Principle and The Principles of Grace

All right, we are blazing through lesson six. Does everybody have questions set six? If you don't, I have extra. Oh, but also, before we do that, and I think Alishka is coming in. I was, oh, I was gonna pull that up, actually. For Alishka's question last week, about the law and the Gentiles. We kind of addressed that a little bit, and does this all apply to us anyway? Law and grace and all that as Gentiles. So we kind of touched it a little bit, but I wanted to give the Scriptures for it.

Again, I brought up the Romans 1 passage, and I'll go over that real quick. Romans 1, 18 through 23. This is kind of what I call the umbrella policy. Everybody knows that there's a God and as I was bringing out you look in any and all the cultures they all Know that there's a God usually they know that somehow he's got to be appeased And so, you look through all the cultures, there's always worshipping a God. So I think these verses basically say, as I said, the umbrella policy, everybody knows that there's a God.

So Romans 1, 18 through 23, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. Because that which is known about God is evident within them. For God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made.

So they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, that they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of a in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Again, nobody can say, gee, I don't know there's a God.

And as it says, incorruptible man with birds, four-footed animals, crawling creatures, there's always been, throughout all the cultures, you know there's a God. And so you make a four-legged creature, you build an altar, you sacrifice, you do something to appease God. That's kind of throughout all the cultures and the religions. So, that's kind of the overall one, but addressing more about the Gentiles and the law, look at Romans 2, 11 through 16. Romans 2, 11 through 16.

For there is no partiality with God. For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law. And all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law will be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have the law do instinctively the things of the law, these, not having the law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus. So again, it's the law written on their heart, basically their conscience that God has made this known to them. And they will be judged by basically the law that is written on their hearts.

So it's covering the Gentiles and the law system versus Jews and Gentiles. So a little bit of clarification. Anything else? Okay. So that's basically how we fit into the picture, I guess, as Gentiles without a law and the law system and all that. However, generally, the basic thought is, again, law being what kind of system?

What base system is it? Unmerited or merited? Merited works you got to do something under law. There's always something cause and effect if you do this this will happen If you do this God will be pleased or if this this then that it's it's a work-based system a merit-based system Okay, grace is what? What base system unmerited, okay, so I Let's get back here.

I think we are down at question six. Is that correct? Is that what we raced to last week? Okay, lesson number six, question number six. Read 1 Corinthians 1, 4-7. Can somebody do that? And what does verse seven say about the Corinthian church? Get to that. So if somebody wants to read 1 Corinthians 1, 4-7.

I always thank God for you because of His grace giving you Christ Jesus. For in Him you have been enriched in every way with all your seeking and all your knowing. Because of your discipline about Christ, you have been faithful. You do not have any spiritual gift. You are a keeper of weight for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Okay, so what does it say in verse 7 about the Corinthian church? It's pretty significant. I didn't even recognize that. He kind of blazed through that. What does it say about the Corinthian church? Beginning of verse 7, what does it say? What does it specifically say about the Corinthian church? Because he's talking to the Corinthian church right here. What does your translation say, Bruce? So they're not lacking what? They're not lacking any spiritual gift. Pretty cool. Is there any other church that Paul addresses that he says this of? Can you think of one? What? Now? What scripture? You have been.

No, blessings. With all spiritual blessings. And that's Ephesians, yeah. That's Ephesians. You've been blessed with all spiritual blessings, Ephesians 2. Yeah, right. Correct, yeah, he is not saying that somebody's missing a gift or something like that. He's saying that the church as a whole, they didn't lack any gifts. They had all the gifts within the body of the believers at Corinth. They had all spiritual gifts. Thank you. Excuse me. So one had this gift, one had the other?

No, the church as a whole had all spiritual gifts. So all the gifts listed, Everyone that there was not one gift that was missing within the church. They had everything so everybody has a gift So everybody has a spiritual gift But then that church couldn't say and it was kind of interesting This is the only church that he says that about that you were lacking no spiritual gift. So if I look out on the church at Corinth Every one of the gifts is covered within that body Every one of the spiritual gifts is covered by them. They were lacking no spiritual gifts. I So there was not one that was missing.

