Identification Truths Plus 2012

All right, we are on Lesson 23. It's the third one of the series on grace, or well, no, it's the seventh one or whatever we're actually on, I think. So it's Lesson 23. And we got through, I think, two questions last week. So we are beginning on question three, and that is, read Romans 3, 24 and 25. And then the question is, from these verses, what is the basis of God's grace system? So I can read it, Romans 3, 24 and 26.

Being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness, because in the forbearance of God he passed over the sins previously committed." And that's out of the New American Standard. Therefore, what is the basis of God's grace?

It's a gift. It's a gift? Christ. Christ. So? Give me, out of the verse. Do you guys have a verse? I had my Bible, I even brought it. I could give it to you. Well, from what you said, it's Christ dying on the cross being sufficient for getting rid of sin and allowing God to be graceful. You kind of touched on it.

What's the back half of our definition of grace? Unmerited? Further. Unlimited and unmerited based on? Totally adequate work of Christ on the cross. There we go. So, this is really, you know, what we've been trying to build on is where Paul is teaching, where basically we come up with our definition of grace, which is the unlimited and unmerited blessings based on the totally adequate work of Christ on the cross.

Okay, so we've pounded a lot on the unmerited, we've pounded a lot on the unlimited, and this is just touching a little bit on what the basis is. So, kind of going through how, and we used that definition, that was from Chester McCauley, who kind of boiled down what Lewis Barry Chaffer had put. Lewis Barry Chaffer, when he went through his portion, had a pretty long definition of grace. Chester McCauley boiled it down to the unlimited and unmerited blessings, based on the totally adequate work of Christ on the cross. So we're going down and kind of showing how that is a valid definition of grace. I guess the question out of this is, how can God give unmerited blessing to someone who deserves judgment? Christ took on the judgment and the penalty. Correct. So, we deserve what? Death. Death. So all the judgment, all that. But in the verse in God's public space of propitiation, what's that million dollar word? What does propitiation mean? Substitute.

No. Satisfaction. I think it sounds like a ventriloquist. Don't. I haven't even seen that move the hand that made your mouth move when he talked. He's giving me the answers. He just does it like, couches them in a stone song. So you're filling in for Bruce and Monique. Yes. Because Bruce whispers at Monique and whispers to what she should ask. Then I'll throw out a question of my own just to mix it up. I like, Chester McCullough in his message gave a good example.

He said, imagine going into court, pleading guilty to robbing a 7-Eleven. And the man says, on the basis of robbing the 7-Eleven, announce that you are guilty. And you're convicted. And you'll be issued a check by the court for $50,000. Obviously, you got something you probably didn't deserve. You're convicted of robbing. You were convicted of guilty.

And the judge says, here's a check for $50,000. Does that seem fair? You think the judge is crooked? Well, how does that work? You're convicted, you're guilty, and he says, here, have a check for $50,000. That's grace. Exactly. It's grace. You know, you'd think there's something that the judge is a little crooked, you know. You're guilty, you're convicted, And here's a check for $50,000.

Well, on what basis could he do something like that? Gets a kickback? In a corrupt system, yes. How could he do that? Someone else paid the price. That's the key. Somebody else paid for that penalty. That's how he can do it. And not only did he pay for it, he's now pouring out blessings to you. But the payment's already been done.

So it's not a crooked judge. It's somebody who has already accepted the payment for your guilt. Is that what propitiation means? Propitiation means satisfied. He's satisfied. He's satisfied with the payment. The payment satisfies the penalty. satisfaction, satisfied the payment. It satisfied the requirements of God's righteousness. I mean the actual propitiation, the word is satisfied. So God is satisfied by the payment of Christ. It's got to have a solid basis, which is this totally adequate work of Christ on the cross.

So, again, when you start thinking about it in these terms, like you're convicted of a robbery, you're guilty, and now you're suddenly given a check for $50,000. That is how, through the payment of our sin, Christ paying for it, and now what do we receive out of it? Unlimited blessings. It'd be like if we murdered somebody and went to court and Christ said, you know, I'll do your jail time for you.

