The Principle of Spiritual Power

Good morning, my name is René, one of the pastors here. Why don't you grab your message notes that look like this? They should be right in the middle of the bulletins that you were handed when you came into the church this morning. "Free" is the name of our series going through the book of Galatians in the Bible, and this morning we are in Galatians 3:1–14 as we talk about the principle of spiritual power. And this is the thing that really every single person on earth just longs for. Everybody wants spiritual power, right? Power to change, power to connect with God, power to turn into the person that you know God intended you to be, power to control those besetting sins and habits in your life. Power, spiritual power to improve your marriage, to become more Christ-like. But the big question is, so how do you get that? Well, there are only two answers, and only one of them works.

But before we go into those, first let me say it is so great to be back here with you. For the last two weekends, as you might know, we were in Israel. Yes, thank you, it is great to be back. That wasn't an applause line, but I appreciate the five of you who are glad I'm back. While we were there, Jerusalem got hit by a headline-making freak snowstorm. This was the picture from outside our hotel room window. Literally, all the roads in the city were closed down. The roads into and out of the city were literally closed. It was shut down. This was so headline-making that I was watching BBC News World Service, and we were in one of the top five headlines on the BBC News. It was such an incredible snowstorm. The Temple Mount had a blanket of white that was very rare and very beautiful. The Mount of Olives looked more like Mount Talak up at Tahoe, full of snow. Orchards were blanketed. The town just froze to a standstill, and of course, we were not prepared for this, right? You think you're gonna go to Israel; you don't think of bringing your Tahoe clothes.

So what we did was we just put on all of our layers at once. Everybody was wearing like five t-shirts and two jackets and walking around like this, like the Michelin Man, or the kid in a Christmas story. But we still had fun, and the one thing that the snow did not stop was the religious activity in Jerusalem. Everybody still went into the churches. Still went to their prayer time, no matter what religion they were, and in this, Jerusalem has not changed in 2,000 years. While we were up there in this freezing cold weather, we were taken to a model of ancient Jerusalem and what the temple looked like in Jesus' day because when the Bible was written, it was also the center, of course, of massive religious activity. Our guide showed us at this amazing outdoor model what the temple in Jerusalem they believe looked like in the time of Jesus Christ.

And while we were looking at this temple model, it occurred to me that there are basically two religious systems in the whole world in all of human history. Really, you could boil all of them down to just two. Two ways to connect with God, to have a source of spiritual power, and you could call the first one the temple model. The temple model. Andy Stanley, a pastor back East, talks a lot about this, and I love the way he explains it. He says in the temple model—and you might want to jot this down in the margins of your notes—there's always a sacred place, right? They might have a physical temple or maybe a sacred grove of trees or something, or maybe it's not physical, but there's an elite level that you can go to to connect with God. There's sort of a sacred place in the temple model, and literally, in most of the temple models, the presence of God is in kind of a holy of holies, a sanctum sanctorum, and it's separated from the rest of the planet because you can't get into the sacred place where God lives unless you follow the sacred rules.

Your acceptance with God is based on how well you match up with these sacred rules, and of course, that means there are always sacred authorities. These sacred authorities interpret the sacred rules to tell you how to get into the sacred place, and they tell you, all the followers, here's what you have to do, and if you do not do these things, then God is going to get you. And so the people would be scared—followers, a slight change from sacred to scared—scared because in the temple system, you are always living in fear because you're never quite sure if you measure up to what the sacred authorities are telling you you need to do to follow the sacred rules to get to that higher level of the sacred place. It's completely a performance-based system.

I want to clarify here that I'm not referring to God's original intent for the Jerusalem temple; I'm talking here about what the Jerusalem temple turned into under the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the temple leadership. And Jesus harshly criticized them, didn't he? A lot of people these days are critical of religion, and you cannot find a harsher critic of religion than Jesus Christ in the Bible, who said of his own religious authorities, you're not leading people to God; you're leading them further away from God. In fact, he said very bluntly, you are making them twice as much a son of hell as you are. He said you're placing burdens on them that are impossible for any human to bear. You can't even bear those burdens, and you're placing these burdens on your followers because you're the sacred authorities telling them to follow the sacred rules so they can get to the sacred place.

