Which Side of the Cross - Finish Lesson 11 Start Lesson 12

OK. We're in lesson six. I'm sorry. I get a little nervous. And I think we had made it down to question seven. So just to kind of maybe set this up. We spent some time last week answering questions such as, does God exhibit less grace for the one who sins less and more grace for the one who sins more? The answer was, no. Does grace just make up for what's lacking in human life?

Yes or no? It's real easy. It's yes or no. You're going to be 50% right. Yes or no? No, it doesn't. Because then it would be actually the same as the question before. If you sin less, then God would make up the difference. If you sin less, he'd have to make up. If you sin more, there'd be more that he'd have to make up. So question seven is, is there any payment due by God when dispensing grace?

No. Why not? It's unlimited and it's unmerited. It's unlimited and it's unmerited. If there were a payment due, think about how that would be incurred. If there's a payment or responses to debts incurred, we're not, what is today, July 2nd? You guys pay all your bills for the month? Some of you don't have bills. I don't know who they are. So you incur debts during the month, like a mortgage, like your utilities, like whatever, and what you're doing is incurring a debt and you're making a payment.

That's not grace. God doesn't operate under grace as a payment system. It's not like that. That act is in no sense gracious if under any condition a debt is incurred. I know sometimes believers try to put God in a debt situation so that he will favor you more. Now look Lord, I've done X, Y, and Z. Your turn. Or I'm really in trouble and I'm really suffering. Your turn. Like you put him in a place where he has to respond. Well you're right. Grace is so super abounding.

You can't put God in a an obligatory place, you can't do it. Grace being un-recompensed, which is a word out of it, to give compensation, you can't give compensation for grace. Uncompensated favor is necessarily uncompensated as to the obligations which are passed, payment for work that you've done in the past, or obligations which are present or obligations that are in the future. There's no insurance in grace. Why not? Why don't you need an insurance policy in grace? Do you all possess a fire insurance policy, guaranteeing that you won't go to hell?

What do you think? I stumped you. I got a yes. Do I have a no? Yes. Do we all possess a fire insurance policy so that we won't go to hell? We're insured against it? No. I'm going to say no, we don't. Why not? Because an insurance policy would put God under an obligation, wouldn't it? He would have to pay. He's already paid. We're going to go to be with Him in glory because the payment is already made. It's not insurance, it's a guarantee. Okay? That make sense? You're thinking. That was a good trick. It was kind of tricky. That was a technicality.

My insurance has a guarantee policy. What's that? It comes with a guarantee. My insurance policy comes with a guarantee. You haven't collected much, have you? Right. You go to your insurance policy and say, hey, and they say, I didn't read that part. Did you read the part that was below that?

So is there ever an attempt to contaminate God's grace by believers? Okay, you can't just say yes, you have to explain. Well, the whole idea is we're possibly trying to in a sense, who don't understand, to be with, try to do all these things to make sure God's on your side.

And so you're just totally blown because God's in everything. And so I think I contaminate it when I don't just trust that He's got it. Grace, as the article says, is pure, it's untouched, it's untainted in its generosity and its benefits. It's unlimited and it's unmerited. So if we, in any sense, come at it to try to mess with it, we contaminate it. How emphatically this is true of the grace of God towards sinners. how often this aspect of divine salvation is perverted.

I can't tell you how many times that I either read or I hear these profile preachers, authors, Christian authors and preachers that say to the lost, you must confess your sins. Do they? If you're lost, do you need to confess your sins? We got the cart before the horse. Explain.

Well, I need to be separated from my sin nature. And after that, and all my sins, every single one has its future. So, my sins are already forgiven. Everyone's sins are already forgiven. Paid for, not forgiven. Oh, that's okay. Paid for, that's right.

So, once I'm in the actually separated point, as soon as I do, we're just going to restore fellowship. Okay, now what you've done is you've brought in two people now. We have the sins of the lost and we have the sins of the saved and in Lesson 13 we'll spend a lot of time on that. But can you find anywhere in the scripture that the admonition goes out to the lost that they must confess their sins? because if you think about it, if you had to confess your fifth sin, you'd never get a chance to get saved.

