from God. It might be sin, or maybe just distractions, but we’re attached to stuff that keeps us from God. Examples of stuff that keeps us away from God might be materialism, busyness, the need for approval and control, and other things. The second great problem is that we are NOT attached to things that would draw us toward God. Examples might be communication with him, worship of him, celebration of his goodness, and other things. So those are the two great problems in life when it comes to knowing God.
So the spiritual disciplines (habits, practices, “means of grace”) fall naturally into these two categories. The first category of disciplines is called disciplines of withdrawal. Disciplines of withdrawal help us break our attachment to things that keep us away from God. So the discipline of silence helps us break our attachment to talking and noise. The discipline of solitude helps us break our attachment to having others around us all the time so we can listen to our own souls. The disciplines of simplicity helps us break our attachment to material things. The discipline of fasting helps us break our attachment to needing to feel comfortable all the time. And so on and so forth. The second category of disciplines is called disciplines of engagement. Disciplines of engagement help us to start forming attachments to things that draw us toward God and help us know him better. These would include things like prayer, worship, generosity, and celebration.
Again, disciplines of withdrawal are where we intentionally withdraw from stuff that tends to separate us from God. Disciplines of engagement are where we intentionally engage in practices that bring us closer to God.
Now there’s nothing strange or exceptional about these practices at all. Using our running metaphor, a person training for a big race practices disciplines of both engagement and withdrawal. They withdraw from sugars and fats and probably TV to a large extent. They engage in practices like stretching and running and probably some reading and some research on the race. They have to move away from stuff that puts distance between them and the goal and move toward stuff that will help them reach the goal.
This is what we must do as Christ followers. We have to move away from stuff that puts distance between us and God, and move toward stuff that will help us reach God. I want to close with explaining to you why you can be a Christian in the United States for forty years and never hear a word about the means of grace. It’s because of a misunderstanding of this scripture:
Ephesians 2:8 (MSG)
8 Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish!
Entire branches of theology developed that said, “God saves and only God – there’s nothing we can do to save ourselves, therefore every effort we make is sin – an attempt to do what only God can do.” Now since God does it and only God, and we have nothing to do with it, then we just pray the “sinners prayer,” ask God to forgive our sins, and then BOOM! It’s done. Just like that. It’s like magic. Only then we can’t understand why we’re not actually changing and becoming more like Jesus. The reason we don’t change when we do it this way is because this is never how Jesus intended for us to do it. It’s not even how JESUS did it. The means of grace – the spiritual disciplines – are things that Jesus himself practiced in his own life on a regular basis. If Jesus needed to practice them, might we need to as well? Sure God saves us and only God, but God has arranged the world so that we must work in cooperation with him if he is to accomplish his work in us. That’s how it goes at every level of spiritual development!
I want to close with this. Grace is not opposed to effort. God’s grace is not opposed to our efforts. We will have to make efforts to break our attachments to things that keep us from God and to develop attachments to things that help us to be close to God. We will have to make efforts to avoid sin. So there’s nothing in God’s grace that is opposed to our efforts. Grace is not opposed to effort, grace is opposed to earning.
And so we are left with “means” of grace. Spiritual disciplines. Spiritual habits. Spiritual practices. WAYS of allowing God’s grace into our lives, which is our only hope for real transformation and escaping the slavery to sin, which comes from our own misdirected desires.
James 1:14 (NIV)
14 but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.
The means of grace work at the level of reshaping what we desire so that in those critical moments of choice, we desire less and less to do evil and desire more and more to do good. And when someone assaults me verbally and my genuine desire is to love and forgive him, then that is what I do! That is freedom! So the means of grace are things we can do right now that will help us eventually do what we cannot currently do – live free of anger, of pride, of pushiness and the need to control outcomes, etc.
I have talked to you about your vision for changing. Can you imagine living free of all the things that currently drag you down and dog you all the time? I talked to you about your intentions. If you have the vision for change, is it your intention to actually do so and are you willing to structure your life accordingly? Today we talked about the means – the way transformation actually happens. Next week I want to talk to you about why we need the means of grace. Will you go into next week with me praying and expecting that God will meet us as we open ourselves to his grace?
