Identification Truths Plus 2012
Courtney Hemenway · Oct 21, 2012
Identification Truths Plus, No. 41
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926331375252

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

Alright, we are on lesson 21 of the Identification Truths on Grace. It's our fifth lesson on grace. So, question 1. Can we be partially under grace and partially under law? If we say yes, we haven't been paying attention. We're going back to lesson 1. Lesson 1 after this. So the answer is?

No, there's no middle ground. God doesn't operate partially under grace and partially under law. It's an open and shut case if you look in Galatians. It basically is a law and grace on trial basically showing how you can't mix those. Either the believer understands what it's like to be under grace or they'll miss the whole system. Basically, if you try and remember those harsh words we had the last time about when you try and mix a little bit of law with with grace it basically Paul and Galatians Basically says you are severed or you lose intimacy with Christ You've fallen from grace when you mix a little bit of law in there. So, you know, you can't be you can't be sort of pregnant Can you? So, it's the same sort of thing. You're either pregnant or you're not. You're either in law or you're in grace. There's no sorta, sorta thing. So, how could you mix a little law and grace? Is there any way to do that? Better go to church on Sunday. Or you'll be a few demerits? Yeah. How else do you mix law and grace? You can't. Is there any way to mix them?

We're talking on a conditional basis here. We're not talking about my position. No. Most of our topics are going to be in condition. That's a good point. Positionally, we went through in the identification throughs what your position is. And those are, what is, what is, let me go back, this is way back at the beginning of the year. What's the difference between, and maybe for you who come in later, position and condition? Explain the difference. Position you can never lose and condition is when you fall off. Don't necessarily have to fall off.

You know when you, when you think, when you think you, when you're doing something, that you think gives you extra merits. I'll try. Position is who we are based on Christ dying on the cross for us that we are with him on the cross and now are with him And that was an event that happened, and we're in that position. And I think condition is our life on the planet here. Closer? Yes. OK, that's what I meant. So you just pulled the string on Holly's back. We'll get the answer out of that. Yeah.

In Philippians chapter 2 where Paul writes, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. We don't work for our salvation, but we do work out our salvation in our day-to-day life. I'm focusing on position and condition, which is, like I said, you weren't here at the beginning of the class. Position and condition.

I think you can probably do it in two words. Permanent and ongoing. Transitory. Unchangeable and changeable. Position are things that are true about you that will never change. Can't change. Permanent. Eternal. Those are things like our position in Christ. Our position. adoption as sons. There are 34 things and then 60 for 216 things that Schaeffer and some put together that are true of us the moment we believe. Unchangeable, not to be changed ever.

Now condition is more kind of what you're saying. On the planet we live now and are we always walking in the spirit? No. So, that's the condition. Sometimes we're walking in the flesh, sometimes we're walking in the spirit. So those are changeable things. And who is your master? Who are you following? Can we say it another way, that it's who we are in Christ and who we are in self? I have to think about that. The first one is probably okay. Yeah, the first one is okay. It's one. The second one, I was... Myself always leads me to my earthly existence. Yeah, I mean...

Spiritual growth is designed to get your position to line up with your... your condition to line up with your position. So your condition may not always be sinful. Right, and I guess that was my problem, is that your condition can be walking in the spirit. So that, you know, it's conditional. but it's not following the old man in Adamic. So that's why I say, yeah, the first one's right, but the second one, not always. It just means it changes. So your condition. So a lot of the things we talk about in grace are going to be related to conditional things. So that's a good point when we start this out.

Actually, when I was saying mixing a little bit of law with the grace, it came back, I was saying about 1 Corinthians 5.6. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens a whole lump of dough? You know, basically, if you try to mix a little bit, it breaks the whole system. So you can't mix a little bit of law with a little bit of grace and think it works. It doesn't.

It's either you're in grace or you're not. Or you receive it. You're always in grace. Let's put it this way. You're always in grace. Grace is always full on from God. We live in the system of grace. It's how we're responding to that. Okay. All right.

