Which Side of the Cross - Lesson 8 Week 4
Mike Doyle · May 21, 2017
Which Side of the Cross, No. 19
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926557232983

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

So, I know you don't know how to spell struggle, but we're going to struggle on anyway. We're doing an introduction to the second phase of the class, which is, which side of the cross do you live on? And the first four months we talked about the identification truths. We were thinking that that would be the best place to start, because everything that happens in the Christian life happens on this side of the cross. We somehow insist on living over here, but that isn't where we're positioned, we're positioned here. And so the second phase of that is the understanding or the talking about grace.

And grace is, as we talked about last week a little bit, in Romans 6.14 it says sin won't have dominion over you anymore because you're not under a law system, but you're now under a grace system. under a system at some point all the time. It's either law or grace. Those are the two systems that are operational in existence right now. We have been positioned in grace and only believers are under that system. Nobody else is. They don't care how you slice it. They're not equipped to be receivers, but not under grace.

And the second thing we found out from that verse is that of all of the discussion, and all of the Old Testament, and all of the legalism, and all of the efforts by God to deal with this sin in man, The reason that grace was brought in was so that we wouldn't sin. The law causes us to sin. Under grace, sin will be put out of business. Makes no sense, does it, to the logical, empirical mind. So why aren't we under law? Why can I say we're not under law? How can I get by with saying that? Because we died.

Physically we died, Hebrews 7.11, we talked about the law hasn't been changed but the priesthood was changed. We've got two priests for two different kinds of operating system. What's the priesthood for law? Levitical, right? Jewish system.

And the law can be summarized in a very simple sentence. Do this and be rewarded. Don't do it and you're going to die. You're going to suffer the punishment. And when you think about it, any violation of the law requires something to die. There was no fine to be paid. There was always a death involved. The law has been done away with positionally as a system whereby we relate or anybody relates to God.

Now, let's get into the nuances of grace a little bit. The word grace is the Greek word charis and you are going to see it in a lot of places. And it doesn't have different meanings, but it's interesting how often in the Greek language it's used in different ways. The basic understanding, the stem word, means anything that's charming, attractive, beautiful. It means to give pleasure. It's kind of cool. Grace is to give pleasure. The word charisma is at the root of this word.

In Luke 4.22 he says that all bear him witness and wonder that the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. What does he mean by the gracious words? They were words that were charming. They were words that were attractive. The words were beautiful. Ever listen to somebody who really can turn a phrase and they are pleasant to listen to?

Colossians 4.6 Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one. Your words should be always with grace. They should always be attractive, always be charming. The second way that it's used in Greek, it's used as a favor done to somebody.

Aristotle, that great Christian guy of the Old Testament, that was a joke. Here's how he defined grace. Something conferred freely with no expectation of return. in finding its source in the bounty and the free-heartedness of the giver." What a great definition that is. Something conferred freely from the giver with no expectation of return, finding its source in the bounty and the free-heartedness of the giver. That's our boy Aristotle. That's what his definition of the word grace was.

And it's difficult for us to understand that because when's the last time somebody did something for you out of free heartedness of themselves and your response was thank you and you walked away? How often does that happen? It doesn't happen because how do we normally respond to that? We normally respond with, well, we have to do something to return the favor, right?

But this word grace is, somebody did something gracious to us just because they wanted to, and they did not expect a return. So I invite you to dinner over at my house. Sometime during the evening, somebody's going to say, well, we're going to have to have you guys over.

No, that's not how grace is. Grace is the giver. So as we begin to understand what this word really means, we find out that grace has everything to do with the one extending it and nothing to do with the response. The response does not contribute or take away from the grace that's been extended.

Acts 17 says, 7.10 says, and delivered him out of all of his afflictions and gave him favor, that word favor is grace, and whom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and made him governor over Egypt and all his house. He's talking about Joseph. He gave him favor. By the way, we're not into the questions yet. When J.D. gets up here he'll be doing the questions.

The third way that the Greeks used the word grace was in response for a favor done. So if I say to you, what is the one perfect English word, two words, in response to grace given, what would it be? Thank you. Guess what the Greek word for thank you is? It's the same word. It's exactly the same word. So when charis is extended, the response is charis. Thank you means the same thing. So it's an interesting word.

