Conducting a Spiritual Audit-2

I want to read from 2 Peter chapter 1, beginning at verse 1. Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, may grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. But also, for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For he who lacks these things is shortsighted even to blindness and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things, you will never stumble, for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For this reason, I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth. Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me.

Moreover, I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease. Well, as you perhaps are aware, I was unable to preach last Sunday night. My recovery from COVID, I took a step or two backwards last week and was not able to fulfill my pulpit assignment. Pastor Latour filled in admirably for me, and I'm thankful for that.

But I've had a good week, and my strength is back, and I think I am 85-90% recovered. So I want to return to the subject that I treated on January the 3rd. If you recall, we gathered here and we considered the subject of a spiritual audit. I walked you through some disciplines, and we conducted a spiritual audit, and we did not finish that, and I think it's good at the beginning of this 2021 that we finish that. Pause and think through these things.

Businesses do inventory and have audits, and it's helpful for us to just think through these things. And I read this passage this evening, and it is not my intention to preach expositionally from this. If you want a great exposition from it, Dr. Jim Oreck preached from this passage when he was with us at the Fall Bible Conference. I would highly recommend you go back and listen to that sermon.

But I did want to draw your attention to what Peter is saying here. He is putting stress on the believer's responsibility in his Christian development. He talks about what God has done for us, and then he says, give all diligence and add to your faith, and here are a number of things that we are to be working at. And then he says, verse 10, therefore, brethren, be even more diligent.

So he's talking about laboring, he's talking about being diligent to make your call on election sure. If you do these things, there's emphasis on what we're to be doing. Not what God has done, but what we are to be doing. If you do these things, what things?

Add to your faith, virtue and knowledge and kindness and so on. And then Peter says, three times in just a couple of verses after that, gives an explanation why he's stressing this. He says, for this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth.

Yes, I think it is right, as long as I'm in this tent to stir you up by reminding you. And then he closes there in verse 15, I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease. And the question is, why this repeated emphasis on being reminded of these things? It's not enough for us just to hear it one time that we don't need to address it or be reminded of it again, but over and over and over and over again, why is that?

Well, it's because of the nature of the Christian life. We believe in progressive sanctification. That is, that from the time of regeneration being born again, we undergo a process of change. The Spirit of God working with the Word of God is committed to changing us, forming us from one degree of glory to the next. And because that is a lifelong process, it will go on as long as we're on this earth.

We'll have to continue to grow at this. That's the nature of the Christian life. The Christian life is a nature of growth, of progressive changing and being sanctified. It's God's way.

Little by little, little by little, over a lifetime. And it's good to be reminded that the goal of the Christian life is progress. Progress, not perfection.

So, my point tonight is not for you to dwell on your failures. My point this evening is to ask you to be open to the Spirit of God and help you identify those areas where you need to accelerate and participate and yield to God and grow in particular areas. So, we're all at a different place. We're all maturing, we're all growing, we're all being changed from one degree of glory to the other. Some of us are back here, some of us here, some of us are here.

And it's easy to be back here and wish we were up here. And it's good to have a desire to grow. But, God is committed to our development. And the point is to think about our trajectory.

It really does not matter. The goal is out there. It's Christ's likeness. It's full glorification.

It's full sanctification. And wherever we are in relationship to that, we know that God is committed if we are a genuine believer to our ultimate sanctification, our ultimate glorification. So, as long as we're moving in that direction, that's the encouragement that we need to find. Now, here's a hymn that we have not sung for a long time, but it speaks to this issue of growth.

And listen to it, if you would. I asked the Lord that I might grow. Well, that's a good thing. It's God who puts a desire in our hearts to grow and to develop and to become more Christ-like. So, when we're asking the Lord that we might grow, that's a good thing. I asked the Lord that I might grow in faith and love and every grace. Might more of His salvation know and seek more earnestly His face? Twas He who taught me thus to pray, and He I trust has answered prayer.