I want to go through just a little bit of review since it's been, we, we, we kind of had an interlude. We started off with some of the Jess McCauley's number or, you know, his principles of grace. And then we, we broke and we had the Lewisbury-Chaffer paper that we went. So I want to kind of go through just a couple different things to get us back kind of where we were with what Jess McCauley had, had taught. and kind of some of the things we've picked up. So we know that grace is the state or system by which we live.

We get that from Romans 6.14. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. So, that is the system of which we live now. Not under law, but we're under grace.

Romans 6.14.

Now is that position or condition? That's position. But I think that's both actually, because that's a system we live under, so that's a conditional system too. I think it's a conditional verse. Yeah, that one, but I want to get away from only position, because a lot of it is conditional. It's how we respond to that grace. Yeah, that's a condition. So where do we see... Sorry, I'm having a little problem with the word conditional. Because then I think of if you do this, then that.

Versus condition is more of a, you know, just our being. So I think the word conditional kind of is throwing me off. You know, the old brethren used to have status and state. So conditional is not a quid pro quo. If you do this, you get this. Conditional is just how you're responding to it. Your response to it.

So where do we see Grace? Grace is not just seen in a system, but where? Where do we see Grace? See Grace? The Bible? It's a trick question. Yeah, because you can't see it. Everywhere and nowhere. Where does it say Grace came from? God gave it to us in the Bible.

John 1.17.

Somebody read John 1.17. Law came by Moses and grace and truth by Jesus Christ. There we go. For law was given through Moses, grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. And Jesus is the Word, so that's the Bible.

Also, Titus 2.11, for the grace of God has appeared in Jesus Christ, bringing salvation to all men. Grace was brought through Christ. Grace is the way God operates now. You can get that from Ephesians 2, 4-8. I'll read that one.

But God, being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He has loved us, even when we are dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. in order that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. I love that in Christ Jesus position, our identification. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God. So, we're operating in a system of grace. We're not under law of that system. We're not under that system. That was with the flesh and the old man. We're now new creatures in Christ. We're now under a new operating system, and that operating system is grace. Okay?

So, grace principle number four, and this is getting back kind of in what the principles that Jess McCauley had laid out. Jess McCauley basically took Lewis Barry Chafer's work, I think, and boiled it down more into English where we could kind of understand it a little bit. If you read that book on Grace from Lewis Barry Chafer, it's a tough book. It's very, very, very good, very, very detailed, but you'll read chapters five times before you pick up what he's getting at. Jesse McKelvey kind of boiled that down and brought it down into a couple different principles And that's what we're kind of going over some of those things So the grace principle number four is grace operates primarily in salvation.

So question number two read Romans 1 16 and 20 Do we see God's grace or other attributes of attributes of God in these verses? So Romans 1 16 somebody want to read that one? For I'm not ashamed of the gospel you first and also to the Greek. 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 that they are without excuse. So, do we see God's grace in these verses or other attributes? How about grace and other attributes? We see his power and his creativity, you might say. Okay? So, where do you see his grace, Holly? I don't have my Bible. Like in nature, is that what you're talking about?

Grace in... what have you given us? I didn't know I was going to be picked on. Come on, we always pick on you. We always pick on you. So, where do you see grace in these verses? In the world around us. Where? Well, in salvation. No, in these verses. Let me go through them. Romans 116, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also the Greek. And then in 20, For since the creation of the world is invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have clearly been seen being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. Okay, so you know that he gave it to you because it's in the Bible, so you believe. These verses. Where do you see grace? The gospel and creation. There's no grace in these verses. There's no grace in these verses. That's right. All this shows is his power and his character.

