Which Side of the Cross - Lesson 9 Week 1
JD McCulley · May 28, 2017
Which Side of the Cross, No. 20
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492655875954

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

Alright guys, well, glad to have you two. I'm glad you can't hear in there, because now you can be in here with us. So we are just beginning the second portion of this class. The first portion had to do with the identification truths and now we are moving into the grace portion of the class. I think in a lot of ways this class Mike and Courtney and I talked about before we got We wanted to do something that really went back and looked at the last several years that we've been teaching in here and kind of put the key high points all together in such a way that it was not only a review for us, but just kind of a comprehensive overview of everything that we've been teaching. And I think that it's a lot of fun to be able to go back and be reminded of things that you saw. Also have a different group of people to be able to touch on things. that maybe you guys were in other classes and didn't catch the first time around. So it's exciting to be able to pull that and go a little bit deeper than we did because we have a little bit more time to do so.

So we're beginning this portion on grace. Mike gave us a great introduction last week. Some of that we'll be reviewing again today. But I think that serves as a little bit of an overview of where we're headed, what we've been doing, and what's on task for today. This is lesson number 9? Am I right? Yeah, lesson 9 it is.

And so there was a number of different verses that were listed out for us to look at. And then questions that serve to help us dig into those verses and figure out which ones apply to which question and which answer. So we'll do that. We'll start with question number 1.

It says, why are we not under any law system now? Why are we not under any law system now? What's the big deal? Yeah. We've died to it. We've died to it. Okay. You guys agree with that? Did you die? Yes, I did. You did? Yes. And how did that happen? Well... You sound pretty alive right now. Well, I was separated from my old man in the center of nature. And... I'm a new creature in Christ. I'm alive in Christ. My old man is alive as well. He's a pro. You guys agree with that? Is that making sense? I think you have to get up here and teach this. That's a great answer.

We use the term, we're talking about the cross, right? This is our place of separation, isn't it? This is where it all happened for us, and so we use the term co-crucifixion, right? We're co-crucified with Christ. So it's not a death in and of ourselves. It's not our death. I mean, it's not our physical death that separates us from the law, right?

What's up, Matthews? You just come in the drove, so it's hard to ignore you. Good to have you guys. So yeah, the question that we're covering right now is why are we not under any law system now? And as Russ mentioned, it's because of our separation, the death that we died with Christ, right? It's not our physical death, it's our spiritual death with Christ that separated us from law.

So, Romans 6.14, let's look up that verse real quick. Let's go ahead and get into the word.

Romans 6.14. Someone read that, let me get a chance.

For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under the law but under grace. So if you're under law, what is your master? Sin. Right. I'm going to add to this list a little bit today. If you're under the law, sin is your master, and it's a constant struggle.

It has mastered over you. In fact, this verse communicates that very clearly. It says that it has dominion. It literally has this lord over you. It rules over you. It's the governing principle of your entire life. Underneath law, you have the complete environment of sin as your master.

That's what the law produces. So the question is, is there any way for an unbeliever to master or control sin? No. There's not. Why? They're tied to it and connected. So there's no meditation or spiritual place that a person, an unbeliever can find in order to master sin in their life. No nirvana? No nirvana? What about rules? boundaries.

We've got a lot of churches of different faiths that we might say, hey, these guys don't believe the same thing we believe. They have a different gospel. But they seem to be pretty good people. Don't they have some kind of mastery over sin? I mean, come on. There's some good people out there. What would you like to believe? have potential for having mastery over sin, but may not know it. Okay, that's believers. Oh, yeah.

That's about those churches that seem parallel. Well, the thing is that the only thing that separates a person from having mastery over sin is their death with Christ. If they are not co-crucified with Christ, there is no potential for mastery over sin.

It has dominion over them. And they're under law. That's their environment. That's all they've ever known. It's all they will know until they respond to the gospel of grace and do what? Believe. And belief is non-meritorious. It's not a work. It's the only response that the Lord asks of us in terms of His offering. And without that, you remain in an environment of law, you're struggling, but sin is your master, and that's what you get.

Yeah, real quick. Yeah. Uberal Surveig? No. Oh, he's this related Bible teacher, Scottish guy. Okay. But anyway, he flies a lot, and he was sitting with this girl who was into all the meditation and stuff, and he's and he said at the end, he told her, I honestly believe that your meditation makes you feel better if you won't consider heaven.