But it has been in such a way as almost drove me to despair. I hoped that in some favorite hour, at once, He'd answer my request. And by His love's constraining power, subdue my sins and give me rest. Instead of this, He made me feel the hidden evils of my heart. And let the angry powers of hell assault my soul in every part. Lord, why is this?

I trembled and cried. Wilt Thou pursue Thy worm to death? Tis in this way, the Lord replied, I answered prayer for grace and faith. The hymn writer is expressing a desire for God to subdue sins and bring Him into a place of spiritual development almost instantaneously.

Did you catch that? I hoped that in some favorite hour, at once, He'd answer my request. And by His love's constraining power, subdue my sins and give me rest. I want to be done with it, I want to be finished with it, and I want it now.

I thought He would do that. But no, the agonizing reality is that we have to know what's in our hearts. And it is a long, arduous process of rooting out sin, of rooting out the remaining Adamic remnant of our sins and being changed little by little from one degree of glory to the next. God could completely sanctify us in a moment if that's what He willed, if that was His intention.

And some think it is. Some think that progress is an instantaneous thing because you come to an altar and you receive a second work of grace that brings to an end your battle with sin and depravity. But if you study your Bible, you'll discover that that's a false teaching.

There is no such experience to be found. In fact, it has been my experience to those who have subscribed to that, that in order for them to continue on, they have to redefine sin. Well, I don't do these three or four things, and therefore God has delivered me from my struggle with sin. What about attitudes? What about pride? What about covetousness?

What about oh, oh, no. It is the nature of the Christian life that we are engaged by God in progressive sanctification. And God has many tools at His disposal to provoke and promote growth and development in our lives. And we talked two weeks ago about how God uses people, all kinds of people, to challenge us and to provoke us and promote growth in our lives. He uses people. He uses circumstances, favorable circumstances, unfavorable circumstances. All these things are at God's disposal. They're in His toolbox.

And He employs them and He uses them to do what? To see us grow and change and become more like the Lord Jesus Christ. But there's a significant responsibility that is laid upon us. We're to discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness.

We're to be diligent, to add to our faith. Those are things that God has commanded the believer, the Christian, to do. And if God commands us to do it, He's not going to do it for us. Now, God is at work in us, both to will and to do according to His good pleasure, but that does not remove our responsibility.

We're the ones who must exert the effort, the energy. We must be the ones working out our salvation with fear and trembling. I think we're a little gun-shy with this whole idea of work as it relates to the Christian life. And it's because we are confusing the place of work in the realm of the Christian life. The minute you introduce work and effort into justification, you've created problems. You can't work hard enough, you can't sweat hard, there's nothing you can do to be justified before God.

That's something God has got to do for you. So work, we're not interested in bringing work into that part of the paradigm. But work is very much a part of our responsibility as we live out our Christian lives upon this earth. So don't let anybody tell you, well, the Christian life is all of grace, it's all of God from A to Z beginning from... No, if you understand your Bible, there is significant responsibility that lies with us if we're going to make progress to the degree that God wants us to in our pilgrimage.

So we have responsibility and there's no getting around that. Now you remember, two weeks ago as we were conducting this spiritual audit, there were a number of questions that I asked you. There were, I think, eight areas and I think we looked at four or five of them. So in one sense, this message has broke up a little bit and there's two weeks that separate the two parts, but perhaps that's good because as I remind you of these areas that we covered two weeks ago, it'll cause you to think, have I done anything with that? Has the Spirit of God provoked me, caused me to do anything intentionally on purpose in that particular area?

Or did it just go in one ear and out the other? And I'm afraid that we are guilty too often of being hearers of the word and not doers. And we need to repent of that, we need to be mindful of that tendency and we need to be more committed to being a doer of the word and not just a hearer. So as I say, perhaps it's good. Now if you remember, we looked at these areas and there was an evaluation system that I set before you. A, B, and C. So as you think about these areas, I was asking you to assign a letter. An A, a B, or a C. An A, I consistently demonstrate solid growth in this area.

