River's Edge Community Church

This is our final week of this study. As such, we want to review where we’ve been and spend some time thinking about where we want to go in the upcoming weeks.

Sunday is a day of preparation, a day to focus on what we want God to produce in us as a result of our time this week.

Francois Fenelon wrote: “There is nothing that is more dangerous to your own salvation, more unworthy of God and more harmful to your own happiness, than that you should be content to remain as you are.” Our calling is to grow, to strive to have Christ formed in us. And yet, many of us prefer to stay where we are, floating somewhere between not too holy and not too worldly. Being comfortable is the kiss of death for spiritual growth. But there is one more thing that torpedoes spiritual formation, not having a plan for growth. The old saying, “fail to plan, plan to fail,” applies to our spiritual life as well. Here’s where we as the church have gone wrong: we have not defined spiritual maturity in a tangible way, and we have failed to set out a plan to move in that direction.

This week, we want to challenge you to grow by thinking through how you want to approach the upcoming year with an eye to being spiritually formed.


Paul writes (Galatians 2:19-21):
“For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”


Let’s pray:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us, not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.


When we talk about spiritual formation, we understand that we are called to grow in these 8-9 areas:

• That we will be driven by grace, responding to God in faith, in worship and in gratitude, resting in his great promises.
• That we will invest in loving relationships, growing in graciousness, compassion and forgiveness.
• That we will be involved in reaching out to those who are lost and in ministries of justice and compassion.
• That we will be constantly seeking to grow in our faith, investing ourselves in things that the Spirit can use to produce his fruit in us.
• That we will embrace the values and the perspectives of the Kingdom on the Mount and seek to live out Christ’s teachings moment by moment.
• That we will give ourselves away to others, advancing the kingdom of God through the giving of our time, talent and treasure.
• That we will endeavor to be more authentic and transparent, dealing more and more with our heart issues rather than trying to manage our sin.
• That we will seek to be relevant, skillfully engaging our culture with wisdom and grace
• That we will truly invest ourselves in prayer.

Pray through the above statements and ask God to lead you to choose the one that you feel is most important to you right now for your spiritual formation. Pray that God would produce this in you in the upcoming weeks (“O God, change me. Pour out your grace upon me so that . . . .”). Pray this prayer repeatedly throughout the upcoming week. Keep this request in mind as a goal so that you will be aware of opportunities that God is giving you to develop this in you.

This one thing I ask of God this week (Prayer Goal for this week), that he would transform me with his grace so that _____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________.

My prayer goal for last week was _______________________________________.


(Optional) from St. Augustine’s Confession, Sections 1, 4 and 5 ( Penguin Books, Baltimore, 1964)

Can any praise be worthy of the Lord’s majesty? How magnificent his strength? How inscrutable his wisdom? Man is one of your creatures, Lord, and his instinct is to praise you. He bears about him the mark of death, the sign of his own sin, to remind him that you thwart the proud. But still, since he is a part of your creation, he wishes to praise you. The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.

What, then, is the God I worship? He can be none but the Lord God himself, for who but the Lord is God? What other refuge can there be, except our God? You, my God, are supreme, utmost in goodness, mightiest and all-powerful, most merciful and most just. You are the most hidden from us and yet the most present amongst us, the most beautiful and yet the most strong, ever enduring and yet we cannot comprehend you. You are unchangeable and yet you change all things. You are never new, never old, and yet all things have new life from you. You are the unseen power that brings decline upon the proud. You are ever active, yet always at rest. You gather all things to yourself, though you suffer no need. You support, you fill, and you protect all things. You create them, nourish them, and bring them to perfection. You seek to make them your own, though you lack for nothing. You love your creatures, but with gentle love. You treasure them, but without apprehension. You grieve for wrong, but suffer no pain. You can be angry and yet serene. Your works are varied, but your purpose is one and the same. You welcome all who come to you, though you never lost them. You are never in need yet are glad to gain, never covetous yet you exact a return for your gifts. We give abundantly to you so that we may deserve a reward; yet which of us has anything that does not come from you? You repay us what we deserve, and yet you owe nothing to any. You release us from our debts, but you lose nothing thereby. You are my God, my Life, my holy Delight, but is this enough to say of you? Can any man say enough when he speaks of you? Yet woe betide those who are silent about you! For even those who are most gifted with speech cannot find words to describe you.

My soul is like a house, small for you to enter, but I pray that you will enlarge it. It is in ruins, but I ask you to remake it. It contains much that you will not be pleased to see: this I know and do not hide. But who is to rid it of these things? There is no one but you. . . .

What strikes you about this reading?

Augustine fashions these chapters as a prayer to God. How do they function as an act of worship?

According to Augustine, what is our calling as people made in the image of God? How should this shape our lives?

Augustine argues that without a proper understanding of God, humanity will suffer from a lack of contentment. Do you agree? In what ways would this inner restlessness reveal itself?

Augustine offers a moving description of God, filled with contrasting statements. What one paired statement stands out most to you? Why?

What one paired statement do you think would have the most impact if you were speaking to a seeker? Why?

What do you think Augustine would say is humanity’s greatest sin?

What is Augustine’s prayer at the end?

How can this reading shape our understanding of spiritual formation?

How can this reading shape how you approach this week?


Let’s Pray (adapted from The Valley of Vision: God the Source of All Good)
O Lord God, who inhabits eternity,
      the heavens declare your glory,
      the earth your riches,
      the universe is your temple;
      your presence fills immensity,
Yet, you have of your pleasure created life, and communicated happiness;
You have made me what I am, and given me all that I have;
     In you I live and move and have my being.
     Your providence has set the bounds of my habitation,
     and wisely administers all my affairs.
I thank you for your riches to me in Jesus,
      for the unclouded revelation of him in your Word,
     where I behold his person, character, grace, glory, humiliation,
          sufferings, death and resurrection.
Give me to feel a need of his continual saviorhood,
      and cry with Job, “I am vile,”
      with Peter, “I perish,”
      with the publican, “Be merciful to me a sinner.”
Subdue in me the love of sin,
Let me know the need of renovation as well as forgiveness,
      in order to serve and enjoy you forever.
I come to you in the all prevailing name of Jesus,
      with nothing of my own to plead,
      no works, no worthiness, no promises.
I am often straying
      often knowingly opposing your authority,
      often abusing your goodness;
Much of my guilt arises from my religious privileges,
      my low estimation of them,
      my failure to use them to my advantage.
But I am not careless of your favor or regardless of your glory.
Impress me deeply with a sense of your omnipresence,
      that you are about my path, my ways, my lying down, my end.


Thinking Through Spiritual Formation and Growth
Choose one or two of the following questions and think through your answer.

What does it mean to die to the law? How do we do that?

How have we been crucified with Christ?

What does it mean to live by faith?

What motivation is there in this passage for living a life of faith?

Why couldn’t righteousness be gained through the law?

What does this passage have to say about spiritual formation?


A Thought to Ponder
"We never become truly spiritual by sitting down and wishing to be so."  (Phillips Brooks)

"I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain."  (A.W. Tozer)


Closing Prayer:
Abba Father, pour out your love upon us so that we may love you and love our neighbor as ourselves. Our hearts are also small. Enlarge them with your glory so they are fit for you. Open our eyes to your love so that we will always walk in your ways. Fill us with your Spirit that we may be your people. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.