Principle and Principles of Grace

Courtney, do you want to start or do you want to? OK. You know, it's OK with me because it might fit right in with. Yeah. You want to do it? Courtney had some stuff left over from about a month ago at the end of sort of the track he was on. And I think what he's doing will fit right in with what we're doing. So. of his or last week's.

I've got ten. I got ten. I don't have any nines. Anybody need a ten? You need a ten? You got a ten? Got to get suited up here. Got anything else? If I don't do it right, they zap me. All right, actually this goes way back to, if you have it, it would be Lesson 7.

And we just finished, we're finishing, I think it was Question 9, the Read Romans 327, Can You Have Pride and Grace? And we went through that, we went through the verse Romans 327, which was, where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law or works, of works? No, but the law of faith. So basically, we went through whether we're prideful in grace.

And I gave you the example of Harry Ironside, who thought he was the humble and be humble. And so he went out with a sandwich board, went down to Chicago in the poorest neighborhood, and he preached the gospel. And he took ridicule. He did that. He did that all day long. And then he came home, and he thought, Man, nobody else would have done that. And he realized, what was he doing? He took pride in what he was doing. His pride was in his actions, not, it wasn't a humble action. He decided at the end, it was like, I was the only guy who would do that.

Or, you know, think of, we went through as if you were sitting there and you sat at home and you were going to read the Bible and you read eight chapters today and you memorized two of them. How proud you are of that. Is that, do you take pride in that? Is that, can you, no, no. Pride erases grace because you're now focusing on who? Yourself.

So we got into that, we went through that. Then we started to get into what I really wanted to try and touch on just a little bit was the grace system. After all the things we learned about the principles, as Mike said, then we got into what I wanted to touch on just briefly is growing in grace. Because we've learned all these things in Unmerited, Unlimited, we went through all the Unmerited, we went through all the Unlimited, But then, how do you get into grace?

And is it today, we learned everything, and you're done? Is that how it works? Yes? Thank you. No, it's, you know, it's, and there's some who, you know, we kind of go through this a little bit in like Romans chapter seven, that you can zip through Romans seven and if you got it all down, you don't go through any of these things.

Well, I look at a lot of the scriptures and it's the run the race, endurance, long-term, all these terms that we get into that are not fast food. These things are growing in grace. You run the race, the long term, the endurance, spiritual maturity. Do you go from being a baby to an adult in three days? No, no. So when we talk about spiritual maturity, we go through this process from babes who long for milk of the word to where you are more mature and you want the meat of the word. And that doesn't happen overnight. Just like a child doesn't grow up from, you know, you're feeding him milk one day and then you're into meat the next day.

So you have the spiritual maturity. I think parallel to that process is growing in grace. And I really wanted to stress that because a lot of times in today's culture we get this fast food, microwave, get it done now mentality. And once we get this principle of grace that you walk out the door and tomorrow you fully understand this and you're just, you know, I'm functioning in grace and that's all I do. I would be wonderful if that happens. And I think as your maturity comes, that grace parallels with that.

But I wanted to go over the thing that, just so there isn't a frustration factor, that you get all these principles and you know what's going on with grace, and then you think, Why isn't it happening? Why am I just not acting graciously all the time right now? Because I know it's unmerited and unlimited. I know it's nothing I have to do, but I still struggle. So I want to go over the verse. If somebody can look it up, 2 Peter 3, 17 through 18. If somebody wants to read that one. Anybody?

You know, these things before you were also being led away with the error of the wicked fall on your own steadfastness, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to Him be glory both now and forever. Amen. Key is verse 18. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Grow in it. And the key there is grow in it.

It doesn't say right now. And when you look at the Greek word for that, it's in the present tense. And you guys still have your cheat sheets from what the Greek I gave you many classes ago in something. The present tense, it means it's a continuous, incomplete action. So we are to continue always growing in grace. So it's the present tense, continuous, incomplete action. So it doesn't mean we've arrived and we're done. Continuous incomplete there. It's a continuous incomplete action.