Right, and it tells you in the Bible. So when we read these things, question number three. What do we learn by nature? When you look at the mountains, or the rivers, or God's creation, or to irritate Mike, when I go scuba diving and I see all the beautiful creation, the unbelievable fish, the camouflage that they have, the wonderful coral, all that stuff. You know, maybe we learn that we, and we keep learning this, I guess, is that there's nothing that Man can create like that. I mean, we can come up with jet engines and stuff like that, but a blade of grass, can we make that? No. So we learn that there's a creator. So what do we learn? We learn by nature?

Nature reveals God. Power. Reveals his power and creativity. Power and creativity. That's right. So, do you say, when you look at a beautiful mountain scene, When I'm down scuba diving, I see Warner Fish. Do I see, say, how gracious God is? No. You're just in awe of everything that's around you. Just look in the sky at night. I just seen how great thou art. Power and its character.

Nature does not reveal grace to us. It doesn't reveal grace to us. It shows His power, and in the Romans verse it shows that everybody is seen through creation, His power and His creativity. But it doesn't reveal grace. I can't look at a mountainscape and say, God's grace. Okay, so then how can you see grace? You can't see it.

That's where I'm going. That's the whole point. Remember how we said grace is not something just by osmosis. You have to be taught. Paul tells us you have to be taught about grace. Because you can't just look at nature and say, oh, that's grace. and understand it. The old man does not operate by grace. And the point being is you can't just look at creation. You can see God's power and His creativity, but you can't see grace. Let me see. I guess I look at it, and when you look at creation, I look at it and see it does show his attributes, which shows his creativity. He could have made it just black and white and gray, everything. He didn't. He made it wonderfully.

Look up in the stars. This morning had the Orionid meteor shower. You know, all that. You look up some beautiful sunsets with the smoke from the fires and makes these gorgeous, you know, Bronco sunsets, blue and orange. You know, I see wonderful how God, and I can see His creativity, but I don't see His grace. And that's the point. We have to be taught grace. It's not something we can just look at and see. We have to be taught grace. And Paul's very specific about that, that we have to be taught it. Let's go to question four.

When God speaks of grace and salvation, what does man contribute? Man does contribute a couple of things. What does he contribute in salvation? I think. What do we deliver at salvation? We bring sin and we bring weakness. That's our contribution to salvation. That's all we bring. There's nothing we bring to salvation other than sin and weakness. It's always in the context that man is a sinner and God acts in grace. If there was anything else that we would need to contribute, it would not be grace. If we had to contribute anything, that negates grace. So why isn't our faith a contribution?

Is there anything meritorious in it? Is it what you believe? The faith in what is true, or your faith, your active belief? What's the value? It's not in your believing. It's the value in the fact that I believe, or is it in what I believe? Exactly. So faith is what...

My wife hates when I use this word, because I only use it here. Unmeritorious. You never use that out in public, so she always gets on me about it. Unmeritorious. I always use that. What does unmeritorious mean? You put nothing to it, you get it free. Can't earn it. Can't earn it. There's no value or worth in what I do. There's not a, I don't know how to really say it other than, yeah, there is no... It's not a contributing factor. Contributing factor. It's no value in it other than what the results are, are unbelievable.

It's fantastic. Okay, we'll look at this more in some other questions that come up, but when we look at it, where he gets sin and weakness, if we look back at the Ephesians 2 verse 4 and 5, but God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved." So, we were dead in our transgressions when we came. So again, what do we bring to the table in salvation? Sin and weakness. So question five.

Does God's grace operate in people who think they are worthy or unworthy? Unworthy. This is a trick question. Conditional or positional. Grace operates for anyone. Okay. So I'm talking about worthy and unworthy people. But they're all unworthy. Okay.

And it probably doesn't matter what we think, so... Well, you put the word that God operates in people who think they're worthy or unworthy. Which one? Whether they are or not is irrelevant. Exactly, it's thinking, yes. If they think they're worthy or not. So, does God's grace operate in people who think they're worthy or unworthy?

Unworthy. Unworthy. But this is one of those things that I want to be very clear about, because I think we lose a lot in our intimacy and our life in Christ because of this thought of worthiness and unworthiness. So I want to be very clear about this.