Unless you've got a great memory like Russ does. It's great memory, but it's short. When God presents the gospel to the unsaved, what does he ask them to do? Believe. But once you're a believer, What does he ask you to do about your sins? Confessing. So confession is for the believer, faith is for the unbeliever. So here comes the grace, and the problem is that if I present the gospel with you having to confess, I've just contaminated the gospel. Do you see how I've done that? Does that make sense? Because I think now I did my part. I confessed. And confession is what? I put God in an obligatory position to forgive me? That's not true.

See, because grace can't be, as we said, it can't be contaminated. Yet how often the aspect of divine salvation is perverted. Infinite and eternal transformations are created by the power of God when He exercises His grace. He is thereby glorified and sinners are saved. If payback is part of that transaction, which most of the time you hear somewhere in the contemporary conversation about salvation, some way where there is a payback that you need to do for God or that you have put Him in a position where He needs to save you, It's not grace anymore. The gift of God as proposed, every element of salvation is obscured if you do that. And the true motive for Christian service is sacrifice as well. If you're saved or someone is saved purely on a grace basis, they're much more likely to continue their Christian life on a grace basis. If the gospel has been presented to them with some ifs in it, and they comply, even the simple thing like come down, get up out of your seat and come down, that's what I did.

And so what am I looking, after I'm saved, what am I looking for? I'm looking for what I'm supposed to be doing. What are you supposed to be doing? As you have begun in the Lord Jesus, so walk ye in it. How did you start? I came down. Then I got saved later reading the Bible. I came down a couple of times. I used to be involved in a mission down on Verma Street and we had a guy that came down every week. He was going to make sure.

So salvation is always presented as a gift. It's always a gift and it doesn't have any payback. It's given freely. John 10.26, but you do not believe because you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give eternal life to them. I'm constantly giving eternal life to them and they will never perish. and no one will snatch them out of my hands.

Romans 6.23, for the wages of sin is death. You know you have to work at your sins and there is a payment. You know what the payment is? It's a little check that says death on it.

But the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. So the point that I'm trying to make is under a heading of grace that you cannot in any sense contaminate the gospel message by putting something in there for the non-believer to do other than believe. That's it.

And as we learned way back in the faith class, why is faith such a cool thing for fitting under grace? Why is it such a great thing? It's non-meritorious. Yeah, great. Your faith is a non-meritorious act. Why? Because what you believe is where all the merit is, not the fact that you believe. The merit is all in what you believe. It's true of your whole Christian life. The merit is in the object of your faith.

Your believing it doesn't put God under any obligation at all. So as you grow, We're supposed to grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus. And so, if we are to serve the Lord, we serve the Lord under a heading of grace, not obligation. It is very difficult, though, I think, for us not to think that God is going to compensate us for what we're doing.

Right? No way. You know, in all the work I've been doing lately, I've never heard what you told me to do. Because I, in the messages you were talking about, well, yeah, there are these men who say we don't steal, we don't kill. And so we, of course, we have to follow the law, so we are under that law in a sense. But we're not. But you're saying that doesn't apply to us. It doesn't. Still don't apply to us.

When it comes to the life of the Lord Jesus in you, let me ask it this way, is the Lord Jesus under any sort of obligation to act and function in a certain way? Why not? It's because of what He is. What is He? He's holy. He's righteous. He's always pleasing to the Father. He doesn't get up in the morning and say, what am I going to do to please the Father today? It's life. It just happens out of him. So there's no sense in which he's under obligation or under law or anything. So if I'm in him and have his resurrected life, do the rules change for me? No, they're the same.

What we don't realize, I think, or the hardest thing for us to realize as believers is that grace is motivating, in and of itself motivates, much more than law ever did. Why do I love God? Because he first loved me, not because he told me I should. I can't help but respond. When he showers his grace on me and I'm aware of it, I become a gracious person. I can't wait to pass it on. I can't wait to respond to God. I'm eager to do that and it's not under any sense of obligation. I'm overwhelmed that he even notices.

So that changes, I don't have to look up the rules. It's like, you know, I know I use Donna a lot in these examples, but we don't have any list of rules on our refrigerator. I already know what she likes and doesn't like. And so, you know, I can tell because I know her.

Well, as I grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus and His grace, I can tell. I can tell from the Word. I can tell from walking with Him what's gracious and what isn't, you know. We all have the benefit of the third person of the Trinity indwelling us. You think he's asleep in there? He's constantly revealing Christ to us and what's of him and what isn't. So we know. And it's gracious. The problem is it's so gracious it's overwhelming. And we're not comfortable with that early on. We just aren't. Because we live in a world and we work. You know, we go up to our boss on Friday and say, give me, you owe me, you know.

