The Position & Possessions of the Believer # 7- 9 (Lesson 17)
Courtney Hemenway · Feb 4, 2007
Identification (2006-07), No. 18
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492601647302

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

I'm going to do the zip through review real quick. And I want quick answers to this. This should be old hat by now. Wow. Having been a teacher, I know about this. Laughing on the sidelines here. OK. Is there anything in Adam that is good? No. No. Easy, these are easy, these are rapid fire, should be just immediate answers. Immediate answers. Are there attributes of our Adamic nature that are worth fixing up for approval by God? No. No. Which of the currently popular church programs will help us fix up the old man? None. None. You can't.

Christ died on the cross for our sins, wiping out our trespasses or sins. Isn't that good enough to stand before God as a forgiven sinner? Why not? Ha! You thought you'd get away with that one answer. Why not? Oh, that was easy to say, no. But now when it comes to the answer, you haven't got a clue. Come on. Oh man. You have to appropriate that what Christ has done. I mean, you have to accept it. Believe. Yeah. Just forgiving your sins does not get rid of the sin nature. Bingo.

If we are just same sinners, what are we still? Sinners. Sinners. So even if it's all paid for, we're still sinners. Can a sinner stand with God face to face? No. No. So, can God be in the presence of a sinner, saved or not? What? No. So, if we are, we're still identified as sinners, and this is, what is the sign? Sinners welcome here or something, and some of those, you know, save sinners, save sinners welcome, and it's like, save sinners. Still a sinner.

You see it on some of the churches, and that's wrong. Not save sinners. That doesn't do us any good. All our sins are paid for. It still doesn't matter. We're still sinners, and that's the point. If we're still identified with Adam, the best one is Romans 3, 10 through 18. And you don't have to look. I'll read it real quick.

There is none righteous, not even one. Okay, all the escape clauses are out. No loopholes in this one. There are none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside. All have turned aside. Together they have become useless. There is none who does good. There is not even one. Okay, emphasis. There isn't somebody sneaking in under the radar that is a really good person who can stand before God without being a new creature. There's not one.

Their throat is an open grave. With their tongues they keep deceiving. The poison of ass is under their lips. Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their paths. In the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their lives, or before their eyes. So, that's who we are in Adam. Pretty sweet picture, okay? So, can that sinner stand before God? Can somebody like that stand before God face-to-face? Absolutely not. So where do we go from there? Actually, I had a quote from Miles Stanford and Hungry Heart.

How many earnest and religious people belong to the old Adam Improvement Society? It is the recognition of the Christ life. It is union with the risen Christ that men need instead of the culture of the religious self-life. Again, this is the fix up the Adam group. It is Christ's life, being new creatures in Christ that is the important part. And that's why I'm going quickly through this, our identification. This is all about identification. Who are you identified with?

Either Adam or Christ. So, as we looked in Romans 6, we saw that we needed to be led to the cross of Christ. At the cross we found salvation, the forgiveness of sin, but what else did we find at the cross? So, yeah, forgiveness is in salvation, but what did we find in Romans 6 at the cross? The identification with Christ.

And how was that? Delight with Him. I mean, what He did, went through, we go through. Getting there. I think I heard the answer over here in the actual word. Death. Death or? Crucifixion. Crucifixion. We died with Christ. Okay? There is only, through death, separation. That is separation. We are separated from our Adamic nature, our sin, our old man, through crucifixion.

And that's where we are identified with Christ. And I can go through a couple of these. At Romans 6, we found that we, the old man and Adam, needed to be crucified. The only way God could get us out of our identification in Adam was to crucify us in Adam and give us new life, identified in Christ. And some of the verses, 2 Corinthians 5, 17, Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is what?

A new creature. not a fixed up one, not a polished up one, not a refurbished one, but a new creature. Old things passed away. Behold, new things have come. Galatians 2.20, I've been crucified with Christ and is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me in the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and delivered himself up for me. So the quick identification background check here. So now that we're new creatures in Christ, what does that mean? What do we have in Christ? New life? Everything. Everything.