The unworthiness is, and this is for people who think they're worthy, somehow, of salvation. And this is for an unbeliever or a believer who is trying to think he's worthy. Well, actually, this is for believers, if they're worthy. That somehow, I'm just a little bit above, that I deserve this.

Once I do that, do I operate in grace? No. Because if there is any worth in me, it negates grace. God's grace never has any trouble with people who know that they are unworthy in themselves or anything related to the old Adamic self. To those people who know that, God operates very simply in grace. Because they know in their old self, they are totally unworthy. God's grace has tremendous difficulty, in fact it's hard to even operate with the kind of person who thinks that they are worthy or somehow going to become worthy of God's blessing. When this occurs and we don't see the background of sin and weakness, then inevitably grace will not operate as it should.

What you're doing is attempting to move it over. than from a gift to a wage. We're going to get to those. You're jumping ahead. It's sinful nature. I mean, it stays with us until we die. Yeah, there are two natures in us right now. And that's where walking according to flesh or according to spirit and what we have now. When we step into eternity, we shirk that second nature.

You think of Jesus' illustration with Pharisee and Republican, the one saying, I thank God that I'm not like other men, and the other one saying, have mercy on me, a sinner. Yeah, I mean, the one who feels they're unworthy is, or knows your Adamic self, you know you're unworthy in your old Adamic self. Okay? So, and grace is based totally on Christ's work on the cross. It positionally seats us with Christ in the heavenlies. That's the worthy part. the positional part.

When we have been placed into Christ through the Romans, we've been very much through Romans 6, our co-crucifixion, and our placement into Christ, 2 Corinthians 5.17, and that we are new creatures in Christ, that's the worthy part.

Now, I want to get over this, though. I wanted to read, for those who have the Newell's Romans commentary at the end of chapter 6, a bunch of comments on grace. One of them really fits this. He says, to expect to be blessed, though realizing more and more the lack of worth. That's the proper attitude of a man under grace. Yeah.

And I want to be very clear because one of the things I think that really hinders our intimacy with Christ and our joy of living in Christ is focusing only on the unworthy part of our old Adamic self. And when we look at who we are in Christ, that gives us a boldness in Hebrews, Hebrews 10. We were just going over this on Tuesday.

Hebrews 10.19-22 Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way in which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith. So note how, by the blood of Jesus, the finished work, we have what? Full assurance of faith. the unmerited part. That's how we enter. But we have a boldness to go before him now.

My point being is that you understand the Adamic self, which is unworthy, but do you understand your position in Christ that makes you worthy to go before the Father with boldness and confidence? In Romans, Paul writes, we now have the spirit crying out within us, Abba, Father. Romans 8, 15-17, for you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also. Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. Do you understand that? Yes. Amen. Do you know how we enter with boldness?

Galatians 4, 4-7. When the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that He might redeem those who are under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father, Daddy. Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. So, I just want to make sure that anything in our old self is unworthy, not to be considered, but there is a position we have in Christ that makes us worthy through what Christ has done to cry out, Abba, Father, Daddy, to have an intimacy.

Through the Spirit. The Spirit is who convinces and brings forth the word and is the one who is conforming us. But I just want to caution that a lot of people always beat themselves up. I'm just a terrible, oh, and I don't have the boldness to go before him. You do in Christ. Who you are identified in Christ gives you that ability to go boldly before.

God the Father. Grace is the only system that allows that. That's the operating system in which we operate. I'm trying to get to the point where when you understand how we are in grace, if you understand who you are in Christ, you can understand how He can pour forth unlimited blessings. Unmerited, because it's nothing of us. It's all of Christ's finished work. But in Christ, you have the ability to go before the Father and say, Daddy, You have that intimacy. In Christ, do you feel worthy to be before him? Know how I phrased it. In Christ, do you feel worthy to go before God in the universe? You're talking feelings.

