Faith Lesson 17 Week 2

We are in lesson 17 and we have gotten to question 7 or 6? We haven't done 7. We have not done 7. So we were looking at the results of being justified by faith because we had taking a look at Romans chapter 5 verse 1 and 2, therefore having been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ to whom we also have obtained an introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand and we exalt in the glory and the hope of the glory of God. So we talked a little bit about the results of justification.

Now notice it says in Romans 5.1 We have peace with God. What does that mean? It's like a peace treaty. There's no more war. There's no more opposition. Right. There's no enmity anymore.

So does this peace mean that you're in Denver and the Lord's in heaven and things are okay? Well, that's not a really good way to ask it. Actually, this peace is face-to-face with Him. It's a position that we have because we have a standing, a permanent standing before the Lord. So we have peace with God and I really like the concept of face-to-face. Because a lot of times we'll have angst against another human being If we get face-to-face with Him and peace is made, it's a good place to be.

And to be face-to-face with the Lord knowing that He has nothing against us. Nothing. So we can stand there. And we don't have to be ashamed or intimidated. We can stand face-to-face and recognize that this peace I have is never going to change. Never.

And also it's because he took all his wrath out on his son. That's right. It's exactly what he did. So there is nothing left for him to be a little upset with you about. Now the other piece that's talked about in the Word is the peace of God. So what's that mean? Is one of them, is this piece a position? Yeah. And the other a condition? Okay, so describe what the piece of God conditionally would look like. What would it look like? Positionally you said? No, what would the piece of God conditionally, what would it look like?

Resting in him. Trusting him. Okay, rest. Believing. There's no conflict in your heart anymore. See, God gives you not only peace with him, but his own very peace about everything. We learn as we, moment by moment, walk by faith, results in a peace and a rest that's his. So we get to share in that. If he's not upset about anything, why would you be? If he's taking care of all of the obstacles between you and him, and he's a sovereign God, and he controls everything, and you're one of his sons, why are you nervous?

I have a buddy who owns a company and he's a believer. He's trying to sell it and it's in the process of the auditors going through and assessing the value of it. He says, I can't sleep at night. I said, why not? He said, well, I don't know how it's going to come out. I said, but your father does. He's perfectly aware of what's going to happen here and you can trust him. The last time you trusted an auditor it cost you money.

So trust the Father and what He says and His peace about everything because we are a son. And as we're talking today about trials and tribulations, the peace of God is in the middle of those trials, in the middle of those tribulations. Because we know from what we're studying the whole reason that they're there. We know why they're there. They're not there to beat us up or cause us anxiety. They're there to teach us that no matter what the circumstances are, we can rest in the peace of God. Do you see that? Are you alright with that?

So, Romans 5.2 says in verse 2, it says, By whom also we have access by faith. What does access mean? And it tells us what we have access into. What do we have access into? What does the word tell us?

Grace. What does it say? Grace. Okay. Now, anybody outside Christ have access to this grace? No, they don't. They have access to the gospel. which would give them access to the grace, and the gospel is offered to them. But once you believe in Christ, then you get to walk into this thing called grace, access. So tell me what access is. Open door. Go in any time. So the door is open for us to enter into this grace. So explain to me what grace is. Unmerited favor. OK. Is that all it is? Is that all it is? What's the favors? What are the favors? His promises. OK. So one of the favors is access. What are some of the other favors? His promises. Promises? What did he promise me?

To a wife. I already have it. It's not a promise. It's a fact. OK. OK. The things of God. What's that? The things of God. Oh, there we go. We're back to the things of God. So the things of God are just not getting what we don't deserve. Is it? So grace is a very expanded term. As a matter of fact, if you were here, how many years has it been now? Three? Four?

If you were in our grace class, you came up with a definition that we stole from Chester McCauley. that grace is unlimited and unmerited blessings from God based on the totally adequate work of Christ on the cross. So if you realize, if you just sort of think about that, it's unlimited, which means it's not modified by me in any way. God's blessings are unlimited. And not only unlimited in terms of how many, but unlimited in terms of the scope of the blessing.

