Review of G.R.A.C.E. Values
- Dave Rodriguez
- Jan 10, 2010
- Series: State of Your Heart
How are you doing? How well do you feel these days? I’m not asking about your body but your mind, your heart and your soul? How are you – really?
For the past 5 months at Grace we’ve addressed your spiritual wellness by asking 5 crucial questions
- To what degree is God at the center of your Life?
- How much are you reaching out to others with the love of God?
- How many truly authentic relationships do you have in your life?
- Are you changing....maturing...and growing?
- How generous are you in your giving and service to God?
We looked at each question in the month of August then taking them one at a time dove deeper into each. Today I want to retrace our steps.
In this service we will review the past 5 months of messages at Grace and mix in some of the elements of those past services (music, drama, video) to help you get a fix on your spiritual position. Today is a GPS moment for your life.
How are you doing? Let’s find out
To what degree is God at the center of your life?
In September we addressed that most basic of questions by focusing on our level of attentiveness to God. As you’ll see those 5 basic questions I’ve subdivided into 20 more detailed ones such as...
1. Am I practicing Attentiveness to God?
Attentiveness - noticing, watching, listening, or attending closely to God
Are you paying attention to God - to use the language of Psalm 119:
Psalm 119:2
Blessed are they who keep his statutes
and seek him with all their heart.
"The spiritual life is a life of interaction with a personal God, and it is pure delusion to suppose it can be carried on sloppily” - Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines
Tell me – has your passion for attentiveness waned lately? I’ll bet it has. Attentiveness to God has a very short shelf life. It must be replenished again and again.
2. Am I getting the Word of God ingrained in me?
Psalm 119:11
I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.
- hidden also means to treasure or store up
- Imagine your heart as a cupboard or treasure chest – if you hope to be attentive it must be filled with the right stuff that you can access at all times.
3. Am I removing distractions to attentiveness from my life?
Psalm 119:37
Turn my eyes away from worthless things;
preserve my life according to your word.
Our mind and hearts tend to be pre-occupied. If you are going to have God sit in the chair of your heart, what is already occupying that chair has to leave.
You can’t fill the chair until you empty it first.
4. Am I dealing with the fatigue and anxiety that prevent me from being attentive?
“Ruthlessly eliminate hurry” - Dallas Willard
Fatigue and anxiety are spiritual issues. They kill attentiveness to God.
5. Am I working to eliminate spiritual apathy?
Acedia – state of the soul marked by sluggishness, moodiness and distaste for spiritual things
You cure acedia with correct theology. The way out of apathy is by fixing your messed up notions of God.
So...looking back over those 5 sub- questions – tell me...
To what degree is God at the center of your life?
Now before we leave this 1st big question...let’s practice attentiveness
Attentive Intercession Exercise:
Loving God, I hold in your healing presence those who suffer pain and ill health...
...May they know the deep peace of Christ
(Allow the names and faces of those you know to come to mind, and then pray)
Loving God, I hold in your healing presence the suffering people of our world, and the places where people are experiencing injustice
...May they know the deep peace of Christ
Loving God, I hold in your healing presence those experiencing grief and loss...
...May they know the deep peace of Christ
Loving God, I hold in your healing presence those people and situations that seem broken beyond repair...
...May they know the deep peace of Christ
Amen
And now question # 2 –
How much are you reaching out to others with the love of God?
In the month of October we took on this question...
How much are you reaching out to others with the love of God?
How are you doing there? Let’s go deeper...
6. Am I focused on reaching out to others?
Say the Lord’s prayer with me....
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
In the greatest prayer ever taught us by God himself – note what kicks it off...it is to be the prime focus of the people of God. And what he sent out his followers to do...go, reach others, heal them and tell them about the Kingdom.
7. Am I fearless in reaching out to others?
"So, when Jesus said, 'I’m sending you 70 disciples out as lambs among wolves,' in that moment the disciples wouldn’t have thought, 'This is going to be scary!' they would have heard something completely different; something more like, 'I am sending you out with God’s miraculous protection!'" -Tim Ayers
8. Am I compassionate toward others who are in need?
As we examined the story of the good Samaritan we saw that
Jesus expected unreserved compassion
- Jesus style compassion can be uncomfortably cross cultural
- Jesus style compassion can be very disruptive
- Jesus style compassion can be quite risky
- Jesus style compassion can be gross
- Jesus style compassion can be very costly
For two weeks in September a handful of you discovered how challenging compassion can be. I gave them an assignment. Live for two weeks responding with unreserved compassion.
One of them was Brian Bosma... and the story of Ron.
In November in one service we addressed part of this question:
How generous are you in your giving and service to God?