What's confusing is you keep on saying our boldness, and I don't think it's our boldness, it's the Holy Spirit's quipping. of us in boldness. Yeah, it's the Holy Spirit, but it doesn't, you know, it says we have boldness to enter. But it's not our boldness.

It's who we are in Christ, our position in Christ, and that's why I want to be very clear about that. That it's our position in Christ that allows us to do that. Where are we seated right now, positionally? In the heavenlies. So if you understand that, can you boldly go before him. Absolutely.

My point is that a lot of people just beat themselves up over, I'm not worthy, I can't go before him, I can't ask him this, I can't do this, I can't do that, I can't, I can't, I can't. Through the Holy Spirit convincing us and conforming us, we have the ability to go before him intimately. And that's where I think a lot of people lose is that intimacy that you can have with the Father because you're worried about all those sins and all the things that you're doing. The point being is when we get into grace, is God's grace based on any of our performance?

No, it is not. And that's where I'm beating this up a lot is that you have to understand that when you operate in grace there is nothing related to your performance. Nothing. He gives it as a gift, a free gift. And we've talked about it a little bit in the last Lewisberry Chaffers, if grace was based on merit, would it operate? No. Then it would be law. It would be law.

So I'm just trying to get you, this all blends together with how we operate in grace. It's who you are in Christ. That's how He can pour out unlimited blessings to you, because you've been placed into Christ. You positionally are right beside Him, in Christ, in the heavenlies. And when you start focusing on that, that flavors it.

I don't know, I'll read it if we have time. There was a great thing, you read it on Tuesday, out of The Hungry Heart, which I think really encapsulates this. If we get a shot at it, I'll read it at the end. Yeah, I'll do it. Yeah, it was very good. And this, I think, you know, Mike read it on Tuesday in our Bible study on Tuesday, because it was very, very good on giving up things versus how you're colored. Yeah, this one.

The growth and consolidation of one's spiritual life is predicted upon clear knowledge of the dual facts of Romans 6.11, dead unto sin and alive unto God. This must come first.

Consider what I say, and the Lord gave the understanding of all things, 2 Timothy 2.7. Many have taken the word present to imply consecration, which it does, without looking carefully into its content.

It is not the consecration of our old man with its instincts and resources, his natural wisdom, strength, and other gifts to the Lord Jesus for him to use. This will be clear at once for the little claws as alive from the dead, Romans 6, 13. And this is where it really gets in. For what is to be consecrated is not what belongs to the old creation. The presenting spoken of is the outcome of my knowing my old man to have been crucified, and my reckoning myself alive unto God in Christ Jesus. Knowing, reckoning, presenting ourselves to him, that is the divine order.

It is one thing to renounce or drop off certain old things, but quite another to be occupied with new things. Nuns renounce the world, but they are not engrossed with the risen Lord Jesus Christ. It must be not only forgetting the things that are behind, but also reaching out unto the things that are before. It is what I give myself to that colors me and imparts character to me, not the fact of having abandoned other things. People often dwell unduly on what they have renounced and are too indifferent to that which they should press forward, forgetting that it is a ladder that will form them. So, giving up things or you're worrying about your sins and all that.

The focus is to know Him, to be colored by Him. And so, when we focus on Him and who we are in Christ, the Spirit convicting us who we are in Christ, that's how we can operate in grace, in a way to receive, to say thank you. So again, all these peripheral things and giving up, worrying about sin and all these other things, it's to be focused on Christ.

That's what should color us. You're reading that made me think of sanctification. We are separated from, but we are separated unto as well. That's the second part of this. We're crucified and then what? Alive unto God. That's the second part. Focus on that. We've been crucified. God's done with all the sin. Don't beat yourself up on the sin in what you do. God's done with that part.

He's looking at who you are in Christ now. That's where the blessings, that's where the system operates, is in that person in Christ. That makes perfect sense when you know He's pouring out unlimited blessings on us who are positioned in His Son. That's how it makes the system understandable to me.