Wonderful. B, I'm going to give myself a B in this area because I am making progress, but I need to focus on this even more and make it a solid and regular reality in my life. Or C, C. To be quite honest, I've neglected this area, it's not been on my radar. A, I need to make a commitment to this area that I might see significant growth in it. So as we think through these things, think about that evaluation system, an A, B, or a C. And what are those areas?

Well, area number one, I ask you this question. Are you living a disciplined life? Are you living a purposeful life? Or is there an upward trajectory to your Christian life? Are you disciplining yourself?

You say, well, in what area? It's puzzling to me. We all have the same number of hours in a day.

And it's troubling to me when I hear people who profess to be Christians tell me that they cannot find time to read their Bible. Do you have a quiet time? Well, no, I really struggle with that. I just know not consistently. And the question is, why not?

Why not? What are you doing with your time? Do you watch television? Well, yeah, a lot of it. Do you read the newspaper? Well, yeah. Are you on Facebook?

Are you? And we begin to, you see, we find time for the things that we deem important. And you're making a very, very strong statement with your neglect of a quiet time and a devotional life that's not really that important to me. Because if it was important to you, you would find time for it. You would get up earlier. You would go to bed earlier. You would find the time to do that. And we need to discipline ourselves. There is no substitute for that. Regular intake of the Word of God.

We must do it. Question number two was, are you content? Are you content?

Now that's a bit of a tricky question. If I'm not all that God intends for me to be, how can I be content? I'm not in heaven yet. I'm still on this sin-cursed earth.

I'm still struggling with my own sinfulness. How can I be content? Well, here's how you can be content.

I would suggest that a healthy posture to have is a contented discontentment. I've said this before, I believe, from this pulpit. What I mean by that is you are content in Christ. You realize your acceptance before God is based not on your performance, but on the record of Jesus Christ. You're trusting His person. You're trusting His work in your place. And on the basis of that, you're accepted before God.

And that is a settled matter. God looks on you. You're one of His children. You are beloved of Him. Your sins have been forgiven.

You're on your way to heaven. That's cause for contentment. It's a measure of discontentment because we're not all that God has determined we will be.

That's what I mean. Not talking necessarily about your financial place. Not talking so much about your work. Talking about who you are as a person. Are you content with that?

So, contentment. We won't spend much time on this third one, but we ask the question, are you becoming less religious and more spiritual? The Pharisees were religious, but we're not called to be religious per se. We're called to be Christ's followers. He's called us to be in a living relationship with Him. It's not enough to simply say, well, I go to church, I carry my Bible, and because I'm in church, therefore I'm alright.

No. You can be in church for a lifetime, and that doesn't guarantee you're a Christian any more than sitting in a chair in a garage makes you a mechanic. You used to work in the body shop, and you used to work around cars, and some of the older men in the neighborhood were retired, and they'd bring their car in, and they'd want to know if they could come and sit and watch. Well, they'd pull up a chair and watch as I would work on their vehicle. Well, they could sit there till Jesus comes, and it wasn't going to make them a mechanic. That won't make you a mechanic any more than sitting in a church will make you a Christian.

This question, number four. Does your family see and smell the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Christ about you? Do those who know you the best, would they say, yes, he's a lover of Christ. Yes, he's a believer in Jesus Christ. Yes, he's a committed Christian. He's not somebody different at home than he is at church.

He doesn't wear two faces. Is there a sense, those who know you, your neighbors, your coworkers, your family, your children, your spouse, would they attest, yes, they're genuine. There's life, spiritual life, evidence of it. Again, A, B, or C. And we talked about your prayer life. Is your prayer life improving? And I think for most Christians, this is an area of struggle. I've thought about the disciples when they asked Jesus to teach them to pray. Well, that wasn't at the very beginning of their itinerant ministry with Jesus.