2 Corinthians 8.16 says, But thanks be to God who puts the same on whose care for you into the heart of Titus. But thanks be to God is the word charis. Thanks is charis.

So the whole concept of giving is what enters into this picture. So what would you think would be a wrong motive for giving? Let's say we are going to talk about giving now. What would be a wrong motive? There are several. I want something back. Give me another one. Feel obligated. Obligated to give an offering. How many Christians talk to you about tithing? Tithing is an obligation. Ten percent. How about, I feel like I should give ten percent.

That's not grace. Anything that puts you in an obligatory situation is not grace. How about we need it because we're a little low on funds. The budget is not being the same. There's no reason. I'm giving you reasons that you should contribute. None of which are gracious. None of which are gracious.

Do you see that? A person is really nice to their boss because they hope they'll get a promotion. Sure. Sure, it's a give and take. Self-adulation or something that I'm giving so I'm a great guy. It's self-motivating. What you find in human nature is that very seldom does anybody, if ever, Well, I'll put it another way. Those who operate outside of Christ never do anything graciously. There's always a payback somewhere in it.

I want you to like me. That's not gracious. We were at a party last night and I met several people I hadn't met before in that grace thing. Oh, it's so nice to meet you. Is it really? I don't know you from nobody. Hey Mike, it's really nice to meet you. Back here I'm thinking really? You're making Don Rickles look pretty warm and affectionate. I got to remember that. No, it's nice.

Later I think to myself, well I probably wouldn't hang out with that guy. See, Courtney doesn't like it when I reveal who I really am. So what would be the proper motivation for giving? Let's talk about giving. Let's say, you know, putting your 15 cents in a slot back there. What would be the proper motivation? It seems like love is the next step, right?

2 Corinthians 8.19 says, and not only so, but who was also appointed by the churches to travel with us in the manner of this grace, which was ministered by us to the glory of the Lord and to show our readiness. Paul is talking about the fact that he was carrying an offering that was taken up. to the saints in Jerusalem because of the famine and the persecution there. He calls that offering grace. The church is to travel with us in the manner of this grace. He's got the money. He knows that it was all given freely. The offering is called grace.

So if we were, we don't do this in church here, but this is probably the only church you've ever been in that doesn't do it. We don't have ushers past the hat, do we? Or the plate. If we did, we could say, well, the ushers, please come and collect the thank you. Interesting. Yeah. We're going to collect the thank you now. The grace. So the only reason that you give has to be pure grace, no obligation. The Lord will motivate you to give. And it's based on the fact that you're thankful. Thankful is the grace word too, for what he's done for you and to you.

So, in 2 Corinthians 8.1 it says, We want you to know, brothers, about God's grace that was given to the churches of Macedonia. Free, given. Free, given. When it comes to money, it's interesting if you grew up in a denomination like most of us did. there was an obligation to give.

And the church I was in, they published a list every year of what everybody gave. I was always under the A's. Anonymous. So you don't get that. And even the school, like Regis University where I went to school, they publish a list every year of who gave last year and what class they're from. You know, by name. And what's that designed to do? Make you more gracious? Yeah, that's right, that's what it is. Last week I was in Florida visiting Davis and Denise and went to their church on Sunday You forget what the rest of the churches do when you come here for so long.

They did that and passed out the baskets. Something we did with our old church, so it wasn't completely foreign to me, but it was definitely a weird feeling again. It was kind of like the pass around. They didn't pressure you verbally or anything, but it's still this whole thing of, oh, did that guy put something in or not? Yeah, we're watching.

When we went to do a dive trip in Fiji, and it was like a four hour service and all this but then they'd have the giving and they'd go up and the family would give and they'd analyze what it was right there and then they'd say, well, you can do a little better than that. Yeah, and they'd go at you again. And then we'd have a re-giving after a while. I think Vern talked about that happening in Africa. Yeah. They'd do a count and if they didn't get enough, here we go again.

So, So what is the motivation for Christian giving? Should I say should be or what is? What is the motivation for Christian living and giving? Just pure grace. I'm thankful. No rules, no percentages, nothing like that. Do you ever stop and think that everything that we have we're stewards of and we don't own any of it? And whatever money you have, it's nice to check with the Lord and say, what do you want to do with it? It's yours, not mine. And he's always more than gracious to every one of us. We always have way more than we need. So the point being here is that when grace is understood, when you get a handle on it, it brings out of us this idea of thank you.

