Saved to Walk

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Father God, we come before you this morning as we open up your Word. I pray that our hearts are ready to receive it. God, I pray that my motivation this morning isn't to please anyone in this room, but it's to obey and glorify your name, God. So let us handle your Word with respect and honor, and it's in your love and grace we pray. Amen. You guys can be seated. My name is Daniel Oster and I'm a pastor here at South Baptist, South Burleson Baptist Church and it's exciting to be here with you as we kind of walk through Ephesians. And before we get started I want to ask who remembers a movie about a 17 year old high school student who was accidentally sent in time 30 years while traveling in a DeLorean invented by a scientist. Okay, well who what movie is that? Back to the Future. Okay, iconic, all the teenagers are like what? What? Back to the what? Back to the Future, 1985

iconic movie and the movie emphasizes the importance of what happens before our existence. The character in the movie accidentally goes back in time, messes of some things. His parents may not meet, which means if they don't meet, he won't exist. And there's this, you know, this he's kind of fading away and what's gonna happen all dependent on what is happening in the past affecting his future. And as we walk through Ephesians 2 today, we're gonna look at how we are made alive by things that were put in motion before our existence. And we're going to look at how God was working in our lives and we're going to look at grace that's, we're going to look at grace back, we're going to look at grace towards our future and what it means now so we're going to call this grace back to the future now, okay. And so last week we began in Ephesians two and we're emphasizing this alive,

us being alive. And thought we'd open up and we're gonna read, a couple verses we read last week and then we're gonna read a couple more starting in Ephesians two, if y'all wanna turn there with me, Ephesians two and we're gonna read verses four and five and eight and nine. Ephesians two, four and five, eight and nine. I'm gonna read those. It says, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together in Christ, by grace you have been saved. And then verse eight says, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it's the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast, okay? So to understand grace fully, we have to be aware of what we were before God gave us this gift. And so before we dive into grace, I want us to take attention of just kind of thinking about what our life would was like without grace and

We talked about this last week live a little bit about being dead in our transgretions and I feel like it's important for us to kind of double down because we're not going to understand grace unless we understand What what was poured out what we were? before and so I Don't know see you put Mike Rowe up there Mike Rowe does anybody recognize this guy? He used to do a TV show called, Dirtiest Jobs, okay? And he'd go around the US and he would do these crazy jobs and they asked him, what was the grossest thing that you ever did? And he said it was being a sewer cleaner, which we probably made could have guessed, right? But listen how he describes it. He says, aside from sloshing through a relentless chocolate tide, inspectors encountered a myriad of man-made products that shouldn't be flush down toilets. Along with roaches the size of your thumb and rats the size

of bread loaves, it's hot, dirty, and too smelly to describe, okay? And we can easily think that before Christ, we were okay. You know, if there was a beauty pageant, maybe we wouldn't have won first place, but we definitely wouldn't have been last. But listen how Isaiah describes it in these terms. Isaiah 64:6 it says, But we are all as unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags, and all we do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind has taken us away. In that the terminology there, when it talks about filthy rags, is like minstrel rags. It's like, it's garbage, it's sewage, it's trash. And so to think about our state, and what we brought to the table before God's beautiful gift of grace, is sometimes we elevate ourselves too much. So to think that we were filthy, we were separated from God, we were dead in our transgressions, and we were on a train of destruction,

rushing straight to face God's just wrath. And so when we can kind of understand that that was our condition before, that's where we understand that His grace had nothing to do with our own doing. His grace was not our own doing. And that's why the first two words of these scriptures, and we talked about this a little bit last week, but God, when you hear about what we were and then it says the two words that look, we better be super excited they're there. Because before we're dead, we're filthy, we're separated, but then we get these words, but God. And then it describes his characteristics separate from us. We see rich in mercy, but has nothing to do with us. has to do with his kindness and compassion. And it's seen here as God not punishing us for the sins that we deserve. It's God, because if God gave us what we deserved, we would have been condemned for eternity.

Then we see God's great love and his love on display through his son Jesus Christ, which we get in John 3:16, which is for God's soul of the world that he gave his only son. And so we see God displaying his great love. And today we're working on a kind of plant is, we see him as a giver of grace. And this is not because of anything that we've done or that God owes us. And so when we talk about people being saved, usually it's like, if you think about it, it's in the context of them being saved from something that they didn't deserve. Like maybe they were saved from drowning and it was a horrible accident. Or maybe they were saved from something else. But if we talk about like a villain or somebody who's evil, we don't really say they were saved, we usually say things like, they just didn't get what they deserved, right? Like, it wasn't that they were saved, they just really didn't get what they deserved.

