Grace For Life

Michael Jackson, Art & Life

2009-06-29T09:26:00.000-05:00

Michael Jackson was undeniably one of this world's greatest artists.

His art will "live on", as we say.

Much has been written about art imitating life.

I read a great quote by William Faulkner relating to that:

"The aim of every artist is to arrest motion,
which is life... and hold it fixed so that
a hundred years later, when a stranger
looks at it, it moves again since it is life."

This is why we appreciate art -- if we do :)

But "as time goes by"..."we must remember this":

There is life...

And then there is Life!

Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." -- John 14:6

He also said, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." -- John 10:10

"He who has the Son has Life. He who does not have the Son does not have Life." --1 John 5:12

Sobering...and glorious.

Mopping Up The Battlefield Of Our Mind (Transcript/Notes)

2009-06-29T08:44:00.003-05:00

2 Cor. 10:4,5 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,

We want to look particularly at that last part of the passage, “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ”

But first let’s look a little closer at the first part of passage.

We won’t go into a great deal about the first part of the passage today, but it’s important. The picture God is painting here is one of storming and conquering a fortress, or castle. There are a lot of aspects to this, like our spiritual armor, prayer, the Word of God itself, faith, and so forth. But the most important thing in this raiding of the Castle of Evil is the Gospel itself.

Where's The Power?

We are not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the power of God for salvation to those who believe. (Rom 1:16). Did you get that? Don’t take this lightly. Do you know that you will never really change a person in the core of their being?

You may clean them up and make them look better and make them a better businessman or public speaker, or more successful, or more powerful personally or politically, but may I ask the question the Scripture asks? “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but foreits his soul?”

You see the fortress or castle that we want to pull down is the Kingdom of darkness that has enslaved every man and woman since Adam and Eve. It’s the Kingdom of lies, and the lies are against the One who is the Truth, and the Way and the Life.

And the primary thing that pulls down that fortress, that kingdom of darkness, is the Gospel, because it not only shines truth in the darkness, it actually has the POWER to change the heart. To grant the free gift of a new spirit, to make a new creation.

But enough on the first part of our passage, let’s look at the real subject of our message today, 2 Cor 10:5 bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

Bring Every Thought Captive

Do you know what a "mopping-up" operation is in warfare?

After a battle is won, the battle is seldom ever totally over. There is always a stray enemy sniper here, an enemy soldier playing possum over there, waiting to jump up and knife you when you walk by, some enemy troops who were out on patrol, and arrive back, not even knowing there was a battle.

Sometimes just those enemies who escape into the hills and never give up. You may have heard of the Japanese soldiers we found on an island, I think it was in the 1960’s. They were cut off from communications, and they never knew that World War II was over.

Anyway, 2 cor 10:5, bringing every thought into captivity is the mopping-up operation in the battles that the Gospel has already won. Are you a Christian? Then the battle for your soul has already been won.

The Gospel, which is the power of God, won you. The enemy's desire to keep you in His kingdom was foiled. You are a child of God. Your sins are forgiven, you have eternal life, and you are destined to forever be present with your King in heaven.

But there are still some snipers out there, there are still some enemies pretending to be dead, there are still some who don’t even know the battle is won. And they will seek to deceive you, and hinder your walk.

They will seek to deny the Word of God, while you don’t even know you’re denying it. They will seek to make you think things that will hinder you from having the fruit of the Spirit in your daily life, because lies have a way of quenching the Spirit and keeping us from being filled with the Spirit.

The Worst Lies Fall Into Three Categories:

1.Lies about God Himself.

Lies about God may include that He Himself is a liar, or that he may not really love us, or that He may not really judge those who reject Christ with the Lake of Fire, or that is not just, or that He is not all-powerful, or that He doesn’t know the future, or that He didn’t really raise Jesus from the dead, or that Jesus is not God, and on and on.

These are often the foundations for false religions and cults, but they are not absent from the visible church.

2.Lies about man.

These may include lies like all men are born good, or man is really divine, or man can save himself by his good works. Other lies revolve around the condition of the born-again believer. Like saying that we are just the same as we were before being saved, except forgiven, instead of the truth that we are new creations who love God and hate sin.

Or lies that we are not really righteous, even though God’s word clearly says that we have been justified, declared righteous, because of Christ’s death on the cross.

3.Lies about the Word of God, the Bible.

If the enemy can get you to doubt the Word of God, even as a believer, he has gained one of his biggest footholds in hindering your spiritual walk.

Especially regarding the New Covenant, and the wonderful love and acceptance that God has for you, because of His grace, His free gift of righteousness and salvation. If the enemy can get you to doubt that, then you will shy away from Jesus in your daily life, instead of fellowshiping closely with Him.

Listen, He is your Daily Bread. He is the Life you feed on, indeed He is your very Life, if you are a Christian.

Anything that leads you away from the sweet communion with Him needs to be speared to death with the TRUTH of the Word of God. Every thought that comes to you mind needs to be measured. It’s a habit.

Get in the habit of measuring every thought by this:

Is it true according to the Word of my Lord and Savior?

Take those thoughts captive. Examine them. Throw the false ones in the garbage. Treasure the true ones. They will fill your heart with love for Jesus.

How Is The Mind The Battleground For Spiritual Warfare?

Often it's said that the battleground of the Devil is the mind. And we’ve seen there is truth to that. But how is the mind the battleground for spiritual warfare?

Follow me here:

Q. What does the mind do?
A. It thinks.

Q. What does it think?
A. It thinks thoughts.

Thoughts may be divided into two classes, truth and lies.

And that is the real "materiel" of spiritual warfare: truth vs. lies.

That's why the scripture speaks of "doctrines of demons" (1 Tim. 4:1), because doctrines (teachings) of demons are lies. It's truth that sets us free, and it's lies that put us in bondage of various kinds.

Where Is The Authoritative Truth?

Which leads us to the question, "Where is authoritative truth?"

Well, it's in the Scriptures. That's why we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:1,2).

And the Devil and demons are not our only enemies. There are also the World and the Flesh. Any one of the unholy three (the World, the Flesh, and the Devil) is able to de-rail us, if we are not filled with the Truth of the Word of God.

How are we filled with the Word of God?

