How Were Old Testament Believers Saved?

This week's audio message:

How Were Old Testament Believers Saved?

Grace For Life audio archives are here.

Regeneration Revisited

People must "do" two things to be saved, though actually they may be considered one thing, part and parcel. The Scripture says it in various ways, but simply put, people must "repent" and "believe".

The essence of repentence is to change one's mind, or one's "beliefs", in this case regarding our sin and Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Changing one's mind includes at least some change in actions as well. One must believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord, or Master, and believe that He is alive, risen from the dead. And if one believes in Jesus Christ as their Master, they will at least to some extent live differently, as they follow Him. And believing in Him as Savior will ideally wipe away all faith in oneself as Savior, recognizing Him as the one who paid for sin, and said, "It is finished", then giving the righteousness of God to them as a gift.

So far, so good. But there is one little problem...

...People are born "dead in their sins and trespasses" (Ephesians 2:1). That means dead spiritually, and therefore they are unable to "repent and believe". Along comes Grace, in the form of the Holy Spirit, who "regenerates" some, gives them Life, gives them a new heart, gives them "the new birth", and they are "born again". Read John 3, where Jesus speaks to Nicodemus about this new birth, and one thing is clear. The Spirit, like the wind, blows where He chooses to blow (John 3:8).

And the newly "born again" ones are "new creations" (2 Corinthians 5:17). They are now "alive to God" (Romans 6:11), and with this new life, something amazing happens...

...They "repent" and "believe". They can't help it! It's been revealed, by revelation, and though they were blind, now they see! Their repentence and faith didn't even produce their regeneration, let alone merit it. Too often the cart has been put before the horse. Regeneration must come first. Jesus said that unless a man is "born again", he cannot even see(!) the kingdom of God [let alone believe in the King].

That's true Grace. All of Grace. All of God. The New Covenant, that glorious unilateral covenant in which God the Son becomes the sacrifice Lamb, then short-circuits any form of "works" salvation by giving new life to His children before they can do any "works". And they now believe in the One Who has been revealed to them. And as His new creation, the believer has all their sins forgiven, forever! So the Grace Goes On. And On.

Keep this Primacy of Regeneration in mind, and you will see many Scriptures opened up to your understanding like never before, I promise you.

The Law And The Good News

By Michele Rayburn

“But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully”...(1 Timothy 1:8)

As I was doing some reading about the law and the gospel, the thought came to mind that Jesus died under the law which was composed not only of God’s law but also of man’s laws. And Jesus was subjected to man’s faulty interpretation of both God’s law and their own laws. As a result, Jesus was wrongly accused of breaking the law and was wrongfully put to death.

The Bible says “For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God.” (Galatians 2:19) In this case, we were righteously judged by God to be unable to keep His law, and would be condemned if it were not for our faith in the Lawgiver, Jesus Christ.

But, Jesus died under the law which was implemented by sinful men. So they could not be trusted to implement the law perfectly. Then as now, the law is often, accidentally or on purpose, used to either judge an innocent man to be guilty or to judge a guilty man to be innocent.

If even Jesus can be found guilty under the law by men, then who could ever expect to be judged righteously by men?

If we as believers should ever attempt to be perfect law-keepers on this earth, it would do great harm to us, mentally, spiritually and even physically, because we could never “measure up” to God’s law. But more than that, the law as interpreted by sinful man will always have us falling short, because so often our lawgivers and “spiritual leaders” are misguided as to what is lawful and what is not, and what is sinful and what is not. And so, if we trust in men, and look to them for acceptance and assurance, we will always find ourselves under a cloud of guilt and condemnation.

But thank the Lord, it says in Romans 7:6, “But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and *not* in the oldness of the letter.”

Paul the Apostle cries out in despair and asks, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

And then he answers his own question, “I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So, then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” (Romans 7:24-25)

And Paul goes on to say, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1)

Looking For Life In All The Wrong Places (Transcript)

Jesus said that He came in order that you and I might have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10).

I want to explore a theory I have that a lot of Christians, if not most Christians, are looking for that abundant life in all the wrong places.

Maybe you are, too.

But first I want to look at a the more universal problem.

Everybody Wants Abundant Life

I believe that every human is born with a desire for abundant life. Even before we are Christians we see it as perfectly normal to go on a journey looking for fulfillment of some kind, looking for life.