And so when we talk about God's grace, we have to talk about it like, remember that it's something that we are recipients of, that we did not deserve, okay? So if his grace is not our doing, so much so that we should not boast, that's what has the verses in. And I wanted to, as parents, you think about all the things that you give your kids, okay, from the very beginning. You're feeding them, you're making sure they're warm. You're giving them a place to say shelter, safety. You're paying for all the bills. Look, I remind my kids of this all the time, okay? And so my kids, my kids because of my great love for them, for cancer and I great love, they gave me this, I wanna show you. They don't even know I'm showing this today. In 2012, I got this shirt, says, we love you, and there's handprints on there, okay? Yeah, but I mean, this doesn't pay the bills, y'all.

I mean, I mean, this is great, right? I mean, Harvest House wouldn't even give me a dollar for it. And, and, and so, guys, I love this shirt, thank y'all very much. And this is kind of what we do with God, is we, and you know what, I was thinking, I probably paid for that shirt in the glue, right? So that shirt cost me negative. But that is literally like what we do with God in our actions, right? We say, the kids go like, dad, look, we gave you that shirt. Like you owe us. Like think about all that, look at that shirt, you know? You owe us, we've pretty much are even now. And we do that with God, we say, hey God look at what we're kind of bringing to the table. If I do a little bit of more of this, does it equal you giving me some more? And what we forget is that the bill that was due was something that we could not pay. That what we brought to the table was about worth as much as that shirt

because the bill that was due was death for our sin. And Jesus Christ paid that for us. And so when we tried to rest in grace, and what was done, and this was done before our grandparents, you know, you just think about generations, how long this was thousands of years ago. This was done for us way back then. And so kind of like back to the future reference is, we're not fading away because of what Christ did for us back before. And so if his grace is not our doing, we must reject self-reliance and embrace grace, okay? And I'm sure that if I passed out a quiz, a Christian test, and I said, hey, should you depend on God, or should you depend on yourself? And we're gonna be like, God, we're all gonna get that right. But let me just give you a couple scenarios to just kinda get you thinking about what it looks like when our life gravitates to rely on our own self-reliance.

Maybe you're just searching for something to be happy, right? Your self-reliance tells you, hey, spend time, money on things like digital games on your phone. If you wear brand name clothes or things, people are going to think better of you. Maybe you put a lot of emphasis in your kids' sports, social media posts, all these things. Self-reliance is saying, look, you can make these things happen. Invest your time, your money in these things. Embracing grace reminds us that because of Christ, we have a direct relationship with God the Father, and nothing he made can be more satisfying than a relationship with him. So, embracing grace encourages to love the giver and not the gifts, okay? The second one, you think about all the responsibilities you have at work, responsibilities of your family, maybe you're doing a lot at this church, all the things you do. Self-reliance says, look at all that you're doing, wow.

If people knew how hard you worked, all that you did, they would be amazed. If things get tough, you get tougher. Shoulder the responsibility and wear it like a badge of honor, okay? That's what self-reliance says. Embracing grace is you going to God and thanking him for everything he's done and knowing that no matter how you work, how hard you work, he's the giver. And you pray constantly to be a good steward with these things. And so when times get tough, you pray, and you lean into him, you lean in into your community. And so when people give you compliments, you're quick to point them to God our Father and give him the glory. So that's the difference. One more. You have sinned again. This is the same sin you've asked God to forgive you for and you told him last time you wouldn't do it again. And he's already forgiven you hundreds of times for this same one sin.

Self-reliance says, you better get your act together before you think about going to God now that you've sinned. He's not gonna forgive you again without you bringing something to the table or somehow showing him you're really, really sorry this time. That's what self-reliance says, okay? Embracing grace is us falling to our knees and repenting, not because we deserve it, because we know that his grace and his forgiveness doesn't run out, okay? That's the difference. So our flesh will constantly tell us that we need to do more and that we can do a lot. Listen to what 2 Corinthians, listen to what Paul says in 2 Corinthians, I didn't write the chapter or verse, but I promise you it's in there. Says, my grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness, for that is the power of Christ may rest upon me.