Totally paid for. Not only that. I'll go to that chair for you. Not only that, is paid, totally satisfied, and the judge, God the Father, is satisfied with that. And not only that, is here, you go free and live in the mansion. I mean, really put, yeah, in his mansion.

But the thought is, think of how grace works. and the unmerited portion of it. We think of this and it's like, that's just crazy. We're guilty and yet God the Father is satisfied with the payment and not only that, he's now going to bless us. That's how wonderful the grace system is.

Can I tell a real life story? You guys who say, don't get done in time. I just want you to know when he harasses me about not getting it done in time. OK, yes, certainly go ahead. When I was a young believer, I worked downtown in a storefront mission. And a guy came in one day, a middle-aged Mexican kid named Alfonso Nieto. And he was a drug addict. And through whatever we were doing, he believed in the person and work of Christ that day.

And he never had any residual problems with heroin after that. Find out two months later that he's got a case against him for receiving stolen property. And if he gets convicted, it's his fourth felony conviction, which means in the state of Colorado, you're gone forever. And that happened before he was saved? Yeah. But he still has the case pending. So in the meantime his wife becomes a believer and she's also a heroin addict and she is free from heroin right away.

So the trial comes up and we're down at, myself and my buddy, we wrote letters to the judge and the judge was a man named Flanagan who was known in the Denver courts as the hanging judge. What we didn't know was that Flanagan was a believer. So we wrote these letters saying, relating what happened to Nieto's wife and stuff, and it had totally turned around in time.

So, and this kid was a little arrogant too, he told his lawyers that he wasn't going to go to jail. He went to a fencing thing that the cops had set up and they had him dead to rights. It took the jury about four minutes to convict him, right? The day of the sentencing, there's all these people that show up to testify for him and against him and that kind of thing. And the judge says, everybody done?

Yeah. He says, stand up. And he says to the guy that the court is aware of the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. It's the first thing he says. He admonishes this kid. He sentences him to 40 years and suspends the sentence. Wow. And he walks out of there. That's great. That's great. Do we have an update on him? What's that? Do we have an update on him? Yeah.

It's been a few years since I've seen him, but he's fine. I was in jury duty a couple of years after that. I went to Flanagan's court and told him who I was. He told me, he said, His clerk and his secretary and everybody in the court were believers and they had prayed about this guy that morning and what to do with him. And the judge decided to let him talk. That's grace. Real life grace.

So, from Romans 3.24, what phase of the work of Christ is a basis to be justified as a gift by His grace? We've talked about that. It is His death, or the passage says, by the blood of Christ. So where does that put us? And that gets us to question four.

Is this 100% sufficient to receive the unmerited and unlimited blessings of God? Is it 100%? Yes. Do we know that God is going to give us unlimited blessings and it's going to be based on the 99% complete work of Christ on the cross? Is that correct? 99%? All of it. 88%. How low do you want to go? Totally up. Totally, it's 100%.

We're saying that to God, if there's anything we need to do Is there anything else we need to do to receive this grace? Just receive it. There's nothing else. Unmerited. Basically we insult God because if we think there's something else we have to do, we're insulting God saying that the work on the cross was not enough. That we've got to add to it. We're slapping him, saying, you know, you did a good job.

You did 99%. But that last 1%, that's me. That's on me. So when you understand grace, it really makes sense that it was 100% what God, through Christ on the cross, did. There's nothing we need to add for it. Again, the unmerited part. Going back to that portion of our definition.

If you're not... If you're trying to add to it, you're saying that we need to help out Christ just a little bit. We need to help Him a little bit. We need to add to it. Because it was great on the cross, but now I'm on my own. I've got to do it myself. I've got to add to this. Again, when you think about that, that is just not logical. Let's say it this way, an example.

I go to Randy. Let's say Randy does it for me. I'll go this way. Randy comes to me and he says, I've got a brand new Maserati. I'm going to give it to you. So he comes, he gives me the Maserati, great new car, wonderful, awesome. And I said, that's great. Here, I take out a dollar and I give him a dollar for that car. I give him a dollar for that car. It's a $300,000 car. And I give him a dollar.