In fact, if a person is not interested in seeking abundant life, if they're not interested in exploring ways to live life to the full, we may call them dull or abnormal or even give some psychological bad title to their condition.

And if a person doesn't yet know Jesus Christ, it's a given, isn't it?, that they will search for life in all the wrong places. And the places they search for life in may be morally evil, or they may be morally neutral.

We sometimes key in on the morally evil, and realize that the world seeks for life in things like drugs, or drunkenness, or illicit relationships, or even out-and-out big-time crime, of the Bonny and Clyde type.

But there are hundreds of morally neutral ways in which the world searches for life. And sometimes they convince themselves that they have really found life. You know, the mountain climber who wants the whole world to climb dangerous mountains because of the intensity of life it gives them. In today's language it's often called a “rush”, as in, “I do mountain climbing because it really gives me a rush!”

But it's not just mountain climbers. It's skate-boarders looking to perfect some flip jump ankle-breaking move. Or a skiers, looking for the right powder they can float to nirvana on. Or race car drivers whose adrenaline comes from high speed. Or race car spectators who don't have the opportunity to race, or don't dare to, but get their adrenaline from watching it, and wondering who will crash. Or movie-goers who willingly suspend disbelief for two hours to enter into the abundant life of imagination.

The list goes on almost infinitely to pie bakers, and ipod music addicts, and internet surfers, and painters, and sculptors, and poker players, and book readers, and hikers, and sleepers, and workaholics, and karate kids, and karate adults, and basket weavers, and scrapbookers, and singers, and dreamers of all kinds.

Me Too

Listen, I can identify completely. I didn't become a Christian until I was 26 years old. I looked for life in so many places, I couldn't even count them. Many I've already mentioned, but five more minutes of thinking would probably yield fifty more ways.

And during those years I heard about God, and about Jesus Christ, and about how becoming a Christian was where the life really is.

And there's certainly some truth to that. Real abundant life begins with knowing Christ. With being born again. With being transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. With having a new heart, and the forgiveness of sins, bought and paid for by the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, and becoming a child of God by grace, a free gift, through faith in Jesus Christ.

I don't want to diminish at all that experience, what we call conversion, or salvation. It's marvelous, awesome, and certainly life-changing.

But my subject is “looking for life in all the wrong places”, and too often, after we become Christians, we begin that journey of looking for life all over again, except with a Christian slant to it, or a Christian flavor to it.

Christians Are Not Immune

I see it all the time. And every case is different. That's why it's a ittle difficult to articulate in a broad sweep of Christians in general.

But I'm going to try.

It may apply to you. Statistically, it probably does. Statistically, you probably are swayed, at least from time to time, by the world, the flesh and the devil, to look for abundant life in places that are not the source of life. They may be perfectly moral, they may even be wonderful, and good, and blessed. But they're not the source of abundant life.

And so, when your day, or week or month is over, you have an experience of emptiness that you instinctively know is not the birthright of a believer in Jesus Christ.

So let's look at some of the wrong places we might look for life, and then we'll see if there isn't a better way.

Some of the wrong places, as I inferred before, are not wrong places to BE. They're just not sources of abundant life.

For example, let's start with the obvious. Church.

Church

Now we know that the church is really the people of God, believers in Jesus Christ. It's not the building, or the sanctuary. But I'm speaking here of the gathering place we call “church”, as in, “I went to church today”.

We also agree, I'm sure, with the old saying, “There are no perfect churches.” But in general, going to church is a good thing. We think it should be a Bible-believing church, and ideally one in which there is a level of good teaching, good worship, and good fellowship among the brethren. But that being the case, going to church is a good thing. The Bible calls it “assembling together”, and it's not a good thing to neglect assembling together, all things being equal.

But let me say one thing clearly. It's foolish to think that assembling together, even under the most ideal conditions, is the source of abundant life. Not only is there no biblical warrant for such a belief, you only have to look around to see that there are plenty of believers who would never miss church, and yet have a lack of abundant life that is obvious. People who clearly know Jesus as Lord and Savior, but have an emptiness that you can see in their eyes.

You may be one of them. And you may have reached the simple truth that attending church, for the purpose in and of itself of getting abundant life, is a losing proposition. You may have even jumped from church to church, thinking that if one of them didn't give you abundant life, maybe another one will. You may have even attended a church with a name like “Abundant Life Church”, but you ironically didn't get abundant life by assembling there.