I would recommend five ways:

1. Reading the Word, especially the New Testament epistles.

2. Studying the Word, perhaps using good commentaries, word studies, Bible dictionaries, etc.

3. Meditating on the Word. Thinking over each passage, asking questions like Who, What, When, Where, Why?

4. Praying the Word. Asking God to teach us, and equip us with His grace, to understand and be able to live each passage, as it is applied to our lives.

5. Perhaps most important, always relating the Word to Jesus Christ, Who is the Living Word.

He who is our Life, Jesus Christ, Who is one in spirit with us believers, is the Object of the Scriptures. All Scriptures point to Him, and He is Truth personified. Seek Him in every passage. He is our Bread. Feed on Him. Don't view the Scriptures as just some kind of rule book or map. It breathes Christ! Our Savior, our Lord, our Counselor, our Friend!

When you recognize a lie, renounce it. Put it away.

But be sure to replace it with the truth.

Practice the truth. Seek it out. Don't let a lie rest. Root it out. Pray for the Lord to lead you in truth, which does indeed set us free. Stand on the truth. That's what the warfare is about. And taking captive your thoughts is the mopping-up operation.

"It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery." -- Galatians 5:1

Mopping Up The Battlefield Of Our Mind

2009-06-29T08:39:00.001-05:00

This week's audio message:

Mopping Up The Battlefield Of Our Mind

Grace For Life audio archives are here.

Favoritism, Jealousy, Murder & Romans 8:28

2009-06-28T15:00:00.000-05:00

No, I'm not talking about the latest TV drama.

I've always been fascinated by the story of Joseph, in the last part of the book of Genesis.

Very simple story on the surface:

1. Jacob shows favoritism to "son of his old age", Joseph.

2. Joseph's brothers are jealous (not surprising, is it?).

3. They decide to murder him. But one of the brothers think that's a little drastic, so they sell him to a caravan of merchants, who sell him as a slave to a high muckety-muck in the Egyptian Pharoah's court, named Potiphar.

Okay, they didn't end up literally murdering Joseph, but later Jesus would clarify that their very hatred for Joseph was in fact murder in their hearts.

So Where Does Romans 8:28 Come In?

We really need to take Rom. 8:28 literally when it says "ALL". "God causes ALL things to work together for good to those who live Him, to those who are the called according to His purpose."

I mean, really, how much more obvious can it get, in the story of Joseph?

God uses Jacob's sin of favoritism to make his sons jealous.

Then God uses the brothers' jealousy to get Joseph sent to Egypt.

You know the rest of the story don't you? Joseph interprets some dreams, wins the favor of the Pharoah, ends up CEO of Egypt, and saves his dad and brothers from famine when they end up in Egypt to get grain (extremely shortened version).

But that's not the end of the story.

In saving the nation of Israel, God continued the preparation of a people to bring forth the Messiah, who by His death ratified a New Covenant by which we are saved and brought into fellowship with our Creator, Who indwells us and is preparing us a place in heaven.

Favoritism, Jealousy & Murder. If God can work those together for good to us who love Him, do you really think that there is ANYTHING in our lives that He is not working together for our good?

Our failures?

Our sins?

The sins of others toward us?

Political evils, crooked businessmen, tornadoes & hurricanes?

If not, then let's replace our grumbling with praise, and our complaining with gratitude.

Loving God More

2009-06-24T00:15:00.000-05:00

By Michele Rayburn

In his book, The Attributes of God, in the chapter on The Love of God, A.W. Pink expresses his concern about the "low state of spirituality among professing Christians", and that there is so little real love for God. He says that if we realize how much God loves His people then "the more will our hearts be drawn out in love to Him."

This is good to point out, because we want to be like Him, be imitators of Him. And our love for others is an outward expression of our inward love for the Lord, and it’s what we are called to do.

But I think that the problem of the low state of spirituality is more than just not being "acquainted with His love" for His people, but that we are not better acquainted with Jesus Christ. If we want to love God more, it begins with knowing Jesus intimately. "In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily..." (Col. 2:9).

Our hearts need to be occupied with Jesus Christ Himself. Our thoughts need to be directed to Him continually. If we would develop our relationship with our Lord, not only would we love Him more, but we would find in Him, and through our relationship with Him, a greater capacity to love others. If we abide in Christ, we will be filled with the Spirit, and when we are filled with the Spirit, we will have the fruit of the Spirit, the first of which is love.

God’s love is uninfluenced by anything that is in us, and God’s love is eternal and everlasting. To be loved not because of who we are, but simply because we are His is so important for Christians to know and rejoice in. And that is what sets us free to love God more and to love others more.

Pink sums it up by saying: "...let no Christian call into question God’s love when he is brought under painful afflictions and trials. God did not enrich Christ on earth with temporal prosperity..." But He did give Him the Spirit "without measure" (John 3:34).

It makes me think of the Scriptures that say "the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20-21), and "seek those things which are above" (Col 3:1). And Romans 8:5-6, which says, "For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

We just need to be more spiritually minded in order to be of any earthly good!

Freedom Comes From Truth

2009-06-15T09:21:00.001-05:00

This week's audio message:

Freedom Comes From Truth

Grace For Life audio archives are here.

Our Silver Anniversary

2009-06-02T12:18:00.008-05:00

In 1981 I heard Michele's voice before I ever met her, or even saw her.

I moved from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Dallas, Texas, shortly after Michele moved from Upstate New York to Dallas.

She got a job at the Dallas Times Herald newspaper (now defunct) in the Classified Advertising Department. Lo and behold, so did I, maybe three months later. By the time I started there, she had already been trained, but when I was being trained, I had to monitor ("listen in on") an already experienced ad salesperson. This was done anonymously by remote headphones, and the person I was assigned to monitor was...Michele. I loved her voice even before I met her.

Days later, I was standing in line for a vending machine during a break, and this beautiful girl in front of me turned around and smiled and said, "Hi". It was "the voice". And whether it was "love at first sight" or not, it wasn't long before I knew I wanted to marry this girl.

I called her One-In-A-Billion as a nickname, and I still think she is.