So where do we see boasting in this one? We see it happening in our weakness. And God shows up and shows off in our weakness and all we can do is point to Him and just say, that's God, that is not me. So now, hopefully with our perspectives realigned and understanding that we had nothing to do with the grace that was done before, I want you to read, I want you to hear these verses one more time before we go on. I want you to hear about what God did for us, okay? I'm gonna read them one more time. says, but God, being rich in mercy because of his great love which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved. For by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing, it's a gift from God, not as a result of works so that no one can boast.

So now that we kind of looked at what grace was done Before, let's look at what our future has in store because of grace. Let's read verses six and seven. It says, and raised up with him and seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages we might show, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. Okay, so it talks about us being raised up with Jesus seated right next to him, yet we're right here. And so this is talking about spiritually. And so we have to remember that because of the grace that was done, our future, we are in union with Christ now spiritually. And so what that means is when Christ died, we died. When he was buried, we were buried. When he was raised, we were raised. And when he was seated at the right hand of the Father, so were we, okay? The one big difference is is when we were buried

and raised, our sins remained buried. And that's what grace looks like. That's what God's grace does for us. And you look at the word show here and it means to make visible or apparent or to display. God shows his abundant grace to sinners. So it's a display not only affecting our lives but also on display for others. We see the word exceeding which means surpassing. It can also translate to say like super grace, like just more than enough. And so God wants to demonstrate and show his grace towards sinners. So because of this, his grace gives us a future. And so there are plans for us in eternity that involve, the plans for us in eternity involve more than us just floating in a cloud, playing a harp. Like his plans in eternity are big. Listen to what Charles Spurgeon says when he's talking about what it's gonna look like, our future. He says, when all the saints shall be gathered home,

they still talk and speak of the wonders of Jehovah's love in Christ Jesus. And in the golden streets, they shall stand up and tell what the Lord has done to them, listening crowds of angels, principalities, and powers. And I think one song that kind of shows this well that talks about our future and grace is a very familiar Amazing Grace. It's a song that we sing. Listen to the last verse of Amazing Grace. It says, when we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun. So you see what's happening there is we're singing of God's grace day one and even 10,000 years later. And so we're gonna be experiencing this grace for eternity just like it was in day one. And so it's never going to get stale, it's never gonna get old, and we're gonna be singing about it for eternity. And so when you think about,

okay, this grace does this for our future and that's wonderful and I can't wait till heaven and eternity and spending time with God, what does that, what does knowing that do for us right now? And what it does when grace gives us a future, it should allow us to have an eternal perspective, okay? So what does it mean to have an eternal perspective? Colossians 3, 1 says, says if anyone have been raised with Christ, seek the things of above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God, okay? We like to go to Colorado sometimes in the summer, and one thing that we've done before is we've been horseback riding, okay? And it's amazing. And we went one year, this is several years ago, and we get on, we go to get on horses, and the horse guy, I'm sure they have like an official name, but the horse guy says, look, here's your horse, his name is Ned, which is weird,

because I work with a Ned. He likes to eat the grass on the trail. Whatever you do, do not let him eat grass on the trail. I'm like, oh, okay, that should be fine. He's like, we got hay and stuff, but he likes to eat grass on the trail. So get on Ned and we're out and we go 100 feet and what happens? He just buries his face, right? And so I think that if I just pull back and go, no Ned, that's not gonna happen.

No, he didn't care what I was doing. I literally had to like stand up in the stirrups and so my whole horse ride I felt like as Ned goes and so I'd get him out and he's eating like branches. I mean, I don't even know, this horse is going wild. The guy in front's like, come on. I'm like trying to pull this horse up. He's eating all this grass around me, and I mean, it's just like every 200 feet. And so, finally we get to the end, and we're done, and I'm tired from trying to keep this horse from eating so much grass. And it is like, I'm thinking, this horse knows at the end, he's about to get this, like you don't have to work for it, it's this nutritious hay at the end, this grass, whatever it is, I don't know horses, obviously. And, but, and it's not like I'm the first guy to ride him, He knew that that hay and stuff was going to be there at the end of our trail ride.