Is that a free gift? Did he give me a free gift? If he took the dollar, he didn't. If he took the dollar, is it a free gift? Not totally. No. It's not a free gift. If I gave him just $1 on a $300,000 car, is it a free gift anymore? It's not. It is not. So we just read the free gift of God.

So if we add $1 to that free gift, it negates the free gift. He set it up as a system where there's no payment. It doesn't negate it because God would never accept the payment. So it would be like there's no chance that God would accept any sort of payment. So it's just kind of like wasted stuff.

We're negating grace that's flowing at us at infinite amounts. We negate it. We turn around and we don't accept the grace because we're trying to add to it. God doesn't accept it, but we're trying to mess the system up. We're basically turning away. The thing we do is we lose the intimacy. We lose the intimacy. And that's the thing that, you know, when you step out of the grace system, you're stepping out of the intimacy that he wants with you. And he's going, here, I'm pouring out my blessings and you're trying to fight me. You're trying to add to it. You don't have to do that. You don't have to do a thing. And you're here trying to pay me. You're trying to pay me.

But you do have to believe that that was the plan. Perfect. That's the one thing you have to do is believe. Excellent point. Excellent point. And is there any merit in your believing? Is there any work or effort or credit due to your faith? Zip. That's how grace works. And that's the unmerited part. Just believe it. Just believe He's pouring out these unlimited blessings to you. Just receive it. We'll get a little bit into it.

The word again in the Greek is charis, which is grace or thank you. It's the same word. So, it's a perfect thing. Grace is pouring out these blessings, everything poured out to you. And the same word is, thank you. That's all we do, is say thank you. It's a great system. We can move on. Question 5. Read Romans 5, 13-17. Then we'll ask the question, what do these verses say about mixing grace and the law or works?

4. For the promise to Abraham and to his descendants, that he would be heir of the world, was not through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

5. For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is nullified.

6. For the law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there violation. For this reason it is by faith that it might be in accordance with grace, in order that the promise may be certain to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, A father of many nations, I may do. And in the sight of him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist, So, beginning with verse 13, what does it say of the promise to Abraham? What was it, the promise of God? What was it based on?

Faith. Faith! Is this what you were saying? You know, it is for the promise to Abraham to ascend to be the heir of the world is not through love, but through the righteousness of faith. It was through faith, the non-meritorious act of faith. So was it based on Abraham being a really swell guy? Does it say, because Abraham, you are just, you're a great guy. You do all these wonderful things. If you look at Abraham, he was, you know, hey, it's really my sister. You know, he did all sorts of things that were just outrageous. So it wasn't based on his good looks or his great works. Was it based on the law that he kept all the laws? Does it say he kept every one? Apparently not, he lied.

There you go. So you know it wasn't based on law and it says that in 13 that it was not through the law. Okay, so who is this addressed to? Who is it addressed to? It's in verse 14, basically. They which are of the law. Yeah. These are the people who want to mix law and faith together. These are the ones who want to do it. These are the people who want to do just a little bit to obtain their blessings. Here's the one dollar. Here's the one dollar. Okay? So, what does it say about these kind of people?

End of verse 14. The promise is made of non-effect. Mine is in the New American Standard. Faith is made void and the promise is nullified. Let's mix a little law and grace together. Just a teeny bit. One dollar worth. Well, I don't understand then how it's salvation isn't nullified. Right.

Because there's a lot of people, Christians, mixing law and faith. Oh, this is talking about people who are trying to avoid salvation by faith. By saying, well, you have to believe, but you have to believe and perform and go through the law. But believing is part of compliance with the law.

And remember about how salvation is. Remember that the payment of your sins and all the sins of the world, past, present, future, were put on Christ, and he paid that price. And as we talk about it, was that gracious? Was that gracious? I don't remember. I thought yes, but it's no. It's not gracious. It was judicial. It was to propitiate God, to satisfy Him. So it was He paid the price. It was judicial.