That's right. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of things that can, if we're talking about our feelings, there's a lot of ways that we can modify our feelings, but we know So, because of Courtney's forgetfulness, and our little faith in the facts is like the chain on the tracks and feelings follow, that the feelings have to be based on the facts. Right? That's exactly right.

So, answer number one, why are we not under any law system now? Because of our co-crucifixion with Christ. He separated us from law unto grace. Alright, let's move on to number two. This is a longer one. Under what operating system does God function only?

We're going to use Ephesians 2, 4 through 9 for the answer to this question. And I think that before we get into the answer, let's read this together and then we'll start to break it down as a class. Ephesians 2, 4 through 9. And whoever has that, put it in the meeting.

But God who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace you are saved, and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us through Jesus Christ, through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and then not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. This passage is great.

In fact, that would be one that I would circle and highlight. put special print-of-seeds types of marks around in my Bible is because when you think about, as a believer, we talk about what is our world like? If somebody were to say, what's it like to be a believer? Obviously they're not going to understand our answer, but the environment that we have as a believer, the very operating system and how God functions for us as believers is summarized in this passage and it's beautifully expressed And when you get down and actually break this up into smaller pieces, it is phenomenal to see the exceeding amount of grace that God has given us. But, let's break this down a little bit. We're not going to go into great depth. But, verse 4, but God who is rich in mercy. So, what is mercy? If he's rich in it, what is it? What's mercy? Oftentimes, go ahead. I was going to say punishment withheld. Okay, withheld, okay. I like that. I've had this explained to me at one point in time.

So you've got the characteristic of God's love, and out of love comes both sides of the same coin, and it's mercy and grace. On the mercy side, like you said, it's punishment withheld. We might call it undeserved kindness, just to kind of flip it around on the other side of the definition, but it's an undeserved kindness.

It's God showing His love in an undeserving environment, and also withholding punishment for not withholding... let's see, how would we say that? I was thinking that it's interesting God does not withhold punishment. Yeah, it's punishment substituted. We have a substitute for the punishment, right? So it is mercy meaning that we are given a way of escape even though we don't deserve it. In many cases, right? Because somebody else took the hit for us. Suryana says a special and immediate regard to the misery which is the consequence of sin. Say it one more time. A special and immediate regard to the misery which is the consequence of sin. Let's read the second part of it.

It says that he is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us. So this love, this is the agape love. And when we think about the way that God operates, He operates in love and He's rich in mercy, He's rich in His undeserved kindness, allowing us ways of escapes and allowing sin to be punished without us being punished. The sinner is actually able to escape the consequences of his own sin by way of a substitute. This has to do with the riches of God's mercy, right?

That's very merciful. And it says in verse 5, even when we were dead in sins, He has made us alive, or quickened us together. What does your translation say? Does it say quickened? Made us alive together? I like made us alive together. What did we just read there? He made us alive together with Christ?

What is that? We've got five identification truths. What are they? That we talk about in this class. Death, burial, ascension and seeding. Which one is this? Resurrection. This is an identification truth right here. If you're wondering where those things exist in the scripture, we talk about them all the time. Here's one of them. He made us alive together with Christ.

And it says then, in parenthesis, by grace you are saved. So, just to kind of, I guess, compare, again, this whole idea of mercy versus even grace, is mercy needed when there is no sin? It's not. So, mercy is only expressed by God in an environment where there is sin. Are you okay with that? What about grace? Is grace required? Does grace require sin in order to be expressed by God? Sounds like we better get a definition of grace.

I'm going to jump ahead. You're going to look to number 10. We're going to answer that question right now because it's going to help us with all these other questions. I know you guys have some, some of you guys have Grace memorized. So before we quote Macaulay, for those of you that already have that, and we'll write that down in a minute. Let's hear some other definitions or ideas that are related to grace before quoting Macaulay.

What's grace? If grace, we're talking about the operating system that God functions in. We've looked at mercy and the undeserved kindness that he provides to us. because of his love, and then it goes on to tell us that he made us alive together with Christ, and it was by grace that you were saved. What's grace? Unmerited favor? Okay. Okay. What kind of favor? Undeserved. Undeserved favor? Use the word blessing.

And we're not going to get away from this definition. Yeah, we have that. We have a very. repetitive use of Macaulay's grace definition, and it's so strong that it comes out in most of the verses, every time we talk about it. So yeah, let's write it up there.

It's the unmerited and undeserved favor or blessing of God, based on what? The Word of Christ. The what? The Holy Spirit. Based on the totally, is what we usually say, adequate work of Christ. Now, now we're starting to get somewhere. Does this make sense? So it's unmerited, it's undeserved, It's the favor and or blessing of God based on the totally adequate work of Christ. Now, how about unlimited? Unlimited, yeah. Okay? It's free. It's free. For us. I like that.