That means we're always growing There isn't a day. I think when we've arrived You're always growing in the grace growing in the grace of our Lord and Savior so For those of you who think tomorrow I've got it, I've arrived, I've done. It doesn't happen that way. You grow in the grace. So it's a continuous incomplete action. Then it's the active voice. What does the active voice mean? Anybody remember what the active voice means? We are the ones, the subject is the one who produces the action. So what does that mean? Who's supposed to grow in grace? We are. We are to grow in grace. Okay, so we are the ones growing in grace. We're the ones who are continuing to grow in grace. So it's the active voice.

And then the imperative mood, what is that? Remember what that one is? Imperative, what that means? What? It's a command. It's the imperative. It is the logical imperative. You are to do this. You are to grow in grace. You are, you, or the subject, are to what? Continuously grow in grace. And that's, I think, an important thing as Mike and we're shifting from kind of, we've given you all the facts and tools kind of things, or the facts, now we're going to show about how you grow in grace and what that means and what that looks like. Because a lot of people, you know, we give them all the things about grace, but then you get to that point, well, okay, what does that mean? What does that look like? How do you do it? What does it feel like? How does it move forward? All those things.

We're going to kind of go into those things now in the next several months. in the last part of this quarter, really kind of taking what we've known or what we've learned about grace and the principle of it, and now the application of it. The other one, if somebody can look up Ephesians 1, 18 and 19. This is another one that I just think, combining this with the growing in grace, I thought this was another one.

I remember this verse and it's always struck me as a prayer that I think is critically important. I think it's a prayer for all of us learning in grace, as Paul expounded on in Ephesians. Somebody got 1.18 and 1.19. So, really I was looking in verse 18, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. You know, I think that's what the prayer is in growth and grace and spiritual maturity. This is Paul talking.

Pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. That's really the growing in grace. As we see this principle, as we see what grace is and kind of wrap our hands around it, and understand what it is and then the application of it. That's what Paul's praying for, that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, that we begin the process of understanding grace and how it is applied in our lives.

I got it, well, what is eternal life? That you may know what the hope of His calling, what are the riches of His glory, of His inheritance as a saint, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power towards us who believe. You know, I go, what is the whole key to this? It was John 17, 3, and this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.

Also remember that the unlimited blessings of God, based on the totally adequate work of Christ on the cross, that is the basis for our living in grace. we still get stuck in that fleshy way of thinking where we look at fruit, we think of ourselves as a farmer that's cultivating the fruit, rather than, as John was saying in 15, we are the branch, and the fruit is being grown in us.

Our growing comes from abiding, and the fruit is not. of our own doings. It's not we've got to go out there and Abel had a good sacrifice and he was able to break. It's not even Abel or King. It's we are the vine, or we are the branch. And by abiding, that is how the fruit grows in us. So it's imperative.

But in the context of the New Testament, In fact, that's what all the next three months are going to be talking about. This is just setting up for the process and the process of how do we grow in grace. That's what we're going to be addressing. All the things you said are exactly what we're going to be touching on. Even though it's us doing it, it's the Holy Spirit. Indwelling in us, convicting us, and showing us by faith all these things.

And you said the magic word, resting. I mean, it doesn't mean we're going out slaying dragons and doing all this stuff. It's resting. It's abiding in all the things you said. That's what we're going to be touching upon as we go into this. What growing in grace means. The only thing I wanted to say, the main point was, It's growing in grace, and it's that present tense.

It's a continuous action. It's not, I've arrived and I'm there. It's continuous. It will be ongoing. And that's, as I said, the big thing I just want to say, it's a continuous thing. I think it parallels our spiritual maturity. As we mature in Christ, we're going to be maturing and growing in grace. It's a parallel track.

And it's just, it's so much today that we want things so fast. You know, I just keep going back to fast food and microwaves. I mean, you want your food now, you want it in 30 seconds, you want, I mean, look at a TV show and it's like, you only have two seconds snapshots before they change the scene because you need fast, otherwise you're lost. Or, you know, it's so quick, everything's so quick. This is not, and it may be, I mean, you can, because there's some who say, don't say that, Courtney, because people will say, I'll just slow down and do all this.