By the time I met her family in Long Island, I felt like I knew them. They were New York Italians, one generation from Naples. I felt like I was in The Godfather, minus the crime. Her mom grew up in Jamaica Queens, New York, and says "berl" for "boil", and fuh-get-a-bout-it! (honest). I loved it.

Her dad had heard about my being a Christian bible-teacher, and when I met him, he asked with his Roman Catholic influenced thinking, "Do you bless houses? 'Cause we could use a blessing." What a special guy, who lit up when we talked about the Lord with him, sharing with him the gospel, with some hope that he was born again before he passed away.

We had our wedding in Long Island in an Evangelical Free Church. Evangelical churches were few and far between in an area mostly Roman Catholic or Jewish.

Michele's mom threw us a wonderful ITALIAN wedding party/feast, straight out of your cliche Hollywood Italian movie.

It was in a Knights of Columbus hall. We had Baked Ziti for dinner, vino flowed, and we danced the Tarantella. You know, where a whole bunch of people hold hands in a big circle and the lively accordion music plays while you circle around one way and then the other.

My mother and my Aunt Carol flew in from Michigan. If you knew what it would take to get my mom on an airplane, you'd know how much she loved me :)

For our honeymoon Michele and I drove from New York down through the beautiful Appalachian mountains, through Tennessee, and back up to Grand Rapids, Michigan.

On the way we rode a paddle-wheel riverboat, toured one of those big caves in Kentucky, and rode horses (mine was a wildish one who wanted to leave the trail and eat bushes, Michele's was a well-behaved Tennessee Walker). We loved Tennessee, and two years later we moved there...here.

Well, 25 years after that wedding day (seems like yesterday, as the saying goes), I still love Michele with all my heart.

She has been a great gift from God to me. And she gave me the gift of a wonderful son, Michael, now 15 years old.

Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart.

Jesus Our Sabbath Rest, Part 2 (Transcript)

2009-06-01T09:29:00.002-05:00

Before we get started, I want to say something briefly about physical rest.

Although the Fourth Commandment to do no work on the Sabbath or seventh day of the week, indeed the Old Covenant itself, was made obsolete by the New Covenant, there is nothing wrong with taking a day off to rest.

One of the beauties of studying the Old Testament is in learning the wisdom of God, who is all-wise, and knows all things. And physical rest is important, just as rotating crops from year to year was important, for example, so as to not deplete the soil.

And just as too much of almost anything can lead to what we have come to call burnout. So I encourage gleaning practical and spiritual wisdom and principles from the Old Testament, as long as we don’t fall into the trap of legalism, or putting ourselves under Law as a means of earning God’s love and favor.

O.K., Jesus our Sabbath, Part 2:

Brief Recap of Part 1

In Part 1 we gave several reasons why the Old Covenant Sabbath-keeping is not for believers under the New Covenant.

Briefly these are as follows:

1.In Colossians 2:16-17, Paul clearly refers to the Sabbath as a shadow of Christ, which is no longer binding since the substance (Christ) has come.

2.The Sabbath was the sign to Israel of the Old Covenant
( Ezekiel 20:12). Since we are now under the New Covenant (Hebrews 8), we are no longer required to observe the sign of the Old Covenant.

3.The New Testament never commands Christians to observe the Sabbath.

4.The church met on the first day of the week in the book of Acts (Acts 20:7), and even that is not a command, but merely a practice that sprang up, possibly in honor of Christ who rose from the dead that day.

5.We touched on this already, but nowhere even in the Old Testament are the Gentile nations commanded to observe the Sabbath or criticized for not observing it. That makes it clear that Sabbath-keeping is not meant to be an eternal moral principle.

6.Nowhere in the Bible does anyone keeping the Sabbath before the time of Moses, and there are no commandments in the Bible to keep the Sabbath before the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai.

7.The apostle Paul warned the Gentiles about many different sins in his epistles, but breaking the Sabbath was never one of them.

8.In Galatians 4:10-11, Paul rebukes the Galatians for thinking God expected them to observe special days (including the Sabbath).

9.Nothing in Scripture indicates that Sunday has not replaced Saturday as the Sabbath. Believers tend to gather on Sunday, which is the first day of the week, but there is no command of scripture to do so.

10.Lastly, Hebrews 4:9-11 makes it clear that the Sabbath was all along meant to be a shadow of Christ who came to be our Sabbath rest.

It’s that last point, number 10, that I would like to dwell on for a while…that Jesus Christ Himself is our Sabbath rest, and we need no other.

About the Book of Hebrews

But before we get to this argument in Hebrews, primarily Chapter 4, let me give just a very brief overview of the Book of Hebrews as it relates to the New Covenant.

Hebrews was written specifically to Jewish Christians who had been undergoing some persecution, and would no doubt have more persecution in the future.

The letter was intended to show the superiority of Christianity over Judaism, or maybe to put it better, to show how much better the New Covenant than the Old Covenant. And not just better, but how the New Covenant made the Old Covenant obsolete, as we read in Hebrews Chapter 8.

Let me just sort of rattle off these great themes of Hebrews. I won’t read the scriptural passages, though I would love you to read them when you’re through listening to this, so I’ll reference the Chapters where these themes occur.

Here are the themes:

Jesus is a better revelation of truth 1:1-3
Jesus is better than the angels 1:3-14
Jesus is better than Moses 3:1-6
Jesus is better than Aaron, Moses’ brother, the priest 5
Jesus is a better high priest 6,7
The New Covenant has a better law 7:12
The New Covenant is a better covenant 8:6
The New Covenant has better promises 8:6
The New Covenant has a greater temple 9:11
The New Covenant has better sacrifices or sacrifice 9:23
The New Covenant has a better possession 10:34
The New Covenant has a better country 11:16
The New Covenant has a better resurrection 11:35
The New Covenant has better blood 12:24
The New Covenant has better atonement, which of course, goes beyond just covering sins, but taking them away, which the Old Covenant atonement could never do 10:1-5

So we see the overall theme of Hebrews might be called “betterness”, the betterness of Christ over Moses and the betterness of the New Covenant to the Old.

Who Hebres Was Written To, And A Warning

Now I’ve left out part of Chapter 3 and all of Chapter 4, but now I want to talk about that, because this is where we find that the New Covenant has a better Sabbath.