And he's probably done this hundreds of times. And this is how short-sighted we can be. This is what it means to have an eternal perspective. That we can be stiff-necked. And when we know what the Lord has prepared for us in the future, but we, like Ned, are through our life and then we just get enamored with like what's right in front of us and we lose sight of what is waiting for us. And so eternal perspective does two major things. Having eternal perspective gives us proper value of things and it also gives us kind of the appropriate size of a matter. Okay so let's look at value. So on the trail Ned is seeing like this grass and these weeds and I'm sure it's like thorns. I I didn't even know horses ate some of the stuff that he was pulling up from the ground that had dirt on it and all this stuff. And likewise, we tend to think that when we go through life

that these things around us give us great value. Like there's some things that we just, we can't imagine life without. To help identify some of these things, a few exercises you can do, and you can write this down, think about things, think about where your mind goes when you daydream. Like when you don't have to think about anything. A good exercise is to think about where your mind goes. Okay, what are you hopeful for? What's something that just captures your attention? A second way to think through it is, what are some things you just move your schedule around a lot to make sure something happens? Okay, like you cannot wait to do this activity frequently in your life. And you may already be thinking about it like, man, I can't wait, I hope he doesn't go long, I've got this today. Don't worry, my family already warned me not to go along today. So think about just things that you move your schedule around, you make sacrifices for.

And these things could be good or bad. One more is maybe think about something you feel that you've just not gotten what you were owed, what you deserved. Like you feel slighted and when you think about this, that you didn't get the right recognition, maybe you didn't get the right monetary reward, whatever it may be, when If you think about this, it frustrates you. You feel like maybe it lacks justice. And see, if you wrote something down or you have something in your mind, I want you now to compare those things, take those things as a whole. You can even add them together. And I want you to compare them to what you think scripture's talking about when it says the immeasurable riches of his grace. Okay, compare that to the promise we have in God when he says that we're gonna one day be sitting next to him, next to his right hand of Jesus Christ. Where do you think those things are gonna be

when we're singing about his amazing grace in heaven? That's what an eternal perspective is. It's not allowing us to be distracted and put time and pain in these things. And it could be good or bad. But this is what it means to look forward and think of the things above. So having an eternal perspective gives us proper value, reminds us that these things are temporary, okay, we can't take them with us. And then eternal perspective gives us an idea of the size of the matter. When things happen in our lives and we can be consumed by them, anxiety and fear are rampant and I don't want to like, just diminish them and think all you have to do is slap some faith and everything will be okay. But what I can say with confidence is that whatever situation, whatever things that that you're going through, that God's eternal plan and promise is bigger than those things.

And so I want you to think, think or even write down on the same sheet you have, I want you to think about write down things that you're stressing or have anxiety about right now. Like what are some things that are occupying your mind? This goes for me, I woke up this morning, I woke up this week, it's something I just wake up thinking about work way early and I'm kind of stressing about all the things I have to do that day, okay? Think about those things, okay? Now eternal perspective then looks like I want you to now imagine yourself where scripture says that we are now spiritually and where we will be, with Jesus with his arm around you. And I want you to, I want you to hand those, I want you to act like you're showing Jesus those things and you're going, Jesus, do these things worry you? Like, do you get stressed about these? Is this something you can't handle?

Should I look for somewhere else for me to take these two? I mean, that's foolish, right? And so when I get like that, I kind of have the go-to scriptures that I have to remind myself, and you would think that once you learn it, you can move on, and I haven't accomplished that in a lot of things in my life. And so I encourage you to have kind of those go-to scriptures, and for me, it's Mark five, and the summary of it is, is demon-possessed man who can't even be locked up, he lives in the cemetery. I mean, it sounds like the start of a scary story, right? So scary situation. The townspeople can't restrain him with chains, and then what happens, Jesus walks on the scene. This guy is running towards Jesus, and I'm sure everybody thought he's just going to obliterate this Nazarene man. And what does the man do, whether it has all the demons in him? He falls down, he's scared to death.

Like he sees Jesus. Now Jesus didn't like take his shirt off and like flex, or like say some hocus pocus or do something real crazy. They were scared because they knew who he was. I mean like they were like, have you come here to destroy us? And that's the same Jesus that like, that walks with us, that's the same power we have in us. So all these things that we walk into with fear and anxiety really fall down at the feet of Jesus. There's nothing, okay? And so that's what an eternal perspective, it's kind of like just, it's kind of like taking a step out of your situation and going like, and even in your past, go back in your past. Has there been a situation that you've been, there's no way I can see getting past this and what happens, God delivers you from it. He's probably done that more than once and yet we're faced with a similar problem and we go, what are we gonna do now?