Pretty cool. They had everything. That's basically, they had all knowledge, as Mike was saying. They had all knowledge. They had the book. They had the operations manual. They had everything. They had the whole how-to. Not only did they have the how-to, they had all the mechanics to do it. They had all the spiritual gifts.

One wasn't missing. And I thought that was kind of interesting. I'd never seen that before, looking at this verse, but studying this, coming across that this is the only church that he calls that out to. is that there are no spiritual gifts lacking. Pretty cool. And with all knowledge.

So, how did the church at Corinth do based on having all spiritual gifts, knowledge, basically everything given to them? How did the Corinthian church respond? A wee bit of problems here. They had a lot of problems. They mixed a lot up. And here, they had all gifts. Paul addresses the divisions in the church. They had divisions in chapter 1, verse 11. Immorality, chapters 5 and 6, 9 through 20. And they had questions concerning marriage, food, worship, the resurrection.

Sparkling resume. Sparkling resume for a church that had all the gifts. They had all the knowledge given to them. They had all the spiritual gifts. What does that say? And I guess we may get that a little bit into this next question. Well, let's get down to number seven. So basically, we've learned that the church at Corinth had all the spiritual gifts and everything was rosy and wonderful. No, they didn't have it.

So what is the difference between gifts and grace from these verses? Can you, from the first Corinthians verses? Can you tell? Is there a difference between gifts and grace? Gifts are veered back to the Lord through inspiration. Yeah. Let me say it. So gifts are a reflection, you said? They're mirrored back to the Lord in experience. Yeah, they're used by the Lord in the body to accomplish His will. Grace is different. But there's a difference here that... Go back to our definition of grace. What is the first part of the definition? Unlimited. Okay. So, look at verse 3.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 7, Paul points out to you, Corinthians, lack no gift. You have them all, but there is something that Paul can pass on to you. There's something that you can never use too much of.

And what is that expressed in verse 3? Grace. He's telling, he comes up to the Corinthian church and he says, you know, you've got all knowledge, you've got all the grace, I mean all the gifts, excuse me, you have all these gifts, you have it all. But what happened?

I can give you something that will never be used up, that will be unlimited. Gifts are limited. You may have the gift of administration, the gift of helps, different gifts. They're fairly targeted and limited. What is grace? Unlimited. So Paul is basically saying here, you have everything. You have all the gifts, you have all this knowledge, but you're still cratering. I can give you the one thing that will never run out, that will never be limited, that will never be boxed in.

I'll give you grace. He's talking about grace, and there's the difference between the unlimited and the limited, and grace is unlimited. I thought there was an operating system in which we live as grace. of the system, like spiritual gifts, you get away from how God functions and operates, and so you're going to have disruptions in the way in which the church should function. When you recognize and realize and rest in the fact that this whole thing works on the basis of grace, and grace is, because it's the system God functions in, the system of church should function in, then not only do you lack nothing, but you function correctly. Yeah, if you have it all, plus you're functioning properly. I guess that's one of the points.

In the charismatic movement, what is the emphasis a lot of times? Tongues, a lot of times. Gifts. It's gifts. And a lot of the things in the Charismatic Movement is, you know, boy, if we only had gifts, if you only exercise your gift more, only if you did this, if we had all the gifts, wouldn't it be... Wait a minute.

What happened at Corinth? They had every one of them. They had all the knowledge. What happened? The wheels fell off. Okay, so it's apropos today because a lot of people want to emphasize the gifts and they want to emphasize If we only had all the gifts, wouldn't life be wonderful here? Wouldn't the body just function magnificently? It's real interesting Corinth had it all You know if we have all the believers here at Holly Hills and everyone was exhibiting their gifts Would it be a perfect church?