It's a hard thing to learn to be the receiver of grace. Do you agree with that? It's really hard to do that, to just receive it. If you find yourself in your lifetime in any ministry and someone wants to help you, it's really tough just to take it and be thankful and not to say anything. It's really hard to do that because you feel like everybody's watching and you better somehow respond in a way that you are really, really appreciative, and if you could do something back, rather than just receiving. It's a hard thing to do.

The whole world system, as you said, is against that. It doesn't function that way. Plus, your sin nature is wanting to do something. It's always supporting the world view, basically. You've got to repay, you've got to do. Everything is against grace in this world. And you think about like one of the financial issues of our country is how beneficial we are to other people who have needs. Nobody gives as much as people in the United States, but they don't do it out of a sense of grace, they do it out of a sense of obligation. that we should be doing this. Not to say there aren't people that are gracious in that environment, there are, but primarily the motive is that we ought to do this.

I'm going to feel guilty if we don't. Is the guilt-feeling part of grace? What do you think? No, it can't be. So let's look at, was there grace in the Old Testament? There was, but was grace an environment that in the Old Testament people lived under? What do you think? Answer no. But there was grace there, just to give you an example.

I don't know if I want to read all of this, but in Exodus 32, 1-6, the unmerited setting, and when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mountain the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said unto him make for us gods which shall go before us this Moses the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt we're not what has become of him and Aaron said break off the golden earrings, etc., etc. And all the people broke the golden earrings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron.

And he received them at their hand and fashioned it with a giving tool, a graving tool. So, down in verse 6, And they rose up early in the morning and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

So, is there grace in that? Now that's the setting. Moses comes down from the mountain and this is what he sees. They have created a golden statue and they are offering to the golden statue. So what did they deserve before God by doing that? I like to look at it this way.

When man and God come to the table and they sit down with each other, both of them bring something. What does man bring? What do you bring to the table? You bring sin, right? What does God bring? Retribution. Right? Or not? What does he bring every time? He brings a solution of grace every time, even in the Old Testament.

So, in verse 30, it says, And it came to pass that Moses said to the people, You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the Lord and I shall make atonement for your sin." So he knows they've done a great sin and he's going to go make atonement for it. That's not grace. Making atonement isn't grace. And chapter 33 shows how deserving they were not of the grace. Verse 13, Now therefore I pray you if I have found grace in your sight Show me now your ways, that I may know you, that I may find grace in your sight, and consider that this nation is your people."

So Moses is appealing to God about these people who God has decided maybe we ought to blip them out of existence. Moses is appealing for grace. In chapter 34, 1, God gives them blessing and the Lord said to Moses, Here, hew the two tables of stone like unto the first, and I will write upon you the tablets and the words that were the first tablets that you broke. You remember that Moses threw them on the ground and broke them. Verse 6, And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, Moses wanted to see God's glory, right?

But God wouldn't let him. Why wouldn't he? He couldn't take it. Couldn't take it. So he puts him in the cleft of a rock and he passes by and he says, after I've gone by, just take a look and you'll see what God called from behind. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed to the Lord, the Lord God merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth. The point here is that God responded by re-establishing or re-doing the tablets and going back to the people and saying, okay, because Moses made atonement for you, I'm going to come back down and we'll do this, we'll start over in essence. So the people gave God sin and God responded in grace. Now he didn't bring an environment of grace, but he could have because they all agreed to the sinfulness, he could have punished them all by putting them all to death.

That wouldn't have worked too well. It would have taken a while to rebuild the family because how many of them didn't participate? As far as I can tell, Moses might be the only one. Because his brother participated, and his family seemed to go along with it. Pretty tough to have a family when you only got one person.

So God does respond in grace in the Old Testament. I'll give you a couple other examples. In Zechariah 12, 10, I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace. and of supplication and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for his only son and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his first born." So back in Zechariah he is talking about the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come and do and they are going to mourn because they have crucified the Lord of glory.

Would you say the cross of Christ from God's perspective was an action of grace? Think about this. Who were the participants in the crucifixion of Christ? First of all, whose idea was it? It was the eternal covenant. It was the eternal covenant. It was a transaction. Right, it was a transaction. And her was the grace. And who are the participants in the eternal covenant? Christ and God. The Father and the Son.