And so maybe you concluded that if you attended more activities at Abundant Life Church, that then you would have abundant life. So you attended the evening service, and the Wednesday night service, and Sunday School, and small cell group, and Ladies Retreat (or Men's Retreat, as the case may be), and Fish Fry and Easter pageant, and painting and mowing duty, and Visitation, and who knows what else?

And the nagging emptiness not only didn't go away, it intensified.

Your solution?

Spiritual Discipline

You read a book on the Disciplines of the Christian Life. “Yes!”, you shouted. That's what I've been missing. More Bible study. More meditation. More prayer. Make a list of all the missionaries, and pray for them. Start with yourself though. Get a good prayer formula going. How about A-C-T-S? Get it? ACTS, like the Book of Acts.

“A” stands for “adoration”. Start by adoring God.

“C” stands for “confession”. Confess every sin you can think of.

“T” stands for “thanksgiving”. Thank God for all your blessings.

“S” stands for “supplication”. Asking God for things.

But wait, A-C-T-S leaves out intercession. Praying for others. Maybe I can call my formula A-C-T-S-I? Doesn't sound as good, but Hey.

And so you do your Disciplines of the Christian Life for four days. But Friday you got too busy, and said you'd resume on Saturday, but Saturday you had errands to run. So you resumed on Monday, but you only got through A-C-T, and now you're running on empty plus guilty.

Maybe this Disciplines of the Christian Life thing isn't all it's cracked up to be.

But what else have you got?

Bible memorization, of course!

Should I memorize individual verses that are pertinent to my current life situations, or should I memorize whole passages that are universally applicable? John Chapter 1 maybe? Or how about Proverbs? We could all use some wisdom, couldn't we?

King James or New American Standard?

I'll think about that and start next week.

Let me get the MacArthur Bible Memorization course first.

No, maybe I'll just start right now. Or maybe I should do some intercessory prayer first.

No, maybe I should read my Bible first just to warm my heart for prayer.

Oh boy, it's time for work. I gotta go. Later, Lord.

Empty. Guilty.

Friend, is any of this ringing a bell?

Where is the Life?

Christian "Movements" & Roles

After you've gone Charismatic, and the hoopla and the so-called signs and the wonders aren't as wonder-ful as they were, and you've moved from jumping up and down in the front row, to just shouting in the middle rows, to sitting in the back row trying to be excited, but feeling pretty empty, even deceived, realizing that the tongues everybody else is speaking is just as phony as the ones you've been speaking....after all that, you ask yourself, “Where is the Life?”

After you've become a Deacon, or an Elder, or a Sunday School teacher, or a Pastor, or a leading Lady of the church, and you've tried to squeeze some juice of life out of the orange of your role, tried to make it fulfilling, tried to get some abundant life out of it...you ask yourself, “Where is the Life?”

Denying Self

And you might have conflicting thoughts about whether you should even have abundant life. Aren't we called to suffer for Christ? Aren't we called to be servants, to life sacrificially? Should we even care if we have life? Abundant life? After all, aren't we called to deny ourselves, and take up our cross, and follow Him?

That's it! I'll be more sacrificial. I'll deny myself more. Maybe that's where the abundant life is. “Or should I not even care about abundant life?”, you ask yourself again. But you try more sacrificial living. You rake the lawn for the old lady next door, and work harder on your Sunday School lesson, you bite your tongue when you are tempted to lash out at someone who wronged you, you give more money to the church, you repeat “It's not about me” thirty times.

But you can never sacrifice enough.

Emptiness. Guilt.

Vicious Cycles?

Then maybe you reason, “Hey, God isn't a slave driver. He loves me. I don't have to be so religious. He wants me to have abundant life, and I love golf, so I think I'll just skip church today and go golfing.”

Or choose your favorite activity. You figure there's no abundant life in all those Christian activities anyway, so let's go camping. Or go to a movie. Or start a new hobby. Or go to the “Y” and work out. Or read some John Grisham.

And you start the cycle over again. You look for abundant life in the things of the world, instead of the things of the church. Not morally evil things, necessarily. Just fun things. Enjoyment. Anything wrong with enjoyment? You ask it with a chip on your shoulder, but you're serious. You've had enough sacrifice. You have a life to live, too, don't you?