No, I think the scripture is real, complete about how it does take time. It's not tomorrow and we got it and we've arrived. It's a continuous process throughout our life. And through the indwelling, through our understanding of who we are in Christ, understanding identification truths, and then growing in that, that's where we have spiritual maturity and our growing in grace. Mike will be basically, and Jeremy and I will be for the next few months, basically going through kind of, not the how-to's, but kind of getting a handle on that growing in grace. So I just want to say, you know, the biggest thing is it doesn't happen tomorrow. It's great and you can grow quickly as you rest in Him and as your faith and you abide. And the more we grow in grace, the absolute peace and rest that we have. So with that, Mike will tell us exactly how to get there.

I got the rules. Yeah, you got the rules. One thing I was going to mention, growing in grace. When you're born into this world, you grow in this world, but you're already in it. You're already here. So you're growing in the environment where you show up at. Well, by the cross of Christ, you've been positioned in Christ and in grace. And so in that environment is where you grow. The problem with a lot of contemporary Christianity is that you're in grace, but they're trying to teach you the environment that you're not in, which is law and sin, that kind of thing.

So OK. If you have 10, I ask you to look at the four verses And when the word tells us that we are under grace and not under a law system, what does it mean to be under either one of those principles? Was the question clear? Maybe I can define the question a little more.

Human beings are not free agents in the sense that they're the determiners of their destiny. We are under some sort of controlling, reigning principle from the time we are conceived to the time we leave the planet and go on into eternity. So what I'm after is that we would understand that every human being lives under some sort of principle. Well, I'll get to that in a minute. So we are never on our own, so to speak. I don't care what the Constitution says.

We're always under the dominion of some principle or some power. And the Greek word here for under tells us that we are in an inferior position. When you're under something, you're the inferior. There's something over you that is controlling you. There are two principles that control us. Give me one.

You see how deceptive the sin nature is? You can't even say, hey, I'm under sin. The sin nature has you captivated. but convincing you that you're free. Right? I can do what I want. So you either live under what I call the law, sin, death principle, which the entire world is under. They're under a system of laws. They're under sin as a principle, not just sins. And because of As James chapter 1 says, and Romans 5, because you're under sin, you automatically are under death, which means you're separated from who? From God. Now all of humanity is either under that principle or under what other principle?

Grace. So I think a lot of times, young in the Lord people come into Christ and they, how do I say this right, if the gospel is presented correctly, And they are exhorted to believe, exercise faith in the person and work of Christ. There is an immediate understanding that, gee, this is a thing. They may not know the word, but they understand that they have been saved by grace alone. That they exercise faith in somebody else and somebody else's work. And God accrued all of this blessing to them just by them exercising their faith.

But he did all the work. Standing next to that is a lot of the contemporary stuff, which is, I want you to come forward and make a commitment to Christ. Now, if that's the premise on which you got saved, how much of that is grace and how much of it is kind of a law principle that you contributed? There's a lot of it that's law. Or how about, you got to receive Jesus into your heart. How much grace is there in that? If you don't do that, You're not contributing. As opposed to the grace principle, which is, what's your only requirement for salvation?

Faith. You get credit for that? Faith is the one thing a human being can do that he gets absolutely no credit for it at all. Because it's the focus and the belief on what somebody else did. You don't contribute anything. The entire value of a faith system is in the object that you believe.

You see that? So, Romans 4 talks about the fact that it's by faith that it might be of grace. Faith is the only thing that we can do that fits under the heading of grace. You see that? Everything else is a work of some kind. And so we might say that the principle can be the grace-faith principle, not just grace, but grace-faith principle. So if I adopt an attitude that under grace, can I adopt an attitude that if I live under grace, I can do what I want to do and just do what I please? Is that what grace means?