So in order to keep our head from just going down in the weeds and losing sight of the future that God is in store for us, the grace that he pours out for us to get through these things, We must pray for God daily for this perspective. And so when stress is in fears, way heavy, we must orient our perspective to the eternal king who always has, is right now, and always will be reigning on his throne. And we can take those things. And so we've looked at God's grace before, we've looked at it in the future, and so what does God's grace mean for us right now? What are we supposed to do with that? So let's read the last verse in 10. Ephesians 2:10, it says, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, for good works, which God prepared beforehand, and we should walk in them, okay?

So we see him say the word workmanship, your translations may say masterpiece, or handiwork, or work of art. And so what makes us, it's referring to us, so what makes us so special? And it's not because you turned out okay, It's not because you're born in Texas. It's not, you know, there's a lot of different things, but it's based on who created us. Listen to this Psalm, I don't, I feel like I never heard that in this Psalm until I read it this week. But listen to what Psalm 33, six through nine says. It says, by the word of the Lord, heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host. He gathers the waters of the seas as a heap. He puts the deeps in storehouses, And listen, it says, let all the earth fear the Lord, let all of its inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke and it came to be, He commanded and it stood firm. So our value is in the Creator, not our own ability.

However, God's purpose doesn't stop there for us. Like it's not like He created us or this artwork so now He's gonna hang us on the wall or put us in a display case. But what does it say? It says that we are created in Christ Jesus for good works. So his grace invites us to walk now. And what can be confusing when we talk about our walk now is that it can kind of seem like somehow like Jesus was like a credit card payment for our sins and now we're just kind of working off that debt. Like we're just, we just need to kind of do some things and that's not what grace, that's the opposite of grace actually. And so listen, you know, Christians are people follow Jesus and walk in him and listen to what 1 John 2:6 says. It says whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in him in the same way as he walked. In Ephesians references walking quite often we're gonna it talks about walking in a

manner worthy, talks about walking in love, it'll talk later about walking in light. And so if grace invites us to walk now, how do we know what to do? How do we know what first step we should take? Okay. You may know that I do commercial insurance, so I work with a lot of different businesses and it's really great. And early on I walked into a contractor's office and I saw up on the wall and it said, it said, plan your work, work your plan. And I'm like, these guys are geniuses. That's a great idea. Okay. And then it's not a couple months later I walk into some other company and I see the same saying like up on the wall and I'm like oh this is kind of like an industry kind of like motto and it's a plan your work, work your plan, and so the idea is look if you put the time in the beginning and you kind of lay out and you've kind of done everything you

need to, you're planning what you're going to do, the work then becomes easier because you've kind of done all the heavy lifting in the beginning okay and so if you think about what these verses are talking about us is the fact that the God, the creator of the universe, has done the same in our lives. It says, it says, which it says, created in Christ Jesus for good works, now talking about the good works, which God prepared beforehand. So for us, walking in God's grace, God has planned your walk, so let's walk in God's plan, okay? So all the heavy lifting has been done in what we're doing, but there's a call for us to do this now. And so, sometimes when we are saved by grace and we hear that and we're like, yes, we think about the future, but we're missing what God is calling us into now. And listen to what 2 Timothy says in 1.9, it says, he has saved us and called us

with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which he has given to us in Christ Jesus before time, before time began. So you hear us mention a lot in church about your walk, may refer to as your spiritual journey, may refer to as sanctification, all those are the same. But what does it mean? And I think a lot of times we can be short-sighted on what God has to do now. So let me give you some drastic examples, okay? Talking about walking and what that means for us now. Some may say Sundays are my only walking days. I'll only walk on Sundays. And that sounds silly. But have you ever gone to get your Bible on Sunday morning and it was the same place you left it Sunday after church the week before? Do you walk in the church and you're going, oh, man, I should have been praying for these people around me. I haven't really thought about that until I

was here last Sunday. And it's not a guilt trip. It's an invitation to know that God's walk is a daily, like he wants to do it with us. And that is a call in our lives. Colossians 1, 10 says, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in knowledge of God. And so this idea that God is calling us to walk, he's holding our hands like we do with a child to kind of help us along. And when we stumble, he's there to pick us up. So misnomer is that you only walk on Sundays. That's the Christian day, that's when I'm gonna walk. The second way is why walk when you can coast, okay? Why walk when you coast? The Lord's doing things, and if you've ever been canoeing, which I know the smirks have, Sutor and I have actually been in a canoe together, there's a lot of times when you don't have to do anything

and the river just takes you and it's great, and you get really relaxed, and then what happens? Like a sharp turn, or some rapids happen, And if you're not doing any type of work, you're gonna fall into the water. And so a lot of times when we talk about coasting, we can kind of think about like, what's the Christian minimum? How can I coast? What's the minimum I have to do to make the man upstairs happy? So questions that you may ask is,

how much time reading my Bible actually qualifies as a quiet time? Like if it's a two minute devotion and a quick prayer does that count? Or do I need to read like three or five minutes? Maybe you say, if I do that five to seven times a week, is that a pretty good score? Maybe you look at your church attendance and you're like three out of four weeks pretty good, 75% in school that's passing, so pretty sure God would give me, it's a C but still it's passing.