Now when I said that Hebrews was written to Jewish Christians, I should have said PROFESSING Jewish Christians, because the writer is careful not to assume that all his readers are really born again.

And so he warns them in Chapter 3, verses 7-11, not to harden their hearts as the Israelites did in the Wilderness, causing God to swear, “They shall not enter my rest.” Now the writer is quoting Psalm 95 here, but here’s what’s important to realize. These Israelites already had the Sabbath law. They already had the Fourth Commandment, and yet they did not enter God’s rest.

And the writer of Hebrews is warning those who have not yet really believed in the Messiah, and then encouraging them to believe, by showing them the superiority of Christ.

He makes it clear that the rest is to come by belief, by faith. Faith in what? Or more accurately, faith in whom?

Well, Christ, the Messiah! The one who is better than Moses and whose New Covenant is better than the Old. Or to put it another way, believing the Gospel, the good news. Look at Chapter 4, verse 2, “For indeed we have had good news preached to us...”

The "Rest" Of The Gospel

And so the case is made in Chapter 4 that this rest comes from believing the good news, and in verse 7 the writer emphasizes that the day to believe the good news is “Today”. It’s always “today”, isn’t it? Today is the day of salvation, today is the day to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ if you haven’t.

Thank God we are still under the New Covenant. It’s still “today”.

That’s why Hebrews 4:9,10 says, “There remains, therefore, a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.” That’s our Sabbath. See that?

A Shadow of Things To Come

That’s why we read in Colossians 2:17 that the Old Covenant Sabbath was just a shadow of things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

Christ is our Sabbath, our better Sabbath, because He paid for our sins, and gave us forgiveness for all of our sins, past, present and future, and declared us Righteous in Him.

So we can rest from our works. We can rest from our performance as a means of gaining the love and favor of God. He already loves us and He has already favored us in Christ. That’s our rest. That’s our Sabbath.

Now I should mention, if you might be reading the King James version, that Hebrews. 4:9 doesn’t say “Sabbath rest”, it just says, “rest”. But the Greek word is Sabbatismos, and it’s the only place it occurs in Scripture. It’s the word for Sabbath, applied to the beautiful rest from our works that Christ has provided.

It Is Finished

And one more thing about Chapter 4, verse 10. When it says, “For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works...”, those words translated “rested” are written in the verb tense which means they are DONE, they are completed, they are finished, just as Jesus said on the Cross, “It is finished”.

What that means is that when you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, when you became a Christian, when you were saved, you permanently entered into His rest. He no longer holds your sins against you, because you have rested from your works and His work on the Cross has paid for your rest.

Why is that important? Because it tells you, “Don’t be restless, now that you’ve rested.” Don’t jump back into the Law-based mode and try to earn God’s love and favor. Rest in the love and favor that He already has for you, paid for by Jesus on the Cross.

And that’s why the writer of Hebrews can go on to tell of the better priesthood, and the better promises, and the better sacrifice, and the better blood. Because under the Old Covenant, there was this awful veil of separation between God and Man, but under the New Covenant, the veil has been torn, and we now can come boldly or draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, to receive mercy and find grace to help in time of trouble.

Christ In You, The Hope of Glory

We not only can approach the throne of God boldly, we have the very Christ Himself inside us, Christ in you the hope of glory.

That’s our Sabbath. That’s our Sabbath rest.

And that’s why Jesus, just before one of his Sabbath confrontations with the Pharisees, in Matthew 11:28,29, said, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls.”

Have you entered that rest? Have you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ? He died on the Cross to pay for sins, and to give the free gift of His righteousness to all who would come to Him. Then He rose from the dead, and is alive today. Believe in Him today, if you haven’t.

And if you are already a believer, you have entered into that rest, that beautiful Sabbbath rest which is Jesus Christ. Your works, your performance, are no longer the requirement for God’s favor. He has given us all spiritual blessings in Christ (Eph. 1:3) He loves you and desires your close fellowship with Him.

Oh, you will do works. But they will be the works worked in you by His Spirit, His very life. For it’s God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13).

Friends, rest in Him, your Sabbath rest.

Jesus Our Sabbath Rest, Part 2

2009-06-01T09:25:00.001-05:00

This week's audio message:

Jesus Our Sabbath Rest, Part 2

Grace For Life audio archives are here.

Jesus Our Sabbath Rest, Part 1 (Transcript)

2009-05-25T09:40:00.004-05:00

Before talking about the Sabbath, or Sabbath-keeping, or Jesus as our Sabbath rest, let me first admit that in America, the Sabbath is no longer considered much by the vast population.

In my home town, Grand Rapids, Michigan, when I was a little kid in the 1950’s, the Sunday Sabbath was not only taught in most churches, but was legislated by the city itself, or forced by the pressure of Christian church groups.

Alcohol couldn’t be sold on Sundays, stores and other workplaces were closed on Sunday, sports were strongly discouraged, and in most neighborhoods one would not even mow their lawn on Sunday, because of peer pressure.

While this may sound to some of you like a documentary about some bizarre religious cult, believe me, this was the tradition of much of America before the ‘60’s, and European Reformed Church influence dating back to the Reformation of the 1500’s.

And I’m well aware that much has changed these days. And yet there are many who still think of Sunday as the Sabbath Day, and practice various levels of abstaining from work, or demanding certain practices on that day, to fulfill religious duty. And there are still Christian sects and cults who teach Seventh Day or Saturday Sabbatarianism even to the point of requiring it for salvation.

So I want to look at Sabbath Keeping in this and one other message. This time we’ll deal with the abolishing of Sabbath Keeping in the New Covenant, and next time dig deeper into the subject of Jesus Christ as our new Sabbath rest.

First, Some Old Covenant Scriptures

Exodus 20:8, "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy."

Exodus 20:10, "but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you."

Exodus 20:11, "For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy."

Exodus 31:14, "Therefore you are to observe the sabbath, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people."

Exodus 31:15, "For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, holy to the LORD; whoever does any work on the sabbath day shall surely be put to death."

Israel Only

Before we go any further, notice this: you will notice that this was a covenant with the nation of Israel only. There was no universal Sabbath commandment for the nations, the Gentiles.

