Habits of Grace

Don’t read the Headings

Introduction:

Luke 19:1–10 “1 He entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. 7 And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” 8 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” 9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.””

Who saved Zacchaeus?

What role did Zacchaeus play in his salvation?

The spiritual disciplines are the roads we run to because that’s where we know Jesus will walk by. They are the trees we fight to climb up in order to see Jesus. But it’s Jesus that does the changing.

Galatians 3:1–3 “1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”

Our sanctification just like our salvation is a work of the Spirit. I do not intend to lay down a new spiritual discipline law for you to follow in the flesh that will perfect what was started in the spirit.

We are saved by God’s grace and we are sanctified by God’s grace.

So where does our human effort come into play? I honestly don’t fully understand it.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:10 “10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

Paul says it was by the grace of God that he is who he was who he was but he worked harder than anyone and yet even the hard work he put in was God’s grace in him.

So how does all of that work. I don’t fully know.

But the spiritual disciplines are where I have chosen to give my life. Zacchaues was fed up with his life he clearly wanted a changed. But did he stay at home wallowing in his grief wishing he was a better person?

No he found out where Jesus was going to be walking and went to the road. THen because he was short he had to climb up the tree for the chance to see Jesus.

The spiritual disciplines are where i fight tooth and nail to claw myself to get my sinful flesh to the road that I know Jesus walks by.

I put my self on the path where I know Jesus can change me. And some days its brutal because my sinful flesh is lazy. It would rather stay in bed. It would rather watch youtube videos. But I fight day in and day out to put myself in a position to be changed by God.

Could God send an angel from heaven to touch me and change me. Of course. But in his infinte wisdom he has chosen to use the spiritual disciplines as the main vehicle for change in the believers life.

1 John 3:2 “2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, why? because we shall see him as he is.”

The more of Jesus we see the more we will become like him.

Don’t you want that? What more motivation could you need to commit your life to the spiritual disciplines than the chance to see and be changed by Jesus.

enough preaching

What are the Habits of Grace?

Don Whitney defines the spiritual disciplines “as the God-given means through which we experience God and grow in godliness.”

I like the way Augustine explains it. He sees these spiritual practices as a way of training the loves - bending our desires back toward God.

What are the ways we climb the tree? What are the spiritual disciplines?

Bible Intake

Prayer

Worship

Evangelism

Serving

How?- Family Monastary

Stewardship

Fasting

Silence and Solitude

Journaling

Learning

Corporate Disciplines

Worship with the Body

Hearing God’s Word Preached

The Ordinances

Fellowship

Accountability and Discipline

These have been called the spiritual disciplines for a very long time and that’s what they are commonly known by. But David Mathias in his book on spiritual disciplines calls them Habits of Grace.

I much prefer the term habits of grace or spirtual habits. The term “Discipline” can sound self-powered or performance-based.“Habits of grace” emphasizes that every practice (Bible, prayer, fellowship) is a means of receiving grace, not earning favor.

“The disciplines are not about what we do for God, but about placing ourselves where God delights to meet us with His grace.”

I also like that word habit.“Habits” sound accessible, not heroic. and it reminds us that grace flows through small, consistent patterns, not occasional bursts of effort.

Mathias says, “The paths of grace are ordinary means, practiced over and over again, through which God’s extraordinary power flows.”

The phrase “habits of grace”also captures the paradox: our habits do not produce grace; they place us under grace and empowered by grace

Grace empowers the habit.

The habit positions us to receive more grace.

Dallas Willard is famous for saying, “Grace is not opposed to effort; it is opposed to earning.”

I think that phrase habits of grace helps us remember that.

Before we move on. Why do you think it is dangerous to see spiritual disciplines as tasks to do rather than paths of grace?

We said service was a spirtual discipline or habit of grace? How is that the case and why is it helpful to think that way?

When I was in my twenties and began to truly understand the gospel. That God did not love me more because of my success and did not love me less because of my failures. That God was not in heaven constantly annoyed and disappointed by me but rather loved me and was delighted in me.

When that finally broke through the legalistic understanding of the gospel I actually was repulsed by the spiritual disciplines. I didn’t want to have to do anything that felt like earning. I didn’t want to read anything that said i needed to do something.

Martin Luther - hated the book of James

I didn’t like the book of proverbs….

But the concept of grace not being opposed to effort but opposed to earning has allowed me to love these disciplines or habits. I now love the book of proverbs. Now i understand the commands of scripture aren’t to be followed so God loves me but the commands are grace in themselves.

When God gives us commands to follow he is loving us. These habits of grace are paths to experience God’s love.

How to Form Habits

So How do we form habits and which habits of grace should we form first.

I’d like to argue that Bible intake, meditation/memorization, and prayer are the foundation for everything else.