I'm just talking about how the Jerusalem temple was corrupted. This is the tendency of human religion across the board in any culture, and you can even see the temple model taking place in a lot of Christian churches. They're set up this way, and in fact, maybe you're here this morning and you're going, yeah, you know, in fact, this is actually exactly how I perceive the Christian church, René, actually exactly that. And it's a matter of finding the right authorities and the right rules, but that's the way religion is set up, right? Well, actually, the Bible says that Jesus Christ came to start something absolutely completely different than that, not the temple model. You could call his model the grace model.

The grace model—see, check this out—the temple model says I obey so that I am accepted, right? But the grace model says, ah, I'm accepted so I obey. You see the difference? Under the temple model, it's I better follow all these rules so that I'm accepted, but in the grace model, I am accepted because Jesus Christ paid my debt for me completely on the cross, so God accepts me completely, and now I want to follow him out of gratitude and out of love because I love him because he first loved us. And this is the principle of spiritual power: the grace model, not becoming externally religious in the temple model but changing from the inside out because of the grace of God.

In fact, in the grace model, I'm not even focused on my behavior primarily; I'm forgetting myself because I'm focused on the glory of God and how awesome it is that he reached down and saved us by his grace. And as I focus on God, you know, you move toward whatever you focus on. I become more godly, and as Mark did such a great job pointing out last weekend, God raised up a very unusual man to be the champion of the grace model. Very ironic because it was a man who grew up as a champion of the temple model: the Apostle Paul, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He personally knew just how burdensome the temple model was, and so he is completely exasperated when some of the very earliest Christians to whom he had taught the grace model here in the strategic region called Galatia were turning back to the temple model. Why? Well, because some sacred authorities had come in and said, we're the sacred authorities, so we need to tell you how to follow the sacred rules so you can get to the sacred place down there in Jerusalem. Don't you understand this?

And they said, really? And so they started with the grace model, and then they went right back to the burdensome temple model again. They were saying, you know what? You can start with grace, but to grow, you've really got to get into this whole temple system. And that's why Paul pens this letter to the Galatians that ends up becoming one of the earliest books of the New Testament. And I want to tell you, if you have missed any messages in this series, Free, I really want to encourage you to go online. You can check them out—audio, video, PDF notes—you can download them absolutely for free. Go to iTunes, go to our podcast there. Why? Because Paul is building an argument step by step about the power of the grace model, and if you don't understand this, you will end up coming to church your whole life and not understanding what our faith is really all about.

Because if you're not careful, you can come to church your whole life and think it's just another version of the temple model, but it's something completely, completely different, and that's what Paul's explaining to the Galatians. So let's pick up the story in Galatians 3, starting in verse 1. Paul is upset. He says, you foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? And the word Paul uses therefore bewitched, that's exactly what it means. It means to cast a spell, to fascinate, to charm, to beguile because there's something about the temple model that is beguiling. It's almost mesmerizing, almost irresistible, alluring to be told by somebody—and they won't quite maybe put it that bluntly—like where the authorities telling you how to follow the rules so you can get to the sacred place, but they might put it like this: you know what? We've done a lot of study, and what we have found in Scripture are some hidden principles, and if you practice these things, then you will be able to do something that nobody else can do. You can discern the will of God for you in every circumstance. You can rise to the next level of Christianity. You'll be able to actually hear the voice of God, or you'll be able to actually pray for somebody, and no matter what is bothering them, you're going to have the power to heal them, no matter what, because we're gonna teach you the secret technique. And that's beguiling; it's bewitching. And so you go, oh yeah, and you kind of follow back into that system.