So we're going to use this working definition just through the class, and I think it will help us to clarify some of these other questions a little bit better. So now looking in verse 5 and reading forward, we see just the complete repetition. And that's one of the things that when we look in the Scripture, we see the word repeated in a passage. It's emphasis. It's like saying, the bold. It's like bolding that we use in our own day and age. And so we see in verse 5, by grace you were saved and raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places. Well, what's that? And? Yeah, you got three right there. Well, wait a minute. We were dead in sins.

He made us alive, I mean that's implied, the death is implied there. But, I mean, you go on and you see verse 7, that in the ages to come we might show exceeding riches of His grace. So now we have riches of mercy, riches of grace, and His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus. I think that's the really interesting part, is that it is through Christ Jesus, the person, the second person of the Trinity, that His grace and kindness is shown through. It has a distinct personality to it. So grace isn't a thing.

It's expressed through a person, isn't it? So I'm going to write over here, it's personal. You agree? It's very personal. I think it's hard to get off the idea that grace is a commodity. Right. It's hard to get away from that because if I'm the center of the universe, I look at everything as how it benefits or harms me. Right. I'm going to cover this a little bit more when we get to question four. But I agree. I think that... Well, let's cover it here in just a minute.

So I think, to answer question number two, under what operating system does God's function own? What's the answer? And this is our working definition, right? I think it's pretty complete and well thought out. Okay, number three. What does it mean that we are under a controlling system? So, there are two things that scripture tells us that we can be under. So let's read Romans 3-9 and someone else grab Romans 6-14. So 3-9, we'll start there. What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin. So all, both Jew and Greek, are under what? Sin. Is that a particular sin? What is that? Under the sin, right? The sin nature. So, it's interesting that...

Well, let's read Romans 6.14 before we do that. For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace. Okay, so we talked about sin being master of those under law. So what if in verse 614 we're told that sin shall have no dominion over us for we're not under law but we're under grace. So what do we have as a result of grace in relationship to sin? No dominion. I call it, maybe we could say freedom. Is that fair? Under law, sin is a controlling factor. You cannot master sin under law. It's not possible.

Under grace, you have freedom from sin. The old man has been crucified with Christ. The sin nature continues to bark and demand attention, but it no longer has dominion over you. Right? you now have freedom to say, no thanks. It's Christ's work. It's freed me from this, and it's Christ's life that I choose to believe. Right? And Christ does the living.

Now, what about those believers that are kind of caught They know that they've got a little grace, but they're kind of caught with a little bit of law. What does their life look like? I don't have a scripture that says you can be in a little bit of grace and a little bit of law and you can get those two things to work out together. All I see in the scripture is one system. or the other system.

So how do we, maybe it's us, I can honestly attest to the fact that I've been caught right around here, kind of coming back and forth every now and again, not understanding, you know, maybe there's a few laws over here that would really do us a little good as a body, or as a family, or as a person, you know? Certainly the Ten Commandments. Right? What are we thinking? Aren't you caught there often? I'm caught there often. Yeah, I think a lot of believers are.

Anytime I choose to not allow the Lord to be Lord, then I throw myself back into that captivity that He freed me from. I'm thinking about those verses in Romans 7. 7 through 11, that Paul really thought, and this is the interesting thing about Romans 7, is you have a man who has been through Romans 3, 4, 5, 6, so identification, he's got all of that in place, but then he arrives at a point where he decides that he's going to put himself back under law.

And he describes the experience and he said that the law said to him, look, you cannot desire. It's interesting that that's what the phrase that he uses, because that's what the sin nature does. It just desires. So it's against the law to be desirous.

And he said once he decided that that's what he wanted to fight against, he found that sin raised its ugly head, the controlling aspect of it, and got a hold of him. And even though he's positionally under grace, here he is, all manner of evil desires coming out of him, and he is really in the box. And he recognizes that the fact of law being a system of control that causes sin to arise and to really control him under sin. It's almost like that's the whole reason why law is there.

The only reason it's there is to show you that you cannot master it of your own strength by obeying law, by doing anything that says, I'm going to do this so I don't have that. And it just creates an environment where it's way stronger than our ability to deal with it. I think that one of the hardest things for believers in this day and age, and probably any day and age, is to actually believe that we are under a total grace-based system, free from law. I think that that one area of thought with regards to Christian life is probably the hardest one after a person becomes a believer to do it.