See that? That's one thing to say, well I'll give you 50 bucks. That's the blessing. It's unlimited up to 50. I like that instead it's something from God, that it is like this access to God. Because from makes it seem like it's coming to us, when actually it's kind of, isn't it, like more of an access? Oh, I like it. Yeah, I like what you're saying. Because, see, think about this.

If we understand the concept of the peace of God, then where's the location of that peace? Where he is. Where he is, in him. So we get this access to where? to where he is. And that entire environment where he is operates in this thing called grace. So we live in an umbrella of grace and we're always trying to jump out of that stream of grace by our own works. But when you live in grace, if you're positioned in grace and it's unlimited and it's unmerited, boy, how long does it take for us to just rest in the fact that we live in an environment that's unlimited blessing and unmerited blessing? It takes a long time, I think, because we're doers. And then it's like if we're in it, then we don't have to pray or beg To be in it, because we're in it, it's like praying for air. Please God, give us air. Give me more air. You've got all the air you want. Yeah, that's a good point. So, Courtney.

You know the thing, I keep being struck with all the grace and all the things, and can you believe that? It says right here, enter by, how do we enter into grace? By faith. Everything we're talking about. Do you believe this? I mean all these wonderful things, and grace and what we talk about, but you enter it by faith. So what are the mechanics of that? So you just found out that God's grace that you have access to, that you have access by faith. So how do you access it? This is a word that is not in the Bible, but it's really a great word. It's called, how do you appropriate it? How do you make it yours? How do you do that?

You just said. You take them at his word. If I had a box of grace sitting up here and I said it's available to anybody who wants it, how would you get it? I used to think it was through being baptized. Say that again. I used to think that it was being baptized. Yeah. Through baptism. Yeah. But now that you're not a Baptist anymore, you don't think that way? I never was.

Justin McCauley put a $5 bill on the table and he said, anybody who wants this $5 bill, come and get it. And a little boy came up and took it. None of the adults dare get out of their chair. So the grace is there. Do you dare to take it? Do you dare to take it?

I believe what he said. His point was in faith. He said it, and nobody believed him. That's right. And the little boy went, yeah, I believe it. I believe you. Thank you very much. But it was by faith, by trusting, by believing what he said, he meant it. Yeah. And all the adults didn't. That's exactly right.

We have a tendency to treat God as though like we're treating our neighbor. that we kind of trust him and we kind of don't and he needs to perform. But God says to us, wait a minute, my son gave his life for you. So I took care of the sin issue. I've taken care of every barrier that's between you and me. Every single one of them I've taken care of. And now I've given you access to me. And when you're coming towards me, you're coming towards this thing that I live in and it's called grace. I want to be the giver. I want you to be the receiver. If you change roles, you miss it.

But how about the, oh yeah, but you died? Say that again? But how about the fact that you died? None of our Adamic gets access. Oh, that's a great point. It's only by faith, right? Again, everybody understand the question? Donna says, well, how about the fact that we died?

Without the understanding, that we were crucified with Christ, buried and resurrected, you will never take the grace, because you know you are not worthy in Adam. Well you are not worthy anyway, but because of what Christ has done, and notice where 5 is, we haven't gotten identification yet, but because of the salvation offered to us in Romans chapter 3, This is called the results of justification and the result of my being saved is I have access. I can go into this grace. Now, it's afforded to me and my entrance in is based on not only what Christ did to take care of the barrier, but the next chapter explains what he did to make me suitable to be in there by crucifying me, burying me and resurrecting me to newness of life.

I think that whole thing has got to go together. Well, and that's the work, too, of the Holy Spirit, I think, over the course of our life on earth is to get us to agree with God that that is our situation. About what He tells us. The amazing thing, we're studying Romans on Wednesday night. I think I've probably taught Romans half a dozen times. Maybe more than that.

I cannot get out of that book because the grace is so evident there and it's just basic understanding that all believers should just be resting in. I'm never going to be on this planet long enough to understand what Ephesians means. I mean the whole thing is grace and positioned in heaven.