If we aren’t in our bibles consistently, if we aren’t meditating on God’s word, and if we are not responding to God’s word in prayer then every other discipline will be distorted.

And what I’ve found is it doesn’t matter how much we tell people to read their bible and pray everyday it is always a struggle. My guess is that it’s a struggle for you as well. I personally do a lot of bible reading and prayer and yet it’s still a struggle to keep the habit going. I’m always feeling pulled away from these habits.

We are going to start with these those three habits today and next week and I hope you can take what we discuss and apply it in a way that fits in your life.

As we talk about habit formation I hope that you will be able to apply it to other areas of your life.

I’d also like to give you some bonus reading. Atomic Habits by James Clear has been revolutionary to me. He comes to habit formation from a secular viewpoint but the book is full of proverbial wisdom. His main argument is that small atomic habits can have extraordinary results.

I think scripture teaches the same thing. The small practice of daily bible reading, memorization, and prayer can over time have extraordinary results.

I’ve taken what he writes and modified it some for my own life but here is how I believe you can form the habit of sustained Bible Reading/Prayer/Memory.

The Four Laws of Habit Formation

In Atomic Habits he gives four laws of Habit Formation.

Make it Obvious

Make it Attractive

Make it Easy

Make it Satisfying

We are going to use those 4 laws as a starting place for forming habits of grace and lets start with something you hopefully all have down fairly well -bible reading. Let’s start with the law make it obvious.

You can take this a few ways.

Make it obvious in the physical sense. Make sure you’re bible is out in a prominent place where you will see it and think to read it.

Make sure sure you have an obvious place to go to read your bible. If you want to form the habit of bible reading and prayer you need an obvious space to do it in.

But what I think is most important is that you make it obvious for when you will practice the habit.

If you think I should read my bible sometime today but don’t know when, where, or what you are going to read. It’s very unlikely you will succeed.

So make the plan obvious.

We are going to start with a simple plan. It’s called an Implementation Intention. It’s the bridge between wanting to change and actually changing.

I hope you guys already have this habit of bible reading down so this may seem redundant but my hope is you will use this for other habits of grace.

Implementation Intention

I’m going to take you through what I do and we will start simple and then slowly grow it into a whole morning routine.

Morning vs Night

“I will [behavior] at [time] in [location].”

Here’s what I do. I want you to write down your plan.

I will read 6 chapters at 6 am in my study.

Ok that’s what I do. That’s my obvious plan.

But law 3 is make it easy.

And I would suggest taking that very seriously. Especially when we apply this to verse memory in a little bit.

The hardest part of a habit is starting. So we need to start easy.

James clear recommends if you are having a hard time starting the habit of running to have a habit for one week be simply putting on your running shoes every morning.

I will put my running shoes on in this place at this time

I will read for five minutes in this place at this time.

I will do memory work for five minutes in this place at this time.

I actually did this with my bible memory. I found that i memorize best when I’m moving I think it helps my brain focus and keep attention. So I got a treadmill I put it in my study and printed out my memory work.

But I hate walking on a treadmill. So I made it really easy. I started by doing my memory work just standing on my treadmill. Not walking. Definitely not running or jogging. Just standing. And you know what happened almost naturally. One day I turned the treadmill on and started walking.

Because I made it easy.

So make it easy.

Remember your worth comes from Jesus not the length of your bible reading.

Let’s go back to my plan

I will read 6 chapters at 6 am in my study.

But law number 2 is make it attractive

I don’t naturally like sitting down at 6 in the morning to read my bible. That’s unnatural.

But I do really love quietly drinking coffee in the morning in my chair.

So I have paired my bible reading something i don’t naturally like with coffee drinking something i do naturally like.

None of this is mind blowing is it? I’m not the first person to drink coffee and read my bible. I was doing that long before I read Atomic Habits. I’m trying to show you something that then you can apply to other habits of grace.

So I’ve paired my bible reading with something naturally attractive coffee.

But this then adds to my morning routine which effects my simple implementation intention.

So let’s go back to making it obvious.

The goal in habit formation is to eliminate as much friction and opportunity for distraction.

So habits are much more easily formed when you build them off something else.

Which is called habit stacking.

You stack your habits on top of other habits. So you can get to the new habit without having to think very much about it.

The more space and time in between habits the more opportunity for distractions and pitfalls.

So you start with an implementation intention and then stack on after that.

“I will [behavior] at [time] in [location].”

Then habit stacking looks like this

“After I [current habit], I will [new habit].”

So my Implementation intention with habit stacking would look like this.

I will get out of bed at 5:15 am

After getting out of bed I will make coffee

After making coffee I will read 6 chapters in my study

Simple obvious I know. But here’s a problem. Coffee takes awhile to brew. What do you think I was doing while my coffee was brewing?