There's got to be something I can add. There's got to be something I can do. And because this whole Old Testament has a system designed for a specific people. And it's interesting, every single time the Jews are talked to about the blessing and cursing of the law, the law is presented as a system. All 613, the whole law, mentioned consistently. The entire law, all statues, the whole thing. And it was also only to be carried out in the land. And the blessings were physical for land. That's the whole law system.

But we take that, and we see Christ mention it a little bit in the New Testament, and we think, well, since it's in the New Testament, and Christ said it in the Sermon on the Mount, surely it applies to us. Christ said it, it's in red. Surely this is something that we're supposed to be doing. But it's interesting, that was before his death on the cross, and he was speaking to Jews who were under law.

So the system was still in place there. But nonetheless, even looking at the principle of law, not just the Mosaic law, it is extremely difficult for us as believers to realize that we are under a complete system of grace and a law produces nothing but more sin. Anytime we put law in place to govern us or shackle us down to the pews and get us to act a little better, we're producing sin.

That's what it does. That's how law functions. Law's purpose was to show you your need for a gracious God and an environment provided to you through the person in the work of Christ. So, there's two controlling systems. There's under grace and there's under sin. And that's what you get. And sin is directly connected to the law in terms of its awareness and knowing what it is, right?

We talked about the beginning of, I think it was the beginning of this class, what about when there, we looked at, there was, we had Adam, who was under a law, right? Not Mosaic law, but what was his law? Don't eat. Then after Adam, we had a period where there was no governing law, up until the point of the Mosaic law.

Was there still sin? People died. The effects of sin were still known and sin was very much still in play because there was continued death. In fact, there was a lot of punishment for the sin all throughout that period of Noah. So we know that there was definitely sin, but what we're told is that where there is no law, there is no transgression. Meaning that it's not recorded in the same way before the Lord. There's still sin, and there's still the consequences of sin, but there wasn't a transgression between Adam and Moses. Mosaic. Transgressions were not recorded in the same way. But sin still had its consequences.

Now, we fast forward through the Old Testament law, and we get to the cross some 2,000 years ago or so, and we have Christ paying the full and complete penalty, ending and giving freedom to anyone who would believe in him and satisfying all the requirements of law, law no longer functions in the same way. We know that it will be functioning in a millennial kingdom sense, right? It will be written on the Jews' hearts and they will be able to carry it out on their own capability because of their regenerative nature.

Right? But as of right now, the only environment that exists in this age is grace. Is that fair? Number four, why do we have to be told about this? I got a question. Have you ever seen a kid, think toddler, exhibit grace? Never. On his own, or her own. Never. What about when she walks over with a piece of candy and says, here daddy, here's your piece of candy. What do you want? Where are we coming?

We went swimming on Friday. It was the last day of school. We took the kids to the rec center and swam. We got in the car and Kids are like, thank you, Daddy. Thanks, Mom. Thank you for taking us. And they typically do a good job of saying thank you, and I'm glad for that. But I looked at Les and looked back at them, and they're just like, thank you. And I said instantly, what do you guys want? Is there a movie you want to get us to see, or what is it you need from me? But that's not the exact. They're saved. They could be showing this. Yeah.

If we are not taught from the scripture about grace, you will never come to the understanding of it on your own. You know, I was listening to Mike last week. There was a little bit of heresy he shared with us in his introduction. I'm just kidding. But you mentioned Aristotle's definition. And I was thinking about Aristotle's definition. I don't know if you still have that. Let's read it one more time. I was thinking about it, and I was like, I wonder if he If he was, you know, being free and how he came to this definition. So, Mike, if you want to read that. Something conferred freely. with no expectation of return, and finding its source in the bounty and the free-heartedness of the giver." The bounty and the free-heartedness of the giver.

Okay, pretty good. I'd say you can get to that conclusion as an unbeliever. You can come up with that definition. And it's pretty spot on, except for it misses a huge portion of it. didn't cover the adequate work of Christ. So now it's not personal in the same way, and the avenue by which grace is being delivered can be completely different.

We could have been based on Hercules for that matter. You know what I'm saying? The work of Hercules. He could have been gracious and not punished the people because he felt like he was going to be nice that day. I know that's a little silly. I don't know if Hercules had that role in Aristotle's life. There are examples like in the literature of people exhibiting that kind of grace.