So the Romans 5.2, this access into the grace in which I permanently stand. What happens if I sin? Do I lose my permanent position?

No. But I lose the fellowship that that position affords me. See that? But you can lose that fellowship for a blink, you know, because I think the motivation to not sin, to lose fellowship is also maybe off course. You know what I mean? Like, oh, I'm not going to sin, well... Well, as soon as you say that, you're toast. Yeah, right. I'm going to talk at the Lord's table today about that the cross separated us from the world, and what's the bear?

How do you know? Where's the wine? from what's worldly and what isn't, and I'm not going to tell you now. Not really, well it's part of it, but how do I know? You know, how do I know when I've sinned? And sin means missed the mark. How do I know if I'm just kind of putting holy water on some worldliness I've got going?

So we'll answer that question later. But the point is really good that God has made provision for us to live with him on a moment by moment basis. occupy and function moment by moment in this grace in which we stand, where we are the receiver and he's the giver now. And we are forever going to God and saying, well, what do you want me to do? And he says, I don't understand the question. I've done everything. I want you to do one thing.

I want you to believe me and take the grace. That's how you respond to grace is you take it. And is it even like take it or is it like you're already in it? You're already recognized that you're already in it. Like initially our position we kind of sort of have it but then it's like just know you're in it. Know that's who I am. So where do you get all that great information?

No. Bible? Yeah. I think there are only two choices. Think about the job the Holy Spirit has. We have the Word and we read Romans 5, 1 and 2, right? And if you're like me, you say, he must be talking about somebody else in the church. I don't know what he means by that. And yet he's talking directly to each one of us who reads it. So where does that leave us? If you understand about the Spirit of God and what His job is, what's His job? To give you understanding about all the things that are true of Christ, which means all those things are true of you and me. We have access. And access, question nine is to find the word access.

I was going to add to what Donna and I think it lends into this about the sin nature and the flesh. I think that's why we struggle so much with the other half of our definition of grace is the unmerited part. The flesh can't abide that. No. And that's why we struggle in grace because the old man keeps saying under the law, under doing things, how do you get unmerited? And that's where it's important to understand that identification truth of crucifixion. We don't have to do anything anymore. And the old man or the old flesh is continually telling us we have to do something. And the word says otherwise. And we want the merit. We want the merit.

That's when you're struggling in grace. I think you're struggling with the old man. Yeah, one of those hungry hearts talks about how many of us can be involved in the Lord's work where he's doing all the work and we're in the darkness and we don't have to say anything. Not many of us. We're going to somehow get the word out.

It was me. Hey Mike, Jesus said you will find me when you search for me with all your heart. I wonder how that fits in. Okay, again I think the answer to that is back to identification. He's not talking about your Adamic heart. Because your Adamic heart would say, okay, what I need to do is I really need this.

I remember somebody told me one time, well, my job as a Christian is to love myself and then I'll be able to love somebody else. What Old Testament book did you get that out of? Because that's the premise. Or it could also be like, I'm going to read the Bible one hour every day, right? To seek, to learn. Until you burn out. Yes. That's right.

So, the great thing is that when you begin reading the Book of Romans, you begin to discover, gee, what the Lord did He took me out of the Adam guy, who is not acceptable to Him, put me into Christ, who is totally acceptable to Him, and that's the heart that I have that seeks Him, and I don't have to pump it up. It just seeks Him. It's like Christ always does the will of the Father. He doesn't even think about it. It's part of His nature. The nature of the Lord Jesus Christ and the heart that He has seeks after God all the time.

It's like if you have a real obedient dog, you don't have to teach him to follow you. He's not going anywhere. He wants to be with you. My dog, he'll sniff around, but he wants to be with us all the time. And I didn't tell him, now listen, you've got to want to be with me. He looks at me like, really? So we want to be, because we have the life and the nature that's suitable to that. We want to enter into all of this. We want to enter into the grace. And we still want to taste squirrels. When I say squirrel, it's over. Squirrel!

So what information does the word restand convey to us? And this is a perfect tense. Anybody remember what a perfect tense is? Most of these statements are in the perfect tense. Would that be our position? Would we stand there? That's half of what a perfect tense is.