Maybe you go, maybe with your finances you're like, Okay, what does God, what do I need to give God to make him happy? Like what do you think the percentage is here? And see, we're asking all of that wrong. That kind of shows our tendencies to want to walk the Christian walk and just do the minimum possible. And so, and what this happens, what happens if you kind of are doing that, is one is you're not seeing that the grace that he's poured out on us and what he's done in our lives and how we should respond to that. But it also kind of, it stunts our growth. And Hebrews five, the preacher in Hebrews five says it in 1213, he says, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again. The basic principles and the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk as unskilled in the word and righteousness since he is a child.

And so we don't wanna be infant Christians our whole life. And it's not like there's some goal of maturity that we're gonna reach like this Christian pinnacle. It's just that when you're walking with the Lord and you are in his word and you're praying, there's going to be fruit and you're gonna be asking those questions in reverse. You're gonna be looking at like, how can I move my time around in my schedule so that I can have more time in the word, more time in prayer? How can I look at my finances and find more ways to give what God has given me? And so it's fighting that tendency of wanting to just coast in our walk. Because we know the future, like we know what God's promised us, so we could coast. But that's not, then we're really missing out what God has for us planned now. The third one is that you, talking about walking, you're waiting on your walking map, okay?

So you're like, okay, I hear what you're saying, I hear you saying God has a plan in my life, but he hasn't really sent me those plans yet. I'm kinda waiting for him to send me the map of what I'm supposed to do. And we too often think that God may be paint this perfect path in our life and that he kinda shows it to us and we're like, yeah, I think that looks pretty good. That sounds good, I'll do that. And then we begin to walk. And so what that can create is kind of like this, a paralysis in your Christian walk that you're just setting, waiting for God to tell you what to do. And the truth is, this Bible, God's word tells us plenty to do. And it helps instruct us in our lives. And so our walk may not be as straightforward as a map. We may feel like we encounter obstacles and difficulties, but that's the Lord growing us and making us more into his likeness.

And so to help us maybe kind of remember some of the things when you're like, I hear church, and I hear people talking about Christian walk, but I'm not really sure what that even means, what I'm supposed to do. We're gonna use the saying that walking with God is easy as pie, and that's a plan of words because it's not easy, but God, working with God is easy as pie. So let's take P. So if you're thinking about what does it mean to walk with the Lord, here's some things, this isn't all encompassing, I understand, but this will get us going. P, pray for the Holy Spirit guidance, okay? Pray for the Holy Spirit guidance. Look, I know I've been a Baptist, A lot of times we hear Holy Spirit, Holy Ghost, we think we need to get out some Spirit meters and like, okay, where's this Holy Spirit? Like the show's due on the History Channel, Emma knows what I'm talking about.

But we have to remember the importance of the Holy Spirit in our life. Listen to what Jesus says as he's leaving the cycles and he's going to heaven. He says, in 1426 he says, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and bring you remembrance of all that I have said to you. So that's the same spirit we have with us. So we need Holy Spirit guidance in our life, okay? The I is to imitate Christ. His life is a model for us. Later in Ephesians, in chapter five it says, in verses one and two it says, therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice. See, Jesus' life was on display for us. And so when we as a church go, how should we make disciples? We don't go to the disciple bookstore and, well, we kinda do, but where we start is,

how did Jesus make disciples? I wonder how I should pray. Well, Jesus taught us how to pray in his Bible. I wonder how I should treat other people. Like, my neighbor's been really mean to me. I mean, we have Christ as an example that we can imitate. And the E is engage God's word. It gives us instructions in our life. I try to say this often because I was in church for years and when people talked about reading their Bible, I assumed that everybody just would read their Bible and understood it right away and it was easy and I was the only one struggling with it. And that's not the case. Engaging God's word can be confusing and hard And that's where we lean into the Holy Spirit guidance. That's where we lean into our community, our groups here, our home groups in our community here. And so, but engaging God's word. And Jesus talks a lot about this, and he sometimes uses the word abiding.

