Reckoning that Counts
Mike Doyle · Jan 16, 2005
Reckoning That Counts, No. 03
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262318571998

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, the three steps in reckoning, true or false. Failure in reckoning is sometimes failure of the truth reckoned. What do you think? As you studied this chapter, you probably saw that this is maybe the keynote element of the whole chapter, and that is, what do you rely on?

The Word of God explicitly, or how you feel about it? It's the Word of God, and I must tell you, it takes a while, I think, for the Holy Spirit to make us subjective, and to trust God with what He tells us. You know, because we're so used to relying on experience and how we feel about things, how we filter them into our own mind and understanding that, you know, when I was a young believer, I went to a Bible study one time and the guy who was moderating it said, he read a verse and then he went around the room and he said, how do you feel about that? And I'm listening to all of these people talking, I'm thinking, well, they all can't be right because they all had a different opinion. So it was a good experience for me because you seek the truth, I think, and so you end up, well, where is the truth and where does my focus need to be? It has to be on the Word of God and reliance on the Holy Spirit to be the teacher. and to communicate to me exactly what he means.

Pretty simple. So you don't have to be a Greek scholar. You don't have to go to seminary. The Holy Spirit will teach us what he means. Kind of cool. But our job is to rely on him explicitly. And to go to monitor your feelings. Yeah, that's right. Feelings are sacred there. That's exactly right. So the failure in reckoning has nothing to do with the failure of the truth. Put it another way. Okay.

So much of the failure of our reckoning is due to erroneous expectation. Now, you had to figure out what erroneous expectation meant. What does it mean? What's erroneous expectation? How would you define that? false expectation, unrealistic. It's interesting that when you first enter into or understand the growth truths or identification truths, there is this sense that, oh wow, this is the answer. And it's very exciting. but it's only a foretaste of what's to come.

And so we expect instant, you know, we're just at hot water and we're spiritual Christian kind of thinking in our society. So, where does liberation really come from, according to the author? From the Lord. From the Lord. It's not liberation, it's the liberator.

You remember him saying that? That is a key element. So, what I like about that is, how many of you in your Christian life, or maybe ask it another way, in your Christian experience, in your life, how long did it take for the Lord to teach you that one issue? That the doctrine is important, The facts are important, but the most important thing is Him. What do you think?

And I dare say there's a lot of believers who aren't there yet. They like the facts, you know, I have been crucified with Christ, I'm to reckon myself indeed dead unto sin and alive unto God, and those are the liberating truths. And so my viewpoint is, oh, now that I know the liberating truths, I'm going to be free. When in fact, without the liberator, there is no freedom.

The way I look at it is that doctrine is Christ, the mind of Christ. If we want to know someone that we really love, we get to know their mind. We get to know the person. So there's a difference between knowledge and doctrines, just head knowledge. It becomes heart knowledge when you understand it. What I find interesting, if you read the chapter, Miles makes an issue about heart knowledge and head knowledge, and he'll continue to make that as the chapters go on. that the heart knowledge must rest on the head knowledge.

The objectivity of the truth comes first. That's got to be the first step. Knowing. And the truth has to be clear. That's the Holy Spirit's job. And then it goes from truth to love and affection with the Lord Jesus. The truth is the thing that reveals Christ to you. And it shouldn't be moved around the other way. You shouldn't begin over time to rely on your experience rather than the objective truth.

Lots of us say, well, I have faith in X facts. And the reason I have faith in him is because I feel good about him. Then you're relying on your feelings. It's true whether you feel good, bad, upside down, left or right about him. It doesn't change the veracity of the truth. Feelings may follow, but they don't always necessarily do so. So you can't stand around with the truth and say, oh, I'm waiting for the feeling. No. The truth is the truth, and our job is to simply believe him.