They'd been with Jesus for a period of time. They'd heard him pray. They had prayed. When they heard Jesus praying to the Father, they realized, now that's prayer. And they were saying, Lord, teach us to pray like that. Not just say words, but Lord, teach us, show us what it means to be in communion with the Father.

A sense of intimacy, a sense of communion, teach us that. And I trust that we're growing in the discipline of prayer, that prayer's not just a last resort, but it's something that is a part of our life. We pray about everything. We're in an attitude of prayer. You know, it says pray at all times. Well, what does that mean? Does that mean you just don't do anything else but pray? No, it means to be in an attitude of prayer, an attitude of dependence. God not only hears our words, but He knows our hearts, He knows our attitudes, He knows our posture.

He knows whether we're cultivating humility or whether there's pride residing in our hearts and all the rest about us. Now, here's where we left off. I need to just mention this to you because my mind is on Zimbabwe and the men over there.

It's probably been, I don't know, five or six years ago that Brother Jerry Jarrell went to Zimbabwe with me. And I had given him an assignment. I was familiar with Navigator's 2-7 discipleship material. I'd been through it. And they have an illustration. It's called the wheel illustration. And there are six parts of that wheel. And there are two verses attached to each part of that.

And those are the verses that we were to memorize and understand and how they all related to the wheel. And as I mentioned this to you, for what it's worth, the first part of that was Christ, the hub. Christ must be at the center of your life.

He can't be at the peripheral. He's got to be at the center. He's got to be at the hub, at the decision-making center of your life. Christ at the hub of your life. And then the outer part of the circle is the obedient Christian life. What attaches where the wheel meets the surface of life?

What attaches that? Well, there are four spokes to that wheel illustration. There are two vertical and there are two horizontal. And the two vertical are prayer and the word. And the two horizontal are fellowship and witnessing. And that's what Brother Jerry spent his time teaching the men the wheel illustration, developing those ideas, prayer, the word, witnessing, prayer, and how it all relates to the Christian life. And that was received very, very well. Those men have thanked me. Other times I've gone back, they would ask about Brother Jerry and how much they valued that teaching and how much they had employed that for themselves and for their ministries.

Well, here's the next question. Are you in the habit of maintaining a regular awe of God, A-W-E, awe of God? Because there is the trivialization of God all around us. That God is not seen as high and majestic and holy and sovereign.

He's viewed by many, many people, far, far, far less than that. And my question is, is that a daily habit of yours, a regular habit of yours to cultivate and maintain a genuine awe of God? Now, we try and put resources at your disposal, we recommend them at our book room, and this past year one of the books we recommended was Paul David Tripp's book titled, Awe, A-W-E.

It looked like this. We choose hymns that remind us of that, challenge us in that particular area constantly. We sang this morning, let us do what? Let us love and sing and wonder. Let us praise the Savior's name. Let us love the Lord who bought us. Let us sing through fierce temptation. Let us wonder grace and justice. Let us praise and join the choir, those ideas. This is from a devotional that I've been working through.

This was on January the 2nd. This is, again, Paul David Tripp. He says, in your most brilliant moment, you will still be left with mystery in your life, sometimes even painful mystery. We all face things that appear to make little sense and don't seem to serve any good purpose, so rest is never found in the quest to understand it all. No, rest is found in trusting the one who understands it all and he rules it all for his own glory and our good. And then he concludes that devotional with this. In moments when you wish, you knew what you can't know. There is rest to be found.

There is one who knows. And he loves you and rules what you don't understand with your good in mind. Praise the Lord for that. He says in this book, Awe, he says, proper theology is rooted in our interpretations of our circumstances. I'm sorry. Proper theology is rooted not in our interpretation of our circumstances, but in God's revelation to us of his unchangeable glory.

Yes. So, that's a book that I would recommend to you. That's an area that you want to grow in. Get a book like that.

Commit yourself to reading it and it will help you. I had an experience with Gabe about 14 months ago. They don't live with me for the rest of my life for a lot of reasons. But I'm telling this story now because it relates to the subject here of awe. He and I were on an elk hunt in New Mexico and we'd been successful. I had been successful. He was with me.