So, did you have a question? Yeah, just a quick question. So, for those that know this and understand grace as a motivating factor, but don't feel motivated by grace, what do you think the problem is? Oh, so that they know it in their minds, but they don't? Yeah.

You mentioned being overwhelmed, like some might say, what's the deal there? My immediate answer to that is they have, how would I say this right, you can grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus and become a scholar, a Greek scholar. Go to seminary, get some degrees, and never know Christ intimately. You see that? Maybe because no one ever told you, or you don't get it. So that's the issue. Why do you read your Bible? So you show up here on Sunday and you won't look stupid? Or whatever Bible study you go to? So that you...

I can talk the talk. I have trouble walking the walk, but I can talk the talk, because I read my Bible. But how well do I know the Lord Jesus? I think that's the answer. And Christianity is personal. It's personal. It's a relationship between you and the Lord Jesus Christ. Personal. One person to another. And the whole Word of God is designed to reveal Him. And the Spirit of God has been given to us to reveal Christ to us. That's my best answer.

Yes, I was thinking, I think we all find ourselves in that situation sometimes, right? Grace, you recognize the amazingness of it, the overwhelmingness of it. Sometimes we lose that motivating factor. Yes, we do. I think what you said is right on. It really comes down to a lot of times we're beholding the truth, not beholding the truth as a person. We lose sight of the fact that this is a personal relationship, not just a knowledge of something that's true about me. Because yeah, a lot of times we'll behold the scripture, but we're not beholding the word himself. I was thinking too that you get overwhelmed by the circumstances sometimes.

Yes you do. And that's why it's called the trial, right? But the Lord brings you through that. But sometimes at the outset, you are overcome. And if you study trials, what are they designed to do? To put your focus off of you and off the circumstances and on the Lord where it belongs. That's why you have them. And he, oh by the way, have you ever had a trial that God didn't orchestrate in your life? Not that you can remember. So everything he does is for a purpose. What's the goal? What's his goal? To conform us to Christ, right? And then right before that it says that he works all things to that goal.

Can you give me one thing that's happened in your life in the last week that wasn't under that heading? That wasn't under his one of the all things? When my wife didn't think so. When I got a ticket on my motorcycle. Pat Bramer has a motorcycle accident, you know. You think, well what's that all about? Is he just a bad driver?

All of that, everything like that is designed, I mean sometimes the Lord has to take us off in the corner just to be quiet. He can do it in a rehab center with a broken leg, Good place to go. If you never get anything other than a couple of things in your Christian life, one is the whole idea of God saving you is to have you for his own. And he wants to reveal himself to you. And two is, it's all by grace. The whole thing is by grace. And you can't help but respond. You can't. You know?

The sins are not really the issue per se. The sins are just standing in the way. God is not looking at your sins and saying, here, 1, 2, 3, 4, what are you thinking? What are you doing? He's saying, these are the things that are standing in the way between you and I and our fellowship.

And that's what I'm concerned about is you and I. Not your sins. I mean, sins are an offense. Don't get me wrong. But his desire is for you, not that you just have your sins together. He wants you. Isn't it interesting that the New Testament says whatever is not of faith is sin. Whatever is not of faith falls short of the mark.

So if I'm standing in the shower of grace, use this as an example, and I just have a self-centered thought, what have I done? I stepped out of the shower. So what does the Lord say? Wait a minute, you don't belong here. Get back in here. See that? So that you can live in that grace 24-7. But it's learned. You've got to learn how to do it. You've got to learn grace. Because we don't know anything about it before we're saved. Why can't we pay God back for his gift of salvation? It wouldn't be a gift. It wouldn't be a gift.

What would you do if you really sat down? We've all talked to young Christians, maybe even had this thought myself. They're so appreciative that God saved them that they want to do something to show how appreciative they are. What's the fallacy in that?

Payback. God isn't interested in you paying Him back. You couldn't do it anyway. He just wants you to continue to receive the grace. Here we go. It's unlimited so let's get moving. Any sort of payback, any sort of effort on my part to get God to pay attention to me is legal in nature and takes me out of the realm of grace. So, what's the motive for serving God? OK.

