Radio Broadcast Tuesday 02/08/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at The Reality of The Resurrection P31 (02-08-22)

Do Not Set Aside The Grace of God!

We are going to begin today on page 54 in the section titled, “A New Way of Life” in our bible study guide, A Closer Look at The Reality of the Resurrection. Reminder, you can pick these Closer Look series bible study guides from our online ecommerce website at Shop.BobGeorge.net

As a brief view, we had been discussing of what it is to live under the grace of God. Now that obviously that would not be possible unless we became a new creation. It is a becoming a new creation with a brand new identity and we have a new way of life. If you are still under the law, then you are living under the law. However the very moment you step out of Adam and into Christ, and Christ steps out of Heaven into you, you became a brand new creation. And if anyone be in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have past away and behold all things have become new.

Now in the fifth chapter of the book of Romans we read:

Romans 5:1,2
¹ Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we a have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.

Now folks, we have gained access, by faith into the grace of God that we now stand. So if you’re standing in grace, why not walk in grace. And that is what it is talking about. Walk in the Spirit. Walk in the grace of God and you will not be fulfilling the desires of the flesh. Why is that? Because you will not be walking under the law. And under the law, sin is your master.

Romans 6:14
¹⁴ For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

So where ever you are standing, walk. So if you are standing under the law, lost, you’re going to have to walk under the law lost. If you are in Christ, saved, then you are standing in the grace of God, you have now gained access by faith into this grace that we now stand. How does that occur? By being justified by the Lord Jesus Christ, entering into that by faith, and therefor receiving the peace of God that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7).

Philippians 4:7
⁷ And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

When is the Christian world going to understand that? When you keep people under the law, sin is still your master. It doesn’t matter whether you are born again or not, if you keep people under the law, sin continues to be your master. If you can see the analogy here, if you’ve changed jobs, but that old boss is screaming and yelling at you. And if you are under the law, you still keep following him around, even though he has no control over you at all anymore.

And so sin will no longer be your master if you walk in the grace of God. The power of sin is the law.

1 Corinthians 15:56
⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

So if you as a Christian are living under the law, what are you living under? The power of sin! That’s why it is your master. So why does this go on. Because you are a new creation, but that new creation still is in the body of flesh. That’s why Paul said, “It’s no longer I that do it, but it’s sin living in me.” That is that propensity of people to believe the lies. We end up believing errors. We listen to the things of the world. Now, it is the law that demands the flesh do those things.

And for those living under the law, and the law says obey this, and man says, “i am.” So man’s pride says, look at me. And if we are not under God’s law, we make our own. And the Jews had some 600 of them on top of the ones given by God, just so they could have more laws. Today we have our own deals going on, called self-righteousness. And we set ourselves up as the standard of excellence, instead of the Lord Jesus. And so, if I am being nice and kind and sweet to everybody, and if others aren’t living up to my standards of being kind and sweet to everybody, they become the object of my criticism. And if I am very diligent, and I’m disciplined and I get up early in the morning at 5:00 am and I get my quiet time in and praying to God; and if others aren’t doing that, then I am so much more spiritual than they are. And they also become the object of my criticism and ridicule. If I go to a building every Sunday and every day of the week that it is opened, then obviously the others that aren’t doing that aren’t as spiritual as I am. Pride is puffing myself up on all of these things. So you can see how pride and the law end up working together. The law fans the pride of man and man’s pride is before the fall.

So we can see how the power of sin is in the law. All of this is in the flesh. Principles are another name for law. We don’t live by principles or law. So we are not under the law today. Yet the stronger a person’s pride is, the more he tries to obey the law. Pride refuses to come to the grace of God. Only when he comes to the end of his flesh, only then will he receive grace.

Romans 5:2
² through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

We gained access to this grace through faith. As Christians we can only stand in the grace of God. And Jesus is the Grace of God. If we try to do it by flesh, it is the flesh that has the pride that swells up and thinks it is something that I am doing. But we need to do away with that thinking and realize it is all by faith in what God did for us.

Salvation is all of God. He didn’t consult us on any of it.

Today we stand in the grace of God by faith. The moment we placed faith in Jesus Christ, we accessed the grace of God, and Jesus is the Grace of God.

Now 2 Peter 3:18 says to grow in the knowledge and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 3:18
¹⁸ But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.

So how do you grow in this grace? Faith. You all ready have it in your bank account. Now access it. Write a check from your bank account. You do it the same way by faith in what you already have in Him.

Growing in Grace was a followup book to Classic Christianity. It deals with this subject of walking by faith and growing in grace.

Get your copy of Growing in Grace. Note that you don’t grow by trying to grow. When I was a child, I grew physically. I didn’t grow myself. God causes growth. The same is true for growing in the grace of God.

Ephesians 2:8,9
⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast.

So how did we gain access to this? By believing God. Faith is what bringing you to access it.