Where are you? Nowhere. You're nowhere. You're not around. Except that you're the one that caused there to be an agreement between the Father and the Son. So there was a covenant between the Father and the Son. Is there any grace in there? No, there isn't any grace. Whenever there's a covenant and a covenant is a transaction, we call it a deal, I'm going to do this, you do this, and we're in agreement. The father says what? What did he say to the son? If you'll become a man and die for the sins of the world, I'll raise you up. What did the son say? I'll do it.

Any grace in that? None. No grace at all. Because there's nothing freely, there's a quid pro quo there. I'm going to do this, you do that. We agree. So if I come to you and say, you know, I want you to, I'm going to do this for you if you'll do X for me, and you say okay, there's no grace in that. No grace at all. So the cross of Christ, the death of Christ, was not a gracious act.

Do you agree with that? You have to take humanity out of it. Take us out of it. This is just between the Father and the Son. Is that a gracious transaction? No, it's not. No, it's not. Because there's nothing freely given. and there's no payback involved, right? You see that?

So, when Christ is crucified, right before he dies, what does he say? He says it's finished. This part of the deal is done. I'm done. I did my part. And then he dies. What's the next event? Now it's the Father's turn. What's the Father do? He raises them up. That was his part. So now here's Christ standing there resurrected. The covenant is complete. Where are we? Where are we in that transaction? We are nowhere there. We are not in it anywhere. Do you see that? We are not part of that arrangement. We are not part of that deal. It was between the Father and the Son. God is now satisfied about sin. Christ is resurrected, soon to be glorified. We're still just standing there sinning.

We have no part in that at all. Do you get that part of it? The reason that's so critical is because if we were part of it, it wouldn't be gracious. Do you see that? So at that point, is God the Father or God the Son under any obligation to offer the benefits of His work to mankind?

Is He under any obligation to do it? None. Absolutely none. It's really important that we understand that. Because we go around thinking, well Christ died for my sins like he was under obligation to do it. No he wasn't. He was under obligation to satisfy God about the sin issue. He was not under obligation to save you and me. He could have very easily said, you know what, this human thing, I'm going to get rid of all these guys, bye, boom, and we're gone.

And he's satisfied about sin. You see that? That's where grace comes in. He, the Father and the Son, decided that out of just the goodness of who they are, that they would offer the benefits of the work of the cross to you and me. No obligation. Yeah. So then was the reason for the covenant between the Father and the Son because of God's righteousness? Yes. It was all about God and His righteousness.

No, he can't. He can't just say well I'm going to sweep sin under the carpet and we're just going to keep going from here. See because sin is an offense against a holy God and an offense like that has to be atoned for. Do you see that? And like Courtney couldn't die for his sins and I couldn't die for my sins because we're not worthy. So it took God to satisfy God. Well you could die for your sins. Well yeah but they wouldn't be gone. God wouldn't be satisfied about my own death for my own sins. Because by sinning I have offended the creator and I'm not a creator.

You see that? I think the thing is that, you know, the basis which I always go back to is maybe this confusing part between what grace is. I think I always go back to the fact that God is love. He didn't have to create us or do anything. He knew that he would have to have this eternal covenant. I'm going to create this people. And they're going to sin. And I'm going to give, you know, here's the deal. And the father and the son make that.

But the basis is, so underlying that, maybe that's the confusion part, is love. But his love did not put him under obligation. No. But I mean, I go back to before he created anything, he knew this was going to happen. And he went ahead and did it anyway, knowing that he had to give his son up. And had it in place. Had it in place. So I think that maybe the confusing part is that love is underneath. It wasn't gracious. It was love. Because he made this covenant. The gracious part is then extending salvation to us. But his covenant didn't involve the fact that Well, I love my creatures, so I'm going to make this covenant with my son so that I can inform him.

That's not the reason he did it. He did it because of the offense of sin, of the righteousness of God. He created us knowing that. He didn't have to do that. And that's where I say the basis beyond everything is God's love. Because He didn't have to go, why do I go through this, create this people, I'm going to have to give them my son. He knew that.

And that's why I say before even that, the transaction is totally between the Father and Son, nothing with us. But the step before that is He knew He'd create us and we would sing. And we'd have to go through this eternal covenant. So let me put another element in there.