And so the question is, how do I stay focused on the simple message of grace and stop slipping back into the temple model mindset? That's what Paul talks about in the whole rest of this section. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna read these verses, and then I'm gonna go back through them and point out three ways to stay focused on grace that you and I need to know, or we will be bewitched and lured back into the temple model. So Paul says this: before your very eyes, Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I'd like to learn just one thing from you: did you receive the spirit by works of the law, the temple model, or by believing what you heard, the grace model? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the spirit, are you now trying to finish by human effort? Have you experienced so much in vain, if it really was in vain? And so again I ask, does God give his spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law or by your simply believing what you heard?

Now, did you see this? Paul says three things here to help you stay focused on grace. First, and I'm gonna spend most of my time on this first point this morning, I need to realize what I already have. Realize what I already have and don't need to go work for what God has already given me. And as an illustration for this, I'm going to go to that deep theological book, The Wizard of Oz. Does anybody here love The Wizard of Oz? Yeah, I love this movie, right? And really in this movie, you see exactly what I'm talking about here because Dorothy and the other three characters, they all want to be made complete in some way, right? To get home or to get a brain or heart, get courage. And so what do they do? They go to the sacred place, the Emerald City, where they seek out the sacred authority, the wizard. And the wizard tells them exactly what to do to follow the sacred rules: you got to get the witch; you got to bring back the broomstick to prove you've done it. And so they do all those things, and what do they discover when they get back? Well, first of all, the wizard really isn't a real authority after all; he's just a man behind a curtain. It's all just a front.

And secondly, they already had everything that he told them they had to work for. She already had the Ruby slippers and the power to get home. They already had all the heart and all the courage and all the brains that they wanted. And see what Paul is saying to the Galatians is exactly the same thing. He's saying there is a wizard of Oz, a wizard of aunts, you could say, the Wizard of aque to use, but his authority—these authorities, Galatians that have come back into your lives—their authority is a fake; it's a front; it's useless. They're not really authorities because what they're telling you to do, you already have in Christ. Like, what did they already have in Christ? Well, three things under this point: realize what Jesus already did for you. The rest of verse 1: before your very eyes, Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. Paul is saying not only did I preach the facts about Jesus Christ to you, but then it came true before your very eyes. This is a phrase that means you saw it; it captured your imagination; it captured your heart. And still today, seeing Jesus Christ crucified is central for believers, literally the crux of our faith.

Why? Because when we forget that it's about what Jesus Christ did on the cross, we can think it's all about our own performance and our own behavior, and the whole point of Christianity is becoming a better person. That's not the whole point of Christianity at all. The point of Christianity is what Jesus Christ did on the cross, where he hung there. And what did he shout out on the cross? It is pretty much done. Now the rest is up to you guys; good luck. No, that's how we act. What did he shout? It is what? It is finished; it is done. There's literally nothing else for you to earn, nothing else for you to prove, nothing else for you to do. It is finished. What can you add to that?

Let me tell you a true story. They call it the miracle of Niagara. This happened back in 1961, and a man went motorboating with two little kids that he knew very well, a little boy and a little girl. And for some reason, they motored right under a little bridge that was very clearly marked the point of no return, and they motored under that. And as they desperately tried to turn around and could not make it back against the current, their boat capsized, and both kids fell in wearing oversized life preservers. Neither one of them could swim, and a little girl floated right past this island right at the top of the falls, Goat Island. And as she floated past it, a man saw her and sprinted to the end of the island and thrust his hand out, and she was able to just grab the end of his thumb and hung on, and he was able to grab her forearm and holler in at the very last minute. But her little brother went right over the falls, and he became the only person to ever survive an unintentional fall over Niagara. He says now all he remembers is it was like falling into a cloud, and that's all he remembers.