Now, salvation, is that judicial or is that grace? Say that again, is what? Is salvation grace or judicial? Oh, salvation meaning growth? Salvation. Your salvation. That's judicial, you just said. It depends on whose side of the ledger you're looking at it from. If you're looking at it from God's side, it's a judicial act to satisfy him, to satisfy his righteousness which demanded the soul that sins it would surely die. From my side, human side, it's totally and absolutely of grace alone.

See, I say, Roman, you have been saved by what? Grace. I say it's a gracious act. He didn't have to do that. That's true. So salvation is by grace. There's no judicial part in the grace to me, even from his side. Once the judicial part is done, salvation is by grace. I'm all right with that. So salvation is by grace. In the Romans, you are saved by grace, not by grace and payment of.

The sin question was taken care of. Now the only question is, do you receive the free gift of Christ? And that's a gracious act by God. He did not have to do that. The judicial part was an agreement and payment and payment. And where there's payment, there's wages and credits and due and all that. and satisfying His holy righteousness. The sins had to be paid for. Christ did that 100%. Totally adequate. Done. The sin question is done. And that's what we talk about. Everybody on this planet, the sin question is done. Done. There's only one question now.

Who is Christ? Every person on this earth, the sins have been paid for. Now the question is, do you receive Christ as your Savior? co-crucifixion, Adam in the flesh, crucified, positionally done. You're now separated from that which the sin is attached to.

We're now in Christ, new creature in Christ. He sees us in Him. All those verses we looked at about in Him, in Him, in Him, in Him, 12 times in Ephesians. He sees us now in Him. So, what do you mean by receiving? And that's why I said the co-crucifixion. It's our co-crucifixion, the Romans 6, where we are co-crucified. We have been crucified, dead, separated from? Remember the death, what that means?

My question is, you said that we must receive. Is that an absolute? Wrong word. It is by identification. It is not receiving. I think sometimes we get confused with receiving slash believing. Right. The believing is what we do. And because of the believing, we do receive. And I guess that's where, when I use that word, it's receiving the grace, the gracious act of him taking care of my old Adamic life in crucifixion and graciously we receive a new life.

You don't understand all that stuff at first, though. Like, what's his name? You know, at the mission, it's not like he walked in and totally understood everything. I do think, though, that if you present the unvarnished gospel like from first Corinthians 15 and you know that Christ died for your sins according to the scriptures he was buried and resurrected according to the scriptures and seen by many you just present that and say to a person if you believe that and Christ he will save you for all eternity the great thing about that is that about the gospel is that in and of itself it's gracious. What must I do to be saved, said the jailer. He said believe.

You understand at that moment what grace is because there's nothing for you to do. Well, I thought we learned grace. Yeah, we do. We have to be taught it. You bring up a point which I think is very good. Whether you know it or not, does that affect the truth of what transpired.

No. So, you may not know it, and you have to be taught grace. Because again, we've gone through this, you have to be taught grace. You can't see it out in nature, you can't by, you know, osmosis. Paul basically says you have to be taught, you have to be taught grace. So, the person who first believes and doesn't understand this, and there are a lot of people, myself included, when I became a believer, I didn't understand the identification truths. I went 20 years without really understanding those.

My growth was stunted because of that. I stayed in the nursery for a long, long time, beating my head. I had the flat forehead from trying to hit, you know, new program after program after trying to improve the old atom. And it never works. So you go on to the next program. It didn't work.

Well, this is the program that ends all. This is the one that's finally going to fix me up and make me that model Christian. Boom, hit the wall again. Well, that was the perfect program. Why didn't it work? Well, I go on to the next program. Until I came here basically and understood the identification truths, there's very little growth. I was saved. I'm a new creature.

All those things were true about me. I just didn't know them. So you can't live in them. I can't live in them. My understanding of them didn't change the fact of all those truths. I couldn't manifest them. I couldn't grow. I couldn't do a lot of those things. I was saved. No question. Including building a church for God. All those things. I did all those. And yet, no growth. And so the guy who Mike said, he may not know that. He may still today not know that. He's saved. And the growth doesn't happen.