Checking my phone. Looking at youtube videos. How often do you think I allowed that to bleed into my bible reading time.

All the time

So part of habit formation is eliminating pitfalls or distractions.

Here’s how I eliminated that pitfall. While my coffee was brewing I would go for a short walk around my neighborhood. 15 to 20 minutes.

This served a few purposes. It kept me from getting distracted, it woke me up, and gave me opportunities to pray for my neighbors and do some verse memory work as I walked.

Consider your own pitfalls and create spaces without distractions.

Leave your phone behind

Have a note pad to write down things that come into mind but you don’t want to think about

Find a place you won’t be interrupted

Light a candle

Go outside

Don’t get too comfortable

So I I will get out of bed at 5:15 am

After getting out of bed I will make coffee

While my coffee is brewing I will walk the square while praying and memorizing scripture

After I finish walking I will grab my coffee and read 6 chapters in my study

Now i’ve created a morning routine that works for me and that I implement almost every morning. But once you’ve got this started then you need to just keep building on it and you map out your morning as much as you possibly can.

So for me it looks like this.

After I read my 6 chapters I move over to my prayer bench and pray through my daily handbook to prayer section and my lost and found list.

After prayer, I walk on my treadmill and continue to work on my verse memory.

After my verse memory I wake up Suzy and Abby.

After I wake up Suzy and Abby I clean the kitchen while listening to my verses.

By that time Suzy is awake my routine starts to fall apart and I should work harder at stacking my habits as I’m helping suzy get ready for the day.

But here’s what I want you to see what started with the simple habit of getting up and making coffee has led to a routine that regular gets me into scripture, prayer, memorization, and service.

The hardest part of habit formation is starting the habit. But once you get the ball rolling each habit stack becomes easier and easier.

In physics, Newton’s First Law says an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. The same is true with habits. Once a behavior starts moving in a direction — good or bad — it tends to keep moving that way unless something interrupts it.

So if you can start you day moving in the right direction the rest of the day is much more likely to follow and over time you will see extraordinary results.

Here’s what I’d like you to do. Map out a morning routine with habits you want to form stacked on habits you may already do with a plan to avoid pitfalls.

Remember to make it obvious, attractive and easy and make sure to include these three habits of grace Bible intake, prayer, and memorization. After making this routine we are going to work on the habit of bible memory.

Bible Memory

Why don’t we memorize scripture?

You all work at camp. So you are all poor like me. If I said you could have a 1000 dollars for every verse you memorized this week. How many verses do you think you could memorize?

So why don’t we memorize scripture?

We don’t value scripture.

So the first step to bible memory is repentance. Repent to God that you have not valued his word enough to hide it in your heart. Then ask for the grace to motivate you to do form the habit.

Now let’s get practical. Part of your homework is to read the book How to memorize scripture for life and it will go into greater detail and I don’t want to repeat everything it says. But I do want to give an overview.

I asked this of my youth group several months ago and they were brutal honest with me.

I asked if they thought of me as particularly smart.

They all gave a resounding no.

I like to think of myself slightly above average. However, i’m not sure that’s true and I’ve had to really come to grips with the fact that many if not most people are smarter than me.

However, even with my limited inteligence last year I was able to memorize the entire book of Philippians, half of the sermon on the mount, and several larger chunks of scripture with our verse memory group at church. Right now I’m 2 chapters into the book of James and I’m loving it.

I don’t say that to brag but to share what is possible. Not only am i not that smart I also have a tendency to be lazy and yet even with all my natural short comings I was able to memorize these large sections of scripture.

It was amazing. It changed my life. God was very gracious to me to allow me to hide his word in my heart and I want to share that joy with others. I want you to be able to hide God’s Word in your heart.

So here’s the method and the secret to verse memory.

First, our brains were designed to memorize and we memorize best or the secret to verse memory is Spoken repetition.

If you want to memorize a verse read it aloud 10 times. Then without looking recite it aloud ten times.

Part of your homework this week will be to memorize John 15:1-11 and in class today we are going to give you a head start.

Let’s start with the first two verse. I’m familiar with them but have not worked to memorize them yet.

John 15:1–2 “1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”

Read ten times

Recite ten times

Now that I’ve memorized those verses I’m done for the day.

Tomorrow I will start my verse memory reciting those verse 10 times.

Then I will go on to John 15:3–4 “3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.”

After reading ten times and reciting ten times I will then quote John 15:1-4

The next day I will start by quoting John 15:3-4 then I will move on to John 15:5–6. Now that looks long. So I am going to stick with just verse 5.

After reading and quoting 10 times. I will then go back and quote John 15:1-5

and so on and so forth.

Does that make sense?

So here’s what I want you to do. Let’s take 7 minutes and memorize John 15:1-2