Walk in Grace part 2

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. God's grace is not meant simply for our own personal pleasure. He doesn't just give us grace for our salvation, but also so that we can walk with others in a Godward direction. As we are transformed by the truth of the gospel, we can genuinely invest in others, contributing to the health and growth of the body of Christ. Let's listen to Rich's message from Ephesians 4, 7-16 titled, Walk in Grace Part 1. Today is the second part of this sermon, first preached September 24th, 2017. God says, I want you to function according to design.

Now, here is my ability that I'm giving you to function according to design. We need to walk according to the grace of God. Help me now to live a life that's dependent on your grace. It's a song we just sang.

That's how we need to look at it. So Christianity is not about, okay, I've made a decision to be a Christian. Now I need to live the rest of my life trying to live the Christian life and do the things a Christian is supposed to do. That's not grace. That's not what we teach here. That's not what the word of God teaches. That's not grace.

Are you with me on that? That is not Christianity. Christianity is all about grace. So you come to Christ by grace, but you also live in Christ through grace also. It's not about you simply trying harder to be better at what a Christian is supposed to do.

That's not grace. You need God's grace and his equipping to do to function according to design. The strength to follow your commands could never come from me.

That's another song that we sing. The strength to follow your commands could never come from me. So where does that strength come from? It comes from his grace. Help me now to live a life that's dependent on your grace. So specifically what it is, I said it's the communication of his self-disclosure.

What is it? It's his truth and his power in you. It's his truth and power in you. And his truth and his power in you is doing two things.

Number one, it's changing you. And then as his truth and power is changing you, then secondly, it becomes contagious to others. Christians, listen to me, please. You growing in Christ and you functioning according to design as a Christian cannot and will not happen apart from your consumption of the word of God. You might try as hard as you can to grow as a Christian and be a good Christian and all. If you are not consuming the word of God, it's not going to happen.

It's got to be there. And his truth and power in you changing you at the level of thought and desire. And then as that is changing you, the outflow of that is your faith. And then you can employ the outflow of your faith by investing in others for their God-ward movement.

That becomes contagious to others. And this truth that is in us, remember the Spirit of God is the gift of God to us, right? The Spirit of God is the gift of God to us. Jesus referred to him as a gift.

And who is he? He is called by Christ. He is the Spirit of truth. Of the Spirit of truth, Jesus said of him, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.

To do what? To function according to design, to be the church, to proclaim his praises, to speak of his excellencies, to point people to God. That's what a Christian is functioning according to design, delighting in God and by so pointing people to God. And we do that by the grace of God.

According to his ability and his equipping, his strength and his power. But all of this comes through the Word of God and the Spirit of God. It's not by our pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and hunkering down and, you know, engaging our grit and say, I'm just going to do it.

No, it doesn't happen that way. You need to walk in grace. It's by God's strength that you can function according to design, not your own. But that is why the Apostle Paul said in Galatians 2 20, I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but what? Christ lives in me. That's how it works, Christians. That's living and walking in grace.

So the gift of grace is just simply this, that you can practice his presence and live by his power. Have you done that? Do you know what that is? Would you be able to describe that to me? If I were to encounter you Tuesday at, say, four o'clock in the afternoon and I say, how are you? Are you practicing his presence?

What does it look like? Because when you practice his presence, that's when you can live by his power. That's how grace works. And it's the same. The illustration I keep going back to the branch vitally connected to the tree, that branch of a fruit tree, that branch can produce fruit only for one reason.

Why? Because it's vitally connected to the tree. And that tree represents your source, God himself. So as that branch draws life from the tree, then does that branch have to go, oh, we're just going to produce this fruit?

No, the fruit is a natural outflow. Do you see it? Isn't that beautiful, people? That's how Christianity works. So labor intensive for you is you maintaining that vital connection with your God, because it is only by his power, his grace, his strength that you can be productive.

That's where you need to focus. That's what it means to walk in grace. So employing the gift of grace, and what does that look like? Employing the gift of grace. Remember, employ the outflow of your faith to invest in others for their God-ward movement.