That's why we're going through these 34 things. That was a long lead up to why we're going through these 34 things that Lewis Berry Chafer identified as immediate things that we have when we are identified with Christ. And we've gone through a few of them. In the eternal plan of God, that was the first one where there's foreknowledge, elect of God, predestined, chosen, and called.

Reconciled. We're not only reconciled by God, but we're reconciled to God. We're redeemed. I love the fourth one. No condemnation. Don't beat yourself up. Therefore, there is now no condemnation. Fifth one, related to God through propitiation. What was propitiation? satisfaction and whose God and then six all sins removed by his efficacious blood so that was the quick review there ten minutes or less of identification class now we're up to lesson number 17 if you everybody have 17 okay 17 we will start through and we will go through verses so grab your Bibles We're going to start in the back. No, we'll start over there. You were just waiting for that, I know.

Okay, Romans 6-6. Romans 6-8. 1 Peter 2-24. Romans 6-4. Colossians 3-1. Okay, Romans 6 says, okay, now these are the seventh item that Luther Perry Chaffer identified was vitally joined together with Christ for judgment of the old self unto a new walk. And these are different items that show our joining with him. And note in these verses, The number of times it's with him or in him, with him, in him. So these are identification in him. These only come through him. Romans 6, 6.

Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. Okay, our joining with him. What is the first thing that our old self was? Crucified. So the first one is crucified and what? With Christ, with Him. This is the co-crucifixion. This is Romans 6. This is, I think, the crux of our beginning of our spiritual growth, is understanding that. Crucifixion, the co-crucifixion with Christ of our old man. Very, very important. I think this is the beginning of spiritual growth, is understanding that verse.

Romans 6.8. Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. And yeah, we're crucified that our body of sin might be done away with and that we should no longer be. Oh, what am I doing? I'm wrong. Yeah, I want to back up. We believe that we shall also live with him. That's right. So first, Peter two twenty two twenty four.

He himself bore our sins and his body on a tree. So we may not die of sins and live for righteousness by his wounds. You have been healed. OK, so through those two are joining with him. is the second part. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe we shall also live with him. So in the second verse, for he himself bore our sins on the body of the cross, that what we might die to sin and to live to righteousness, for by his wounds you were healed. Second one, are adjoining with him. Died. We have died with Christ, dead with Christ. That's the second one. Third one, Romans 6, verse 4.

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in the newness of life. And Colossians 2, verse 12. Having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead. The third point from these two verses. buried with him.

Okay. And the Romans of Romans 6, 4, and then I'll get to your Colossians right now. Therefore, we have been buried with him through baptism into death in order that Christ was raised from the dead. through the glory of the Father, so we, too, might walk in newness of life." Colossians 3. Therefore, since you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Okay, this is kind of a combo one between these two, and it's not as easy, but what do you think this is in our joining with him? Raised. Raised, and from the Romans one? Walk in newness of life. So it's actually raised with Christ to walk by a new principle of life or walk in newness of life. When you go through all these different ones and are joined together with Christ for judgment of the old self and unto a new walk, All these verses, kind of read them back.

Anybody got them written down and read them back? Just kind of one A, B, C, D? Crucified, died, buried, raised. What does that sound like? Gospel or identification. We're identified, crucified, died, buried, risen. Okay, this is the identification truth. This is how we, I thought, you know, each of these verses walks us right through the identification truth. We are identified to Christ, or with Christ, by these, these verses. Crucified, dead, buried, risen. Okay? Very simple. So, you know, these verses walk you through the identification truth. Yeah.

It's a new principle of life. and which means that the life is totally different than the old life. And we'll be getting to that. New and formed. The point that I'm making is that We're not resurrected like Lazarus was back to the old. The entire life that we now are resurrected to operates based on a totally new set of principles. Yeah, new in form, and we'll get to this a little bit later, one of the words, it's new in quality, new in shape, new, entirely new, not a a new atom without sin at the beginning. It's not coming right back to the beginning before there was sin.

This is a new creature. This is completely new form and shape, everything. It's not just, like you said, the polished up or the brand new atom that's instead of the 57 model, it's the 2007 model. It's not like that. It is a new in kind, and we'll get to the word on that in a little bit, the Greek word for that and what it means in newness of life.