“Wait a minute”, you might say. “What about in Genesis? Didn’t God say something about the Sabbath after He created everything in six days, and rested on the seventh?”

Well, here is what He said:

Genesis 2:2, "By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Genesis 2:3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made."

No commands here. Certainly nothing about refraining from doing anything on the seventh day. But way back then, God was filtering into our thinking something about this idea of rest. Rest from working.

How Serious Were The Sabbath Commands?

But back to Israel in the book of Exodus.

Was God serious about this Sabbath-keeping for Israel? He sure was. This was part of what we call the Mosaic Covenant, or Old Covenant which God made with Israel at Mount Sinai. And God was VERY serious about the Sabbath. Profane the Sabbath, and you die. That was the Law.

The actual Sabbath commandments for Israel were bad enough. But by the time Jesus walked the earth, the Pharisees were holding up a much tougher bunch of rules that they actually held ABOVE the Law.

For example, the law included detailed regulations regarding what constituted a "burden" that could not be carried on the Sabbath; for example, pieces of paper, horses hairs, wax, a piece of broken earthenware or animal food. Generally a burden was anything as heavy as a dried fig, or a quantity sufficient to be of any practical use (e.g. a scrap of paper large enough to be converted into a note or a wrapper).

It prescribed what might or might not be saved if one’s house caught on fire. Only those clothes that were absolutely necessary could be saved. But one could put on a dress, save it, then go back and put on another. One could not ask a Gentile to extinguish the flames. But if he did so voluntarily, he should not be hindered.

One could eat food on the Sabbath lawfully only if it had been specifically prepared for the Sabbath on a weekday. If a laying hen laid an egg on the Sabbath, it could not be eaten. But if the hen had been kept for fattening and not laying, the egg could be eaten, since it would be considered a part of the hen that had fallen off!

These regulations considered studying the Mishna on the Sabbath more important than studying the Bible. The Hagiographa (the Old Testament "Writings") were not to be read on the Sabbath except in the evening. And there are many other similar examples.

Of special interest to us are the laws regarding harvesting and healing on the Sabbath. Even the slightest activity involving picking grain—removing the husks, rubbing the heads, cleaning or bruising the ears or throwing them up in the hand—was forbidden.

Yet if a man wanted to move a sheaf on his field, he had only to lay a spoon on it; then, in order to remove the spoon, he might also remove the sheaf on which it lay!

Did Jesus Break The Sabbath?

All this is important in order to realize that Jesus never broke the Sabbath. He lived under the Old Covenant, and was expected to obey the Sabbath laws, and He did.

But He did not obey the rules of the Pharisees, and that infuriated them.

Ironically, by adding to the Law of God their own rules, the Pharisees were breaking the Law of God. Listen to Deuteronomy 4:2, "You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you."

Is The Sabbath For Us Today?

Now, what about us? Is the Sabbath for us today?

The clear answer from Scripture is no.

We are under the New Covenant, and the Bible in the Book of Hebrews, Chapter 8, makes it clear that the New Covenant has made the Old Covenant obsolete (Heb. 8:13).

That alone is enough to make it clear that Sabbath-keeping is not for us today.

But let’s look at more detailed reasons why we are not Sabbatarians:

1.We read In Colossians 2:16-17,

16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

Paul clearly refers to the Sabbath as a shadow of Christ, which is no longer binding since the substance (Christ) has come.

2.The Sabbath was the sign to Israel of the Old Covenant (Ezekiel 20:12). Since we are now under the New Covenant (Hebrews 8), we are no longer required to observe the sign of the Old Covenant.

3.The New Testament never commands Christians to observe the Sabbath.

4.The church met on the first day of the week in the book of Acts (Acts 20:7), and even that is not a command, but merely a practice that sprang up, possibly in honor of Christ who rose from the dead that day.

5.We touched on this already, but nowhere even in the Old Testament are the Gentile nations commanded to observe the Sabbath or criticized for not observing it. That makes it clear that Sabbath-keeping is not meant to be an eternal moral principle.

6.Nowhere in the Bible does anyone keeping the Sabbath before the time of Moses, and there are no commandments in the Bible to keep the Sabbath before the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai.

7.The apostle Paul warned the Gentiles about many different sins in his epistles, but breaking the Sabbath was never one of them.

8.In Galatians 4:10-11, Paul rebukes the Galatians for thinking God expected them to observe special days (including the Sabbath).

9.Nothing in Scripture indicates that Sunday has replaced Saturday as the Sabbath. Believers tend to gather on Sunday, which is the first day of the week, but there is no command of scripture to do so.

Now you may have heard of a book by Jonathan Edwards called “The Perpetuity and Change of the Sabbath”. I once talked with a conference speaker who promoted Sabbath-keeping. And after the conference I went up to him and I said, "Okay, I'm a Realtor. If I go out and show a house on Sunday, am I in violation of the Sabbath, in such a way that the Church should rebuke me and discipline me?"

And he said, "Well...no...it's not that exactly, it's..."

And I said, "Well, how about 10 houses? How about 15 houses?"

"Well, no...it's not exactly..."

And he hemmed and hawed, and I said, "Isn't it true that the Sabbath has been done away with in the New Covenanat?"

He said, "You need to read Jonathan Edwards' The Perpetuity and Change of the Sabbath." Which is supposed to prove that the Sabbath has continued and that it's been changed to Sunday.

And I said, "I have read The Perpetuity and Change of the Sabbath" and I said, "basically it's not a Scriptural teaching at all".

And he became frustrated and said, "Well...", as if to say, "Well, there's just no hope for you if you think Jonathan Edwards is not being Scriptural."

And I said, "Let's examine the Scripture on that."

And all of a sudden he looked at his watch and said, "Uh...I gotta go...uh...I gotta go catch a plane."

And so ended the conversation. Because when brought straight to the Scriptures for the teaching on the perpetuity and change of the Sabbath, it just isn't there.

10.Lastly, Hebrews 4:9-11 makes it clear that the Sabbath was all along meant to be a shadow of Christ who came to be our Sabbath rest.

Now we will be covering this wonderful truth in greater detail in Part 2 of this message, but for now let me say this.

In Him there is a rest for the people of God, wherein they rest from their works.