No, I just can't. Now that I live under grace, I'm free and do what I want. Why not? That's exactly right. You're still under a principle. You're either under the principle of sin and death, loss and death, or you're under the principle of grace. What's interesting is that the attitude that I can do what I want keeps you under the principle of loss and death because the principle controls you. You don't control it.

Romans 5.21 says that as sin has reigned, and I know we Americans don't like that word reign. We don't know what that means. We think it's a cloudburst. Sin has reigned unto death. That means it's an absolutely controlling factor.

Even so, might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ? So what happens is that when we move by the work of the Spirit, out from under the sin-death law principle of reigning into the grace principle, we are still subject to grace. So if you're subject to something, I mean if you're going to get a driver's license, my son is finding out that there are rules about that and you've got to learn them. It's the same thing living under grace. There's principles involved in grace, and it's helpful if you know what they are.

So, question number two, does being under a grace system or a grace principle mean that we can do as we think is best in our own minds? That's kind of a trick question. Best in our own minds. Answer, yes or no. How many think, yeah, I can kind of do what's best in my own mind? How many think, no, can't do what's best?

I couldn't trick you. So when you come into a grace system, what do you do? The day after I was saved, a guy comes up to me and hands me a book. And the title of the book is, now that you're a believer, here's what you do. Right? And I started to read it and it gave me a whole bunch of new rules. That Christians do this and they don't do this.

How much of grace do I understand when I'm saved? Right when I first get saved, how much of grace do I understand? If I got saved on a grace principle, that's as much as I understand. How much of your life experience before salvation will help you understand grace?

None. Absolutely none. Because the system that we have lived under, death, Sin principle, there is no grace in that deal at all. So we've got to learn it from scratch. Courtney's talking about growing in grace. No wonder. You have to learn and we have to learn it from scratch. Just to give you an idea, our heritage before salvation was evil only. And a verse that I like to quote is Genesis 6, 5, and this is God sitting in his loftiness overlooking the earth. It hadn't been too many years.

I don't know how many people would be on the earth, but here's his pronouncement about how everybody's doing. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination and thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. I don't see any grace in that deal. Only evil continually. Move up to Romans 2, 11, Paul makes the same statement. I don't need to read all of it. But he talks about in two and chapter two in Romans.

Romans is probably the most consistent and precise logical argument anywhere, anytime. Years ago. decades ago, maybe a century ago, if you were a student, a law student at Harvard University, you had to memorize and you had to be able to argue the book of Romans and moot court. And the reason you had to do that was it is the most precise argument ever put on paper. And it's very logical.

And when you get to chapter two, what the argument there is, well, how can God condemn somebody who isn't a Jew and isn't under a law system? Because we would say, well, gee, I'm innocent because I didn't know. Right. Well, this is the goes to the I can do as I please. The problem is, is that Romans, if you're a clear thinking person, it starts out by saying that God is not a respecter of persons.

In other words, nobody has any leg up on anybody else. For as many as have sinned without the law. shall also perish without the law, and as many as have sinned under the law shall be judged by the law." So it's not the hearers of the law that are just before God, but the doers of it. Maybe to say this simply, if you were not a Jew, and you were not living under a law system, what the Word of God says is, well, you've got some legal system, your own little set of rules that you live under, and you know what God says?

Okay, I'll judge you based on your deal. I'll stand before you as God, and whatever you think is right or wrong, we'll do it by your rules. The problem is that you're condemned, because you can't even live up to your own rules. So if I try or I think that being under a grace system means that I can do what I think is best for me, the problem is that I am under this sin-death-condemnation principle And my mind cannot think of grace, cannot think holiness. It has no concept of what that is. It just knows law of principle.

Another example. Maybe 15 years ago, the government of Mexico sent up the Aztec thing for the Denver History Museum. Anybody go see that? Remember that thing? They had, I don't know, they had the Egyptian deal one time. They had the Aztec culture. I think Denver was one of only two or three cities that got it. What just amazed me about that thing was that in the Aztec religion was blood sacrifice.