That's why when you understand grace, you begin, well, I go back. First, you have to understand those identification truths because you're always trying to fix up Adam. And once you understand the co-crucifixion, you're not fixing up Adam. We have been, Romans 6, 6, and we have been co-crucified. And now to reckon ourselves dead unto sin and alive unto God.

And then the 2 Corinthians 5.17, we are a new creature in Christ, new in kind, new in quality. So we have, God has judicially taken care of the Adamic side of me. I don't have to fix that up. God's done with it.

Why am I worried about it? So now when I'm understanding who I am in Christ, now I can operate in His system of grace. that it's unmerited. I don't have to do anything. Because where? I'm placed into Christ. Does Christ need to work on things? No. I'm placed into Him. So now I just receive the blessings. I understand who I am in Christ and I can receive those blessings.

I forgot what the question was. About the guy, if he knew these truths. Right. So at first, you know, the gift I don't even know where I'm going with this. I'll just stop talking. The point was about the grace and if he knew it and where he's at. I was 20 years into my Christian walk and not understanding these truths.

Once I began to understand that, then I have much more peace. All the things that he's promised me and told me, I now understand. Let me choose the right word here. That God would have us as believers when we are in a position to give the gospel to someone, that we do it graciously. And the reason I say that is because if a person starts on a grace basis, he's apt to grow much more rapidly than if he started on a basis where he was either making a commitment or making Jesus the Lord of his life or having to walk down the aisle or whatever the deal was. If he starts on a grace basis, you have to grow more quickly because you recognize, wait a minute, this was something that was totally of God and nothing of me.

I contributed nothing to this. Well, that's what I say. If you start in your salvation with understanding identification, I think your growth is much greater because you start on that basis. You don't have to go through this peeling off the onion. Yeah, and I think I'm good with all that, but I think the salvation part, the being saved, such a gift that we don't even know what it is. You know what I mean?

Absolutely. It's like we have no idea of the breadth and depth and everything. I'm still growing. Yeah. Well, hopefully. No comment. You know, that until I step into eternity, I'll hopefully be growing and being conformed in the image of Christ. Right. But you don't know any of that. Again, I go back to the point. Does that nullify what's true of you?

No. No. It's our reluctance or our not knowing these things that impedes or slows down that growth that happens. When we understand it, it becomes a lot easier for us to grow because we're not trying to fix up the old man. We're not trying to do all that. You see in the scripture, the milk of the word, or the meat, there is a growth. You can see it in a lot of different things.

2 Peter 3.18, grow in the grace and knowledge. It's a growing. It's a maturing. It's a process. That process is what? To conform us. We're conforming. It's a process. Boy, I've got to tell you something. And I hate to even mention it. But you will. But I will.

A friend of mine who is of a denomination, when I would mention growth and stuff like that, she told me it was selfish. And there's some in that. If you are trying to I agree if I understand the context of that. The program to fix me up, to make me the good Christian by appearances. No, it was just any growth. As soon as we're saved, it's kind of our mission to save other people and to praise God and that's it.

That's it. Sort of, I guess. Is that it? Boy. That just nixed about three quarters of Paul's epistles. I was going to say, Paul really missed that one. Yeah. Paul wasted about three quarters or 90% of his epistles then. Yeah, I know. Well, if you know, then it's wrong. Yeah, I know, but this... Just because she believes it and she's sincere, does that make it right? I know. How about Peter? I know. We had to grow in the knowledge and grace of God. I know.

That's just 2 Peter 3.18. I know. Well, okay, Ollie, I'm waiting for it. I know, but, which means everything before I said I know is now negated. No, this is me saying I know. I just don't know. How to counter that? Right, right. What if she doesn't?

There's going to come a time. In this man's life, when that theology doesn't hold him up, and when it doesn't, that's when you talk to him. You wait for God to move. When he does, then you shower him with grace. Up until that point, he suffers from that terrible Christian disease, which as I've made up my mind, don't confuse me with the facts.

Just the 2 Peter 3.18, what does that mean to grow in the grace and knowledge?