So, this first one, I finally join together with Christ for the judgment of the old self. This really walks you through that, joining is really identification, that joining is through that identification in Christ. And if you kind of keep these, this is kind of a way to walk through somebody with the identification truths. These verses, again, it goes really right through with crucifixion, or co-crucifixion with Christ, death, burial, and resurrection. So, kind of walks it right through. So these are kind of a good list of verses and stuff to walk somebody through these identification truths.

Any questions on that one? I'm blazing through here. All right. Possession number eight, free from the law. And is being free from the law just an excuse for doing the things which the law prescribes? Is this a get out of jail free card? Is this a pass to do whatever you want? Boy, what a silent bunch. Silent. Do we have any brave creatures? Yes, we do. No. This isn't that we're free from the law. It means yee-haw. Do whatever you want. Paul answers this several times. And what do you want to do?

Romans 6, 1 through 4. Sheryl, you want to do Romans 6, 15 through 8. Ingrid, Romans 7, 7. Erica, Romans 7, 12 through 14. Paul answers this question several times, because I think it was one of those ones where the normal mind goes, OK, we're free from the law. Free means we can do anything we want. So Paul addressed it several times. Laura? What shall we say then? Shall we continue to sin that breaks me about? God forbid.

How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Know ye not that so many as of a Many of us, as we were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death. Therefore, we are buried with Him by baptism unto death. But like us, Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Yeah, I think the last part, too, is walk in newness of life. Does that mean, yee-haw, do anything you want? Gerald? 6, 15 through 18.

What then, shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not. Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Yeah. I love Paul. He addresses very, very directly. Should we do this? May it never be. May it never be.

And then, you know, you become slaves of righteousness, okay? Romans 7, 7. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not. Indeed, I would not have known what sin was except through the law. You remember that? Why? What is the purpose of the law? To lead you to schoolmaster. Uh, yes.

We'll get to that verse. I love that verse. And people, I love that verse because people only take the first verse and don't, they say the law is a tutor and we're under the tutor. They don't do the second verse which says we're no longer under that tutor anymore. So they always take that first verse. We had a friend over and brought that verse up. Yeah, but doesn't it say the law is a tutor? We'll read the second, next verse, but anyway, tangential here.

What was I asking here? Oh, what was I doing? Seven, seven. Oh, why, the sin, why is there law? And the law was to what? Convict. And to expose, and to, I forget your word you use, make sin abound, that's it. That's what the law was there for. So, you know, to be under the law, does that make sense? You know, a new creature is in Christ. Romans 7, 12 through 14. So then, the law is holy and the commandment is holy by tradition.

Did that which is good then become death to me? By no means. But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.

Okay. So, back to the original question. Are we free to do whatever we want now that we are new creatures in Christ, free from the law? We are free from the law. We are free. But we're not, I mean, we serve another. That's I think the best answer. Because when we say we're free, some can take it as, you know, now I can go out and just do whatever I want. And Paul addresses this in several of these verses, may it never be. We are free to serve another. And that's really, I think, the key.

And that's why the slaves to righteousness, we are now bound to another. We are bound to Christ. And in that, and we'll get in this a little bit later, what that means as far as We'll see, there's several logical imperatives that come up, which people will turn into laws. But they're logical imperatives, they're not moral imperatives, and we'll get into that a little bit later. But I like that.

We're free to serve another. Mike's brought up several times, when you're in Adam, do you have freedom? No. You're only free to do this sin, that sin, that sin, this sin, that sin, but you're in bondage. You're in bondage to the sin nature. That's all you can do. So we do have freedom under grace, but we're free now to serve another, and that's Christ. Yeah. It's interesting that it seems like a lot of this relates to the tree of knowledge, good and evil, or the tree of life.

Adam, all he has is good and evil. All he has is his works. And they're all evil in the sight of God. But that's all he has is, you can call it the law, you know, the law of sin, whatever it is. But that's all he has. And he only has his works to do. And it's always, always going to fall short. But once we become in Christ, what's not about our works anymore.