Why didn't he offer the benefits of his work on the cross to the saints, to the angels? I mean, if he's a God of love, why didn't he say, well, we've got to include the angels in this deal too. Why not? Just because he didn't feel like it? And he does have love for his creatures. Sure does. But their purpose was to be messengers. And failing at that was a one and done. Yeah, yeah. That's interesting.

And we don't really know what the challenge was other than Lucifer was allowed to think of himself above what he ought to think of himself. He wanted to be God. And so he decided that that was what he was going to do. And then from that he was going to rally as many of the creatures around him as he could to go along with him. We're going to have a mutiny here. And at some point they were given an opportunity to make a decision who they were going to follow. Once they made the decision, their wills are locked into place. See, our wills aren't.

The point that I want you to really understand is that this whole thing of salvation, God offered it to us without any obligation. There is no obligation on his part under any circumstances that he had to do it because he had a deal. It's totally based on who he is. But he didn't have to do it. And the reason that's so important is because we've got to get off of this thinking that I can manipulate God by doing this, then he'll be under obligation to me. He's under no obligation to me whatsoever, under any circumstance, any time.

But he operates towards me totally out of who he is as the giver of grace. You see that? It's really important and I think in contemporary Christianity so much of the salvation message is presented in a manner in which man is given some things to do rather than just receiving the grace.

So what's the one thing you and I can do as human beings that we absolutely get no credit for? What is it? Believing. It's the one thing that man can do that he does not get any credit for. Why not? Why don't we get any credit? You can't go to God and say, look, I believe you owe me. Why can't man do that? Where's the value in what Christ did? Or let's put it this way, what's the value in salvation? Where is the value? It's in him and what he did. My believing it doesn't add anything to it. Nothing. I don't contribute to it one bit.

But God has said because I'm gracious, I'm offering the benefits of what my son did on the cross to you. And if you believe this, that I'm going to save you for all eternity and on and on. You'll come into this umbrella of grace and live under it, in which I give and you receive.

If the gospel were presented that way every time, it would change the way believers grew because we grow in grace, we don't grow in obligation. If we're saved with a little bit of grace and a little bit of obligation, we're always looking at the obligation part. We're always looking, what can I do to get God to bless me more than he has blessed me today? You'll find that all of the things that come into Christianity that cause people to sort of jump off the grace wagon is always something that's sold to us to make us more spiritual, to put us in a better light with God.

This whole contemporary thing about contemplative prayer and spiritual formation. You know how they sell that? Do you want to be more spiritual today than you were yesterday? Do you? The answer is, yeah, I do. Well, we got the method. And if you'll do this, you'll be more spiritual. What have you just done? You've tried to put God under an obligation where he would owe you spirituality. That's really what you've done, rather than just receive what he's already put in place. So, what did he put in place now? What is there now? So you say, well okay, I get it, I understand that I have that I am under this grace. And grace has gone from being a thing that God has offered on occasion for man. When man was sinful, God always came to the table and responded in grace. He always gave him a break. He always gave him an out. He always put him in a position where he could continue to bless them if they would comply. But now, here we are under a system in which there's no obligation on our part whatsoever. None. Zero. So what do we do?

Are we to think like the Old Testament people think, thought that, well, I'm under grace, which means I can confess my sins, and that's what he really wants me to do. As long as I confess my sins, that's my part. And he'll bless me more. What do you think? In John chapter 1 it says interestingly that the law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

Please understand that under grace the unmerited favor that is afforded us is never put to the Grace is unmerited favor. It never put the giver of the favor under any obligation. So we've got to be brought off this idea that we can do something by praying more, studying more, doing something more, where we can put God under an obligation to give us more. That just is not part of what grace is.

The giver did it just because he wanted to do it. He offered us salvation because He wanted to do it. That was His whole motivation. It was part of His character to do it. God so loved the world. It's His. Why do I love Him? Because He first loved me. Yeah?

I was just thinking about coming back to the angels and why did He choose to show this kind of love to man and not to the angelic realm? I was just reminded that he created man in his image, and that's a unique characteristic for us that the angels did not possess, which also allowed him to do all the things that he did for us as mankind, simply because he created us in his image. Had we not been created in his image like the angels, we could not be recipients of anything. Or we would not be, yeah.