May or may not. It's not based on the gifts in our works. It's based on grace. We have a sinful nature, so no matter how much we want to be this perfect individual, I'm thankful we have the grace, but as far as gifts, we probably should have let up also at times.

Yeah, and obviously that's what happened at Corinth. They had all the gifts. They had all the knowledge. And what did they do? we suddenly had immorality problems. We had divisions. You sit on that side and you know, I have Apollos, I have, you know, I have, you know, and they divide it. They had all the gifts. They had all this knowledge. And what was the first thing you did? Screwed it up. So the point being is, yeah, that, you know, today we try and a lot of times we emphasize the gifts and how magnificent the gifts are or emphasize You really need to exhibit your gift. Well, yeah, you do, but that's not the end all. That's not what's going to make this church function. What's going to be is the grace system that we function in. As Mike was saying, if we're in that system, we function properly.

If we're out of that system, and we'll get in a lot more verses on that, It's either law or grace. It's either works or unmerited, unlimited blessings. There's no yellow line down the middle. And so, if we're in grace, we are functioning properly. We have to be, if we're in grace. It doesn't matter what gifts we have at that point. If we're in grace, we're functioning properly.

So, like I said, the common thing today is that the gifts are emphasized. And the thought that if we all had grace, and if you were just doing your job, and if you were doing your job with your gift, we'd be a great church. We'd be doing magnificent things for the Lord.

The Corinth church proved that wrong. And they had all the gifts. I don't think we have a poll here to figure out who has what gifts. If we have every gift covered in this group, not want to do that, nor would I think that would be profitable. But if, perchance, we had all the gifts represented here, it wouldn't matter. If we're not functioning in the grace system, we're not functioning properly.

All right? Any questions? All right. Going on to question eight. John 1.16. What does grace upon grace mean? Can somebody read John 1, 16? Don't all jump out there at once. I'm going to have to call somebody. Alan. Be gracious. Alan, I'm graciously calling out.

And I know this fullness have all we receive in grace upon grace. Yeah, and then New American Standard 4, of His fullness we have all received grace and grace upon grace. What does that mean about grace upon grace? We're getting there, yes, you're seeing now how this definition fits.

It's kind of like, I think I said it last time, with kids, you know, well I have an infinity times that, well I have an infinity times infinity times that, well I have infinity, you know how it goes. Anyway, it's unlimited, okay? And actually the expression grace upon grace is interesting because the word upon in the Greek, it is the preposition anti, And in the phrase, grace for grace, meaning grace upon grace, most abundant grace, one favor in place of another after another, God's grace is not given once for all, but there is a renewal of it that is constant. So that word basically means unending, unlimited. It just, you can't outdo it. So grace upon grace, it's unlimited.

There's a, from a colleague's message, he had a great example. He said, that is like saying, every time you take a bite of cake, it gets bigger. Or does God say, this is the fifth time you've used grace this morning, and the sixth is the limit. Can't you shape up a little bit more? I'm getting tired. There's only so much grace to give. If you don't straighten up, I'm gonna cut this thing off. Is that how that sounds? Grace upon grace? No. There is unlimited. There is no way. I like that cake bit. I take a bite and it's bigger. What? Take another bite, it's bigger. Another bite, it's bigger and bigger and bigger. The more you bite it or take a bite, it gets bigger. What is with grace? The more you get in, there's more blessing. I'm in the system. I'm in the grace system. I'm blessed more. Yeah, the Energizer Bunny. It just keeps on going and going and going and going. But this is even bigger than the Energizer Bunny. When he says grace upon grace, you start seeing.

We focused on a lot of the unmerited part, but now the unlimited part. It is amazing, the unlimited. You know, there's many times when you just think, oh, I'm so stupid. God can't deal with that. Yeah, yeah. It's unlimited. It's unlimited. And there's, you know, the more, as I told Mike, the more with the teacher, as you teach, You get more out of it than the class. I hate to say that. Sorry.