We are saved by faith. We can’t work for something that is already built. People want to build it themselves, but it is already built. It’s like a house that is already built. So how do you move into a house that is already built? You move in. But I want to help build it. Sorry buddy, it’s already built, just move in.

Pride comes along and wants people to think that they are building the house. Pride stirs up the flesh. People come along and say, well I want to pay you something for it. You can’t, it’s a gift. Well, I know it’s a gift but just let me pay you a penny for it. Sorry buddy, you can’t pay me, it’s a gift. I’m not going to accept your money.

Salvation is by Grace and Grace Alone

It’s like the computer age we live in. You have software, and you place this software into the computer. Now you access that by typing on some little buttons that are on that keyboard. And you access what is already there. That’s done by faith. If you didn’t believe it was there, it would be stupid to be punching those little keys on the keyboard. So what you are accessing there is already available to you, if you will access it. And if you didn’t believe it was there, you are going to sit there, dead in the head, and not accessing the information that is at your fingertips, because you are not accessing it. It’s not that it isn’t there, you simply are not accessing it. You haven’t entered into it at all.

Now religion and the law will say to you, let me reprogram that computer. I want to develop my own software program. And that is what religion does, developing its own software program. And if I have developed my own software program, I certainly don’t have to access it by faith, because I already know what’s in it, because I programmed it myself. So, there is no mystery on what comes out, because I already know what’s in it; I did it myself.

It’s the same with salvation. The same thing we are talking about in salvation, where God at the cross, provide forgiveness for the whole world. My praying does not activate God’s forgiveness. It’s not the prayer that accesses it, it is by faith. I enter into it by faith.

Acts 15:11
¹¹ No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

We read there that Gentiles are saved the same way the Israelites are saved, through faith in Jesus. Just as an Israelite is saved by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ. The object of faith is Jesus not on something of our own creation. It is through the grace of God that we are saved. Israelite or Gentile, slave or free are all saved by grace through faith in Jesus. Jesus is the only one that can provide life to the lifeless. For He alone is the only one that has a life to give.

In second Timothy 1:9 we are told:

2 Timothy 1:9
⁹ He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,

Christ called us to Himself. He did it because of His own purpose. He promised to reveal His Son to anyone by faith. He chose to reveal His life to me. Every born again Christian He has reveled Himself to. Well, how many people has does He reveal Himself to? We are told in scripture that it is His will that none should perish

2 Peter 3:9
⁹ The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

That was to all people. Yet all people do not respond to the grace message.

Now this grace of God was given to us before the foundation of the world. God’s plan was put in place before the foundation of the world. God put that plan into affect for all men to come to Him by faith. Grace is not only what saves us, but it is also what sustains us.

Some will say, what about the people that do real good works, aren’t they going to heaven? And even if they aren’t in Christ, and they aren’t going to go to heaven? Think about it folks. How could you say that God made a provision for those men or women (doing so called good works) to get to heaven, and not made a provision for the children?

Grace is also what sustains us.

Some people will teach that you are completely saved by grace, but once you get saved, then you got to live by the law. They will say that God helps you to obey the law. Well nothing could be further from the truth. Look at 2 Peter 3:18 again:

2 Peter 3:18
¹⁸ But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.

We are to grow in the knowledge of the Lord, now and forever. As we received Him, we are to walk in Him too.

Colossians 2:6
⁶ As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:

As we look at God’s grace we learn that God has provided everything we need to experience an abundant life here and right now. Peter talked about that we have been given everything for life and for godliness. Everything for physical life has been provided for us. The world, the stars and the universe has been made for us. It was made to sustain the life for man. We have also been given everything for our physiological and spiritual life too. Yet man wants to not admit that. The grace of God sustains in all things.

In Romans 5:17 we read:

Romans 5:17
¹⁷ For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!

For if by the trespass of the one man (and that was Adam), death reigned through that one man (Adam), how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!

Bob would sometimes ask people, “are you reigning in life or is life raining on you?” It is most likely going to be one or the other. We can either look at life, reigning. Or life is raining on you. But you are never going to experience that abundant life, “I came that you may have God’s life, and have it abundantly, through the one man, Christ Jesus” is a result of receiving God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness. Now that doesn’t happen in a single happening in life. But it does come down to where a decision is made in our own heart, where we are going to continue trying to impress God by our own righteousness, where we are going to continue to live under the law, or hedging our bets that in case we aren’t I’ll just live under the law a little bit.

Walking in the newness of life is walking in the abundant gift of God’s grace. Which means walking in the gift of righteousness. Which means all self effort has been diminished, we realize it is all Jesus and not me. and quit trying to impress others, and quit trying to play church, quit trying personal one up-men-ship, quit trying to be number one on the block. Quit trying to all trying. Let the Lord Jesus Christ grab a hold of your life once and for all and to take control of that life and to lead you where He wants you to go instead of where the flesh wants you to go. One type of life burns you out. There is no such thing as a Spirit controlled life burning out. That is an impossibility. Jesus does not burn out. Jesus does not crack under stress. Only flesh cracks under stress. Only flesh burns out.