I can see you guys have poured over this paper and read all of it. Because he first let it down. Should we serve him? What do you think? Should we serve him? The answer is yes, we should. We should faithfully serve him, but never to repay him. Service is the Christian means of expressing his love and devotion to God. You see that? As God expressed his love to those whom he saves by the gracious things he's done, Christian service for God should be equally gracious.

Early on, you don't know what that's like, right? You don't know what to do. You are appreciative and you're thankful that you're saved, but you don't really know how to respond, do you? At first, you think, oh, I've got to do all of this really cool stuff. Like what? When you start to think about how can I possibly pay God back or even do something that will show my appreciation. Well, number one, do you think he knows before you even enter the thought if you're appreciative or not? Do you think he knows? He knows the thoughts and intents of your heart. He must say, no, no, no, not that way.

If you receive salvation by grace, it therefore becomes those who have received his gift in grace to be jealous for the purity of their motives and service for him. Unwittingly, the grace of God is too often denied by well-meaning attempts to compensate God for his benefits. No semblance of the most vital facts about divine grace can be retained unless salvation is, in its every aspect, treated as a gift, and Christian service and faithfulness is deemed to be only the expression of love and gratitude to God.

We have to learn that. We don't come to salvation with that mindset. We always have payback. And we always have motives that are, well, I've got to do this in order to achieve that. You invite me for dinner, I have to invite you back. But just to respond in grace, under no obligation, is amazing stuff.

So could you say, is grace just God paying off the debt I've incurred? What do you think? So I incurred debt, right? Before I'm saved? So God comes along and says, look, I'm going to redeem you. I'm going to pay your debt. And that's all I'm going to do. And it's an honest debt because you incurred it. So I'm going to pay it off. Is that what grace is? Paying off a debt that I've incurred? Come on you chickens, answer. How many say yeah it is? How many say no it's not? It's not. It's more than that though. It's not. Because grace cannot in any sense be involved in a death situation. It can't be. Trick question. No it's not. So for Christ to die on the cross and pay the penalty for your sins, he's just not paying off a debt that you've incurred. He's not doing that. When Christ died on the cross, what debt did he pay? He paid for the sins of the world. For the benefit of the world? The eternal covenant is a transaction between the Father and the Son. Where are you? in that deal? You're nowhere in it. Man sinned and insulted the holiness of God. That is an insult that must be recompensed. There's only one person that could do that and the second person of the Trinity had to become a man and he paid for it to satisfy who? The Father.

So that transaction is between them, and I've said this a hundred times, at the point in which Christ is raised from the dead, can you find any obligation he's under to offer salvation to those who caused him to go to the cross? Is he under any obligation to offer salvation? Did he put himself under an obligation to go? No, he didn't.

And the reason it has to be that way because if it's of grace it can't ever have any obligation about it for us. It's got to be totally free that God does it out of his heart. Was that the first instance of grace when salvation was offered to us? How would I say this? God met in the Old Testament lots of incidences in a gracious manner.

But he did not, as far as I can tell, institute a gracious environment because they were under a law system and he punished them. He did. When the Jews didn't believe him at Kadesh Barnea and out in the desert they go, all of them that didn't believe all died.

Forty years. That's not grace. But then Moses comes down with the Ten Commandments and they're having a party and he throws them on the ground and he's mad, it appears like. And Moses says, wait a minute, it's not like you to do this. So he re-does them, you know. Is that an act of grace? I think so. But the Jews in that sense were never, ever under an umbrella of grace, never. Even though he gave them a system to cover their sins, which was gracious, But it was all based on what?

What he was going to do in the future. Christ was going to actually pay the penalty for all the sins of the world. And so he could look at it and use the credit card. I'm going to cover your sins today because I know the payment's coming later. Wasn't that conversation between Isn't it interesting to figure out that Christ dying for the sins of man and the sins of the world was not an afterthought? or something that God came up with because man sinned. Christ has always been in play. And when they determined to create, they knew what was going to happen. So you can't surprise God.

Let's go to 12. Everybody have a 12? No. I think there's some back there. Okay, so I've moved down in the paper now to where we're looking at section four and five. Did everybody have a copy of that paper? Everybody? Either electronically or in print?

It's something that you should have and keep and look at once in a while because it's really, Schaefer put a lot of thought into that and thinking about what grace was and what it isn't. So the first question in lesson 12 is what would God have to do if he discovered the slightest merit in the sinner? Let's say God's cruising along in heaven and he looks over at Mike and he says, uh oh, Mike did something that's meritorious. What would God have to do?