Employ the outflow of your faith to invest in others for their God-ward. That's what it means to be walking in grace. God's grace for us is that he invested himself in us. So that's God's grace. So if I'm going to be walking in grace, then it means at least this, that I also am going to be investing myself in others. That's what it means to walk in grace. That's what this whole section of Ephesians 4 is about. My son, Cory, just, and I have his permission to talk about him. I used to not do that, you know. My kids were great illustrations, and I would just, and then we'd go home and they would roast the pastor for the rest of them.

But I have his permission to, because we were driving in the car, and he was sharing with me, you know, because when he said Word of Life, they were on a very tight ship there. They are always busy, struggling with their life, and they're always trying to recover. They are always busy.

Sleep is peripheral, okay, when you're at Word of Life. And he was very, very busy. He was an R.A. for three of the semesters that he was with Word of Life. And part of being an R.A. is meeting with other people in discipling relationships.

That's how their R.A.s work, okay. And that's one thing that kept him so busy. Besides, he had to, you know, singing team, and then he was, you know, having to do school. I mean, you're there for school, right?

So, and then service ministries and things like that. So it was very busy, and then he comes back. I'm like, you know, he's now, he's working two jobs, and he's going to school, taking Greek, right? Not a small thing.

And he's, you know, sings here in the church, and that involves practice and all that. He's got, he's got an awful lot on his plate. And as a dad, I'm thinking, okay, Cory, are you, you okay? I mean, are you still making time for the most important things?

Are you, do you have too much on your plate? And then he said something that I thought was very interesting. He said, you know, dad, something that's different now is that all the busyness that I have, I feel like it's just for me. And I'm like, well, what do you mean by that?

And he said, well, I'm going to school. What's that for? Well, it's for my education. I'm working a job. What's that?

So I can earn money, right? And that's keeping him extremely busy. He's working two jobs, by the way, right? And it's keeping him very busy.

He's got a very full plate, and he feels like he's doing it all for me. It's all, and he doesn't mean that in a selfish way. It's just that he's not pouring himself into others as he was in the discipling relationships and being an RA at Word of Life. That's what kept him so busy there. And now he's just simply working to earn money, going to school to get an education. He feels like all the focus is on himself.

Now, he wasn't, he wasn't critical. It's just a chapter in life. And that's what we talked about. You're just in a chapter in life. You're, you're being equipped for further ministry.

So that's where it has to be. And you have bills to pay. Yes, dad, I understand. You see, God's grace in you isn't just for your personal pleasure. The grace that God has lavished upon you, all those spiritual blessings, they're not just for your personal pleasure and enrichment.

Why does he lavish his grace upon us? Among the many reasons is so that you and I can employ the outflow of our faith to invest in others within the God Word movement. Being in the faith is personal, but it's not private.

Are you listening to me, 21st century American Christians? Being in the Christian faith is personal. It's definitely a personal thing, but it's not a private thing.

Never intended to be private. God does not call us to be closet Christians. You are placed into a body. That's the word placed into is the word baptizo. It's the word from which you get baptized. You are placed into a body.

What does that mean? You are a part of a family. You are vitally connected to many other people. It's not a private thing. But not only that, not only are you baptized and placed into a body, but we have a common mission. And that common mission is reconciling people to God, introducing people to Jesus Christ.

That's our mission. It is inherently public. Nothing private about it at all.

Personal, yes, but not private. And God gives us His grace so that we live in the outflow of our faith, all the truths of Ephesians 1 to 3. The outflow of all of that is what 4 to 6 looks like. Walking in grace, then, is living in the outflow of your faith to invest in others for their God Word movement. And this is, he says, the employing of this gift, the communication of the Word of God is for the equipping of the saints. Who are the saints? We are the called, set apart, chosen, holy ones.

That's what saints means. And your equipping finds its source in God's self-disclosure. Your equipping finds its source in God's self.

Like I said before, I'm going to say it again. You will not grow apart from a steady, continual, vital consumption of the Word of God. Christians, are you taking in God's Word? Are you taking it in?

A lot of it. We're so glad you've joined us for Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. You can hear this message and others anytime by visiting our website, www.delightingrace.com. You can also check out Pastor Rich's book, Seven Words That Can Change Your Life, where he unpacks from God's Word the very purpose for which you were designed. Seven Words That Can Change Your Life is available wherever books are sold. As always, tune in to Delight in Grace weekdays at 10 a.m.