In the New Covenant, Christ Himself is our Sabbath. He is our rest. We are saved by grace through faith in Him. But not only is our salvation not based on works, the very love of God for us, His acceptance of us, and His favor on our lives is by grace.

It doesn’t mean we won’t have good works in our lives. God is working those in us through His Spirit. But we rest from our works as the way to earn God’s love and favor. He loves us, period.

Is the Sabbath for today? No, not the legalistic keeping of rules for a special day of the week. But our Sabbath is Jesus, and our rest is in Him, every day of the week, and forever. More in Part 2 next time.

Jesus Our Sabbath Rest, Part 1

2009-05-25T09:35:00.002-05:00

This week's audio message:

Jesus Our Sabbath Rest, Part 1

Grace For Life audio archives are here.

Sin Boldly?

2009-05-15T10:02:00.004-05:00

Below I've quoted part of Martin Luther's famous letter he wrote to Melanchton in 1521.

One phrase in it has been sometimes translated, "Sin boldly", and some have called Luther an antinomian (against the law, or lawless) because of it.

But this is a slander that all true preachers of the Gospel of Grace may be occasionally subject to.

Luther loved the law of God, as all who are born again do.

But Luther also knew we could never keep the law with the perfection required by God, and so he "recklessly" pounded home the great truth of Grace, by which Christ on the cross paid for all of our sins.

How many of them?

All.

Past sins.

Present sins.

Future sins.

"Should we sin then that Grace would abound," Paul asked on behalf of his imaginary audience.

"Of course not, you ignoramouses;" he responds to his own question, "don't you know you've died to sin and been born again? You love Jesus now, and hate your sins. What a dumb question!" --VERY loose paraphrase :)

And yet, when we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father. And so there is NO condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. And we can crawl in His lap and rest, and this resting will help us to walk in His Spirit...free.

If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin.

God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world.

We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter [2 Peter 3:13] are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign.

It suffices that through God's glory we have recognized the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world.

No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day. Do you think such an exalted Lamb paid merely a small price with a meager sacrifice for our sins? -- Martin Luther

So Walk In Him (Transcript)

2009-05-04T07:39:00.004-05:00

I’d like us to take a look at a terrific verse of Scripture, Col. 2:6, which reads, "As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him."

The only way to become a son or daughter of God is to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, to believe in Him (John 1:12, "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name ).

Salvation Is A Free Gift

This entrance into the family of God is accomplished by God's GRACE through faith. "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." (Eph 2:8,9).

We can’t brag about earning our salvation, because we didn’t earn it, did we? It’s completely based on God’s Grace, His undeserved favor toward us. It’s a free gift.

Good works are the fruit of our new life, and we are a new creation, with a new life. But no good works have any part in our receiving eternal life, or as the Bible calls it, being saved. "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." (Eph 2:10).

The salvation, the eternal life is an absolutely free gift.

Is Free Salvation Fair?

Some say that’s not fair. It’s too easy. You don’t know the sins I’ve committed. You don’t know how I’ve spit in God’s face for so many years. It’s not just, it’s too simple. Why should I be saved through simply believing in Jesus? We naturally gravitate toward trying to earn acceptance, and that attitude resists the simplicity of God's grace.

Yet the Bible is clear: "But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness." (Rom 4:5). "And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. . ." (Rom 11:6). No wonder John Newton's hymn, Amazing Grace, has such meaning to saved people of God!

So we received Him by Grace, didn’t we?

What About After Salvation?

Well, let’s go back to our verse, Col. 2:6, "As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him."

What role does God’s grace play in living and growing in Christ? What role does God’s grace play in living abundantly?

Jesus said “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have [it] more abundantly.” (Jn 10:10)

"That they may have life" (that’s salvation, the new birth, the new creation, eternal life).

"And that they may have it more abundantly" (that’s living as a believer AFTER our initial salvation.

What role does grace play in that?!

Well, it is VITAL to the Christian life.

Why? Why can’t I just pull out my Bible, find all the rules and laws for living the Christian life, and live it?

I’m tempted to just say, OK, go ahead and try it. But I know better than that. I know from personal experience, from the experience of others, and from the Bible itself, that this makes a miserable Christian life. It’s what we call Performance-based Christianity, and it stinks.

What's Wrong With Performance-Based Christianity?

First of all, if we make the Christian life about rules and laws, we will find ourselves constantly falling short. If we think we are successfully following the laws and rules, then we don’t really understand them.

We don’t understand how Jesus elevated the laws to reflect how holy and perfect God is. When He said that adultery included even the very THOUGHT of lust in our hearts, He put the cards on the table.

And if we try to live the Law way, we will always be thinking that God is angry with us, His children.

You may already think that God must be angry with you, either directly or by implication. Admit it.

You may even think when you are sinful or disobedient to the Word of God that God sees you as "wicked", and everyone knows "God is angry with the wicked every day", right?

Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon, "Sinners In The Hands of An Angry God" in the 1700's, and the picture has been applied to believers and has stuck...

...with those who don't understand the difference between a Sinner and a Saint. Or who don't understand the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

The devil loves this confusion. He loves confusion between the biblical concept of a "saint" as anyone who is a born-again child of God, and the Roman Catholic nonsense that a "saint" is someone who meets some elaborate criteria of the Mother Church, and is "voted in".

The devil loves confusion between the Old Covenant (which Hebrews 8 says failed in bringing righteousness because of man's inability to keep the Law) and the New Covenant, in which God puts His laws in our hearts, fulfills those laws in Christ on the cross, declares us righteous, and forgives us of all our sins, past, present and future.

Yes, the devil loves confusion.

So it's no surprise (though a crying shame), that children of God think that God is angry at them when they fall short and sin. And otherwise fine Christians who mean well perpetuate this ridiculous notion, without one shred of support from the New Covenant scriptures!

And so Christians often run away from this angry God, instead of toward Him, when they fail. They won't look Him in the face, because they think it's a face of anger. What a tragedy.

This is not the place for an extended explanation of the subject in the scriptures. But here's a challenge for those who doubt what I'm saying: Search the epistles of the New Testament for any teaching that God is ever angry with His children.