Meanwhile, at the bottom of the falls, the boat, the tourist boat, the Maid of the Mist—anybody here ever been on that boat? Several of you—you can imagine how crazy this was. All of a sudden, the Maid of the Mist saw a little kid pop up in the water wearing a life preserver at the bottom of the falls, and they were shocked. And on their third try throwing a life-preserving ring to him, they got it over him, and they hauled him in. And this little boy, his name is Roger Woodward, 20 years later became a follower of Jesus Christ. But for much of his life, he was haunted by this thought: if God saved my life, then I've got to pay him back by living a life that's absolutely extraordinary. And so he never had peace because he always felt like he had to be doing more, more, more to just deserve the fact that he was saved, both physically and spiritually, to justify his continued existence.

But he finally found peace, and in this interesting television interview from a couple of years ago, I want you to listen carefully to how he describes how his search for peace ended. Listen to this: you know, I'll tell you what I have learned since Niagara and the way that I've come to rest with this quest of trying to find my place as a Christian in this life. I did so by coming to this realization: what greater event, what greater thing can possibly happen in life than reaching that point in life where you know that you're saved? What else is there after the cross? It's irrelevant after that. Now, that doesn't free us from a responsibility to share the good news and to tell others, but it put to rest this question about what was God's purpose in my life because I'd come to this conclusion: God saved me that day, July 9th, 1960, 52 years ago this July 9th, so that he could again save me spiritually 27—well, 20, yeah, 20 years later at age 27 when I came to know him as my spiritual Savior and had the gift of eternal life.

Isn't that fascinating? But did you hear what he said? He said the way I've come to rest in this quest is this: what is there after the cross? What greater thing can possibly happen in life? What is there to add to that? And that's exactly what Paul is saying here to the Galatians. What is there after the cross? What could your works add to it? You know, you don't need to keep on swimming; you're saved completely. And so realize what Jesus already did, and then next, realize what I've already been given through Christ's death on the cross. The next verse, Paul says, I'd like to learn just one thing from you: did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or by believing what you heard? And this is a huge part of the gift of grace that I think most people miss. Circle the phrase receive the spirit. You've received the spirit. Now think back on the temple model. In the classic temple model, the Holy Spirit is where? Where? In the Holy of Holies in the temple, right? The sacred place only accessed by the sacred authorities who keep the sacred rules. But in the grace model, where's the Holy Spirit? Here, in you. You're the temple of the Holy Spirit. You have the Holy Spirit that used to just be in the Holy of Holies, and one tragedy of modern Christianity is that although we have that, we think we're on our own power. But you have the gift of the Holy Spirit, and it's just a matter of, Lord, open our eyes, like Lily prayed, Lord, open our eyes to what we've already been given.

And then third, under this point, I need to remember what I've already experienced. In verse 4, have you experienced so much in vain, if it really was in vain? Let me ask you, what have you experienced? In other words, hasn't God already done great things in your life? Didn't God already do great things in you? He gave you so many great things in life. He saved you; he forgave you, and many of you, he freed you from addictions. He restored your sanity; he gave you your sobriety. And you know what else he gave to every single person in this room? Life. You're alive by God's grace. You didn't earn your existence. The very breath you breathe every day is a gift of the grace of God. So Paul is saying all of your experience shows you that God is a gracious God.

And then he goes on and summarizes this section. So again, I ask you, does God give you his spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law or by your believing what you heard? He's saying stop focusing on what you must do and just focus on what God has done. Listen, somebody once said that you can spell man-made religion D O, do, do, do more, do better. That's the temple model. But the grace model is spelled D O N E, done. Jesus has done it. And so ask yourself, do I spell my faith do or done? Am I living in the temple model focused on what I do or resting in God's grace, what he has done?