And the cycle continues, and you block out the emptiness for a while with your activity. You still go to church, but only on Sunday morning. You still read your Bible a little, but it's kinda “same ol' same ol'”.

And you cycle back to realizing that there's no abundant life in all those activities either. And maybe you cycle back into more church, more Disciplines of the Christian Life, more dedication and re-dedication, and another round of sacrificial serving of the Lord.

And you find that you just can't stop looking for life in all the wrong places.

The Whisper of Jesus

And then through a verse of Scripture, or some Christian book, or a friend, or just a remembrance in your mind of a time with the Lord a long time ago, Jesus whispers in your heart:

“I am the Life.”

And maybe you weep with the “rush” of that truth.

And you don't know exactly what to do, but you sense that you can't let it get away this time. It's too precious. HE is too precious. Oh, my God, don't let it slip away again. Guard me from the world, the flesh and the devil that would steal it away from me.

You are the Life. You are my abundant life. Jesus is my life. Jesus is my everything.

I remember that song now, “He Is All I Need”.

I remember the saying someone said, “If you have Christ, you have everything.” I knew what they meant, but I forgot. I got too busy. I didn't write it down. I didn't meditate on it. I didn't take the time to commune with you, Jesus.

You are my Life. I've looked for life in all the wrong places, and you were, of course, there and I didn't even see you. I talked about you. I wrote about you. I taught about you. I spoke your name. I worked for you. I served you. I witnessed. I had you living inside of me all this time.

But I forgot that you are my Life!

I forgot that there is Life in no other thing, no other person, no religion, no church, no dedication, no re-dedication, no sacrifice, no fun, no games, not even in words in a Bible apart from you.

I forgot that you told the Pharisees, “You search the Scriptures thinking in them you have life, but it is they that speak of Me.”

Your disciple whom you loved wrote, “He who has the Son has Life”.

The apostle wrote to the Colossians, “...Christ, Who is our Life...”

You said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the Life.”

It's you, Jesus. You are the abundant Life. You are MY Life.

Please, please, don't let me forget that anymore.

Looking For Life In All The Wrong Places

This week's audio message:

Looking For Life In All The Wrong Places

Grace For Life audio archives are here.

Why Christ Dying For Your Sins Was Not Enough

It's easy to read over Romans 5:10 rapidly and miss its point.

And yet it's one of the most sublime and poignant passages of Scripture.

"For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."

See, we were reconciled to God through the death of Christ. And that is a great truth. Our sins were paid for, the curtain of separation between us and God was taken out of the way. Nothing stood any longer between us and God.

Yet Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 that if Christ was not risen from the dead, then we Christians would be pitiful, because we would still be dead in our sins.

How can this be? Wasn't His death on the Cross enough?

Being separated from God by our sins was only part of the problem. We also were spiritually dead. And even if our sins were paid for, it would have been no more valuable than paying for the Purina Dog Chow of a dead Doberman.

There also needed to be Life. New Life. A New Creation.

Being reconciled to God, as wonderful as that is, was not enough, and so the death of Jesus was not enough. He had to be risen from the dead, so that we too could be risen from our awful state, dead in our sins and trespasses.

"...according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead....even when we were dead in trespasses, [He] made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus...", (Ephesians 1:19,20; 2:5,6)

And so Jesus had to rise from the dead, or we would be lost. And fools. And blind leading the blind.

But He did rise from the dead.

And so we have not only the reconciling to God from the death of Christ, but our salvation through New Life, given as a free gift by God through the same power He used to raise Christ from the dead!

And so we have Romans 5:10, with profound meaning that might escape us if we simply read over it rapidly. Romans 5:10...

"For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, WE SHALL BE SAVED BY HIS LIFE."

To All You Readers of Grace For Life,

We Love You.

Happy Easter!

He Is Risen!

Unreached People

You may have noticed in the margin of this blog a small box that tells something of people groups in the world who have basically not heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ at all. They have virtually no Christian population, no churches, no missionaries, etc.

Please, as you return to "Grace For Life", take that small box seriously, and consider praying for those featured there, as the Lord leads.

The information comes from an amazing group called The Joshua Project. The information changes daily, and the amazing thing is how many there are who have not heard.