Oh, I understand it. I believe I understand it. There are people, he or she, and she. And again, again, is it only your response? I mean, God's working. I know. It's like people who, I have people in my family that don't know the Lord. For the longest time, it was my responsibility. Right. It's mine and only mine. The thing is, too, though, and I'm sorry to take us off track, but they're just going to give me grief about not finishing. So that's OK. I just want you to throw me under the bus.

And the person is Both actually, a couple of them, are really motivated by other people going to heaven. So they want other people to go to heaven. I remember before I was an unbeliever, I thought, so to believe I get to go to heaven. So it was like, oh, it sounds like there's a, you know, this is the payoff. You believe us. And you go to heaven. And I was like, well, you know what? Maybe I don't want to go to heaven. Or maybe I don't want to believe, maybe you're manipulating me into believing by saying I'm going to go to heaven.

But they see it. I think it's back to Mike's point that very few people are going to get into heaven if they don't understand the gospel and the grace message. you know, check, put notches on your belt about all these people you think have accepted Christ, whatever. But if it's just, you know, check the box code. See, I, in this word, Mike and I maybe disagree a little bit with this. I think there are millions of people who are believers that are in the nursery. It is by simple faith.

If I believe death, burial and resurrection, Christ, you know, I'm a sinner. So it's not saying, I believe that I'm going to go to heaven. It's, I'm believing in what Christ did. That's right. And I think that's where the, if you believe you'll go to heaven falls short because it's not based on the gospel. It's based on a reward for believing. Yeah. And is that, I mean, are unmerited all the things we've been talking about? It's by faith, just what we're saying. It's by believing. By believing in what Christ did. Christ did the personal work. Not believing that you're going to heaven. Right. And that's a contorted gospel.

I must say though that one of the evidences of spiritual growth in a believer is when they begin to be concerned about other believers growing Not that they put pressure on them, but they get concerned about it and less concerned about themselves. Yeah, but I caution that by notches on the belt and how good I am. No, I mean it's legitimate. I would prefer, you know, It would be, you know, I have enough of a concern, maybe I pray for you. And it's because that's who you are. Yeah. It's not because I'm trying to make another notch on my... And so I don't have any concern for me. Yeah, exactly. It's not because I'm doing...

God's going to smile because I witnessed 10 people today. Do you mind if I ask you if you want to talk to somebody? I want to hear what you're saying. Wait, wait. She had a question. You have a question? I'm just saying, I just asked, I said, do you mind if I ask you to talk a little louder? I want to hear what you say.

Coming back to the question of is our purpose for spiritual growth in the body or is it for evangelism, Paul explicitly says in Ephesians 4, 11-14, he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as That sounds like growth to me. Not that. We are no longer going to be children. Why? Because we are supposed to grow.

Those are truths that are there. But in the grace thing, Peter says that to 2 Peter 3. If you look at the spiritual gifts that are mentioned in Corinthians, every one of them is for the benefit of the growth of the body of Christ. Only one of them is The evangelist is the recruiter. All the rest of the spiritual gifts are for the growth of the body. Edifying the body. That's the edification of the body.

My concern of being a relatively new believer, and I know I can't keep using that as an excuse. I get like 10 years or something, right? Yeah, there's a limit. There's an expiration, like a warranty. After 10 years, you're done. The difficulty with me is when I hear that, being newer, I back down. My technique now is avoidance. You know, so I don't know, is that okay?

Well, I think what happens I think in what the Lord does with us is he brings a lot of circumstances in our life where initially we don't have the answers for. Which causes you to do what? Go find the answer. And have it satisfied for yourself. I got an email last night from somebody that wanted to know something about judgments. I kind of have an opinion about judgments, but then I spent an hour researching and putting some stuff together. Well, I'm the one that learned more about judgment.

Yeah, well then it's kind of like we get into an argument then, which seems to me like to be counterproductive. But my point is, in a lot of these things, you know, you back down or whatever. You know, I say, I want to witness to him. Three of these are pointing back at me. When I point at somebody, God's working on me as much as that person. So it may be for your growth.

And again, it's not predicated on you doing it. You have to get this done today. It's like I was saying with my family. It's not my responsibility. responsibility. So I'm okay with just kind of laying low. So it doesn't matter. But there are two things here. Number one, I think we have two, three things.