But as I study this more and more, it is amazing the unlimited portion of it. And once you start to even just wrestle with that a little bit, it's unlimited. Do you understand what the word infinity means? I'm an engineer. I've got to get the other side of it to measure that. I can't. It's unthinkable. You can't outdo it.

And as I study this more and more, it's really kind of, as I say many times, the peace that only God can offer, that the world doesn't offer, that rest, that peace and rest. As you start to understand grace, it is incredibly, incredibly peaceful. The rest that you have knowing as you reside in this system that is unlimited, and it's unmerited. I don't have to do a thing other than, by faith, say thank you.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, there isn't. You can't measure the other side of infinity. And that's the part of it that is amazing. When you really start appreciating what grace truly is, it gives you an unbelievable peace, because you can't outdo it. There's nothing so great that God can't graciously deal with it.

And we'll get into it a little bit, but you know the child training part. You know, as we went through what Paul was saying, well, if we sin, grace abounds more. Shall we sin more so we can have grace? May it never be. It's not that we sin to have more grace.

But as you reside in this system of grace, it just gets greater and greater. As Micah said, it's the greatest motivator. And as I study this, I'm finding that out more and more. Because I just realized how gracious God is and what that means. Unlimited, unmerited, and the unmerited part, I go to, it's rest. That's one of my metrics. you know, if I'm kind of in the Lord's will. If it's a lot of work, i.e. mental struggle and challenge and, you know, am I doing it or am I going against God's will? If there's rest, even in the midst of a trial, if there's rest, I feel I'm in God's will or His grace because there's rest in there.

If it's struggle, and I look at God's sovereign control of everything, if you really I think that's the key. If you really understand that God's in control of all things, it doesn't matter what you're going through. It doesn't mean that you're not going to be under trials, and there can be significant trials, loss of a loved one, or medical challenges, lots of different things. But if you know He's in control of all things, you can rest that He's still being gracious to you. There's still unlimited, unmerited blessings in everything. There's still child training.

I mean, like I said, there's times when God wants to get you back into fellowship. He wants to bring you back because He wants you to be in fellowship. And that may be a painful process. And there are consequences to actions. But within that, if you know that He's dealing with you graciously, there is an unbelievable, unsurpassable peace that you get by staying in grace. It's a great motivator. It's a tremendous motivator. It does. And I hope as this class goes on, you appreciate that more. It is a motivator. It is a life-changing concept because grace, when you truly realize what it is, It's like wading out in an ocean and there's no end to it. But it's blessings. Unmerited, unlimited blessings.

And it's nothing that we've done. It's just saying thank you. Again, we've gone over that many times. It's just so foreign to us just to have that concept of something given to us and we want to do something in return. You can't just say thank you. I challenged you last time.

When you do something good for somebody, You have them over for dinner or you go over and help them. And they immediately say, well, I come over. No, it's okay. Under grace, you don't need to. Just say, thank you. They get really mad. It's kind of a fun little exercise. Maybe I'm sadistic, I guess. But if you do that, it just shows you how much we're not in a grace system. Most Christians are not in a grace system because you just try it one time.

No, it's okay. You don't need to have me on. It's under grace. Just thank you. What do you mean I can't respond to you? You know, it's fine. It's all right. Yeah, if it's just, you're welcome. But our typical response is, you're welcome and I'll have you over on Thursday. You help me with your car, next time I'll give you a ride. You help me with moving that refrigerator. Next time you move, I'll be there. I'm there.

What do you normally do? It's always that way. Okay, let me clarify. You can't help people. If somebody does something, you can respond. But it's kind of an example of where we are in grace and how that functions differently than the world in that grace just says, thank you. There is no payback. There is no payment that we owe to God for this other than thank you.

Okay? Do you have a thought? The payback mentality is the merit mentality and keeps you in the lost system. Where the grace viewpoint is, if you could imagine everybody in this room could function for the next 24 hours totally on a grace basis, we would exhaust ourselves exhibiting grace to one another with nobody ever doing it on a motive of I've got to pay you back. Yeah, yeah.