The fields are still white unto harvest, and we still have the privilege to pray that the Lord of the harvest will sent laborers into His fields.

The Spirit of Truth

This week's audio message:

The Spirit of Truth

Grace For Life audio archives are here.

A Little Leaven From My Friends (Transcript)

I want to begin by reading from Galatians Chapter 5, beginning at verse 1.

"It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

"Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you.
  
"And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law.

"You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.
 
"For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness.
 
"For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.
 
"You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?
 
"This persuasion did not come from Him who calls you."

And our key verse, verse 9:
 
"A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough."

Legalism Even From Our Friends

Legalism comes at us from every direction. We read it in books, we see it online, we hear it from pulpits (of our own churches, or other churches we may visit or hear recordings of, or watch on TV).

And even if we have our antennae up to watch out for legalism, it seems to slip in.

Many times it comes from simple peer pressure, or what we would call our friends. And because they are our friends, we don't want to make a big deal out of it.

And it's true, we sure don't want to be Grace Pharisees, looking for a legalism demon behind every bush, and pouncing on anyone who encourages us to be obedient to the Lord, or to grow in holy behavior.

We want to be obedient and grow in holy behavior, if we're born again, don't we?

But I want to ask a question.

The Question

How much legalism is okay?

How much legalism should we entertain in our minds?

Not a lot, you may say, but how about just a little? Just a little legalism to keep us in line. Just a little legalism to remind us that we don't want to be like the world, or be too loose with our Christian faith.

But what does the word of God say? “A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough.”

What Is Leaven?

Now in this day of store-bought Wonder Bread, you might not know what leaven is. When bread is made, it's made from dough, which is some combination of flour, water, and whatever.

But before you bake it, if you want it to “rise”, as the term goes, in other words to develop pockets of air, in other words, so that it's tender, and not just hard and flat, you put yeast, which the Bible calls leaven here, into the dough.

The yeast, or leaven, causes little gas pockets to form in the dough while it's being kneaded and baked, and you end up with bread with thousands of little air pockets in it.

But the interesting thing is that when you put leaven into the dough, it sort of multiplies. It “infects” the whole lump of dough. So a little leaven becomes a lot of leaven, and ends up completely dominating the lump of dough.

And so elsewhere in the Bible, sin is spoken of as leaven, because a little sin in our lives, if unchecked, can result in a lot of sin. Hence the leaven illustration.

But in our passage in Galatians, the leaven is referring to Legalism, that awful false teaching which says one way or another that God's love and favor, or even salvation, is dependent on our works, not grace alone.

What It's All About - The New Covenant

So back to our question, “how much legalism is okay?”

To answer that question, let's go back to the very foundation of what the Christian life is primarily about. When God promised the New Covenant, through the prophets, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, for example, when He promised the New Covenant He said that He would cause His people, that’s us, to walk in His statutes, to walk in His ways. (Ezek 36:27)

Now He has fulfilled that promise of the New Covenant by what the Bible calls being born again. Or what Theology calls regeneration.

In the New Birth, we are given a new heart, a new spirit, and the Holy Spirit of God Himself comes into us, and we becomes one spirit with Him. We are not God and He is not us, but we become one spirit with Him, and through His Holy Spirit, the very Spirit of Christ, we are to live our Christian lives.

And so we see that the real purpose of our Christian life is to manifest, or exhibit, or live out the very life of Jesus Christ. We see in Gal 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it’s no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live, I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and delivered himself up for me.”

You see, it’s Christ living through you and me. The bible even say that Christ is our life (Col 3:4)

Is this actually happening, though? Is Christ really living His life through the believer?

Well, let’s look at Philippians 2:13, “for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” See, God does work in us to do good works or to show forth fruit, we may say.

Now I haven’t forgotten our subject today, a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough. But first, let’s clarify something.

Rom 8:28 says that God is working all things together for good to those who love Him. If you love Him, there is a sense in which even when your life is not all it should be, even when you mess up, even when you quench the Holy Spirit, or grieve the Holy Spirit, even when you don’t manifest the life of Christ as you would like to --- God works it together for good.

That is so important to understand, as we discuss this next part. And here’s the next part:

Walking By The Spirit

You and I have a choice, in our day to day life, to walk by the Spirit, or to walk by the flesh. The world, the flesh and the devil are always trying to deceive us and to pull us in the direction of the flesh, and away from the Spirit.