He'd be obligated to do this. He'd have to recognize and duly acknowledge the goodness that he found, right? He sure would. That's exactly what he'd have to do. He'd have to recognize there is such a thing as human merit. So he would be discharging an obligation towards the sinner, and the discharge of that obligation towards the sinner would be payment or recognition of a debt.

So when we all came to Christ, we came with absolutely no merit. I've got to tell this story of myself. I was a Christian about three weeks, and I knew this woman in Denver. She said, Oh, you became a Christian. That's great. You're really good at raising money. You can raise a lot of money for the Lord. Merit. See that?

Romans 4.4 says, Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. Do you see that? But to him who doesn't work, to be meritorious, he's the one that lives under grace.

So, I think we have to settle once and for all that God is not ever going to find any merit in any non-believer. And he certainly isn't going to find any merit in you and all you were in Adam. There is no merit in Adam. Nothing. I don't care what you have done, or what recognition you have had, or what sort of an education you've had. There's no merit in the flesh. None. And if God could find it, he would be under an obligation to recognize it. See that? And if he could recognize that, then Christ would not have had to die then. He died in vain. Right. Sure. That's exactly right. That's exactly right.

So when you're presenting the gospel to someone, that's part of the presentation, is to get across to them that there is nothing that they bring to the table that is pleasing to God. Nothing. And what God is offering is a totally free gift. And you can't earn it because there isn't anything in you that could earn it. As a believer, can you appreciate Christ as you earn it?

What do you think? That's inherent. Let's talk about identity for a minute. Did everybody hear the question? As a believer, say it again. As a believer in Christ, you don't merit anything that you can bring to God. What do you think about that? It seems like merit doesn't even fit in the new believer. Because merit is something that you accrue. Or debt that you put on someone. Yeah, that's right. But there is merit.

Where's the mirror? It's in Christ. You're in Christ. Christ is in you. So what's the deal here? I'm a believer. I have two natures. I've got the old man and the new man. And the issue comes down to the point of which man is manifesting his life through me. The old holy water cleaned up, took a shower, old man like?

Or is it the resurrected life of the Lord Jesus in which I am in? Whatever life is manifesting through is where the merit is. God does everything to glorify himself, right? Don't you see how he does it with this new life of Christ in us? The Bema reward, what are you going to get rewarded for? When you go there, what are you going to get rewarded for? Sin's not going to be an issue there.

What he did through you. What's that? What he's done through you. What he did through you. Merit. Who gets the merit? He does. That's a great deal if you think about it. He does all this stuff through you and he rewards you for doing what he did. I mean that's a great deal. On the crowns, where do those go? Yeah, right back to him. I don't know if I want to do that or not. You can't wait to do it because you understand the whole reason why you have a crown to start with. It was all his doing.

See that? So, what we're trying to do with this is to get you to think at least a little bit graciously. to dispel thoughts of performance and recognize, because we talked about identification first, being identified in Christ in this death, burial and resurrection. Now the resurrected man has merit, but whose merit is it? It's the Lord Jesus' merit. But it accrues to you. You're going to get rewarded. That's kind of cool. So, any more questions on question one?

So, now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. That's hard, you know, all of a sudden you're going to go home and sit down and think, well, I'm going to shift my life into neutral, because I won't screw it up if I'm in neutral. As people say to me, oh gee, am I not supposed to do anything? How do you answer that question? Yeah, you're supposed to do. What are you supposed to do?

I'm to walk by grace and by faith. That's the way I'm to live. By faith. Does it put an obligation on me to learn some things? I think it does. But it isn't that I better learn them so I can be cool, it's that, oh wow, I can't wait to learn how this whole system functions. It's really cool.

So, Galatians 3.22, somebody go to it and read it. The scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise of faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. So is that a benefit to all sinners? See, here's what God did. He's really cool how He does things. He takes every man and He shuts them up under sin. Puts them all in a box. They're all under sin.

Once they're in there, how do they get out? Grace is the thing that gets them out. They can't come out any other way. But if you come from other denominations, like the iconotic Catholicism, they've got all these other ways that you can do to be more gracious, or to be more acceptable to God, and you've got to do your thing. That's not the way it works. That isn't the way God works.

So to understand that he shut everybody up to sin, it's like he put all sinners in this room and he locked the doors. You want to get out? How do you get out? By believing that he took care of the process, took care of your sin problem. To get unlocked and out of the room, you have to believe him. That's the only way you get out.