So first, realize what you already have. And the number two on page two, you and I need to recognize the just-try-harder fallacy. Recognize the just-try-harder fallacy for the logical fallacy that it is. And this is important because you will hear this so many times. It is all around you in churches, outside of churches. Here's the answer to life: here's the principle of spiritual power—just try harder. And that's a fallacy. That's why Paul keeps calling the Galatians foolish. That's not an insult; it just means you're not using your heads. Here's why this is so important. Listen, if you've been a Christian for any time at all, you've asked yourself this question: how do I go beyond being accepted by God as righteous to really living a righteous life, right? During this series, you might have been going, this is all about grace, René. I realize that God forgives me and accepts me and loves me. I get that. However, I still have trouble with grudges. I still have a hard time forgiving that person. I still have trouble with self-control, with lust or anger or being judgmental. I know God loves me; I know he forgives me; I know he's gracious. The trouble is, how do I move beyond that? How do I get more self-control? How do I get more humble? How do I get more forgiving? How do we get stronger? How do I actually grow? You know, now that I'm in, how do I get ahead?

Well, Paul gives a radical answer, and you can see it here in verse 3 and the rest of the book of Galatians. And when I say it's radical, again, I mean it is so radical it is not understood well even by most Christians. And I know because I did not understand this for years of my life. I was a pastor of a church, and I did not understand something that is so plain in Scripture, and this next verse is the verse that turned my life around. This is so personal for me: Galatians 3:3 again: are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the spirit, are you trying to finish by human effort? Let me read that again; don't miss this: after beginning by means of the spirit, are you trying to finish by human effort? I read that 25 years ago, and the power of it was like a lightning bolt in my head. Suddenly, as I realized that is me. I began with the spirit; I received Jesus into my heart, but now my religion was all about my human effort.

And let me tell you how that happened for me, how I fell into that trap of the temple model again. And this probably is going to offend some people, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Are you ready to be offended? When I was about 16 years old, I went to a youth seminar that was a really big deal at the time in the 70s. In fact, they sold out the Oakland Coliseum, tens of thousands of people there, and the teacher—it was all kinds of churches that came—and this spiritual teacher gave us all a big thick binder that was full of all kinds of principles—that's what he called them—that we were supposed to keep. And there were character qualities that we were supposed to try really hard to emulate, like loyalty and faithfulness and trustworthiness, and so on. But they were also rules, like don't date, period. Don't listen to rock music; don't listen to jazz music. Classical is sometimes okay, but really, to be safe, just listen to hymns. And I mean it went on and on and on. And if you kept all these rules, and we signed our name to a covenant, we stood up, you know, kind of like saying I declare I'm going to keep all these principles. And then if you did that, then the next year you could go back to the advanced seminar, and in the advanced seminar, we learned even more stuff from the Bible about rules in the event.

And I just looked at this material again yesterday to say, am I just imagining this? But no, there it was in black and white. In the advanced seminar, we learned how so many of the Old Testament dietary rules really we should keep today too, like don't mix meat and dairy and all kinds of other rules. And so we were just like, yes, we're going to commit ourselves to this because the spiritual authority telling us about these spiritual sacred rules told us that we would get to a higher plane if we did all these rules. And for the next 20 years of my life, to one degree or another, my religion was about trying really hard to be better. I was firmly entrenched in the temple model. My religion was definitely spelled do, do, do this so you can be a better Christian. Do so you can be, do be, do be, do be, do be, do—that was my life.

And then I'll never forget reading Galatians 3. Every time I think about that moment, almost every time, I just cry because I was set free again. I mean, people, I was a Christian pastor of a Christian church teaching my whole church the temple model. You know what was wrong with that binder? What was wrong with it wasn't life principles. There's nothing wrong with having convictions about what your diet or what kind of music is good for you to listen to, but it's wrong when you make that universal for everybody else, for one thing. And secondly, it had nothing to do with the gospel. That teacher never talked about Jesus Christ. It was like, are you a Christian? Just let's just make sure. Accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, and then after about 10 seconds at the very beginning of your spiritual life, it was all just religion again, some thin coating of Jesus on the temple model. And I was exhausted and joyless and completely unconnected to God.