By the way, don't think the passages on God's chastisement are regarding some kind of punishment out of anger. Study them closely, and you will see they involve loving, usually gentle correction, from a loving Father, who just wants his kids to be in close fellowship with Him. No condemnation, no unforgiveness, no bitterness, no anger.

Like a daddy teaching his 1-year-old to walk, while the kid keeps wobbling, staggering, and falling...sometimes painfully in the wrong direction, but often into a laughing Daddy's arms for a big hug.

The Biggest Reason Why Grace Is So Important

And that’s the biggest reason why grace is so important to the Christian life. Because it causes us to want to fellowship with Christ. To draw near to Him, and not away. And that drawing near is the very SOURCE of our Life. Christ, who IS our life, the Scripture says.

And ironically, moving away from a law-based life to a grace-based life doesn’t cause us to sin more, but less. That’s why Rom 6:14 says “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” You are not under Law, which says “do”, but under grace, which says “done”.

With apologies to Jimmy Stewart, it can be a Wonder Life between our initial salvation and our glorification, if we heed Col 2:6, and walk in grace just as we received Christ in grace, by simple faith. Faith that He has already forgiven us of all our sins, past present and future. Faith that we are no longer under condemnation, because our sins have been paid for and put away as far as the East is from the West.

So Is God Overlooking Our Sins?

Notice I didn’t say He overlooked our sins. He couldn’t be that unjust. No, He exercised His great justice, by taking our sins on Himself. He became sin FOR us, that we might be made the righteousness of God.

I love the hymn by Annie Johnson Flint that goes,

"His love has no limit, His grace has no measure,
His power has no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again."

You see, it’s His love that supplies that grace for salvation and living. His love for you and me.

Flight 225

On Sunday, August 16, 1987, Northwest Airlines Flight 225 crashed just after take-off at Detroit, Michigan.

155 died, and one lived.

That one who lived was a little 4-year-old girl named Cecelia. The wreckage was so bad, that the authorities thought at first she had not been on the plane. Checking the flight roster, however, and with Cecelia's own testimony, the following was discovered:

As the crash was developing, Paula Chichan had unbuckled her own seat belt, got down on her knees in front of her daughter, wrapped her arms and body around Cecelia, and would not let her go! Nothing could separate that child from her parent's love...neither disaster, nor crash, nor flames, nor pain.

Such is our Savior's love for us...
"...that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38,39)

So Walk In Him

2009-05-04T07:31:00.001-05:00

This week's audio message:

So Walk In Him

Grace For Life audio archives are here.

How Many Natures Do You Have?

2009-04-27T10:38:00.001-05:00

This week's audio message:

How Many Natures Do You Have?

Grace For Life audio archives are here.

Humility, Legalism & Self-Abasement

2009-04-23T11:31:00.001-05:00

This week's audio message:

Humility, Legalism & Self-Abasement

Grace For Life audio archives are here.

Denying Self

2009-04-17T23:35:00.003-05:00

by Michele Rayburn

By the time I came to know the Lord at the age of 23, I had already lived a life without the Lord that had left me in "a world of hurt".

As a new Christian and for many years to come, I had to learn what it meant to die to self.

I had to understand Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me...", and Matthew 16:24 where Jesus said, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me."

My husband would often remind me to "deny self" and to "die to self". And after many failed attempts to do so, I finally said, "I can't die to self myself. That is something that only the Lord can do. I can't do it in my own flesh, but only by His Spirit."

It was when I finally let go of trying to do the work that only the Holy Spirit could do, that I began to grow in His grace.

I learned that not only can I not change others, but I can't even change myself.

And so I learned to entrust the Lord with all the unreconciled hurts of the past. And I also learned to care only about what the Lord thought of me.

And what the Lord thought of me, as His child, was that I was totally loved and accepted by Him always. When a child of God can rest in knowing that, they can then begin to grow in His grace.

I think that if the true grace of God has been shown to us, it will cause us to show grace to others. And that's when we as Christians will begin to love others unconditionally, just as God loves us.

"...for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." - Philippians 2:13

It Is Finished

2009-04-13T16:23:00.004-05:00

by Michele Rayburn

We have died once to the penalty of sin, and so we have peace with God. (“I have been crucified with Christ...”)

We are able to die daily to the power of sin because we stand in grace. (“... it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me...”)

And someday when we are present with the Lord, we will be free from the presence of sin. (“...and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God Who died for me and gave Himself for me.” - Galatians 2:20)

Jesus died once for our sins, and shed His blood for us, so that we can rest completely in His finished work on the cross.

Sometimes we as Christians live as if it isn't "finished". We live as if our sins are not forgiven, past, present and future. And we find ourselves trying to earn God's favor each day.

But we stand in grace, in a permanent state of forgiveness, precisely because "It is finished."

Have A Blessed Easter!

2009-04-11T09:26:00.001-05:00

Picture a mean bunch of guys, big rocks in their hands, hate on their faces, kicking up dust in the ancient Judean sun.

"For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God!"

With these amazing words in John 10, the Jews gave their reason for trying once again to stone Jesus.

Not yet ready to die, and certainly not by stoning, Jesus escaped Judea and crossed the Jordan River to where John the Baptist had once baptized repentant Israelites, probably Perea. He stayed there for a while, and many believed in Him there.

When word came to Jesus that his beloved friend Lazarus was deathly sick, He didn't cross the Jordan back to Bethany near Jerusalem to visit his friend on his death bed. No one could blame Him for staying . After all, hadn't the Jews repeatedly tried to seize and stone Him? So the disciples didn't blame Him, and they weren't surprised that He stayed in Perea. It only made sense. Lazarus would have to rely on the comfort of His immediate family, Mary and Martha.

But the disciples were surprised a couple of days later, when Jesus said, "Let us go to Judea again." What?!

They said to Him, "Rabbi, lately the Jews sought to stone You, and are you going there again?"

And He told them He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. Do you think they believed Him? I don't. I think Thomas spoke for all the disciples when he said, "Let us also go, that we may die with Him." They thought this was it. The end. Crazy, but hey, He's the Lord. We will follow Him and we will die with Him if necessary.

But they didn't die that day. They went to Bethany, and Jesus spoke the words that thrill our hearts, as believers in Him:

"I am the Resurrection and the Life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die..."