But because we are persons, there begins to have become a fellowship between us and the Lord Jesus Christ. That's experiential, but it starts with the objective truth. That's really critical, I think. We do, but it helps as you look at that, and you see and come to know the person, you realize that he was not obeying the Father because he was supposed to. He was obeying the Father because that's the life he has. That life is automatically and always obedient because he's God and we have the same life. It isn't that we're attempting to imitate Christ because we have the same life and as we grow in the knowledge and grace of Him, our life functions the same way His does, because it's the same life. See that?

I use the example of, I don't have to teach my dog to bark. It's in his nature. Now if he started meowing, I'd get a little nervous. So he barks because he's a dog, and it's of his nature to bark. I obey God because it's of my nature in Christ to do such a thing. I don't have to crank it up. And really when you think about it, obedience is a Greek word that means to listen under. And the obedience for us as believers is really the obedience of faith. We listen under God's word and we take Him at His word. The doing part comes after that.

We are to rely on wonderful, stimulating experiences for growth. Now, the paragraph that our Lord removes, our Lord will remove fluctuating experience so that eternal truth, clear and steady, may be our foundation. Now I know, if you're like me, when the fluctuating experiences get removed, I get nervous. But I also know that God is doing something to teach me to rest in the steady truth that doesn't change. It's the same. Because He's the same.

So you don't rely on your experiences for growth, for maturity. no matter how wonderful the experiences may be. Because experiences change. And I must say, I talk to people who say, well, you talk a lot about spiritual growth has suffering involved in it. When God jerks the experience rug out from under you, there's suffering. Trust me. Because you've relied on your experiences so much that when they go away, or your experiences tell you something other than what the truth is, The battle ensues.

Does God mean what He says? Does He or doesn't He? It comes down to that. Or another way to put it is you have to trust the Lord. It's come to that. And it will come to that. Where you have nothing other than to trust Him and what He said. Our reckoning flounders when our motives spring from the old nature.

What do you think? Give me an example of that. Let's say that you know and you count upon the identification truths for freedom from the power of sin. Okay? You're looking to rest and to grow and you're looking to walk in dependence upon the Holy Spirit. Anything wrong with that? How many don't think there's anything wrong with that? That's okay. How many think maybe there might be a problem in there? How many are too chicken to raise their hand?

See, there's a subtlety here. We can't go at these freedom truths from the old man's viewpoint. Sin is one of those things that isn't comfortable. As a believer, there's a lot of unrest about it. And the old man can say, well, I want to rest too. I don't want to be, you know, I'm in this nice church and I need to look good. I need to be free from the power of sin. These guys can't find out what's really going on inside.

The self is so subtle that it can try to duplicate the rewards that are offered by the three steps that we're going to talk about for self-aggrandizement, so that I can look holy. Do you agree with that? So, I mean, so far we've been at this for about... Self-deception. Yeah, self-deception. We've been at this for about 20 minutes now. So far, there's nothing you can rely on. You can't even trust your own motives. So why did the Father justify us in Christ? And why did he identify us with Christ? And why is he growing us up?

I suppose, to say that any kind of love is selfish. There is never a grace love. I think this goes a little bit in the same way. I don't know. Why do you think he's doing it? Why does he go through this exercise with everybody in this room? One, he saved you. To conform us to the image of his son. To conform us to the image of his son. Why would he do such a thing as that? Why would he do that? Why would he come out and say, now look boys, here's what's going on. I have predetermined from eternity past that every one of you is going to be conformed to the image of my son. Nobody gets left out. You think, well gee, can't we go to plan B? Isn't there something else? Why is he doing that?

To glorify himself. That's exactly right. God's purpose is to glorify himself, right? And from the sin nature's mind's viewpoint, that's pretty selfish. But from the growing believer's viewpoint, it is the only thing that makes any sense, that God intends to glorify himself through his whole creation, which means he's going to manifest to his creation all of his intrinsic attributes. Now think about the privilege that you have as a believer, that he intends to conform you to the image of his son so that he can manifest his intrinsic attributes through you.