One is that the Word of God presented forces people to make a decision about it. So my responsibility is to put the word of God out there. My responsibility is to make it clear. It's their responsibility to do whatever they're going to do. It's not your responsibility to respond. This is a believer though. It still doesn't matter.

When you find that people, when you, in your life, when people call you up and ask for advice, if you anecdotally answer, you're not going to get anywhere. If you lay the Word of God on them, then something happens. Because how do you fight the Word of God? You are either going to believe it and accept it, or you're going to turn away from it. It forces you to make a decision. You cannot be passive. Well, you can be passive, but that's the decision you made, is to be passive. Be passive. But again, the whole thing is not your responsibility.

You know, one thing, when I was going to college, I got tangled up with the Jehovah Witnesses, and learned everything backwards about God and the Gospel, and Jesus was a little God and everything. And I got my job at Lockheed in California, I was going, some friends asked if I wanted to go to a Bible study and I'd be just shooting all these Jehovah's Witness questions at this really gracious Christian young, I think he was a Spanish kid, and I would say something just really like almost hateful, I'd say, But let me just help you understand a little bit better.

Every time I do that, I'd just be this gracious. I can just see this guy had something different. And he was one of his stepping stones that helped me. And that's the whole thing, I think, of our conforming. That's why I say, as we know who we are in Christ, and we study to know Him, then it's just a manifestation of who we are in Christ. That will draw people.

Because there's something, I don't know how many times I've been on a drill rig, you know, and people just go, you know, I'm not, you know, I don't have John 316 powdered on my truck, you know, I don't have all that, but there's difference. I don't engage into their coarse, you know, jokes, you know, or I just, I used to, you know, kind of get into it, you know, just to be, you know, as wrong, you know, Greeks and, I'm going to be like them. Stupid. you know, I would just be who I am in Christ.

And I get more people going, what's up with you? You didn't, you know, you didn't do, you know, it's like when I had me, you know, my arm deal. They're like, you know, afterwards, like, what? Yeah, it's Lord using, you know, I said, well, how it got me to the hospital and how I got, you know, Lord, Lord was gracious because, you know, he'd led me to the right hospital, led me, you know, Lord, really, you know, and just, It's who you are.

You breathe. It's just like breathing. And as you become conformed to the image, people are drawn to that. It's like light in darkness. Sometimes it exposes things that are really uncomfortable for people. But again, it's a life. It's a life. It's not an occupation. It's a life.

Yeah, the end of that story is, then I went from California to Colorado and three and a half years of the Book of Romans with Hal Malone. He went to church with you. But he was still very tender hearted, just sweet. Hal was a guy who, especially in his last days at the hospital, he just exhibited Christ.

And he drew more people by just who he was in Christ than anything else. He always took them to the Word. But they were drawn to him. They were drawn to him because he exhibited the life of Christ. It was uncanny that when you visit him in the hospital and all the people were like, this guy, he's different. Who he was. He was exhibiting or manifesting the life of Christ.

And that's the draw. You don't have to worry about what I'm doing. It's a life. You manifest that, people will be drawn to you. You're different. You're not of this world. You're a citizen chosen heaven. I get a little nervous when he says I'm different. What was that? I get a little nervous when you say I'm different. Well, that's a different matter. That's a whole different matter.

God uses freaks too. Alright, let's close. Heavenly Father, we thank you for just who you are and we again just thank you as we study grace. We understand that it just doesn't come easily to us. We have to be taught it, and Paul is very clear in a lot of explaining grace, and that it is unlimited, awesome, and it's unmerited, incredible, and it's based on the totally adequate work of Christ. It is fantastic that we receive this gift, this outpouring of unlimited blessings based on nothing that we did, but in what the Lord Jesus Christ did on the cross. We just revel and just love this system of grace that you placed us in. We just pray, as Paul did, that we'll grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. As we do that, we'll manifest the Lord Jesus Christ to a world that needs the Lord Jesus Christ. So Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the Holy Spirit that convinced and convicts us of these truths. And we just thank you again for the system of grace that you placed us in. And we thank you in all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.