They somehow knew that God wasn't happy. And he needed to be atoned for with blood. Now, they didn't have atonement. How'd they know that? It's because they live under the death, sin, condemnation principle. And so, I mean, they got really smart. They said, well, we won't sacrifice animals. We're going to sacrifice people. And so their whole religion was based on the sacrifice, the blood sacrifice of people.

Well, you know, they didn't get a fax from Jerusalem about how all this was supposed to happen. It was built in. to them because they live and are created under this law, sin, law, death principle. They knew they were separated from God and they were really trying to come up with some sort of system so that they could approach God. The problem is that a grace system means that God is approaching you rather than you doing anything to Him.

See that? Now, this is where you guys hopefully did your homework. I want you to name five definite commands in Paul's epistles. Give me one. Give me two. Give me three. Give me one. Give me a command from Paul's epistles. One of those imperatives, you know? What's that? Okay. What is it? I beseech you, brethren. Present your body. Okay, there's one. Give me another one. Don't repay evil with evil. Give me another one. Give me your favorite one. What's that?

Ephesians 5.25, read it. Yeah, we husbands really like that one. Because none of us have ever been able to live up to it. except for...

Give me another one. Give me the little pet command from Paul's epistles that you really like. Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. Well, I got a list. This is just, I don't know, ten or twelve pages of commands in the New Testament, right? So if you're interested, I'll make a copy of this and you can stick it on your refrigerator and then you can live under grace. The reason I asked that question was I wanted you to understand, and in future weeks we will spend a lot of time on this one issue, that the commands, the imperatives of Paul's epistles and the New Testament are, because they are commanded under a grace system, are totally beyond your capacity to do them. You with me? You believe that? The three or four or five that we just mentioned, has anybody done one of those? Anybody in this room? I've never been able to do any of them. Yet, I've got a whole list here. Why can't I pick one?

Lay hold of eternal life. I've done that. To which you are called. when you made a noble confession of faith before many witnesses. That's from 1 Timothy. Keep the commandment, the entire revealed word of God. Well, I'm in trouble. And not only that, keep it without stain or reproach until the appearing of the Lord. I'm going to go hide because I hope I'm not around when he appears because I didn't do so well with that one. The point being is that Contemporary covenant Christianity loves to go back to the Old Testament law and try to implement those laws as that somehow is Christian behavior. And they solicit the Holy Spirit of God to enable them to live that way.

Well, if they would get busy like Malloy did and and put down a list of all the commands in the New Testament, I can't find one of these things that I could keep under any circumstances. So where does that leave me? Well, it puts me in a position, I think, if grace is unlimited and grace is unmerited, and I'm commanded to behave in such a way by a system that's unmerited and unlimited, Where's all the energy for this gonna come from? Yeah. Yeah, I can't handle this.

The point here is, though, that when it comes to Christian behavior, I shouldn't say it that way, when it comes to the behavior of the Lord Jesus Christ manifesting his character through us, every one of those things is beyond our capacity. But like Lewis Barry Chafer said, God expects you to do them. This isn't optional. This is not do as good as you can.

But what's interesting about this is that There are specific things in Paul's epistles and in the New Testament that do regulate our behavior. You know, like husbands love your wife as Christ loved the church. But there's more of the situations and circumstances we run into in our lives as believers where there aren't any rules.

Take that back. There aren't any commands. Give me one of those. Give me something that you think which should be in the scripture that isn't in there, in terms of the way I ought to be behaving myself. Watching TV. I mean, there's a thousand of them.

So let's try to balance, or let's try to figure out how we as believers who live under this and grow in this system of grace, we do have a list of imperatives, but we also have an awful lot of latitude when God has given us the freedom to decide about things ourselves. And I want to address that.

So, if we catalog all the commands in the New Testament from Romans to Jude, would there be enough instruction for living under the grace principle? Is there enough instruction in there? Understand the question? If you went through and made my list, made the list, is there enough instruction here for me to live under grace?

Better not lean on that thing. Well, like we're to pray without ceasing, right? There was a guy in a mission I worked in one time that said he was up to 60% of the time. And somebody in the Bible study said, well, how about all the rest of them? How are you doing with those? Because he was focused on praying. So, back to my question.