Who gets the glory there? He does. So that's where the subtlety of the deception comes, where you think that I'm going to get the glory. People are going to look at me. No, no. The focus is Him. He gets the glory. And the conformity process is so that He can manifest His glory through you. Leaves good old self out of the equation. Too bad. But you see how subtle the motive is? That's right. More acceptable to the Lord, I am more qualified to be involved in whatever the Lord has me doing because I look holier or whatever.

The problem with that is that it's all about me. The Christian life is really not I but Christ. It's all about Him. It's only about Him. And the privilege that we have is because we have His life, we have the capacity and the ability to fellowship with Him on His level. How cool is that? And I dare say, As this intimacy grows, there is this desire in your heart that comes with the life, that your desire is for him to be glorified and not you. Again, that's part of the life.

I misspelled number five. I don't know how I did that. we can throw out, T-H-R-O-W, all our experiences when it comes to spiritual growth. Now this was kind of a trick question. So can we throw out all our experiences when it comes to spiritual growth? What do you think? Yeah, the answer is no. Because the beginning of spiritual growth usually starts with some sort of crisis. which is obviously an experience. There's the realization of bondage to the sin nature.

That's an experience. Then there's the removal of the fluctuating experiences and the learning of God's Word about what He did. That could be non-experiential. We learn not to rely on experiences even though we're having them, right? You may have what I call a mountaintop experience.

You know what that is? I mean, you're reading the words one night, one day, and the Lord Jesus shows you, the Holy Spirit reveals to you that you were crucified with Christ and really what that means in terms of being separated from sin. That's pretty exciting when you see that for the first time. Wow, what an experience.

But you can't live on that experience. It's the facts of what you saw. that you rest on, not the experience you had about it. And you may have them. And what you learn over time, I think, what we learn over time, is to trust only what God says. And there may be an experience involved with it, there may not. But you're not looking for the experience. Do you see that? It may be there, it may not. If it's not there, it does not change the validity of what you know. and the fact that you believe what God has said. No fair going to God saying, well you showed me this wonderful truth, now I'm waiting for the experience to verify it.

No. What will happen though is that through the word that you know and grow in, this intimacy with Christ will begin to happen. And there will be fellowship and intimacy with him. based on the Word. That's an experience, right? If I go out and have lunch with Helmut and we sit across the table and talk to each other, we're communicating but we're experiencing each other too.

The cool thing about beholding the glory of the Lord Jesus and knowing Him is that He and the Word never vary. They're the same. You see that? My reaction to that may vary But he and the word never change. They're the same. And we learn to rely upon and count upon the living word as much as the written word. Because they're the same. So, experiences are part of it. I remember, I'll tell you a personal experience, I remember one time that happened to me.

I was a fairly new believer, maybe a year and a half, and I was living by myself, and one night I was reading a book about the identification truths, and it was like fireworks went off. I saw it for the first time. I was really fired up. I was afraid to tell anybody. I didn't tell anybody for like three or four years. And during that time I got to know Miles and I was reading his stuff. And then I read this and I thought, oh, it's a good thing I kept my mouth shut. So I called him up one day because I was kind of concerned about this. I said, well, let me tell you about an experience I had and you react, tell me what you think. So I told him and he said, well, that's perfectly legitimate.

But he said, over time you'll learn that your reliance is upon what you learned, not how the experience of it was. Okay, that makes sense. You see what I'm saying? It isn't that the Holy Spirit won't do that, because he will. But you learn not to rely on the experience you had, because then you end up trying to jump from mountaintop to mountaintop, and you live really in the valley. That's where you live. And you thank God for those things, but that isn't the verification of the truth. The verification of the truth is in the walk. Okay, any questions about that? You alright with that so far? Alright.

The vehicle by which the Father and the Son come to us and we to them is what? Salvation? The cross? Identification or the Word of God? It's the Word of God. Okay. Completion, C. The blank blank. What goes in there? The written word was specifically designed by God to bring us to know the... Now, there's a connection there that I have to tell you. I distribute Miles's books on the web, and so guys call me all the time and we talk. This connection is a very interesting one that lots and lots of believers don't get. It's a very interesting thing. We get accused of it at Holly Hills that we're all a bunch of intellectuals. That we study and we learn all these truths and we go to Greek class.