Listen to what he says in John 15, seven. He says, if you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it'll be done for you. And so this grace we talk about is endless as we look to walk in it. And it realigns our wants, our desires, and our focus. And so, really kinda like to drive this home. Think about if we were reading the story of Jesus and he comes to a paralytic guy who's legs have been broken or not working for his whole life, okay? And he says, your legs are healed. And the guy stands up and he's like, oh my gosh, my legs work, this is amazing. thank you Jesus, I really appreciate that. And then he just sits back down. That would be weird, right? Like well, think about what you'd be saying, you'd be like, wait, you haven't been able to walk for years, like you, how are you not out just like, you know, walking in the streets, running, jumping,

all these things, so why are you, why are you just sitting there on your mat the way you always were before this miraculous healing? In comparison, as we think about what God's grace has done back, meaning we had nothing to do with it, as God's grace points to a future, and as it invites us to walk now, what does it look like if you're still just sitting there on your mat? We've been raised from death to life. Remember the but God? We were dead but God, rich in his grace and mercy. So the encouragement this morning is for us to walk in His grace, to get up, to not be, to not just go, yeah, that was great Jesus, but I'm just gonna sit here. And if that's happening, it means we've lost perspective of what this grace means in our life. It means we lost perspective of what Jesus did for us

and probably maybe even lost perspective of what we were before. Like we don't see ourselves. when I'm showing you like pictures of a guy in a sewer, you're like, that's not me. So this morning I really want you to think about his grace that we've talked about and how it's impacted your life and there's a few things you can do. You may forget often that you haven't earned this. You may feel weighted down like you're in debt and you're still working off your salvation. Or you may feel like you still have a lot of work to do. You're relying on your own ability. This morning, I want you to pray and think about how you're relying on yourself and reject that self-reliance peace and to fall into the grace that God's given us. Maybe you're caught up in some specific stresses or anxieties or stresses in your life. You feel like it's this endless cycle of things not happening the way you wanted them to go.

And you have some things that you even wrote down this morning. And so the prayer is to have this internal perspective that Jesus is bigger than these problems. That he wants to help you walk through them. And there's a purpose for him. And that in the end you can boast in your weakness and boast in what God has done. And the third, you may be a Christian couch potato. potato. You may be immobile, not having any motivation to get up and walk. You understand you've heard these things about grace and stuff, but it's just you feel like you're too busy to really kind of spend time in the Word and do these things. The encouragement is to be reminded of what God has done for us and what He's planned. It says He planned these works out before time. And so maybe you need to commit this morning to getting and taking the first steps. It may be the first steps ever, and that would be great.

And we can talk to you about that. But maybe you're just in a rut in your Christian life, and it's kind of like, I mean, if you've ever tried to start a workout plan, you know what it means, it's like the hardest, the hardest are the first few days, the first few steps. And so the prayer is for the Lord to give you the strength to get up, not your own ability. That he, but you can lean into the grace that we've talked about this morning. And so David, if you wanna come up, We're gonna close and we're gonna sing a song very specific about God's grace. And it may be that when we're singing this song, you need to sit there and you need to really focus on the words that are being said and you need to try to pray and just that they are made alive in your life, okay?

But maybe you wanna sing and you wanna declare these words and you want to sing from your toes. You want to say this to the Lord. Either way, we can find confidence in what the Lord is doing in His grace for us. And remember that it has already been done and that we're gonna be singing about His grace this morning, but we're also gonna be singing about His grace 10,000 years from now in eternity.

So let that motivate you this morning. Don't let these words fall on deaf ears and you go away doing the same thing. Just remember that all the Lord is doing is asking us to lead in his grace. Let's pray. God, we, thank you that this isn't based on our own ability. Thank you that we don't have a part of the deal that we have to make right. And God, when we distort that, Lord, I just pray that you, you remind us that you've already done the work.

And you're calling us into something special, and the fact that you're even using us for your purposes are amazing. And so Lord, as we sing about your amazing grace, and we hear about this in church maybe often, I pray that it's fresh and new, that you just remind us of this, that it doesn't get old, and that one day we're gonna be singing this to you, singing about your grace, telling about your goodness for eternity. In your name we pray. You can stand.