You know, and that is kind of, you know, the fear, and we talked about this a little bit, too, on grace. Some of the fear is, of teaching grace, is apathy. You know, if I'm under grace, I don't have to do a thing. I'm just here receiving. I'm not going to do a thing. That's not what happens. As Mike says, if we're all under grace, you'd be exhausted because you're just exuding grace to everybody, as well as back and forth. And there's no paybacks.

You're thankful. And out of a motive of just saying thank you for receiving, you do. Grace is a gift unto itself. Grace, by virtue of its own definition, does not require any Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's it's unmerited gifts or unlimited gifts, a gift being something given to you. Correct. All right. Any other thoughts? Move on to number nine. Read Corinthians two, four. Second Corinthians four. Fifteen. Somebody want to do that? Tom.

Good, you know, and strangely enough, I think the most literal translation is the new American standard. Strangely enough, this one doesn't have the, when I looked at the Greek in that, it is not translated the same way as the King James. For the New American Standard, it says, for all things are for your sakes, that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God. literal Greek-English translation, does not have the word abundant before grace in the New American Standard. In the King James, it does have it. When I looked at the Greek, it's actually there. The word is pleiazo. Okay, what is it? Greg, what is it? Pleiazo. You're not supposed to be in here. Check my Greek out.

And it's to do or make, to do, make or be more, i.e. to increase by extension, to super abound is what the word is. So he's saying, Paul is trying to emphasize the unlimited characteristic of grace. To further emphasize that, he adds the verb redound in the King James, or to abound in the New American Standard. So he's now adding to, it's kind of like the grace upon grace. He's now abundant, abounding grace. So he's doing this thing again, trying to characterize the the unlimited characteristic of grace. And the word abound, now you're going to do me again here.

Perissuo, it means to superabound in quantity or quality, be in excess, be superfluous, exceeding what is sufficient or necessary, also to cause to superabound or excel. So, when you put all this together in that verse, it says, to have super-abundant grace, super-abounding. Okay? So when you read that verse, it basically is adding the verb to the adjective to grace, super-abounding, super-abundant, infinity times infinity times infinity times infinity. It's unlimited. It's abundant, abounding grace. Super abundant grace, super abounding. You think you're getting the picture now? Yeah, Monique?

I think it's hard for a human being to understand it. Because if you think about it, you come to a point where it can't be anymore. No, but isn't that amazing? Well, it is. Like I said, as an engineer, I struggle to figure out what infinity is. I don't understand that. It frustrates me. It's this. It just keeps going around and I can't get to the end of it.

I guess the fear is you can't be afraid of it. It's like you don't want to wade in the ocean because it's too big. No, you've got to get in and then it's wonderful. Even though it's unlimited and you can't... box it up and say, here it is. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable, but it's true. It is something that is a fact. It's unmerited, unlimited blessings.

So when you reside in it, it just keeps getting better and better. And as Mike was saying, you get exhausted because it's just like, Thank you. There's nothing I have to do. I'm just receiving blessings. And as you do that, you'll function as you are in Christ, as the person you are in Christ.

Now you're messing with eternity, which is, now there's another one. How long is eternity? What right now yeah, well what was how has the how has the the term? infinity or Eternity you know we look at is Huge can't end no way Hal had it compressed into the supernova or black star or black hole or whatever it is. Explain that. I was trying to figure that one out.

What he would say with eternity is that everything is in play right now. He used to use the example of how God's mind works. He thinks sequentially. But God has all knowledge and all thought in play all the time right now. So that's the way eternity is. It's all now. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Now is the same time as as far that way or as far that way as you can get. In God, it doesn't matter.

We think in a line. We think linearly. So again, back to Alan's point. You're dealing with superabundant superbounding. Superbounding meaning constant, going on forever. Abundant being unlimited. What does that say? an unlimited God who is eternal. This thing isn't going to stop. It doesn't have an expiration date. It doesn't go so far and then you're done.