I noted in that message that the early church was amazingly generous:
Here’s what 1st century reporters said about them:
“...selling their possessions they gave to anyone as he had need”
“...they shared everything they had”
“...there were no needy persons among them”
“...they gave as much as they had even beyond their ability”
This openhanded generosity was very different from the way they lived before they met Jesus. Jesus changed their notions of giving.
We also took a closer look at our church in particular: We discovered...
- Grace Community Church giving is 1.6% of our combined incomes
- The National Average is >2%
- 45% of Grace Households do not give to Grace at all
- 36% give less than $100 per month
So in light of all this here’s question 9:
9. Am I excelling in generous giving?
"But just as you excel in everything--in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us--see that you also excel in this grace of giving." -2 Corinthians 8:7
Giving is to be treated with the same degree of importance as faith, speech, knowledge, earnestness and love
So, since that message...do you want to know how have we been doing in our giving?
As of this week it appears we have made some progress. Our corporate giving to Grace has grown from 1.6% to 1.8% of our combine corporate income. Good but along way to go to just get to the national average.
Reminder - We are on a journey to generosity 1% at a time. I am asking that you increase your giving to Grace by just 1% of your annual income.
The rest of November we focused on relationships:
How many truly authentic relationships do you have in your life?
- Characteristics of authentic loving relationships...
- Authentic friends stand in for God
- Authentic friends sacrifice for you
- Authentic friends give you joy
How many of them do you have? What will it take to raise your relationships to pall bearer level? How do you increase both the number of and quality of authenticity in your relationships?
You learn how to love!
1 Cor. 13:1-13
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
The better I love the more authentic relationships I will have. So let’s break that down....how well do you love?
10. Do I talk too much?
11. Do I patronize others?
12. Am I patient?
13. Am I prideful and self-seeking?
14. Do I keep a record of wrongs?
15. Do I faithfully stand alongside others?
16. Do I believe God loves me?
"Just as God’s relationship with us is marked by His love for us, so love is to be the mark of our relationships with one another." -David Bell
Are you changing....maturing...and growing?
Last month we discovered that if you are following Jesus then that change should be happening regularly and naturally
Jesus is...
"A stone that causes men to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall." (Isaiah)
Jesus will trip you up. He will stagger you. He will disrupt your life.
He is the change agent of God. He is the divine disruption.
If you are not experiencing some kind of change regularly then you are not following him you are simply a casual Christian.
Jesus changes things...we saw that in the lives of Herod, John the Baptist, Joseph and Mary.
Let’s see how much he is changing your life...
17. Is Jesus disrupting my need for power and control?
Oh you can keep the power, control and destiny of your life if you want. You can be the master of your own fate. ...But you can’t do that AND follow Jesus.
You have a choice – if you want to retain power and ultimate control over your life then you better stay away from Jesus.
18. Is Jesus changing my understanding of God?
Jesus had thoroughly disrupted John’s paradigm and he will yours. Jesus will interrupt all your carefully crafted concepts of God and blow you away with the truth.
Jesus will reshape your understanding of God. You study his life and words and your faulty notions of God will be corrected
You take the time to get to know him and he will fill in the gaps in your theology.
Never in my lifetime have I seen so much confusion about the person of God. If you want that to change – study Jesus.
19. Is Jesus changing my reputation?
He did that to Joseph. His entire life he had to deal with a questionable reputation. And you will too if you shift from living a casual Christian life to one that is compelled to follow him.
No one cares that you are a Christian – they expect it!
- But lots of people don’t want to know you are so compelled that you will adapt your lifestyle to the call of God
- You’ll ruffle feathers when people know you have reoriented your future for the sake of God’s purposes....
You do that and you’ll have a reputation all right.... a reputation as an extremist, or even a nutcase
You let Jesus’ agenda disrupt your life... your reputation will suffer but you’ll be blessed...
20. Is Jesus my savior?
This was what Mary realized. That the baby that Mary gave birth to, raised and buried was not just her son – he was her savior.
To be “saved” or the word “salvation” in the scriptures means to be delivered from a bad place to a good one.
It means to be rescued from a poor existence into a wonderful life.
To be saved is to be given the gift of a new existence.
To be saved is to have discovered:
- Love
- Hope
- Strength
A love that puts you in direct relationship with God
A hope that you are forgiven, your guilt removed because of his sacrifice for you...And as a result – there is hope beyond this mortal existence
A strength that comes through his ongoing presence in your life. A strength that helps you navigate the pain of life.
Have you received the love, hope and strength of God? Are you saved?
Of the 20 questions – none is more crucial.
So...there you have it. How are you doing? And will 2010 be more of the same or the start of a remarkable phase in your spiritual journey?