The law is you need to do this. You need to do that. We don't need to do those things anymore. The law exposes, okay, do this, but it knows you can't do that. You're never going to be able to do it. It exposes your insufficiency, but in Christ we have the tree of life. Now we can... Well, we can choose to do those things, but it's not out of necessity. We have to do works in order to get to heaven. We have that freedom now, but it's freedom in Christ, because His works are sufficient, and His works are now our works.

Absolutely. Couldn't say it any better. I mean, that's a very good description of it. Under law, it's merit-based. Under man, it's merit-based. It's what we, self, I have to do. In Christ, who's the one doing it? Christ. There is no merit. There is no metric.

The law really, as I said, exposed all that, that we couldn't do it. That was what it was due to expose, that we could not reach God's acceptance, His holiness, through the law. That's what it was. It was to expose that and the need for Christ. And so, very good. Excellent. And then the tree of life, too.

That's the thing we've talked about many times, and I think that's one of the hardest things, In Adam, most people want, and we've talked about this a lot of times, most people want to go, you know, not get out of the tree of good and evil. They want to go from one side of the tree to the other, but not down and out and over to the tree of life. And what that means, and what real shoe leather means, is, you know, it's real hard to separate It's easy to identify sin. Somebody shoots somebody. It's a sin. There are lots of things. On the evil side, it's very easy to identify.

But many Christians gravitate over to the good side, doing good works, doing things to make them more acceptable to God. Does that make them more acceptable to God? Absolutely not. And that's the fallacy or the problem with that is they think, you know, if I'm a deacon and I go out and I build and I fix and I serve and I, you know, God's going to smile at me a little more. He's going to think I'm just a little better than that person who wasn't doing all those things. Is that a right thought?

No. There's nothing we can do in ourselves that makes us more acceptable. Is there anything more that we can do to make us acceptable in God's eyes? I mean, other than being in Christ? Is there anything we can do? No, there really isn't. There isn't something we can do that makes us just a little better.

How much better is it than to be identified in Christ? You know, put whatever you have as a work or a thing to do versus Christ, and what God feels, thinks, and knows about Christ versus anything you can come up with. Pales in comparison, and we're in Him. All that's true about Christ is true about us, except for deity. If there was something we could do, then there wouldn't have been a need for identification with the cross.

And I forget which verse that is. It says, if that's true, then what is that? I'm horrible at this. You're still dead in your sins. Still dead in your sins. And it's vain. Christ's death is in vain. That's what I'm trying to get rid of. I just have to lean on my wife. This is my memorization. I know the verse, but I don't know where it is.

Is that it? Does a believer have to come to the realization that there's in him, that it's in his flesh, but it's no good thing? You have to come to know that, recognize that, and then be in a position to receive God's remedy for that. Yes. That's coming to the crucifixion part. That's, I think, the crux of everything. When you come to that realization that there's nothing good in you, in Adam, and that our co-crucifixion That's where everything starts. Once you know that and accept that, I think that's when your spiritual growth begins.

Because then you're off this fix-up-the-old-atom train, and all these things that works, that if you do more works, you're going to be better. If I just do this, and then that's what the law is, is moral imperatives. If I do this, I get a result of this. If I thou shalt not sin, or not steal, you'll be accepted. an effect or a result from your action.

Logical imperatives are different. We'll get into those a little bit, where those are, you know, not a metric-based command or, I guess, command imperative. So we'll get into that a little bit. All right, where are we? We are in question three, I think.

What are the two different aspects of our being free from the law? Free from the law are given in Romans 7.4 and then Mike 7.6, Galatians 3.24 and 25, and Romans 6.14. So, my brother, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. Okay, so what is that, free from the law? What is that? There are two different aspects of it, and it was given in that one. You were also made to die, what's the verse say? To the law. Okay, we're dead to the law.

Okay, and then in these next verses, Romans 7, 6. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead in which we were held, that we should serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the water. Galatians 3, 24 and 3, 26. Actually, it's really 25. So that the law has become our tutor to bring us to Christ. that we might be justified by faith, but now faith has come. We're no longer under the two.