And when we are deceived and walk by the flesh, even when we do something that LOOKS good, or loving or helpful, or whatever, it is not the life of Christ being manifested through us, it is our flesh.

And remember what our purpose is? To manifest the life of Christ, to live out the very life of Jesus Christ.

So, back to the Legalism.

When God instituted the New Covenant through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, He did it all by grace. He gave us new life, a new spirit, the faith to believe in Him, the faith to repent or change our minds about Christ and our sin; He gave us the Holy Spirit. He did it all.

He even paid for and forgave all of our sins that we ever committed, and even forgave us all of our sins that we will ever commit in the future. All by grace. He even put his laws in our minds and on our hearts, and He even causes us to walk in His ways, to will and do His good pleasure. All by grace.

In other words, His covenant with us is Unilateral, or unconditional. It’s all of Him.

And it’s a good thing that it is. The Old Covenant fell short, why? Because the people couldn’t keep their end of the covenant. And so God instituted the glorious New Covenant, and promised to keep it Himself.

Legalism messes everything up.

Now not utimately. God still works everything together for good to those who love Him. But in our heart of hearts, we want His ways. We want to express His life thorough us. We want to manifest His life, don’t we?

And that’s where the evil of Legalism comes in.

We want to walk by the Spirit, but legalism comes in and quenches the Spirit. In our heart of hearts, we want to avoid sin, but the Law as our rule of life inflames sin. “Thou shalt not” as our rule of life works in our flesh to make us want to do that which thou shalt not.

Even if we DO follow some law or rule outwardly, if done through the flesh, it’s sin. Why? Because that which is not of faith is sin. (Rom 14:23)

But the bible declares that sin shall no longer be master over us, because we are not under law, but under grace.

Falling From Grace

And when we compromise with legalism, we fall from grace, as Paul told the Galatians. Now that doesn't mean we lose our salvation, as some who don't understand grace teach.

When Paul says the Galatians had fallen from grace, he simply meant that they had gotten off of the ground of grace, and on to the ground of law, which quenches the Holy Spirit, and inflames sin, and thus we don’t manifest the life of Christ as we wish.

That was Paul’s problem in Rom 7, when he did the things he didn’t want to do, and couldn’t do the things he wanted to do, and was in a wretched state that all of us can identify with.

Don’t let people put condemnation on you. You are free. You are forgiven. As we just read in Galatians 5:1, “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery.”

Don’t let even your friends tell you that God is angry with you, that He withholds His love based on your performance.

Don’t let even your friends tell you that you should live in misery because you don’t measure up to some standard that they set, and can’t even meet themselves.

Rest in Christ’s grace. Commune with Him. Love Him and let him love you. Surrender to this lover of your soul. Walk in His spirit.

When we compromise with Legalism it messes us up. And just a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough. When we are nice to Legalism, it is not nice back to us. It may make us feel superior for a while, puff us up with self-righteousness. But that’s a miserable way for a believer to live. How much better to manifest the life of Jesus.

How much better to live free in Christ. How much better to walk by the Spirit, and not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

We won’t do it perfectly. This isn’t a lesson in sinlessness or perfection. But try to recognize the little leaven when you see it creeping into your thinking. When it puts condemnation on you or some uneasy doubting of the love of God. Reject it.

Carpe Gratiam

Carpe Gratiam, seize the grace of God again. Seize the wonderful truth that He loves and accepts you in Christ, that He has given you His righteousness as a gift. That nothing can separate you from the love of Christ. That you are His forever, and that He lives in you, and that you can express His very life through your life.

Remember that just a little leaven of legalism leavens the whole lump of dough in your life. Walk in grace, free, to the glory of the Lord.

[Who knows, it might even rub off on your friends.]

A Little Leaven From My Friends

This week's audio message:

A Little Leaven From My Friends

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Simple Song of Freedom (Transcript)

In 1969 Bobby Darin wrote a song. The name of the song was “Simple Song of Freedom”, and the first line went like this, “Come and sing a simple song of freedom.”

The Simplicity That Is In Christ

Although this message has nothing to do with the subject of that song, I want to borrow the title, because of an important principle of Scripture, the simplicity that is in Christ.