I also think the verse says that God does everything for his own glory. And what he's telling us here is that this system of grace in which you live on, if you will use it, then it will respond abundantly and the glory will rebound to me. And it's really interesting that the system that God puts us in, grace, does reflect and show forth the glory of God because grace always rebounds to Him. Which is really cool how He does it. Yeah, the whole purpose is to draw glory to God. So when we're in a grace system, The only thing we can do is to glorify Him. And that's why a law system wouldn't glorify Him. Yeah, a law system can't. It cannot glorify Him. And what was the law brought to do? Make sin abound. To condemn. So a law system, is that going to glorify God?

I don't think so. It can't. So, again, we're going over verse after verse, but I hope you start getting a feeling for this. There isn't an amount of grace that you can exceed. There isn't, like I said, you've done it five times a day, you're right there, six times you're out of it. It doesn't work that way.

It's unlimited. It's super-abundance, it's super-abounding, super-abundant grace. Infinity times infinity, which I think, as Alan says, it's characteristic of our God. Eternal, infinite. Okay? All right. Verse 10. We might get through Lesson 6 this week. Yes. I have another comment. Okay. One more comment.

What I find interesting about this is that Just to be continually saying thanks to God gets to be a scary proposition because there's no room for me. And if God is blessing me abundantly and unlimitedly, overwhelmingly, my only response is to say thank you. And what I discover when I say thank you is that the grace begins to multiply. And I say thank you and it multiplies more and thank you and it multiplies more.

That's the system. That's how it functions. Yet, within me is this struggle to somehow go beyond the thank you and demonstrate to God how appreciative I really am and what can I do for Him. In Lesson 7 we're going to address that. And that very thought. And that really, I think this goes back to our identification class.

You know, we beat each other up all the time on grace and the identification truths. I think if you don't have the identification truths, if you don't know the Romans 6 and that your old man was crucified on the cross with Christ, you're going to struggle. You're going to struggle because you still and the old man want to do something.

And we all have it. We all have two natures. There's not anybody here who has just one nature. So you're always struggling. And I think the, and we'll get into this a little bit at the end of seven, the lesson seven about growing in grace. You know, I don't think it happens tomorrow. I don't think you just tomorrow wake up and go, I'm here and I'm going to just, I'm in this system and I'm going to just flourish. You could, but I don't think, I think it, and we'll see in, And Peter, we talked about growing in grace. And so there is a process. I think you, one, just so we can handle it, so our heads don't explode.

It's basically, you jump into the grace system, it's like jumping into a torrent and you're gone. But it's brand new, too. I mean, it's something none of us ever knew anything about. Yeah, very little is taught about it. And I think it is just a whole new system. And again, it's, It goes back to identification.

If you do not know about the identification truths, that your old man is crucified, rendered powerless, and you don't realize that struggle about who you are in Christ, then you're always, I tend to gravitate, I think, you're wondering why. I want to do something. Well, that's the old man. And as you begin to identify that more, that's the old man. I am a new creature in Christ. I'm a new creature in Christ. I can just receive. I can just say thank you.

We all do it. We all struggle. And we'll get to that. I'll give you one example. What if I came up to you and I gave you, here's the keys to the new Ferrari outside. Free gift. Take off. Have fun. Fine. I got a quarter. Here's a quarter. I gave you the quarter. You gave me the quarter for it. Is that a free gift? $100,000 Ferrari sitting out there. You gave me a quarter for it. Is it free?

No. No. I would have a little trouble saying thank you. You know what's interesting about that? You wouldn't in your mind. I've got to take good care of this car because I have to bring it back. Or, or, I just have a dollar here. Anything, anything. I'll fill it up for gas for you. I'll pay the insurance, okay? I'll even put a remit in it. So the distinction is that the old man is a powerless man.

So if you recognize that in your identification, you're going to be able to function in a race and compare race as a boundary. Yes. Yeah, I guess the question being is, how do you know you've arrived? How do you know we're residing in this? Functioning in grace. before I give thoughts. Come on. Focus on the Lord. Others? So how do you know that you're functioning in grace? I guess that's the question. The question is your... Well, go ahead. The answer in my mind is simple. that when you sin, which I know you do once in a while, the forgiveness is God's grace, that's how you learn.