So what's the alternative? Well, do you see what Paul is saying in this verse? He's saying that the way you advance in the Christian faith is exactly the same way you enter the Christian faith. There's no difference. The way you grow is exactly the way you start, and we're gonna get into this way more in Galatians. But he's saying, for example, if you're having trouble with self-control, you're having trouble controlling your sexual thoughts, or you're having fantasies of, you know, revenge, and you can't forgive somebody, you continue in God's grace, not your own strength. And part of what that means is letting your imagination be captured by his grace in Christ, seeing what he did on the cross again because whatever captures your imagination captures you. And as you're captured by the love of God for you, you start being changed incrementally, but you start being changed.

You say, but the grace model is so inexact, and it seems so sloppy and messy. The temple model, you know, is rigorous, and it gives me markers. Yeah, but it doesn't work. It doesn't work. The leader of the whole seminars that I just told you about, he just had to resign last year because of multiple allegations of sexual impropriety. It doesn't work. The grace model is the only thing that actually changes you from the inside out, and if you don't understand that, you just become a Christian moralist, always looking at the symptoms but never looking at the heart.

Well, finally, and I'm just gonna hit this quickly because we're out of time, but Paul models a hugely important way to stay focused on grace, and that's this: remember verses about grace. They might say, well, no duh, but this is so huge, and I'm gonna give you some verses I memorized when I was making my switch from the temple model back to the grace model again. But first, look at Paul's point. Do you see what he's saying in verse 8? Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announce the gospel in advance. Do you see Paul's argument here? Is that grace is actually not a new idea; grace is the first idea because Paul's opponents were saying, oh, this Jesus stuff is brand new; we got Moses; that's ancient. And Paul goes, alright, let's go four centuries before Moses to Abraham. How was Abraham saved? Abraham was saved, of course he was. How was he saved? There was no law yet; it was four centuries before Moses came down the mountain with the Ten Commandments. He didn't have the Ten Commandments to follow. Well, the Bible says he believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Abraham was saved by grace. Grace was always God's plan. He's saying there's grace all over the pages of the first 80% of your Bible. This is not a New Testament versus Old Testament thing; grace was always God's way of saving us.

Now, we don't have time this morning to go into Paul's intricate argument, so what I did was put some bonus sermon material on video. And if you really want to get to the higher plane, you're gonna watch that. Not really; they're just a few further thoughts that I just recorded in my office on these notes. The URL is down there. But here's what I want to point out: Paul's modeling something here when he argues from Scripture because you listen carefully. You can't just argue for grace from your own emotions. Why? Because who are the primary opponents of the grace model? Religious people or non-religious people? Religious people who will tell you you can't just be saved by grace because let me open the Bible; look at all these rules you got to keep: this rule, this rule, this rule, this rule. And you'll go, well, it's right there in the Bible. And so you've got to know Scripture to defend the grace model.

And I put a whole bunch of Bible verses in there, like we saw this one already: on the cross when he died, Jesus says, it is what? Finished. Not it's pretty much done; now it's do any done. John 1:16: let's read this verse out loud. Alright, let me hear you: from the fullness of his grace, we have all received one blessing after another. Not from the three-quarter-ness of his grace, fullness. That means it abounds to you, meeting all your needs. 2 Corinthians 9:8: let's read this out loud—let me hear you read this with gusto—and God is able to make all grace abound to you so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. You think Paul's trying to get something across here? Look at all the times he says all. You already have all you need. You just need to pray that the eyes of your heart are enlightened to what God has already given you by grace, and you've been made complete in Christ, who's the head over every power and authority.

And then finally, 2 Peter 1:3: his divine power has given us what? Everything we need for life and godliness. God has already given you what? Everything you need. I started by talking about our trip to Israel last week, so let me close with the story that happened there. The last thing we did there—in fact, we did it just six days ago this past Monday—we took a tour of the Garden Tomb. Back in the time of Jesus, in the first century Roman era, this was a garden area with a tomb, and they've uncovered it, and you can now go and visit it. And a lot of people feel that Jesus might have been buried right here on this burial slab and rose to life right here. It's from the time of Christ, and certainly, if it wasn't here, it was a place just like this somewhere in the same city, within just a few square miles of this, just outside the city walls.