Okay, so where are we here? Six. Six. Well, did we get through five? Well, so we looked at all those conditions. So again, well, we kind of hit that. What did you come to the table with to make you worthy? Nothing. All we bring is sin, weakness, death.

Did Paul operate in grace from a position of power and strength? Yes? No? Did Paul operate in God's grace from a position of power and strength? I'd say no. It is grace he did. He talked about the power that works within. He said the things I want to do I don't do and the things I do I don't want to do. Romans 7. How about 2 Corinthians 12 and 9? And he has said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.

We'll address what we always bring to the table when we receive grace in a few questions. So, what is the definition of grace? Question six, and this is, Lewis Perry Chaffer, when we went through his paper, defined grace as the limitless unrestrained love of God for the lost, acting in full compliance with the exact and unchangeable demands of his own righteousness through the sacrificial death of Christ. We've adopted what Chester McCauley boiled it down to. Grace is what? You have been in the class enough. Grace is what?

Love. God, you say it better than me. Blessings from God based on the completed work of the cross. Right. And, okay, then blessings are sometimes chastening or whatever. So blessings, I mean, I think you think of it as like, oh, good and happy stuff. But, you know, blessings can be suffering. Yeah, absolutely. Consider it all joy, my brother, when you encounter his trials. You know, there are a lot of things that he works in you. But as you go through those, what is behind that? Any trials?

Love. Love. We can't be separated from his love. So he's only doing this, what? To conform us and to draw us closer to him for intimate fellowship. He's a parent with a child. I mean, the things that happen now is chastening. The word is chastening or child training. And what is that?

It's done in love and it's to draw us to him. And to conform us. So therefore if you break a leg you should be happy, which is difficult. You know, because it draws you closer to God. 82 stitches. Yeah, I know. Doesn't matter. I wouldn't use the word happy. Understand happy. That's a good point. I wasn't dancing around going, yeah, this is great, do it bigger. But it doesn't bother me. It doesn't. Because I know he's in control. As I said at the time, I could have lost my hand, basically. Would I have been angry at God if he'd taken my hand? No. Are you angry because you're missing a finger?

Only once in a while. And who are we operating in there? The old man or the new? The point is that you can go through so much more if you understand that whatever happens to you, he's in control and he's doing it in love for his purposes. Maybe it wasn't for me. It was for the ten guys around me. I don't know. That all sounds good when you're in the middle now, but when you're in the middle of it, it certainly doesn't seem so. You can get through a lot of this. These things don't bother you. When you understand if God's in control, consider it all joy, my brother, when you encounter various trials. The Lord has put that on my heart. My life used to be just a roller coaster. All state and sports and this and that. Alcoholic parents and this. I'm down, up, down.

When you understand, as a believer, that all things are done in love, it's for His glory, in the midst of things, that's what gives me peace. And that, he can use that to show Christ in you to other people. And that's what I'm saying. I'm not dancing around going, hey, this is an awesome thing. Although they probably think you're dying. Do it again. Do it on this arm. I want another one on this arm, you know? You don't do that.

But there's just an unbelievable peace in the midst of it. Because if you understand he's in control, it doesn't matter. But what about the little girl that was just murdered 10 years old? You don't think there's hundreds of thousands of little girls being murdered all over the world?

Yeah, I know. When we first moved to the Denver area I was impressed because Hal was teaching trials and suffering as a Sunday school class and he taught a lot of things where he went through the New Testament and if you go online you can download the lessons if you want to listen to them it's good material but then when he went through the cancer and then subsequently went to be with the Lord was very applicable to his life, and he lived it out.

And what I saw from that, and what I've been able to take away in my own life, is that as I hit things that stink, and sometimes that happens in closely grouped clusters, and sometimes they're between, I know God's going to use him. Because Hal's testimony was not, oh no, I have cancer and I'm dying. His testimony was, look how God's using this cancer. And that's what I mean. Consider all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials." I went down and saw Hal, and it was funny. I mean, it was amazing to see him.