A perfect tense is a completed action in the past with abiding results into the future. So I stand into this grace, I stand in this grace, action that's already been completed with abiding results going into the future, so I don't ever lose it. So, the action of my standing has already been done, completed. And the completed action, actually the ongoing property of this we stand, is when we respond to God's grace by faith.

You see that? You could use the word entrenched in eternity in God's grace. and we've been led there, this access means that we have access into this position because of the merit of the one who's leading us into it. Does that make sense? The reason we have access is because we are being led into this grace by the one who has merited it. Christ is the one who leads us. And because of that merit that he has, he leads us into this grace and we respond to the grace. We don't get to go in there because we're so cool. It's because we're led there by Christ.

I just had a little aha from last week. I remember I was thinking that God's point was for us to go back to before we sinned. And Courtney, you said how that is not the case. And then you see now, as new creatures, it's not like going back to who we were. It's like before the sin. It's like we're totally new in Christ. Nothing before that's been on the planet.

Yeah. Does everybody understand what Holly's talking about? that we have been totally severed from anything Adam. One of the things for me that was an aha moment was being identified with Christ and we are also identified with his history. and not ours. That's exactly right. That to me took a lot of stuff away when I realized that it took a lot of things.

Yeah, it does because nobody's history in Adam would qualify to be on the news at 11 as a good thing. All of our histories in Adam are things that we are ashamed of. There's nothing good about Adam. You know, we dress up and take showers and try to act cool, but really underneath we're dogs. We just know we are, because we have so much history, you know.

And I wouldn't want you to know about my history. I would be totally embarrassed. But I don't have that history anymore. That's not who I am. I'm this new creature in Christ, because he told me, showed me. And so now I'm not embarrassed about my past at all.

I'm talking about it all the time because it's Christ. It's him. And the only one that matters in terms of opinion is God himself. You know, he's the one that judges and he's the one that says, oh, I see your past, Claire. It's in Christ. And you're thinking, gee, I hope he doesn't remember the other stuff. He did remember the other stuff. You know where he remembered it? On the cross. And he put it all in a package and stuck it in Christ and crucified him. So that's gone. That's why we talk about when we go to the beam of judgment, it's not about sin. When we get before Christ in the beam of judgment, there's not going to be a discussion about your sins as a believer. Why not?

They've all been taken care of, haven't they? Even the sins you're going to commit this afternoon, they've all been paid for and they've all been put away. You know the two goats, the goat that was slaughtered and the scapegoat where the rabbi put his hand on his head and transferred all the sins to him and put him out in the wilderness and he never came back? That's pretty cool. Your sins aren't going to come back and haunt you later.

That concept alone, to realize that I'm free, takes some time. But there's two sides. There's the cross side, and then there's the resurrection side. I'm constantly asking Wayne Anderson, what side of the cross do you live on? Is it the crucified side? Or is it the resurrected side? Which side should it be? Resurrected side.

Why? That's where life is. Because this is gone. It proves that it worked. It did work. And now you read in Romans 5 about access into grace, it isn't here, it's over here. The description from now on, as you study through Romans and the rest of Paul's epistles, is all about what life is on the resurrected side.

The biggest problem we have is the issue of faith. Do we believe God? If you're honest, a lot of times you don't. Because you don't have an experience, you don't have a feeling, that's the big one. Gee, I don't feel. Well, that matters. That really matters. God is waiting for you to feel right. No. He wants you to just trust him with what he tells you.

And some of the stuff he tells you, from Adam, you think, really? How can that possibly be? How can you possibly buy into the fact that we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing and the heavenlies in Christ Jesus? Who would be idiotic enough to buy that statement. Seriously. Where's my mansion and my Mercedes and my airplane? Wait a minute, they're heavenly blessings. They're different.

So this grace we live in, the perfect tense is appropriate because it's something that's already true that's going to have abiding results as we go. So how do you learn to appreciate the heavenly blessings? How do you learn those? To where they become valuable to you. Holy Spirit or the Bible. She's just she's just like Luke Jenkins. He was downstairs.