We complicate things, sometimes. And we are confused by so much input, even about Jesus. Sometimes we even confuse ourselves, because we run to and fro looking for deep truth, when we haven't even latched on to the basic truths.

Let me ask you something before we get rolling on this Simple Song of Freedom. Do you ever criticize what we call “The Church Today”. You know, like, “Man the Church Today is sure messed up.” Or, “The Church Today is sure carnal. They've sure gone crazy with false doctrines, backsliding, worldliness, or whatever.”

Now I'm not saying there's not some truth to that, but I like to remind myself of two things, from time to time.

First I like to remind myself of the promise of Jesus, when He said, “...I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”

Or “will not prevail against it.” He's going to build the true church of the born-again ones, and nothing will stop that from happening. No child of God, chosen before the foundation of the world, will fail to come into the kingdom, and live forever with the King.

The second thing I like to remind myself, when I feel like complaining about the church, is how the the early churches were.

You know the problems the churches had in the second and third chapters of Revelation. Jesus spoke to those churches in Ephesus, and Smyrna, and Pergamum, and Thyatira, and Sardis, and Laodicea. And how about the Galatians, whom Paul called foolish, because even he was shocked how quickly they got off track on legalism.

And then there were the Corinthians. They were some church!

Paul spent more time straightening them out than any other church in the New Testament. They had problems, and when we say problems, we mean “sin”, but I'll just use “proglems” in this context.

They had problems with unity, lack of wisdom, not relying on the Spirit of God, carnality, not being servant-minded, flat out immorality, or at least allowing it openly in the church family, suing one another in court, idolatry, disrespecting Paul's authority as an apostle, order in the church, making a mockery of the Lord's Supper, misusing spiritual gifts, lacking in love, immaturity, and bad doctrine on the resurrection. And that's just in 1 Corinthians!

And even after all the correction Paul had done for the Corinthians, in Chapter 11 of 2 Corinthians, verse 3 and following, Paul writes,

“But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.”

See, even after all that Paul had done for the Corinthians, and taught the Corinthians, and corrected in the Corinthians, he still considered them shaky.

Some Encouragement

And so I'm not giving this message to put down the church of today. Jesus is building His church. And I love the church, the Body of Christ. He is working in all of us to bring about His purposes. And I want to be an encourager, not a complainer.

I want to be Barnabas, son of encouragement today. I want to be the one who, when Paul got frustrated at John Mark, and kicked him off the ministry team, I want to be the one like Barnabas who took John Mark under his wing, and encouraged him, and was patient with him, and saw God's potential in him. And by the time the story was over, John Mark ended up a valuable assistant to Paul, who had rejected him, and John Mark wrote the gospel that we call the Gospel of Mark.

I want to encourage you today. And one of the best ways I can do that is to go back to that passage in 2 Corinthians, verse 3, “But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.”

Or as the King James puts it, “the simplicity which is in Christ.”

You see, the Christian life, with all its complications, is really simple in some ways. We organize, and specialize, and generalize, and complicate things in a hundred different ways, but there is a simplicity in Christ that we need to discipline ourselves to get back to.

The Discipline of Simplicity

We need to discipline ourselves to get back to the simplicity that is in Christ. This is a simple song of freedom. We're free from a complicated religious system like Israel was put under in the Old Covenant.

We have a simple relationship to God, through a simple covenant He has made with us, called the New Covenant.

Now, I'm not saying God is simple. We can exhaust a lifetime and just scratch the surface of the beautiful intricacies of our Lord. But our relationship to Him is meant to be a simple one.

And notice that Paul's concern for the Corinthians was that this simplicity would be complicated by false teaching, false gospels, and other complications of the world, the flesh and the devil.

And so I want to briefly mention three simplicities that are important to us, as believers, and as those who seek to share the simple gospel of Jesus Christ with others.

1. The Simplicity of The New Birth - Regeneration

This is perhaps the simplest of all, because when Jesus said, “You must be born again”, He referred to that work of the Holy Spirit with which we have nothing to do. The “wind blows wherever it wants”, and such is the Wind of the Holy Spirit, Who gives new life, the new birth, regenerates those Whom He will.

And until one is born again, he can't even SEE the Kingdom of God, let alone believe in its King.

Profound in its implications, and worthy of a lifetime of study, yet extremely simple at its core. And it elevates the Sovereign God as it declares, sola gratia, by grace alone, since no baby can “born” itself, and no person can “born again” themselves. It must be only by the grace of God.