So that's that's the one that's the Galatians 324 25 our friends who came over and we got into discussion about free free from law. Because, you know, there is, and I think the question coming up here, yeah, in the next question, we get into the Ten Commandments and all that. We got into some of those discussions with some friends of ours, and we got into it, and we were talking about this, and it was, bah, you know, wah, free from law, but the Ten Commandments, and all the commandments are in the Bible, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And a friend, she quoted this 324.

Very proudly. Therefore, the laws become our tutor to lead us to Christ that we may be justified by faith. Very good. The law is a tutor to lead us to Christ. Leave it at that, right? Well, that was true. The law was to point us to Christ because of sin. All the things we talked about that the law does, it convicts us of sin. Yes. This word, schoolmaster, is really the word pedagogue, and that means that the law didn't teach us anything. The schoolmaster, in English, is a misnomer because we think the law is there to teach us something.

It's not. What the law did was conduct us regimentally direct us and put us in a position where it was forcing us to comply, but it didn't teach us anything. Yeah, it's a direction rather than a teacher. Wasn't that tutor or schoolmaster in that time actually a slave that led that person, that child to the school? Yeah, responsible to get them to school. It wasn't responsible to teach them.

Actually, if you do get into the Greek, it is like a slave, a person who Yeah, directs, corrals, pushes, whatever. And it is not as if the inference is a tutor like a teacher. It is more a kind of a control of direction and the pedagogy. And it really is that. It was like the person who led them to school was that word or the tutor.

Yes. That's what I was going to say. OK. Gary? Yeah. Yeah. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ. Yeah. You know, that's more kind of getting at it. It's not that I guess what my point is, it's not like a teacher teaches and gives up knowledge and imparts knowledge to you. This was basically kind of a corralling or a direction. The word is like somebody who brought the kids to school. It stirs in that direction. Yeah. But, like I said, everybody uses 24, and that's what I was saying. A friend was very proud to bring that up, and then I said, well, did you read the next verse? What's the next verse say? Really out of context. But now that faith has come, what? We are no longer under a Tudor. We're not under them. Now that faith has come, we're free from it. So, you know, that was like, I'm not scratching his web.

And of course, then it's moved over to this topic and over there, you know, but it was, a lot of people use that. And again, you know, and I know this personally, you know, it is the old man wants the law. The old man wants to do something. He is worthless without it. And so we naturally, i.e. in the old man, gravitate to the law because it gives self something to do. And we always do that until you get this knowledge of newness of life in Christ.

You tend to fall back on that. Again, it's just I have to do something to get a little bit more acceptable to God. Boy, I really screwed up. I really screwed up. Therefore, there is no condemnation. Why am I beating myself up? What do I have to do to make God acceptable to me, or me acceptable to God again? What do I have to do?

Rest in Him. In Him. In Him. In Him. Not in me. So, you know, it's the free from law. So so we get to the last one, I guess. No, you're Roman 614 right here. Oh, sorry. For sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under the law, but under grace. OK, so these were we were in the first verse and in a was that we were made to die to the law in this one. We are what in these verses now kind of gone a long ways. released from the law, we're no longer under a tutor, you're not under the law anymore, so we have been released or delivered from the law. Okay? We are dead to it, and we have been released from it. Okay?

So why are you hanging around the law so much? Again, it's the old man that really just it only gives him worth or or Life so to speak is is pulling back on the law Okay, now we get into it What do these truths mean for Christians being required to keep the Ten Commandments or other parts of the law given to Israel? Should we have the Ten Commandments up on the Bolton board here or the board and Yes? How many yeses? How many noes?

There we go. All right. And why? Because we... Most of us are Gentiles. Great answer. Great answer. Besides being a Gentile, yes, we're free from the law, right? Do we need to go under the law? And who is the law given to? Israel, Jews. Well, if you're Temple, I guess this is the app we have. So, we are no longer, and you know, it's kind of funny, and today I'm sure you hear, you know, And Christians get all riled up, you know, who's that? The judge, Judge Moore in Alabama or Oklahoma or wherever, somewhere in the state, Alabama, you know, trying to get the Ten Commandments in there, you know, and just doing it.