If you've cataloged all the imperatives, all the commands from Romans 1-1 to the end of Jude, is that enough information and enough rules for you to live the Christian life? How many think it is? You guys are chicken. How many think there isn't? Probably isn't. It isn't enough. There isn't enough there. Are there any issues that come up in your experience as believers that there are no specific commands? The answer's got to be, yeah, there is. There's a lot of them. There's lots of issues that come up that are not mentioned in the Word.

How about the Broncos? Is it right or wrong to play cards? Go to Bronco games. How about dance? Here's a good one. How about drink alcohol? How about eat certain foods? Listen to country and western music. Okay, rock music, I'm sorry. Now it's got to be classical, otherwise it isn't spiritual.

How about going scuba diving and enjoying God's provision at 40 feet below on the reef? How about smoking cigarettes or chewing tobacco? I can't find anywhere in the Bible where it says, boy, you can't do any of those things. How about reading contemporary novels? Or you want another kind of a cool list? If you happen to be living in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, here's some rules that you have to abide by.

You cannot allege that Muslims mistreated Christians or Jews. If you do, we'll stone you to death. You can't call the prophet's immigration to Medina, a flight or an escape. That's Mohammed. You can't refer to the Holocaust as purely a Jewish tragedy. So we could add that list to this list and we would really be holy. The country of Israel doesn't officially exist. If you believe that it does, you're not living up to the rules. But my point here is that How do you determine those things? How do you determine that it's okay for me maybe to go to a Bronco game, but it might not be okay for you?

So I said in question six, I said if your answer to question four was no, and it was, and your answer to question five was yes, then what did God do to give us the instruction on how we should operate? What did he do? Did he just leave it up to you? Back to question one or two. I can just do what I think's right in my mind. What did he do? Gave us a spirit, okay. Principles. He gave us principles. Now, so here we are again. You don't know the principles, how do you make an intelligent decision? You can't. You can't.

That's why the Word of God is so important to us. It's interesting that I was talking to a man one time who was really on my case about Miles Stanford's book, The Principles of Spiritual Growth. And he said, well, there's a lot of stuff in that book that I can't coordinate scripturally.

I said, that's because they're not laws, they're principles. When you study the Word of God, especially Paul's epistles, you're going to see imperatives. But you're also going to see principles in there on how things are done based on a principle. So tell me what a principle is. The way something operates. I looked up in Webster's Dictionary, a comprehensive or a fundamental law, doctrine, or an assumption, a rule or code of conduct The laws or facts of nature underlying the working of an artificial device, an underlying faculty or endowment, an ingredient like a chemical that exhibits or imparts a characteristic quality. So I could say to you, We use them like the laws in physics or laws in whatever environment you're in in terms of employment. There are principles that dictate how you do your job. If I'm a soldier, there are principles on what I'm supposed to do as a soldier. How do I shoot the gun? The bullet comes out this end, not that end. If I take my car keys and I drop them, they're going to go where? Up to the ceiling? No, they're going to the floor. Why?

What's the principle? It's the law or the principle of gravity. What's the difference between a principle and a law? Maybe say it this way. What's the difference between a principle and a statute? Okay, that's pretty good. A principle, I would say, is something God has already put in place. It works that way every time. The principle of gravity works that way every time. Now you can come up with with other principles that will seemingly defy the principle of gravity, like a Saturn V rocket that goes up and defies the principle of gravity or has more power to overcome it. But the principle never goes away. Eventually, if it's around the Earth, it's going to come back.

Statutes or laws are things that are imposed on us for behavior from the outside. Do you understand what I mean by that? If I'm a Jew, And if my name is Moses and I go up on the mountain and God gives me the mosaic law system, they are all external impingements on my behavior, right?

Where a principle would be that I live under the principle of sin, I don't have to think them up. You understand? I mean, sin controls me or grace controls me. So if I live under a grace system, grace has its own principles. And principles are controlling. Does that make sense? Before you were saved, you lived under a loss and death principle.