Every question I asked, he would say, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Jesus. No matter what the question was, he would raise his hand and say, Jesus, before anybody else. So how do you... yeah, the Holy Spirit in the Bible, but how practically, conditionally? It is the Holy Spirit. It's the Word of God. But there's a third element there. Guess what the third element is? Jesus? No, it's faith. Oh, the other one.

You have to trust Him. You have to believe Him. Whether you understand it or not, you take him at his word. I can see how that is so important because it was something that Christ did 2,000 years ago. He can't every day die to show us that. So the only way we have access to that is to believe that that's what Christ did. That's one of the reasons why you should have trouble with the idea of the promises of God. You know that tune we sing standing on the promises of God? They're not promises. They're facts. It's already done. He didn't promise me anything. He did it all already.

We should be standing on the facts of God. See? But there are promises and that Christ is going to come again. Is that what I'm standing on? I'm going to have a new body, there's going to be a rapture, he's going to come, I'm going to go to the heavenlies, I'm going to rule and reign with him. No, I think what's already true of me is really more important than what's coming. Because then I can operate within the grace in which I stand. What I love so much about being in the Lord is the rest we get.

You and Courtney just talk. That's his thing. He just loves the rest. the world and it could make you so upset. But then you go back and you rest in the Lord. Yeah. And do trials and suffering factor into what you're talking about there? Absolutely. And actually we can probably sort of set up for the next lesson. Trials and suffering work into that.

How would you think they would do that? Why would God having given us access into this grace in which we stand, and we've come and learned some about what grace is, and we know we have a permanent access, we know the sin issue has been resolved, we have facts that we can rest our faith on, we know all of that, what are the trials and tribulations for?

Why would he do that? Does he just want to keep things going until he takes us home? What does he do that for? To reveal his glory. Okay, but so if he picks on me so he can be glorious? I don't know what it's like for anybody else, but when I go through something really difficult, God is showing me something profound. That's why. That's why. To share his glory. That's why he does it. Oh wow, the God of the universe wants to share his glory with me. And the best way to do it, the best method he has, is trials and suffering.

Why that? Why that? Because when it's the opposite, when he just gave us everything, we just... Which he has. I mean, like here, if he gave us things like, oh, always healthy all the time, always financially well off all the time, all the things of the earth, if we had all that, then we would think we somehow had something to do with it. Remember those two wonderful words, perazzo and documazzo? Do you remember him? Yeah. What's DocuManzo mean?

So Courtney has this stuff come up out of the ground. He's got to go find out what it is. So what does he put it through? He tests it, doesn't he? What's he discovering? What's in it? So if he finds out that it's not what he wants, What does he do? Keep drilling? Or like the refiner's fire with the gold ore that comes, they crush it up and then they try to extract the other minerals out of it so that they get the pure stuff. So if we have these positional blessings with the positional life in Christ and access into this grace in which we stand, how is God going to make that work out in shoe leather so people can see His glory. How's He going to do it? He's going to put you to the test.

It's not an if thing as to whether you're going to pass or fail. That's not the point. The test is so that all that's not of Him gets burned off and what are you left with? You're left with the life, the resurrected, glorified life of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is manifested through you. would not happen without paratus, so it wouldn't happen. Because you don't get to be prepared and work through a person. Let me put it another way. We don't get severed from the cares and woes of the world unless we are put to the test in terms of those not being of the Lord and not sufficing us anything and being unrestful.

I mean why would we pray for an alcoholic? Is there anybody that has less rest than an alcoholic? I mean the torment those people are in, so what are we really asking for? If they'll stop drinking, There will be some modicum of rest in their life, right? They won't wake up every day with a hangover and they won't live in the stupor and all of the ills that come with it. Same thing with drugs. Same thing with just living your life.