2. The Simplicity of God's Righteousness – Justification

Scripture makes it clear that even our righteousnesses are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). In other words, before we are born again, even what we do that seems “good” is not good. It is tainted by the fallen nature of one born in sin. One who inherited a sin nature from Adam.

An Alien Righteousness

And since there is “none who does good” and none who “seeks after God” (Rom. 3), there is nothing we can do to for our own righteousness. We need a new righteousness. We need what is sometimes in Theology called an “alien righteousness”, one from outside ourselves.

But lo and behold, that is exactly what Jesus has provided for all those who believe in Him.

Remember Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes...”?

Well, the next verse, verse 17 tells why the gospel is the power of God for salvation:

“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, 'But the righteous man shall live by faith'.”

See, that's the “alien righteousness” we needed, the righteousness of God. If we could get rid of our so-called righteousness, which is really unrighteousness, and if we could somehow have God's righteousness as our own, as a gift, let's say, we would then be in pretty good shape. But how could we get it? How could we exchange our unrighteousness for God's righteousness?

The simple answer is the Cross of Christ.

Let's read it in two passages, one from Romans, and one from 2 Corinthians.

Romans 5:17,18, “For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.

See, just as we inherited the sin nature from Adam, through the death of Jesus on the Cross, we were justified, which means “declared righteous”.

Now before I read the passage from 2 Corinthians, we need a couple of definitions here. Not complicated ones, remember we're seeking the simplicity which is in Christ. So here are two simple definintions.

1 - "Justified" in this context means “declared righteous” by God.

2 - "Righteous", in this context, means “in right standing with God as though we had never had a sin nature and had never sinned.”

So by Jesus' death on the cross, and His shed blood, we are declared by God to be in right standing with Him, as though we had never had a sin nature, and had never sinned.

Now let's read 2 Corinthians, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

That explains the actual method of Christ on the Cross. He took our sins on Himself, even though He was sinless, and in paying the price for our sins, He opened the door for God to declare us righteous.

How do receive what He has accomplished? By faith alone, or as the Reformers put it, sola fide. By our simply believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, and what He did on that Cross, we are justified, declared righteous by God.

And so there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ (Rom. 8:1). We can come before the Awesome Creator as our Abba, Father, just as Jesus Himself can. We are now a friend to Jesus.

We are His beloved and He is our Beloved.

All because He has declared us righteous.

Now you may be tempted, as some have said, “Yes, but I'm not really righteous, that's just in God's eyes.” Please avoid that temptation. Don't dishonor the Lord by saying it's only in His eyes, as if His eyes didn't matter. "His eyes" is what matters most of all. Take God at His word. Don't water down the righteousness that God has given to you. If He's given you the gift of His righteousness, whose is it now? It's your's friend. Accept it. Don't brag on it like you earned it. But humbly accept it.

Which brings me then to...

3. The Simplicity of Walking By The Spirit

I've written and spoken much on this point, so I won't belabor it here. But if you are born again, you have the Spirit of God in you, and you have become one spirit with Him. (1 Cor 6:17, "But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him."

He has made you a new creation, and given you a new nature, which has become one spirit with the Lord Himself. When you sin now, you are going against your new nature. It's not natural for you to sin anymore. Romans 6:11 says that you are dead to sin but alive to God through Jesus Christ.

Now the simple thing for you to do is to commune with Jesus. He is in you now. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Draw near to Him, fellowship with Him, read his Word, talk to Him.

Throughout your day, be aware of His presence, talk to Him continually. As you learn His Word, take every thought captive to Him. As you think a thought, ask, “Is that what the Bible says? Is that what my Lord whom I love thinks?” And bring your thoughts into line with His.

Think on those things that are true and good. And talk to Him some more. I could say “pray without ceasing”, that's Scripture. But talk to Him, read and study His word.

And don't reduce your Christian life to laws and rules.

Make it a simple relationship to the one you love. We love Him because He first loved us. As you live that way, you will learn to more and more walk by His Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. And you will learn truth, and truth will set you free, and you can join in the choir of those who sing a simple song of freedom.

The simplicity which is in Christ.

Simple Song of Freedom

This week's audio message:

Simple Song of Freedom

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