Did you have to say, well, you know, I'm going to take 15 minutes off from sinning and I'll get back to it. No, you sinned all the time. Why? Because the principle that operates in the sin nature is nothing but sin. As believers, if we are not walking in the Spirit, are we sinning continually? What do you think? As believers, you're not walking in the Spirit.

Are you sinning continually or do you have to Well, I'm doing this specific sin, but I'm not sinning here and I'm not sinning here. Oh, and here's another one that I did, and I'm not sinning here, but oh, here's a third one that I did. How about the gap? Am I sinning in there? Why? Here's the principle. What's the definition of sin? Falling short of the mark. I exist under the principle of falling short of the mark. Am I sinning? Yes, I am.

All the time. If I'm living in grace, is there a time when I'm doing grace really good, no grace here, more grace here, no grace here, more grace here. What about the gap there? Am I living under the principle of grace? Yes, I am. So the principle is a controlling factor. It's the way something functions or operates. If I live under the principle of grace, it functions and operates by its own set of principles. You see that?

It's like the resurrected life of the Lord Jesus Christ does not need a law to function. Why not? Because his life and his personhood functions under its own principle. the principle of eternal life. It doesn't need outside impingements to conduct its behavior.

He doesn't get up in the morning and say, Oh, I've got to figure out how I'm going to glorify the Father today. I better find some rules. I wonder if he'll be happy with this. No, he always functions that way. So it's important to understand when we're moving towards behavior under a grace system, that grace has its own principles. So how does a believer determine if a behavior is okay for him? He determines it by principle. By spiritual, biblical principles.

So when you study the Word of God, and you've come up against something that's not a specific command, because it's in First Californians, it says you can't go to Bronco games. How do you determine whether it's good for you or not? It's amazing how God has, in His grace, allowed believers to use their individual judgment. Isn't that something? I'm free. We have great freedom outside the specific commands of the Word. But that doesn't, again, you know, I know how you're thinking. You're thinking, oh, that means I can do what I want. No. Chester McCauley used a great example.

He said, well, what if you said, someone said to you, well, are you going to jump out the window? What if I said to you, go ahead and jump out the window? What would you say back to me? Well, you might want to inquire as to, well, how high is the drop? And am I going to land feet first or head first? I'm going to review my options before I make my decision whether to go out the window or not.

That principle operates in determining everything you do in a Christian life that's not a command. I don't have to say to you, you get to decide whether you can lie or not. Do I? Isn't lying okay under certain circumstances? No, it's a specific command in the Word. It says, no, don't lie. Well, it's okay if I don't pay my bills. No, it's specific commands. I don't have to work, so I don't have to pay my bills. No, it says if you don't work, you don't eat. It's a real simple thing. Do you understand what I mean?

But there are all kinds of things that we're going to run into where you cannot find a specific command. And so what you're going to have to do is use your best judgment. Where does your judgment come from? comes from the Word of God. Now, what's the number one overriding principle that we can function under? Let me see if I can say this right. There is a principle that overrides all other principles when I'm trying to decide whether my behavior is okay or not. What would it be? That's the second bell. Should I give you the answer? Here's the answer. Does it control me or not? I'll give you one example and then we'll close.

When I was a young believer, I got invited to the Young Life Golf Tournament. Now this is a big deal, right? So I'm walking down to the practice range to hit a few balls because I wanted my score to be somewhat under 150. And there was a young life leader standing next to me, and he was hitting golf balls, and boy, could he smack them. Straight down 280 yards every time. And I watched him hit a few, and I knew this guy, and I'm a young believer.

I said to him, I said, man, you can really hit the ball. You know what he said to me? Golf is my thing. Golf is my thing. And I thought to myself, it masters him. So that's the number one principle, and we'll move from there next week. The number one principle is, does it master you or not? Scuba diving masters Courtney, and we're working on it. That's close. Dear Father, how we thank you for your grace, and how we thank you that we live under the principle of your grace and that we're growing continually in that grace and in the knowledge of your dear son. We pray in his name. Amen.