But, you know, what about the living word? You know, no, gee, we can't talk about the living word. That might be a little charismatic, you know, a little boy. You see that? So we get a little, if you don't understand this connection between the written word and the living word, you get cold and you get frozen and you become a theologian. We've got enough of those. We don't need any more theologians. What we need are believers who have this intimacy with the living word. Capiche? What do you think? I think so. So when you're, you know, and it doesn't discount studying, it doesn't discount the pursuit of Greek or whatever God would lead you to do.

But you have to understand that all of that is designed specifically to reveal the living word to us. That we are to have this intimate personal fellowship with a person who is the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven. Isn't that cool? And if you read in John 14, 15, and 16 about the mission and the ministry of the Holy Spirit, that's exactly what he's been sent to do, is to reveal the living Christ person, where he is, so that you can behold him.

Does that automatically happen? Because I know there's a lot of people who have the head knowledge. Right. A lot of biblical head knowledge? Yeah. So do I. Tons of them. Is it a change of their mind? That's a great question. You know, as we go on in this reckoning, you're going to see another principle put in. Specific truth is really important. What I find is, I've told you, I'm counseling with a guy who comes out of the reform movement and he's law-based. So, I think even though you're a real student of the Bible, if you're law-based, there's no intimacy with Christ.

Because what does the law do? Think about what the law does. If you're law-focused, what does law do to you? Where does it send your focus? Back to you. Because it's always based on, here's what you gotta do. So where's the focus? You. Right? When the Word of God, under grace, is designed to focus you where? On Him. See?

So, any little sprinkling of law, what happens is that spiritually you do a U-turn, and you start focusing on your performance. And once you focus on your performance, then there's the understanding, I don't quite measure up. I've got to do a little more.

When in fact, the positional truth, like we studied last time, is all based on what God has already done, and it's already true of you. There's nothing for you to do to enhance it, make it better, schmooze it up, anything like that. Your job is to believe Him. and to rest in the truth, right? The truth turns out to be a person.

Now, the natural mind looks at that and thinks, oh, that's pretty apathetic. I ought to be doing something. Right? And your mind says, oh, gee, you mean all I'm supposed to do is believe? There's a lot of work to be done around here. God needs a lot of guys to be doing stuff. No, he doesn't. The others are not doing it, but I have to do it. God is much more interested in the minister than he is in the mission.

Mary and Martha are the best example. Mary sat at the feet of the Lord Jesus and just wanted to learn of him. And because of that, Her name goes down through history. So does Martha's, but she was busy. Look what she missed by doing the dishes. It was a new twist on the Mary and Martha story that I had just never heard before. And I'm still trying to figure out, wow, how did you get there?

Because someone that we know that's very busy, busy, busy, busy, busy all the time, and just heading for another burnout. And the Mary and Martha story was brought up to have somebody else who was saying, Why do you think Jesus said Mary's got to write? And their response was that, well Martha wasn't doing kingdom work. And that's why Jesus said Mary should have better things. Because Martha was doing the wrong work. And she just had to get the work right.

Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Ouch. You know, I mean, on the one hand, it's like, wow, you know, making it, you know, stop and think and laugh a little bit. But on the other hand, we're seeing people who who desperately love God. Yes. One more time. That's right. That's exactly right. And it's really sad. It is sad, isn't it? Your heart goes out to them.

This morning we're going to do Ephesians. We're actually going to do Ephesians 3. What's interesting is it's the prayer out of Ephesians where Paul prays that they would know, they would see what is theirs. One of the funniest stories I heard one time when I was a young believer, the guy that led me to the Lord and I was going to his Bible study, A guy came to the Bible study one morning, and he had written a book. I don't think the book's even in print anymore.