I think that's really good. It's a basis for how he chose to make these decisions. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Think about them operating before they were created. How did they operate with each other? giving. They were gracious, 100% full on to each other all the time. There was never a, well I'm going to, you know, you need to up your game a little. None of that. They operated. So when he creates us, he wants us in that sphere. He wants us to learn and to grow in that sphere. That we can learn how to receive grace and receive love and to love back.

If you think about all the different characteristics of God, sovereignty, righteousness, justice, love, all on these and so forth. Him making us... he having made us in his image, we have a little version of all of those characteristics. They are not creator type characteristics, but they are creature type characteristics. We have a certain amount of sovereignty over the world that he gave us. We have a certain amount of right that Adam knew before he had sinned. We have a sense of morality, a will, you know. Yeah, we have all those characteristics.

And those are different than what the angels possess. And that's what makes us in his image. And that's also what makes it so severe when we do sin. You think about that. To be in a position to Reject the grace of God is such a severe thing. It's one thing to say no to a favor. It's another thing to say no to all of that. All of the grace. And that's why within critical...

One last thing I want to talk about grace and then you can start. How well do you know grace? How acquainted with it are you? How much information, how much knowledge do you have about grace before you're saved? None. You have no understanding what grace is at all. One of the reasons that the salvation message is so difficult for a man to believe in is because it comes out as gracelessly. It's totally foreign from the beginning. You see that? It's God offering something free. which is kind of a cool thing, eternal salvation, how's that? Let's start with that. We know nothing about this grace. We can't.

We can't go back to our experience growing up with our family, whether it was a good environment or a bad environment, we don't know how grace operates because we live in an environment of obligation. I grew up in a family, there were rules. I don't care how you slice it, my parents could be gracious to me, but there were rules. I didn't live in an environment of grace. I went to school. There are rules. I was in the military. There are a lot of rules in the military. I go into business. There are rules. There are obligations under grace. Are there obligations? No, there aren't. There aren't.

What causes me then if I don't have any rules, if I'm driving down the road and I don't see the Burma shave signs, I'm probably dating myself with that one. If I'm driving down the road and there's no speed limit signs or nothing, boy it freaks me, I'm lost.

Is it Montana that used to not have a speed limit? You get up there and you're looking around for the speed limit and looking at this but how fast can I go? So we don't know and not only that, it scares us because we want limits. We want someone to tell us you can go this far but not any farther. You can go this fast but not any faster. You can get this close to sin before it's a sin. We love that kind of thing but here comes salvation It's all grace.

We don't understand it and it scares us because the limits are taken away. So what do we smart Christians do? We put a little law in there to make them feel comfortable. Don't we? That's what we do. You need to come forward. You need to make a commitment. You need to get up out of your chair. You need to do something other than just believe.

We feel comfortable with that because that's what we know. We come into Christ totally on a grace basis and we grow totally on a grace basis. And one of the most difficult things again for us is to get this legal stuff out of our mind so that we understand everything that God does from now on is grace. Everything. And you know what? When you sin, he's not disappointed in you and he's not going to punish you. And he's not going to make life tough for you because you did something bad. He's not going to do that. Why? He's already taken care of it.

All he wants to do is bless us. Now, child training is blessing. Trials and suffering are blessings because he's bringing us into more grace. He's expanding our capacity to receive the grace. See that? And we have to learn it. We have to be taught it because there's nothing up until the time we're saved, that would teach us anything about grace. So we have to be taught what grace is and how it works and how it functions. So in the next four months, you're going to learn it. Okay? Any questions? Next week, JD will tackle what lesson is it? So that's what we're going to do for the next four months.

We're going to try to come to an understanding of what grace is. which will lead to us receiving it more readily and resting in the grace of God going forward. It's a hard concept, isn't it? That God's the doer and I'm the receiver. I have to learn how to receive. And when we get the glory, that's when the gates really open up.

God cannot You realize that Christ has so much of himself to give us that it's inexhaustible and for all eternity we'll never reach the bottom of who he is. It's really cool. Father, how we thank you for the grace. We thank you for your son Lord Jesus who brought the grace and we ask that you continue to grow in a total, complete understanding of what your grace is and that we might live in it and rest in it. We thank you, Father. We pray in your Son's precious name. Amen.