What does God do? So why the test? Who's he proven what to who? I think it's even good for the individual to go through and come out victorious, so to speak. It's like a little child learning to walk, falls down and gets up. Well, I don't think our faith is strong enough at the very beginning, or even as we go through our Christian life, to trust God in terms of Him saying, here's how this life is going to be worked out through you. Do you understand that? That you are going to manifest the life of the Lord Jesus and you don't believe him because you keep contemplating your own navel and it isn't working out so good. Instead of looking at him, you are looking at you. So he goes and puts us through this process So that we'll stop looking at ourselves and start looking at him.

So I think it goes back to the one I quote a bit hours until this class realizing what the testing was. It's the James two or James one to consider it all. Joe my brother when you encounter various trials. knowing that the testing of your faith, it's the testing of the faith that produces endurance and let endurance have its perfect result, perfect and complete lacking in nothing. The testing is the testing of our faith. And you know, we think it's the testing of us or this or that, it's the testing of our faith.

Do we believe? Do we trust? Do we have dependency? Do we believe him? And we might not. But the testing is to the refiner's fire. That's right. Are you depending on yourself or are you depending on him? And I think that's the whole testing or trials. And more than likely when the trial comes, you're not trusting him. You're not trusting him. But by the end of the trial, you know, like Miles Stanford used to say, you have to trust the Lord, just come to that. Oh, by the way, it's got to come to that.

And it's back to the image of Christ, because Christ, when he was crucified on the cross, and, you know, I know it's tough to get my head around the three separate persons, but, you know, Christ would have to have absolute faith and trust in the Father that what they decided is going to happen is going to happen. You know, so it's like, even going to the cross and being tortured and everything and dying. He had to have complete faith in the Father that that's how things were going to really come down. His faith was so strong and it says in the word that the joy set before him. Alright, quick analogy.

Galatians 5.4, you don't have to turn there.

If you have been severed from Christ You have been severed from Christ. You who are seeking to be justified by law, you have fallen from grace. Uh-oh. Now we spent 40 minutes talking about this position. Now Galatians says I've been severed from grace. What does that mean? Compare that to Romans 5, 1 and 2. Simple answer. Somebody other than Holly gets to answer. I really don't believe it.

Well, Galatians 5.4 says you have fallen from grace. What?

You've been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by the law. So he's talking to a believer. who's trying to be justified by doing works he's fallen from grace. He went on, because it talks about if we have to even obey one law, we have to obey all the law. The answer is, we're not justified by our works, which would be us keeping the law, we're justified by his blood on the cross. And what do you call that? Physician.

What's this Relations 5.4's conditional verse?

If I'm trying to be justified by my works, by my effort, by my spiritual push-ups, what have I done? I have fallen out of the environment of grace from a conditional standpoint. So it's not only sin that causes me to conditionally not rest in God's grace, it's trying to be justified by doing more today than I did yesterday so God would have greater feelings towards me.

Well is it not sin because you're missing the mark again? Sure, sure. But I may not be looking at, oh it's not a bad thing, what I'm really trying to do is pump up my status. You go back on the crucified side. So we are talking about our walk there and not our position.

So how does God in the very beginning share his glory with us? The way he does it is by positioning us in Christ. Romans 5, 1 and 2. He shares his glory with us by giving us access into the grace in which we stand. That's the first way he does it. Because you cannot be in Christ and have access into this grace and not share his glory because that's where it is. So if that's the case, then the last question is, will God share his glory through our trials?

Same answer, it's a conditional process. Romans 5 is a position Trials are conditional. And this process, hopefully, and by the way I'll get the questions out to you electronically this week and then we'll have them here in hard copy next week. So the start of this process is that we have access by faith in which the grace in which we stand.

But at the same time, He's going to bring trials in our life so that we can share His glory openly. Everybody can see it. Because He's going to prove to us He's serious. He needs it to share His glory. And as the life of the Lord Jesus has lived out through you, what's happening? God's sharing His glory with you.

Good example. Sure. Alright, let's close with Father how we thank you for your grace and your person. Thank you for all that you do and are involved in causing us to be conformed to the very image of your son. As we contemplate exactly what that means, it's kind of overwhelming that you actually are in the process of making us like Christ. We thank you, Father. We pray in your son's precious name. Amen.