But my buddy's going on and on, kind of along those lines. And this guy said, you know, Bob, you're like a guy riding a horse looking for a horse. I thought, man, that made a lot of sense to me. Here I am, a positionally glorified son of God, looking for glory. Here I am, blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, and I'm trying to find another one.

You see, it's just idiocy, spiritual idiocy. And so, when in fact what God would have me do is learn of Him, learn what the truth is and believe it, and from then, from that position, the practical blessing to others comes. It isn't to you, it's to them. So the benefit that you get, which is the one that just blows my mind, is this intimacy with Christ. That's the cool part. Imagine that the God of the universe has set up an agenda whereby those who are saved and are recreated in Christ have the privilege and the responsibility to have intimacy with the Son of God in heaven right now. That's just mind-boggling to me.

And if you're law-based, you never get there. Because you always view yourself as being in the outer court someplace. Thinking, oh, them other holy guys must have this relationship. When in fact, you're a son, you're an adult son, you're an inheritor, you're a priest, already are all those things. Yeah, that's where you're supposed to go in the Holy of Holies by the blood of Christ and sit down because that's where you belong. Cool. From there, everything happens. Not to there, from there. You don't pray up, you pray down. Know what I mean? Our experiential freedom and growth are carried out as we. Here we go. These are the three principles. What's the first one?

Know and reckon upon the identification truths. So you've got to know them first. Once you know them, you reckon them to be true. And the identification truths, why those truths? Why those truths? Why don't you know and reckon upon The birth truce. Salvation.

Knowing reckoning upon the identification of truce is Romans 6.11. Reckon yourself indeed dead unto sin but alive unto God. Why those truce?

Salvation really kind of from your viewpoint is something God came and did to you, right? What identification teaches you is that what God did, He came and offered you salvation, but while He was there, He axed you. Because there wasn't anything there that was worth saving.

So He recreates you in Christ via the mechanics of the death, burial, and resurrection. You're included so that you're now a new creature. You are now qualified by rebirth to enter into fellowship with Christ. Romans 6 are just mechanics. how he did it. Romans 5 he tells you about the two men and the issue is how is God going to get you out of the line of Adam and into the line of Christ? How does he do it? He crucified you. That's how he did it. You were buried and now you're resurrected to newness of life. So reckoning upon the identification truth is the key.

Second one. What's the second one? In what? In liberation. Okay. What does abide mean? Live. Live? Okay. Abide and rest. How are we doing with that? Cling to Him. Cling to Him. Abiding is just walking along with, you know, knowing that you belong. And resting, why would you rest? Yeah, all the work's done. Not only for your salvation, but for everything else. So you can abide and rest, and it's not, you don't abide and rest in the liberation trues, you abide and rest in the liberator himself. Critical point, okay? Well, it's not a lazy rest. Oh. It's interesting, the Lord Jesus Christ, sitting on the throne of God, runs the universe. and no sweating. He doesn't sweat. He doesn't stay up late. He doesn't have to work overtime. Everything happens from the position of rest.

That's why Hebrews says, labor to enter into God's rest. You enter into God's rest, then things start to really happen. If you've ever read Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret, anybody read it here? You find in that book that here was a guy who really worked. And he's over in China and he's creating this mission and a few things are happening. And then at one point he begins to abide and rest. And that thing exploded, which is the China Inland Mission. I mean millions of people.

I had a conversation with a friend this week and I just understood a lot of the confusion sometimes because if you look at his life after that, you know, and there's this explosion of stuff, and from the world's perspective, there's anything but what? There's activity, there's stuff happening.

Rock and roll, that's right. there's rest. And so people can look at a believer who, I mean like, well, because somebody said to me, oh, but you're always so busy. And it's like, wow, because man, all I'm doing is hanging out. Yeah, that's right. A good way to put it. It looks so busy. And from my perspective, it's like, really? Because man, I just feel like I'm kind of coached so on. Yeah, that's right.