And what is he? He's a, he's one of the, one of the commentator, political columnist, but he's a, he's a believer. I forget his name. He's at National Prayer Breakfast and saw him. Anyway, he had said, it was great, all this hubbub about Judge Moore and all this stuff, and oh yeah, Christians are up in arms.

He said, you know, we as Christians should be running as far away from the laws of those Ten Commandments as we could get. And I was the first commentator I heard that said that, because most of them were. Let's get those laws in there. Let's get them in. And he said, as Christians, we should be as far away from law. I mean, you know, the law, not the inherent, those are bad things, not steel, la, la, la, la, la. But we're not under the law. And he was the first one who I heard who said that publicly as a political columnist. And it kind of rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. But truth, we are not under the law. Yes, sir.

All right, from Lewis Barry Chaffer, he had this. Since every ideal or principle of the law, except the fourth commandment, which is keep the Sabbath, is carried forward and related and incorporated in the grace manner of life, it hardly seems reasonable to contend that the believer should be warned so positively against doing the things contained in the law. The solution to the problem is to be found in the fact that the law is a system demanding human merit. while the injunctions addressed to the Christian under grace are unrelated to human merit. Since the child of God is already accepted in the Beloved and stands forever in the merit of Christ, application of a merit system to him is both unreasonable and unscriptural." I thought that was very good. You know, that the law is human, or merit-based. In Christ, there is no merit other than what Christ has done. Okay, five. Don't Christians just have another set of laws to keep similar to the Jews? Why or why not? Who is going to step to the plate on this one? Who is going to give me an answer?

We've already been sanctified. For the Jews, the law was a means of sanctification, a means of attaining holiness. We already have that in Christ, so there's no reason for the law. The law has been We're no longer in the power of the law. We're no longer under the law. We're no longer dependent on the law to get us to Christ. Exactly.

Law is, again, we were saying merit-based things you do, morally based, moral imperatives. If you do this, you will get this. You know, do we have a Christian's handbook? If you are in Christ, thou shalt do... But we have been given a new law. But if we are slaves to righteousness, we are free to serve another. But is there do's and don'ts? Is there laws that we have to abide by as Christians? Yes, yes, which one?

There are three logical imperatives. There you go, but they're not laws. No. That's exactly what I'm getting at. There are 600 and some odd logical imperatives in the New Testament. Many people try to make those laws, which is incorrect. They are not laws. They are logical imperatives. Logical imperatives are, if this, then this.

It's not, if you do this, you get this. It's, if you're in Christ, you should do this. Because of who you are, you should do this. It's logical, because if you're in Christ, you should love one another. If you're in Christ, you should See, I'm a free from the law. You know, not to stand fast. You're to stand fast. If meaning since, not if meaning if. Right. Conditional. It's like the hope we have. It's a misconception of hope. The if is since you are, not if. Like conditional, like you said, it's since you are in Christ, you should stand fast.

What I've been thinking about as you're talking here is We as Christians need something to motivate us to respond to God's commands. If I live under a lost system, then I'm misdirectedly thinking, well, the law tells me what to do, so I have all the motivation I need because God told me what I'm supposed to do, thinking that I might obtain sanctification What motivates the Christian to respond to these imperatives?

It's the Holy Spirit. From a subjective standpoint, do I sit there and wait for the Spirit to turn the crank? What motivates me to even want to? To know Him. through the Word, knowing Him, and the Spirit convicting Him. It's the Spirit's work. But as you say, I'm not going to sit in a room and just wait, amorphous blob, waiting for the Holy Spirit to zap me with the thunderbolt.

Where I'm going with this is that Romans 6.14 says that we're not under law but under grace. And as we learn grace, which is God coming at us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies, there's a corresponding response of the new life that finds its fulfillment in compliance. In other words, grace is the motivator, not law. Because what God has already done that motivates me to respond, not that I'm going to achieve or get anything, it's because I already have it.

Yeah, and he's just showing you more and more what you have in him. And the life, as Louis Berry Chafer likes to say, the life is supernatural. You can't live it out of the flesh, which is pretty cool because if you abandon the law, to live under grace. And so you begin to study, well, if I'm going to live under grace and to comply with the imperative, it isn't too long before you realize, I can't do any of this in and of myself. And I think you brought up the biggest point, too, in which Galatians is grace versus law.