I wouldn't have been successful without him. So, I've got to say we were successful. And after harvesting the animal, we had to hike back to camp, which was two and a half mile hike back to the truck and then drive back to camp and get rid of our gear and my gun and gather up knives and things to process this animal. And by the time we got back over there and got back up on the mountain, it was starting to get dark and it took us three hours to break this animal down and get him in game bags. And we were coming off the mountain in the dark around midnight and we'd been up and back that distance from the truck to the harvest site enough times that we'd kind of had three areas that we had designated. Well, if we get here, we're a third of the way. From here to there, it's the second third and then we're on the last leg when we get. Well, the middle section was a huge, huge meadow.

It must have been a 150-acre meadow. And we'd come out of the aspens and the timber and then again, it's midnight. There's no artificial light.

It's as dark as it can be. The only light we've got is a headlamp on our hat and Gabriel says, Dad, Dad. And I thought, what in the world? He says, look up, look up. And when I looked up, the brilliance of the Milky Way and the stars just, it was unbelievable. Now, I wasn't inclined to be looking up.

I was looking down, trying to keep my feet under me and I had 75 pounds on my back. But I was so thankful for that reminder and I said, let's take our packs off. And we took our packs off and we sat there and just stared up into the sky and reflected on a God that would create all of this, a God who set the stars in place, a God who named the stars. And those are the stars we could see. There are millions, billions of stars that we cannot see, that He set those in their course as well. And it was a time just to be overwhelmed by an awe of God.

I will carry that memory with me for a long, long time. Question number seven. This past year, was your life marked by increased desire and increased appetite for God and His truth? Was God cultivating an increased appetite and desire for Him and for His word?

There are a lot of things that we could point to and look to as signs of spiritual health, but I think that may be as significant as any. Is there hunger? Is there a hungering and a thirsting for righteousness, for God, for His truth? And if you think back on 2000, could you say, you know, I was hungering and thirsting for an awful lot of things, not to the degree I ought to of God and His word and righteousness. And if that's the case, you know, just a recommitment in 2021, Lord, increase the appetite in my life for You, for righteousness, for the word of God. And when it's absent, when that appetite is absent, when you lose your appetite, what conclusion do you draw?

You're used to eating two or three meals a day and when your appetite leaves you, what conclusion do you draw? I'm sick. There's the present of fever.

There's something not right. The same thing is true in the spiritual realm. If you're lacking desire for God, lacking desire for truth and righteousness, there's the presence of spiritual sin in your life and it needs rooted out. May God cultivate that hunger and thirst for righteousness and for Him and for His word. Again, as I'm raising these issues, we're doing the spiritual audit.

I'm asking you to evaluate your life. This is between you and God, A, B or C. Yes, that is a consistent reality in my life. Well, rejoice in that. Praise the Lord for that. That's not any credit to you. That's God's working in you. But again, we have responsibility to provoke that and develop that or be.

I don't see evidence of that, but I really need to grow in that area. Or C, I've really been negligent here. It's good to be able to think through specific areas and make an assessment, do an audit, so we know where we need to give attention. Question number eight. Is your life marked by joy or brief pockets of happiness? Is your life marked by joy or do you just have brief pockets of happiness?

And you know the difference. Happiness is dependent upon favorable circumstances as long as things are going well, as long as nobody's sick, as long as the car's running, as long as the bills are paid, as long as you understand there's no friction in my major relationships, I'm happy. As long as the Dow Jones is going north and not south, I'm happy. As long as my financial advisor is happy, I'm happy.

You understand. That's the root and the basis of happiness, but joy is something different. Joy is something that's divinely produced.

It's one aspect of the fruit of the Spirit. And you can have joy in the midst of calamity. You can have joy in the midst of tension and trouble because it's sourced in God. You're resting in God. You see, happiness is something that comes and goes because our lives are full of disappointment and challenges and difficulties.