One quick thought. It says the scripture has shut everyone under sin, so we really put ourselves in that room. And because of the truth of God's word and knowing what we know about our sin, I'm just differentiating the fact of him shutting us up. We shut ourselves up by not believing. And we never did believe.

It's interesting, if you grew up in a denomination like I did, I'm 35 years old, And my buddy Dennis, who I went to Regis with, who's a believer, is trying to tell me that Christ died for my sins. I said, well, tell me something I don't know. You know, I went to Catholic schools, grade school, high school, and college. I know the catechism, you know. Those nuns beat that sucker into my head every day. Bang, bang, bang. I know Jesus is the Son of God. I know that he died for the sins of the world. I know all that.

He was buried and resurrected. But I wasn't saved. Why not? What's missing? He did it just for me. Me. If I had been the only human being on the earth, he'd have done it. Just for me. And that I had to believe that for me to be saved. Information was there. Understood it.

But it's very hard when you're taught to a system in order to trigger the grace of God coming towards you, like confession, like going to church, like whatever it is, to realize that what God is offering in salvation is totally and absolutely free. The only thing you have to do is believe. That's a hard one. That's a real hard one, especially if you came out of a religious environment.

Because all of them have obligations in there somewhere. It's like Lordship Salvation preached by almost every one of the guys that come out of Master's Seminary, John MacArthur. He says, you must make Jesus the Lord of your life in order to be saved. I don't find that in the Gospel. What would that do? It would put God under an obligation. How do I make Jesus the Lord of my life? How do I do that? Ever think about that? How would you do it? Just say it? How would you do it? Or every step?

Sure. And that adds something to just the pure, unadulterated, gracious gospel of the glory of Christ. It adds something to it. It contaminates it. And you grow up thinking that God's mad, because you're just not living up to what He told you to do. That's right.

I always had this thought in my mind when I got to college, and I finally turned my back on Catholicism, that if I was a Jew, 2,000 years ago I wanted to be a rancher. Because then I'd have enough animals to cover my sins. And I'd be herding them all down there every day. I have a question for you. How would it have felt if you had all those teachings in your head that were false? It would be hard to believe all that, to believe what you now believe.

You know, it's interesting. I think once the Spirit of God shows you grace and salvation, and you get a taste of what grace really is, those things start to drop off. I was a Christian about a week and some guy comes up and hands me a book that says, now that you're a Christian, here's what you must do. Christian one week, I looked at it and I gave it back to him. He said, why?

I said, there's nothing I need to do. I didn't get saved because I needed to get busy. I knew that much, and I think if people are presented the gospel purely like that and they're saved on that basis, they will automatically reject things that they don't have to understand that are legal. They'll know, I don't have to do that. What am I going to do?

The Philippian jailer and the believers at Pentecost after Peter gave them the gospel, What did they both groups of people say? What did they say to the apostles? What must we do to be saved? When the Spirit of God convicts you, that's the next question. What must I do to be saved? And what's the answer? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. What happened in both cases? In both cases, the Spirit of God, it says, Cut their hearts to the quick with this information about Christ and the Philippian jailer.

So, where's the motivation? What must I do to be saved? No arm twisting, none of that. It's the Spirit of God doing His job. And the answer is real simple. What must I do to be saved? Belief. That's it. Is that the second bell? Oh good, we've got more time. It is therefore imperative that every single vestige of human merit shall be set aside completely if an opportunity is provided whereby pure grace may be exercised in the salvation of man.

The one comment I wanted to make about that, those of you who have witnessed have done it anecdotally a lot. You know, you put your own story in there and that kind of thing. Same thing when you counsel people, you have a tendency to be anecdotal about your life and experience.

I have found that the Word of God is the most powerful thing you can use. Just let it do its job because it's gracious and it's powerful. Why did people plug their ears? I really am convinced that if you sit down with somebody who wants to talk to you about salvation or about spiritual growth, get your Bible out and let them read the words. Let the words do the talking. Because that's where the power is. It isn't in my having a foxy story. But you've got to wait for that, what must I do? Yeah, that's true. Let's close.

Dear Father, how we thank you for the grace that we do live under. We thank you for the fact that we are continuing to grow in that grace and in the knowledge of your Son. You can't separate the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, intimate personal fellowship, and grace. So we thank you. We pray in his precious name. Amen.