We're under grace now. It's not what we do. It's just, as we say, what is the only thing you can do with grace? What are the two words you say? Thank you. That's all you can do. There's nothing except receiving. And so under law, you had to do something. Under grace, you just receive.

And I, you know, with Mike, I think it's the Holy Spirit that really convicts you of this. But I think, as I go back, the only way you do that is to look in the Scriptures to know Him. To know Him is life eternal. To be conformed to His image. And how do you get conformed to His image? You have to know what His image is. And that's why you go to the scriptures, to know Him. Not to know facts, not to know what you have to do. It's to know Him.

And as you do that, as you realize the old man crucified, held harmless, and we are new creatures in Christ, we are identified with him, and our identification is to know, through identification, what we do as we get to know him. And I think as we start that, that's our spiritual maturity, as we get to be conformed to his image. Rest. As I say, the spiritual maturity, I think, is where the fruit of the Spirit starts to be manifested. joy, peace, love, all those, is when you start resting in Him. Just receiving grace. It's not work. It's not work. If it's work, you got something wrong. It's rest. It seems to be about living our position. Now that we are with Jesus Christ, we don't have to live like a peasant anymore.

You think of David, when he became king and the love he showed towards Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth should have been killed. He was no longer the Lion of Israel. But David, out of love for Jonathan, treated him like a prince. And the only thing he could do was to live like a prince because of the grace that David showed him. we've been given grace, we've been exalted to this high position, why not start, there's that logical imperative, why not live like a king? Now that God has declared you to be a king, we're joiners with Jesus Christ. It doesn't make sense to go and live like a peasant again, because you've been given the opportunity to be a king, so why not do it?

Yeah, I mean, in Ephesians, we have been blessed with some of the spiritual blessings, a really Big lot of them. You know, we got the 90% deal. We got 9 out of 10 of hot stuff. No, all spiritual blessings. What are we worried about? We got all of them. So yes, I mean, it is, you know, we have, why do we act like we are peasants? We're in Him. You know, the one thing is, you know, those, we're going to be out of time very quickly. some of the verses about laws and the Jews, and we have similar ones.

Galatians 3, 11 through 13, now that no one is justified by the law before God is evident. Four, the righteous man shall live by faith. However, the law is not of faith. On the contrary, he who practices them shall live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. Again, just faith and not under the law. We don't have a whole set of new laws being in Christ.

We have logical imperatives. And I just want to be aware to live by faith and not by law, which requires human merits. Remember, grace, the supposed commandments of the New Testament are logical imperatives. They are not moral imperatives, i.e. if I do or perform in a certain manner, therefore I will attain some compensatory result. Logical imperatives are based on who we are in Christ. The logical imperatives are not based on merit.

They go like this. If you are in Christ, therefore, you should be or respond or act like Christ. We're to be conformed to his image. Romans 8, 28. For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son. Those logical imperatives. If I'm in Christ, I should be like this. If I'm in Christ, I should respond like this. Those are the... That's the second bell. Yeah. Yeah, you know, how you how you receive grace or in grace. Yeah. And but, you know, yeah. Right.

But like I said, the biggest thing between what I want to get at is we don't have a new set of laws. You'll see in the New Testament a lot of things. Stand fast. You know, love your neighbor. All these are things that are commands, but they're logical. If you're in Christ, stand fast. It's not if you do this, you will stand fast. It's a logical imperative. It's not merit based. It's just, you know, if you are this, you should be doing this. It's just logical. It's not a merit based command. All right.

Well, we must close. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time. We thank you just for what we have in Christ. We are so thankful for all that we have. We are just able to say thank you in the overwhelming wave of grace that has poured out on us moment by moment and just abundantly above all that we could ever ask or think. And Father, we just thank you that we are in an age of grace that is not in our merits. but solely on the merits of Christ. We thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ who willingly went to the cross, and we are identified with Him. All that's true of Him is true of us now in Christ, and we thank you for that, and we just commit this day to you. In Jesus' name. Amen.