The nurses would come out crying, and they were the ones going to comfort him. And he was saying, hey, and giving him the gospel, and he was in perfect peace, and it was amazing. I would see the nurses crying coming out. And they were the one, and I think it was they, at the last, they give you the hospice, or they have one to console the family and offer. She was in tears, and he witnessed to her, unbelievably. And she was the one ostensibly going in to comfort him.

That's the joy through the trial. You know that God is using you. Like I said, I wasn't jumping for joy, obviously, when I nicked my arm and did all that, but it didn't bother me. I knew God was in control. We always look at, oh, it's me, it's me, and I focus on me. It may not have been anything of me. It was for ten people around me, or the doctors at the hospital.

You just have peace knowing that He's in control. If you know He's in control, you can go through anything. Anything. And if you link that to the fact that he loves you with a love that cannot be separated, the Romans lays out everything, you can't separate him from his love. So, in the midst of whatever trial you're going through, is he whacking you because he doesn't love you? No. Never. You may not understand it, but you have to remember that God is in control. There are a lot of things I don't understand. A lot of things I don't understand that God's doing. You know, just what we were talking about at the beginning with you, Helen. I don't understand all that, but he's using it for his purposes.

And another thing, you know, this elderly woman, I visited her this week in rehab and could hardly walk in and had an x-ray done of my knee and now they've got to do a procedure on it because I messed up. It's bone on bone and so, you know, You don't know why, when you want to do a good deed, as my son says, Mom, no good deed goes unpunished. Punished, yeah, that's right. But, you know. You know, it's just, but use it for his glory. To witness to whoever the doctor is, to whoever, you know, and that you're not, that you, there's a difference when you go through trial.

People, why aren't you going crazy? Hey, I have a piece. What's that piece? Well, I know the Lord. I'm in the Lord. I don't, you know. And you can't buy that. You can use anything. And we always focus on ourselves. That's not the purpose of God. We are not number one all the time. Intimately, yes we are. But when he's doing things, it's not always our focus. He's working on ten different people. Even though I'm involved with it, it's for those ten out there, that one person. I did learn, they said I have great bones. And he said God made me just that way. God made me with good bones. The funny thing is that we're focusing on the trials.

The richness of Romans 8.28 with all things is Because grace is that awesome.

The whole point of all this is to say that grace is not based on anything of us. If it was, it wouldn't be grace. So that's the whole point of going through this is to understand how grace operates. If it was based on us, it's in the toilet. And that's the whole point. It's not based on how good we are, how bad we are. It's not based on that. It's based on His pouring out His unlimited blessings to us. That's the key. And when you start understanding this, not based on you, because if it's based on us, who are we focusing on? So, we'll finish up this, and I've got the next lesson anyway, so I'll get that off, and we'll finish this one up and start the next one. So, let's close. Heavenly Father, we give you thanks for who you are, and we just thank you that you're sovereignly in control of all these things. Father, we thank you for the system that you've set up for us, this system of grace.

Father, we understand that we are unworthy in our Adamic self. But we are worthy where you've placed us as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ that gives us that intimacy to come before you to cry out, Abba, Father, Daddy, to call upon you anytime, anyplace, anywhere. And Father, through that, you give us the peace that surpasses all understanding, the rest that the world can't offer. You give us all those things because you love us with a love that can't be separated.

And we rest in that fact. We have great joy in that fact. Father, we thank you that you have this system of grace that is, again, based on nothing that we do. It is unlimited, unmerited blessings from you. And it's based totally on the Lord Jesus Christ's work on the cross.

So, Father, we thank you for that system and just the Word being taught about grace. We thank you that that you left us the word and the spirit within us to understand this system that you provided. Father, we thank you now for this time. We pray for Vern upstairs. He gives us the word. Just prepare our hearts to receive it. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.