I'm trying to think of, I don't know if it's the tale of two cities or one of those where a guy gives his life for a woman that he loves and that great saying is a far far better thing I do today than I've ever done before. He did that because he loved her. He took the guillotine or whatever it was for her. The problem is that it's a one act by one person and it's not an operating system in which God operates in this gracious manner all the time. I could love somebody. My heart goes out to guys that are in the military that are over there giving their lives. Oh yeah. And we definitely don't need to diminish what giving a life for another is.

Sacrifices We call it the ultimate sacrifice often times, because it pictures the ultimate sacrifice, but it doesn't have the effects of Christ's ultimate sacrifice in the same way. So while a person may give their life, and we're so thankful for those that have and do, and operate in a grace-based way, without the work of Christ freeing us from sin, you still have a much bigger problem, even if you have the freedom of a country for a short time. You don't have freedom from sin. Every time I think about our freedom as a country, I try not to lose sight of the freedom we have as believers, even more so, over sin. So yeah, I think that grace isn't natural for us.

And even as a believer, you have to spend time in the Word in order to understand that person and environment of grace, and it takes time. We often times talk about the time required to understand this environment of grace and the identification truths that come along with it.

It does. It takes circumstances, relationships. It takes all those different types of challenges in your life in order for the Lord to teach you what He's talking about in terms of grace and the freedom that we have. And it's a unique teaching for you. The way the Lord is going to teach about His environment of grace for you is going to be completely different for me.

But we come to the exact same understanding if we're looking at it through the scripture. Does that make sense? We'll never understand grace until we get into the Word and study it. So I wrote here, I said, salvation is required in order to understand grace. You must be a recipient or the generator. In that case, the Lord. I don't know if Aristotle did fully understand. Yeah.

So I mentioned earlier the world can get really close in some ways to a definition and a and an expression of grace but they'll never be able to deal with the larger problem at bay and that is the same problem. We'll never be gracious enough to cover that. Number five. Is it possible to operate under grace and be ignorant of grace?

I would say yes. I would too. Would you? Because when I was saved as a child, thinking back, I have no memory of the concept of grace. Yet I knew I was saved. Let's look at a question. Is it possible to operate under grace and be ignorant? Maybe I was operating under law, trying to be a good girl. Maybe. But actually, I was positionally operating under grace. Conditionally I was not. Let's add the word condition. Is it possible to operate under grace and be ignorant of grace in your condition?

What do you guys think? I think lots of people that come to Christ, either as children or even adults, there's a period after that where salvation is presented to them on a grace basis and they are saved. There's a period of appreciation and, gee, the Lord loved me, I'm responding. loving him back, because look what he's done for me, kind of thing. And that's sort of touching on it, but it's not living under the system, because there isn't a comprehension of what the whole grace system is really about.

And I'm saved. I'm really appreciative of that. I need to show God my appreciation. As soon as you say that, you want to bring it back under law. That I got to show him how much I'm thankful for the fact that he saved me. Well, that's a quid pro quo. If you give me salvation, I will live my life for you. or make you Lord of my life. There you go. Yeah, that's the big one. Yeah.

I remember in 1972 when the Lord really changed my life. Wow, I could say with awe, you know, I've been crucified to Christ. I've been saved by grace. But then came the learning of what I really was and what I really am, which is a bigger thing. And as I began to see the awfulness of my self-life, I began to understand and was able to operate under grace, because I knew I needed that, and I know I need that.

You know what I'm saying? It's experiential. And so I agree, there can be those first few moments of flush when it's like, you know, there's probably not a lot of operating under grace and maybe responding to grace, but that word operating is the key, I think. I think so too. I think that's a good way of putting it. I think you were living under grace, but you may not have been operating, right? So I think believers, all believers live under grace. They just don't necessarily operate under it until they understand it. There's no middle ground.

It's not like you can just kind of guess your way through it as a believer. Grace has to be taught and understood through the scripture in order for you to operate under it. It's not something you can just kind of like, oh now I'm a believer, I used to do it this way, now I'm going to do it that way. Right?

There's nothing in the unbelieving life that is relatable to grace. You can't connect them, because in order to understand grace, you must understand, like you mentioned, you must understand your own sinfulness and your need for a savior. Not just for salvation, but for the every single moment life that he provides to you. That make sense? So, I'll ask the question. Oh, the answer is love. No, no. God's love. So, is grace predicated on us? Is grace predicated on us? Let's see. Make sure that's not in there. The answer to me is no. It can't be. Well, let's ask it.