Because what you bring to the table is sin and weakness. What God brings to the table is grace. That's how you learn. Because what you bring to the table before God is your weakness and your sin. What he brings is his grace. As we go to him about our sins, he's always faithful to forgive us. Always. Because of what Christ did. And that's initially how you learn grace. Because there's never a time he won't forgive you. No matter what it is. No matter how often it is. The grace is there. That's how you begin to learn. Yeah, Jeremy. It's kind of a hard question. By asking the question, you're looking for a standard. You're looking for, am I doing everything I'm supposed to in the race?

I think part of it is as you're growing, you're not thinking about this. You're focused on Christ. You're focused on what he's done to you. Your knowledge of that is expanding. And less and less are you thinking about, am I doing the right thing? You're just more and more thinking about Christ and what he's done to you. reveling in that, and more and more having this attitude of thankfulness, and less and less are your actions the focus of what you're doing. You're just focused on Christ. Everything else is going to fall into place, but you're not thinking about that. You're just thinking about Christ. Right. I think that was one of my responses. I have another one too.

It's just basically, one of the questions I think on Lesson 7 is, can you have pride and grace? You know, am I really being gracious this time? I bet you I have more grace than you. I'm resting in the system more than you. And I'm proud of it. Once you want a metric, then the system automatically falls away.

I think, to me, one of the responses would be if I'm at rest, at peace. As I say, that's kind of my way. Because if I'm at rest, because the world can't offer rest. The world can't offer peace. And I don't have to know if I'm in grace. I guess if I have that peace and I'm not struggling, wanting to do something or struggling, I think that's where I at least feel I'm moving towards it.

And I think this is, as we'll see at the last, after question set seven, when one of the things, just this growing in grace. I don't think it's, you know, today I'm here and tomorrow I'm so far along the road. I think it's a process that's very slow, gradual, and you grow into it. It's not, boom.

And it's the same, I think, it's in concert with the conformity to Christ. as you conform to Christ, naturally the person in Christ is going to grow in grace. I want a metric too. Am I better than I was last week? Am I more in grace? No. Wow, two no's right away. That was pretty immediate. I want to see you two after class. We just have to accept the grace and I think that's the difficulty.

Where do we think we are on a daily basis, sin, sin, sin, all the time? Well, and again, going back to the identification, no condemnation, that's the old man, as we reside in Christ, who we are in Christ. You know, even when I sin, I don't, there's no condemnation. Just confess it and bring back, all he wants me to do is come back to the intimacy that he wants to give to me.

Alicia, sorry, real quick. To appreciate grace and appreciate. Yeah, you know why he leaves us. I wondered that too. Why didn't he Start us out right as in Christ. Why do we have this old man hanging on? And I think there are a lot of lessons that we learn that were our conformity to Christ. And that's a process. And as we step into eternity, we don't have that other nature with us. And we can appreciate in the life's lessons that he's shaping us, molding us. I don't know how that will play out in eternity.

So, did we get through? I think we're through, right? Well, I got a couple things. I'll just finish up one last thing on this question next week, and then we'll go on to Lesson 7. So, does everybody have Lesson 7? If you don't, well, I'll pray so we can get people moving here. I'll pray and then we'll hand out 7.

Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you just for who you are. Father, there are many terms and things that we think about today that just don't fit in our little finite minds. And we're thankful for that. We are thankful that you are not a limited God. We are thankful that you are an unlimited God and the eternal God, one that is past, present and future. We just thank you of all your attributes. And as we delve into the topic of grace, we just realize that you are a gracious God, one who provides unmerited, unlimited blessings to us. And again, it's not what we have done. It's solely based on what your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, did on the cross for us, and we are so thankful. So Father, we just give you the glory, and we do this all in Jesus' name. Amen.