That's just the nature of life. But joy can be a constant. Listen to this definition. The Heidelberg Catechism states, I belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. Nothing can separate me from His love.

These are the fixed quantities amid changing circumstances. These are the soil of joy. Yes, that's the soil of joy. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and all that's within me, praise His holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits. What benefits?

Forget not all His benefits. Well, He forgives our sins, He heals our diseases, He's redeemed our life from the pit, He crowns us with love and compassion, He satisfies our desires with good things. Those are the specifics of the benefits that we have from God. And we need to dwell on those.

We need to relish those things. We need to rehearse those things and find our joy in those things. Jesus said in John chapter 15 verse 11, These things I've spoken to you that my joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full. Psalm 16 and 11, you will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. And Psalm 43 verses 4 and 5, Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy. Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God. You know, it's thrilling to be around people that their lives are anchored and rooted in the God of the Bible.

They've been taught, they have read, they have embraced a God who's sovereign. I talked to a woman briefly over the weekend dealing with a very, very difficult, challenging situation that is producing strife and emotional distress and all the rest. But in the midst of all of that, she said, I don't know what God is doing. I don't know what He's doing, but whatever He's doing, He's all wise, He's good, it'll all be all right.

That's it, folks. When we're resting and have our life anchored in that God, that will produce joy in our life and it doesn't mean that everything's wonderful and rosy. This God doesn't make mistakes, this God loves His children, He loves His people. This God is not limited in His knowledge, He's not limited in His power. There's so many things we don't know, so many things we can't see, so limited we are.

How much better to trust that big of a God with all of life and all of its circumstances? So that's my challenge for you tonight, to complete this spiritual audit, to think through these areas. And again, we've had two weeks since I began this, bringing this to a conclusion tonight, and I trust that you have thought about these things and have looked forward perhaps to the conclusion of this.

There's so many other areas that we could address, but I want to confine it and finish it tonight so that we can move on. Rejoice that if you are a genuine Christian, you are a Christian because God has given you life. And becoming a Christian is not anything you've done, it's no credit to any decision you've made, it's a transformation. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. God has imparted divine nature to us.

Christianity is not something you put on and take off, it's something that changes you from the inside out. So if you are a true believer, your life has been changed. You are a partaker of spiritual life in the place of death.

You're alive to God, and because you're alive to God, God is committed to your growth and your development. But here are areas, here are responsibilities laid upon us to keep our shoulder to the plow, to keep giving ourselves to the means of grace that we might grow and develop and become more Christ-like in this world and more effective in this world. When you think about the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes, being meek and being a peacemaker and being, all those things came before being salt and light.

And the order is significant. To the degree that you are being made humble, being made peaceful, being made meek, being those things, you will be salt and light. And to the degree that you're not, your effectiveness as salt and light will be diminished. So thank you for your interest and your being with me tonight as we've considered this subject, conducting a spiritual audit for reflecting on 2020 and looking into 2021. Let's bow and pray. Father, thank you for these reminders.

Thank you that Peter gives us this warrant to do this thing. As he has said, I want to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth, to stir us up, to remind us. So, Lord, I'm simply a man, and I trust that you'll use me and use my words and that you would stir us up on the love and the good works, that we would be provoked and we would be moved to growth and development in these areas that we have considered tonight. Thank you for the Word of God. Thank you for the people of God. Thank you for the purposes of God revealed in Scripture. Lord, we don't need to wonder what it is you're committed to. We don't need to wonder what it is you want to do in us and for us.

This is it. And you are a God that's able to incorporate everything, every life experience, and use whatever it is for this ultimate purpose. All things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are the called according to your purpose. And that good is not left for us to define. That good is conformity to Christ's likeness. So, Lord, keep us focused on this reality. Spirit of God, bring us to submission in a place of yieldedness as you work in us, both to will and to do, according to your good pleasure. Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. To God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen. Amen.