And so, So the believer who is resting is seeing it from a completely different perspective than the outside world. Even among other believers. That's exactly right. Reflecting to the simplicity of going with God. At the end of that book... But when the world sees it, they see the activity, even other believers. The activity, and they think, ah, activity, that's it. And they're not seeing the inside of the person.

That's right. At the end of that book there was that discussion of the meeting between Hudson Taylor and some bishop or somebody who was the head of a denomination in Australia, and they spent a couple hours together talking, and when he left, this bishop or whatever he was, said, Boy, this is the most amazing guy I've ever met. He said, I've got all these Christians in Australia on my back, and it's breaking me. This guy's got all of China on his back, and it's nothing.

That's the difference. See? That's the difference. You can't mindset yourself to that viewpoint. It's growth in the knowledge and grace of Christ. These are the steps. Rest. It's interesting. The old man tells you, unless you're busy, nothing happens. So how long does it take the Holy Spirit to teach you that knowing and reckoning and abiding and resting are the keys? They are the keys. And you'd be surprised how much work God does through somebody who rests. It's amazing. Yeah, you don't have to go back and say, oh, I screwed that one up. Yeah, yeah. And the last step is what?

Okay, what is walking in the Spirit? Maybe I'll ask it this way. When you're walking in the Spirit, what are you paying attention to? Where's your mind? It's on Christ, not on you. That's how you know. When you're walking in the Spirit, your focus, your attention is taken up with Him, not with you. And because it is, there's an absolute dependency. And it isn't something you... Oh yeah, I wrote down these six things and I got them on the palm of my hand and I need to look them. It's not like that. The life is dependent.

You think about it. The person that you're most familiar with in your life is you. You know you better than anybody because you hang out with you all the time. Here comes the Holy Spirit in your life and he's going to change that so that now you get to hang out with Christ and he becomes the one you know the best. That's pretty cool.

Only God could pull that off. The fact that He could free me from me is incredible to me, that He intends to do that. That I would be taken up, and you would be taken up so much with the Lord Jesus, that He would be the total focus of your existence. And so when I say that, somebody usually says, well, gee, I've got a family to feed, and none of that's going to get done Focusing in on Christ? Nonsense. Not only does it get done, but it gets done in a superior way.

9. Our Father's purpose in justifying us in the Lord Jesus and identifying us with Him is that we might be... and Son that may be glorified through Jesus Christ. We are not delivered by only in the liberating truth. We must believe and appropriate, right? The actual liberation comes as a result of our intimate and personal fellowship with the Lord Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Are you okay with that? I must say that the principles we're learning today are much different than what you normally hear. I'm watching the tube last night and one of those, was it Larry King? Has Rick Warren on. You know who Rick Warren is? Anybody know who he is? He's the purpose-driven church in life. He doesn't understand any of this.

And if you've ever taken a look at his book or books, He gives you a little smattering of grace in the first three chapters and then from then on it's performance. You've got to do it. There's none of this position and intimacy. I read it. And you know it seems like after reading this book, it seems like the understanding is if I'm doing it for God, then it must be from God, if in your mind that's how you see it. He negates the first three chapters in the remaining twelve or whatever you're talking about. Yeah, what he doesn't understand is that if I'm doing it, it better be of God, period.

But he starts out that way. He does. He starts out saying it's all from him, and then the switch is, if you're doing it for him, that's the equivalent. And what's interesting is that when you use the word from, it sets up the dualistic viewpoint. In other words, that God's over there and I'm over here and I'm getting something from him.

There's no understanding of John 17 when the Lord Jesus prays to the Father, Father that they may be one as we are one, that they may be one in us. Well, what does that oneness mean? This is what it means. The oneness with Christ means that I'm not getting anything from him. I'm in him and his life is being lived through me. It's not a from and to situation. It's a oneness. It isn't duality, it's oneness. Now, in the Godhead, there are three persons and one God, right? Those three persons interact with their life all the time. Guess where you have been put? In that same intimacy. You're not God, but you've been put into that same fellowship of persons.

