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    Grace Transforming
    Grace Transforming
    Grace Transforming
    Ebook100 pages1 hour

    Grace Transforming

    By Philip Graham Ryken

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    About this ebook

    For those of us who are performance-oriented or for those who have long since thrown in the towel, a word about grace is in order.
    Within these pages are 9 key messages on the grace of God. These are masterful lessons, built on Scripture, edifying and applicable for all who want to experience the freedom that comes from resting on the promise of God's unmerited favor.
    Helping us to understand that we are not defined by what we do, but rather by who Jesus is and what he has done, Grace Transforming powerfully addresses the transforming power of grace that is essential for every Christian.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCrossway Books
    Release dateOct 31, 2012
    ISBN9781433534034
    Grace Transforming
    Author

    Philip Graham Ryken

    Philip Graham Ryken (DPhil, University of Oxford) is the eighth president of Wheaton College. He preached at Philadelphia’s Tenth Presbyterian Church from 1995 until his appointment at Wheaton in 2010. Ryken has published more than fifty books, including When Trouble Comes and expository commentaries on Exodus, Ecclesiastes, and Jeremiah. He serves as a board member for the Gospel Coalition and the Lausanne Movement.

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      Book preview

      Grace Transforming - Philip Graham Ryken

      PREFACE

      This book began as a series of chapel messages given at Wheaton College. Wheaton is a performance-oriented place, so in my first year as president I wanted to speak as often as I could about the grace of God. Instead of being defined by who we are and what we do, we are defined by who Jesus is and what he has done for us in his death and resurrection.

      I am grateful to Crossway for the invitation to edit my chapel messages on God’s life-changing grace and adapt them for a wider audience. I am also grateful to Marilee Melvin for her help in making many corrections to the original manuscript.

      Our family has been deeply grateful for the extraordinary welcome we have received from the Wheaton College community, especially the students. Their friendship and openness to God’s work in their lives make it a joy to teach them the Word of God. This book is sent to press with gratitude to God for the high privilege of serving as their president.

      Phil Ryken

      Wheaton, Illinois

      1

      GRACE’S HUMBLING NECESSITY

      We begin at the beginning, with our desperate need for grace. From the moment we came into the world as helpless babies, right up until this exact second, we are utterly and completely dependent on the grace of God for everything we have, including life itself. What is more, if we have any hope of life after death—eternal life—it is only because of God’s free and undeserved grace for us in Jesus Christ.

      Until we understand this, it is impossible for us to have the relationship with God that we truly need. But when we do understand this—when we understand our absolute need for Jesus—then his grace changes everything.

      PAST EXPERIENCE, PRESENT NEED

      Our need for grace may seem obvious at the beginning of the Christian life, when we first put our trust in Jesus. Then we know that if there is anything we contribute to our salvation, it is only the sin that necessitates a Savior. According to the good news of our salvation, Jesus died and rose again so that in him we would receive forgiveness for our sins and enter into everlasting fellowship with the true and living God. We are not saved by anything that we have done, therefore, but only by what Jesus has done. It is all by his grace, not by our works.

      Yet grace is not something we leave behind once we decide to follow Jesus. Grace is our present need as well as our past experience. The gospel is not just the way into the Christian life; it is also the way on in the Christian life. We continually need to remember that God saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 1:9).

      In my first chapel address as president of Wheaton College I said something that took some people by surprise, maybe because it’s something that many Christians forget. I said that I don’t know of a college anywhere in the world that needs the gospel more than Wheaton does.

      In saying this, I did not mean to imply that there aren’t a lot of Christians at Wheaton. In fact, every student, every professor, and every staff member on campus makes a personal profession of faith in Jesus Christ. Still, it wouldn’t be surprising to find unbelievers on campus: in most Christian communities there are at least some people who do not yet have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.

      This is not what I meant, however, when I said that Wheaton College needs the gospel. I meant that the gospel is for Christians every bit as much as it is for non-Christians. We never outgrow our need for God’s life-changing grace—the gospel of the cross and the empty tomb.

      A SELF-CENTERED PRAYER

      The main reason we continue to need the gospel is that we continue to sin. To experience God’s life-changing grace for ourselves, therefore, we need to recognize the deep-seated sin that necessitates our salvation.

      One of the best places to see our need for grace, and also the way that God answers that need, is in a story Jesus told to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt (Luke 18:9). In other words, this is a story for people who will not admit their need for grace. It is a story for us, if we are too proud to confess our sins. It goes like this:

      Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get. But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner! I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. (Luke 18:10–14)

      The story opens with a surprise, because in those days everyone knew that tax collectors did not go to the temple and did not pray. Tax collectors were employed by the Roman government, and thus they were considered traitors to the Jewish people. Many practiced extortion. Thus one preacher compared them to drug pushers and pimps, those who prey on society, and make a living of stealing from others.¹ Make no mistake about it: this tax collector was a crook!

      The Pharisee, by contrast, stood for everything that was right and good. The Pharisees were widely regarded as spiritual overachievers. They were theologically orthodox and morally devout. Possibly our respect for this particular Pharisee increases when we overhear his prayer. He comes before God with thanksgiving. He testifies that he is not an extortioner or an adulterer. Rather than taking money for himself, he gives it away to others. He not only prays, but also fasts. In contemporary terms, this man would be a pastor or a theologian—or maybe the president of a Christian college.

      Yet for all his devotion, the Pharisee was not righteous in the sight of God. Why not? His most obvious problem was pride. Although he began by addressing God, he spent the rest of his prayer talking about himself. In only two short verses he manages to mention himself five (!) times: I . . . I . . . I . . . I . . . I. It gets worse, because if we translate verse 11 more literally, it reads, "The Pharisee, standing, prayed about himself, or even with himself, in which case he was not talking to God at all! He did not truly ask God for anything or offer God any praise but simply reveled in his own sense of moral superiority. In other words, the Pharisee was exactly like the people listening to Jesus tell this story: confident of his own righteousness. Here is a man, said London’s famous preacher Charles Spurgeon, who thought he was too good to be saved."²

      It is easy to see how self-righteous the Pharisee was, but what we really need to assess is the same attitude in ourselves. If we are living in Christian community, then either

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