And our church group's guide through the Garden Tomb area was a very humble man named Joe Armstrong. Now, there was just something about Joe that got my attention. I thought, do I know this guy from somewhere? And so as our group was taking its time to go one person at a time into the end of the tomb, I chatted a bit with Joe. Joe, where are you from? Well, I'm from Texas, but I commute to Manhattan. You commute to Manhattan? What do you do there? Well, I was involved with some magazines. Involved? What did you do? Well, and eventually came out that Joe was the publisher of ten major magazines, including Rolling Stone magazine, New York magazine, and lots more. He's a close personal friend of the Kennedy family; he was an advisor to Time magazine's editorial board, and so I'm finding the sound of my conversation, and so I start googling him—probably not the most spiritual thing to do at the Garden Tomb, but I'm like googling my guy, and I find all kinds of articles. The New York Times did this article on Joe, headline: at media lunches, Joe Armstrong holds court. And this article says if you want to know anybody in New York City, basically what you want to do is get to know Joe because Joe has a power lunch every day at a restaurant called Michaels, which on any given day is all kinds of A-list celebrities, ex-presidents, legendary CEOs at the table. And if you sit down at Joe's table, you are in.

And so I asked Joe, how in the world did you end up giving tours of the Garden Tomb? Well, he's on volunteer sabbatical from ABC, and he told me after decades of being married to my job, I decided that success had had enough of my time devoted to it, and I was going to devote myself to significance. And he's now a full-time volunteer for three or four charities, including building houses in New Orleans with Habitat for Humanity, working with a church in Cuba that's building an orphanage, and for two months every year, he works as a guide at the Garden Tomb, and he was our church group's personal guide there. And I love what he told me as we were waiting at the tomb. He said, René, you know what? Here's the way I see it: I've gone from publishing Rolling Stone to serving the one who rolled the stone away. Don't you love that?

But what I really love is what he told our group meant the most to him about what happened right there at Calvary. He said my favorite thing that happened is this: in the moment Jesus died, the Bible says the thick curtain veil that separated the holy of the holies from the rest of the world was torn into from top to bottom because in that moment, God was doing something. In that moment, the Holy Spirit was no longer in the holy of holies. He was saying Jesus Christ had made a way for us to go right into the very presence of God. The Spirit of God was coming into every heart that would receive him by grace. I moved from the temple model to the grace model, and you know what? I thought to myself, I thought it's a little like getting to know Joe because that New York Times article said, you know Joe, and you're in. You get a lunch invitation from Joe; you're on the inner circle. Well, you know what? You got a lunch invitation to the feast, not from Joe, from Jesus, and you just accept the invitation, and you're in. That's the grace model.

You know, maybe cold and ice-bound and freezing aren't words you'd use to describe the weather; they're used the words you'd use to describe the state of your soul right now. Well, it will be very warmed up; it'll fall; it'll catch on fire when you really understand God's transforming grace. Our gracious heavenly Father, thank you, thank you, thank you. We are so grateful for the grace that empowers and changes and motivates us. God, help our lives to be beacons of grace to others. And Lord, right now, if there is anybody who is realizing I've been thinking of Christianity as the temple model when really it's the grace model, I pray that they just say that to you right now and say, God, thank you. I receive your grace by faith right now. I'm starting to get what the cross meant, that Jesus built a bridge there, that Jesus tore down the barriers there, and I just walk right through that at your invitation, and so I receive that now. Or maybe like me, there's Christians here who were living first in the grace model but have been entrenched into the temple model now for many years. And God, the beauty of your grace is so majestic it can just blow us away and spin us around and leave us in awe. God, may that awe be renewed today. In your name, we pray, amen.