And the Holy Spirit doesn't have to go to Christ and say, hey, give me 15 cents. because I've got to do something today. No, the life flows. It's oneness of life. And that's where he misses it, because he doesn't understand the oneness. The viewpoint is that I'm here and God's over there someplace and he's going to come and enable me and give me something. I'm going to pull into the spiritual gas station, get 45 gallons of patience, and then I'm going to go out and demonstrate it. Nonsense. You're patient because he is. then you're in him.

When you look at an electrical circuit, you need always a generator or a battery, otherwise there is no current flowing. You never really become a generator or a battery. The Christ is the generator and the battery. You are in the circuit, but you pass the current of Christ. Is that true? Yeah, I would say that you're in the generator, maybe. You know, yeah.

You know, the best example is the vine and the branches and the fruit. It's all one plant. You know, there's a vine, the branches, the life is the current, and then the fruit hangs out on the end of the branch. The branch is nothing but the place where it hangs. It doesn't cause it. but it's the conduit through which the life flows, but it's one with the vine.

And there was a little Greek New Testament translation thing that this friend gave me, and there was a thing about a generator, and actually he used that exact thing when he was talking about Romans, and how it is this generator idea. And then he says, but the wrench that falls into it is Romans 7, and that wrench is self-effort that falls into machinery and screws everything up. So he does implement the machinery, you know, the generator, for example.

I just think that the interesting part is, I mean, you know, I think the subtlety, you know, it's so subtle, you know, it warrants a diversity of or from. And I think it would be even, you know, Hudson Taylor and the inland missions, you know, What people mostly take out of it is get busy. When it explodes, you get busy. But it's the inward part, and I think it's just our tendency, and I go back to that, but it's what can we do? And I think everything, the purpose-driven life is so popular because of what we can do. It gives me something to do.

But it's subtle enough that the first three chapters are right, but then you just twist it enough, and then you get yourself back in it. And I think if any ministry has that danger of, you know, boy look at him, now if I get busy I can do the same thing. The subtleties of this, and I hear even with this too, the differences between, you know, it's very misunderstood and hard to explain to people. You mean so you don't do anything? Well, yeah. But then if you're being who you are, that's right. But if you're doing something, well you're doing it. Yeah, that's right.

And the one last thing we didn't talk about today is the principle of strength out of weakness. So here you are, you know, you're steeped in a purpose-driven life. and the Holy Spirit interrupts all that and starts to make you weak. Oh, no. Right? And so you begin to learn, when you're weak, then you're strong. Well, Rick Warren doesn't understand that principle. When you're weak, that's when you're really strong. Weak in yourself means strong in Christ. So, it begins... It's the subtlety of the work of the Holy Spirit to chip away a good old self is a real crisis when it starts. But that will be part of the growth process.

You know, Paul is the best example. The Lord gives him a thorn in the flesh. Where did that thorn come from? It's an agent of Satan. Isn't that interesting? And so he decides that, boy, this is tough. So he goes to the Lord three times about it. So it's legitimate to go to the Lord and say, you know, hey, how about this thorn in the flesh? Can we... 86 it? Nope.

And then you learn through that that the Lord says my strength is made perfect or perfected in your weakness. And Paul says therefore I would glory in my weakness. For what reason? Why did he say that? So that the glory of God would be manifested through him.

That principle is totally against the world system and it's totally against contemporary Christianity. Totally. I'm going to close by reading this one. If you didn't read this, I'm going to read this thing from John Newton I really have always liked.

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. T'was he who taught me thus to pray, and he I know has answered, but has been in such a way as almost drove me to despair. Let's pray. Our dear Father, how we thank you for not only the position that we enjoy in your Son, but also the work of your Spirit to cause us to grow in him, and at the same time that you're ever diligent to render this old man to the cross so that the life of your son would be manifested through us. Father, we trust you with that and we pray in your son's name. Amen.