Does God require the creation of man, man's existence, in order for grace to exist? Is that what you're saying? Well, no. Is the grace operating system based on us? No. Oh, is it based on us? No. We are in a reigning system of grace. Our only response to grace is what? Thank you. But we're in the system. We're in a system of grace.

And I guess it's kind of maybe the way the question is written in operating. I think the word is the operating. And that's maybe the gist of this question is, is it possible to operate under grace and be ignorant of it? And I think as all believers, we're under grace. All of us. Now I guess the question I'm trying to figure out for Mike is the operating part of it.

We're positionally under grace but conditionally or operationally we may or may not be. That's I guess what the gist of the question is. Positionally we're under grace and we're under the operating system regardless whether we know it or not. Positionally we're there and we're in that system. whether we operate under it and we appreciate it or say thank you.

And that's really the conflicting thing that we see in the body overall is we're under grace but yet we still have a lot of law-based activity. Yeah, I was thinking of the positional part there in John, first chapter. The word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. Then it says, and from his fullness have we all received grace upon grace.

Yeah, there's no doubt that you are completely, ingraciously providing an environment whether you acknowledge it or not as a believer. Whether you operate underneath it. It's a different question altogether, right? That's really what I was getting at. We're in the operating system of grace, whether we know it or not, or realize it, or respond to it, or anything. Is it more like a Mac operating system, or a PC? Definitely a PC.

So, can you respond to the grace with law? Can you respond to grace while being under law? Are we talking about an unbeliever? Well, I was thinking about salvation, including myself, you know, that you respond to the grace knowing you need salvation. but then that kicks right in to pay him back or you're thankful so you want to do something. And then you get plugged right back into the... Let's think about it. I like this question. So, is it...

If you believe the gospel, do you understand this? The adequate work of Christ? You have to. You have to understand the adequate work of Christ, so far as it applies to you on the cross, right? You may not understand the fullness of the resurrection, ascension, seeding. I mean, you may not get all of that. you know that you were dead and you're made alive, and you probably don't really fully understand all that yet, you just are really thankful that there's a solution to your sin problem, and that it's in Christ, and you believe. So not to overly complicate what the gospel is, Paul tells us what it is, the death, burial, and resurrection, right? You may not understand all of its implications. but you do understand this portion of this definition of grace and you respond to the adequate work of Christ on your behalf so you as a believer at least acknowledge the very beginning of what grace requires and that is an understanding of this entire total and adequate work given to you unmerited undeserved freely that's the gospel so you understand the basis for the environment of grace but That's all you got. Right? Is that fair?

So, you spend the rest of your life bouncing back and forth, a lot of times, because you don't realize that this is not only the gospel, but this is now the operating system that you live within. And that's what's not told to us. How many of you got told that when you came to know the Lord? I mean, I didn't know that. Not really. It took a lot of years for me to understand this.

This is a total freedom thing. And my motivation now is not what God did for me necessarily moment by moment. I'm going to be motivated. He loved me so I'm going to go do this. The motivation is 100% grace and He's the one that's doing the living. It's his life that gets expressed, not my own.

In the Ephesians, whatever you've read, it's there if you realize this. By grace, you've been saved through faith, the non-meritorious act. It's not of yourself. It is the gift of God, not a result of works that no one may boast. We get saved, but then we immediately go back to, what do I do? But it's there and it's through faith, not meritorious.

I think this is the maturing, the spiritual maturing is figuring out this operating system of grace that we're in, and that's the position and condition stuff. Positionally we're in grace right away, but it may take us a long time to figure this out. We started in the beginning of this class, the world and the sinful nature inside of us all go against it. From the moment we're saved, everything is going, and the world teaches us the opposite. Everything goes against us. So it takes, I think, the long period of time in maturing in grace.

You know, 2 Peter 3.18, grow in the grace and knowledge. It's a process, and it takes a long time to understand grace. So that's kind of getting back to the position of operating. We're in it, positionally. But the old man is always fighting against it. Cool. Well, we finished up question six, so we'll pick up with seven next week. And why don't we just close in order of prayer?

Father, we do thank you for your unmerited, unlimited, undeserved favor. The blessing that you provided to us based on the work of your son. We know that in all of that, it was the love that you had for one another. and the love that you have for us as your creatures. Your unique creations designed in your image, Lord, we know that you gave us and provided us a freedom through the work of your son that that no other creature gets to enjoy like we do as mankind made in your image. So we just thank you for the blessing of your love and the presence of your very life and that our motivation can be grace and our environment is one of grace and not law. So we thank you for it. We love you dearly and it's in your name that we pray. Amen.