We burn out because of self effort. Trying all the things we think we are doing. Bob has been there with the self effort burnout. He also knows what it is to come to the end of yourself. You’re not a hero, you’re a zero. Apart from Him I can do nothing. We are to abide in Him and to walk in His grace and His gift of righteousness. Rest in the gift He has given us.

When we receive God’s provision of grace, and the gift of righteousness, were into a situation where we are standing on truth. That is something to stand on. God called us to stand on something on something that is secure. We need to stand on the security that it is all Jesus and none of us. Because if you are standing on self-righteousness, you are standing on nothing.

Ephesians 1:6
⁶ to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

Who’s the one He loves? Christ Jesus. He’s given us his glorious grace. Christ is literally described as grace. John 1:14 describes it:

John 1:14
¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

If we are going to abide in Christ Jesus, “he who abides in Me and I in him will bear much fruit,” where does fruit come from?

You can’t out sin the grace of God. That is not an excuse to sin. We have to abide in grace and truth because Christ Jesus is full of Grace and Truth. In Galatians 5:4 we read:

Galatians 5:4
4 You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

The Judaizers would come back in and try and put people back under the law. And it is heresy that you combine law and grace. And that is going on today big time. Paul addressed that. Paul blasted the Galatians for believing that. He said you foolish idiotic Galatians who has bewitched you!

Galatians 3:1-3
¹ You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. ² I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? ³ Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?

You use to seeing the meaning of Christ death as though I painted a picture for you. What happened to you? Well, Galatians 5:4 says, “You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.” Well folks, how many of you have heard that you have fallen from grace? And how has that been taught (by the legalists)? They say, ‘you’ve fallen from grace because you have sin in you, and you’re “backsliding.”‘ That’s not falling from grace! Falling from grace is the condition of the people teaching you that junk! Falling from grace is you’ve been alienated from Christ and His grace. It’s people trying to be justified by the law, instead of standing in the grace of God. If you are trying to keep yourself justified by the law, Paul says you’re foolish! You’re trying to attain the goal by human effort. You can’t obey the law. The flesh can’t obey the law, it never could and it never would. Jesus never thought you could, and never said you would. The law was given as a mirror, to show you your face was dirty. So you could turn to the one that did fulfill the law. Who came for you after giving life to you. If you could of done it on your own he could have stayed in heaven. He could have told us to try harder, pull it up by our bootstraps, give it another gallant effort. Give it the ole college try. If you are going to walk under the law then you are alienating God who is full of grace and truth. And it is prohibiting you from receiving the gift of righteousness, because you don’t need His righteousness when I think i am doing it myself. People will think, I will use grace as a type of force to obey the law. And he says you are foolish! You are trying to be justified by the law. You are falling away from the grace of God by doing this stuff. When you try and live the Christian life, then you have fallen away from Grace. When you are doing this in the flesh, you have alienated yourself from the grace of God.

Paul says in Galatians 2:21

Galatians 2:21
²¹ I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

We are justified freely by his Grace. I don’t set aside the grace of God, Paul said. Why did Paul say that? Because there are people that want to set it aside. If man could ever have redeemed himself, if man could have ever justified himself, if man could have ever sanctified himself, if man could have ever glorified himself… If there is one chance in a million million that man could have done any of that for himself, then Christ died for nothing. If man could do any of those things, then what is that saying? Christ died for nothing! Is that true or not? If there was one ounce of a way that man could attain righteousness in and of himself through the law, one way that he could gain justification, sanctification or glorification or any of those words, by himself, then Christ died for nothing. And when we do it consciously or unconsciously any of those things, then we are saying to God, “You died for nothing. You could have stayed up in heaven. And saved yourself a ton of problems.” Is that true or not true?

So what we are dealing with here is the fact if we are going to walk by faith receiving the abundant life and grace it requires coming to the end of your self sufficiency. And coming into a dependent relationship with the one that did it all. And if He didn’t do it all, then He died for nothing. And so we end up making a mockery of the cross, and treating as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that set us part, as the book of Hebrews tells us. That is what the majority of the Christian world is doing today. We are teaching insidiously that Christ died for nothing. And we wonder why we are not rejoicing more in the cross. Because deep down we are believing that Christ died for nothing. We have a system of getting forgiven on my own. I can go to my day of atonement to get forgiven. I can go the confession booth. I can do my 1 John 1:9 and get forgiven. What do I need Him for? So Christ died for nothing. Why don’t we rejoice? Because in our mind, He died for nothing. I can get righteousness on my own. Didn’t you see all the nice things I’ve done? I even feed the poor every once in awhile. The religious world is teaching all this stuff and we gobble it up.

No I am not going to do those things.

I am going to stand in Him and His righteousness. “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”