And he raised Lazarus from the dead.

And later He died on the Cross. They finally got Him. They finally put an end to the One whom they said blasphemed because He said He was God. And the brave disciples who went to Bethany with Him, willing to die, cowered behind a closed door, mourning the loss of their Rabbi, and their dreams.

We appreciate His death now. We know that it paid for our sins. We cringe at the horror of the Innocent One being beaten and scourged and crucified and separated from His Father as He took the fury of the Wrath of God on Himself. We appreciate it. But we don't exactly celebrate it.

What we celebrate is that on the third day, He rose from the dead. He authenticated that He is Who He said He was. He is the Anointed One, God the Son, the Christ, the Messiah! And He is alive! And we say Hallelujah! He is risen!

Even as a historical event, it's noteworthy. But He did it for a purpose. He was "raised for our justification". He was crucified, buried, and raised from the dead, that we might live. He said He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. And in some mysterious way, when He died on the Cross, we died with Him, and when He was raised, we were raised with Him, and seated with Him in the heavenlies, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.

We were made alive spiritually, with the promise that we will be raised physically as well, on that Great Gettin' Up Morning! We became New Creations! Old things have passed away, behold all things have become new! There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus! Hallelujah, what a Savior!

And all because He died for our sins. He became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ!

He Is Risen!

Supernatural Love

2009-04-06T07:26:00.002-05:00

This week's audio message:

Supernatural Love

Grace For Life audio archives are here.

Google By Snail Mail

2009-04-01T12:41:00.002-05:00

Some people just don't like computers.

Finally Google has accomodated those technological dinosaurs who prefer the regular Post Office mail to email.

Now they too can do Google searches.

Just fill out the card and mail in to Google for your search results:

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April Fools :)

How New Covenant Grace Shifts Your Paradigms

2009-03-30T11:50:00.002-05:00

This week's audio message:

How New Covenant Grace Shifts Your Paradigms

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The Four Gifts of the New Covenant (Transcript)

2009-03-18T09:41:00.005-05:00

The New Covenant of Jesus Christ is far more radical than is usually understood and taught by the mainstream Evangelical Church.

Although there are many aspects and many facets of the New Covenant, I would like to share with you today what I believe are the four most important aspects of the New Covenant. Four facets of this beautiful diamond of the New Covenant that are blinding in their revelation. Blinding in the amazing impact they have on the life of us believers, once we understand these four gifts of the New Covenant.

Jesus Is The New Covenant

Let me first say that in one sense, the New Covenant is Jesus Christ Himself. That is, it's not just *from* Jesus Christ. It's not just *about* Jesus Christ. And it's certainly not *apart* from Jesus Christ. The New Covenant IS Jesus Christ in the ultimate sense.

That is, He is our gift. He is our forgiveness, our righteousness, and our Life. Christ is our life, once we are born again and brought under the New Covenant.

The New Covenant is not just a thing, or a set of facts. It's first a Person, and only then does it include what that Person has done and declared to us, His children.

Having said that, let's look at four aspects of the New Covenant, which we will call The Four Gifts of the New Covenant.

1. The first gift of the New Covenant is complete forgiveness.

Now you may be saying, “Of course, Terry. That's obvious. I know that forgiveness is part of the New Covenant.”

But wait. I don't just mean forgiveness. I mean complete forgiveness. I mean forgiveness of all of our sins, past, present and future.

Often misguides teachers teach some kind of condition that's necessary for forgiveness. You know what I mean.

Some teach that we have to move on into discipleship, to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him, or else we can't be forgiven.

Now discipleship is good. And it's important. And to a certain extent, if we are born again, we will enter into some level of discipleship. God is working in us to will and to do for His good pleasure, Philippians 2:13. And in our heart of hearts we want to follow Him, and deny ourselves.

But discipleship is not a condition for forgiveness. We are forgiven the moment we enter into the New Covenant. The moment we are saved. And as we said, that forgiveness includes forgiveness for all of our sins, past, present and future.

Some teach that we have to confess our sins in order for them to be forgiven. After all, doesn't 1 John 1:9 say, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness?”

Well, here's the problem with that incorrect theory. There are always sins, many sins, that we commit and don't confess. We get too busy, or we move on to another sin, or we simply aren't paying attention to a particular sin that we committed. Isn't that true?

When we are deceived by the world, the flesh and the devil, and we walk for a brief time, or even a longer time, in the flesh, we sometimes aren't even aware that we are sinning. It doesn't cross our minds, because we have temporarily hardened our heart and only when we come to our senses do we really realize the awfulness of what we've done. But then it's too late to remember each sin in all of its glory, so to speak.

And so we move on, grateful for our Savior.

Let me ask you this: Are those sins forgiven, which we neglected to confess? If we take the Bible as true, we must say, “Yes, they are forgiven, because all of our sins are forgiven.”

Jesus, on the Cross, said, “Tetelestai (It is finished)”.

While the church too often teaches some kind of performance or discipleship as a condition for forgiveness, what the Bible teaches is that forgiveness is a free gift from God, through the New Covenant.

2. The second gift of the New Covenant is the Righteousness of God, given to us as a free gift.

Through faith, that is, our believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, God gives us the righteousness of Christ as a gift. That means that He declares us righteous, which means that we are in right standing with Him.

To be in right standing with the Creator of the universe is no small thing. And it took more than a small sacrifice to bring it about.

The Bible says that Jesus became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21). In other words, we are made in right standing before God just as if we had not ever sinned. We are declared righteous by God Himself.

The Church too often teaches that our standing before God is based on our performance. They too often teach that we must *do* something in order to stay in God's good graces.

But the truth is, that he whole point of grace is that it is a free gift. While the Church sometimes teaches that we have to earn our right standing with God, the Bible teaches that our right standing with God (our righteousness), is a free gift for all who will come to Him.

This wonderful doctrine is called Justification, and according to the Bible we believers are “justified” (declared righteous) through faith alone, that is, faith in Jesus Christ.

When this wonderful truth is taught, unfortunately it's often said, “Okay, we're righteous, but only in God's eyes.” Think that one through a moment. Because it borders on insulting God.

After all, whose eyes count? They are implying that we're righteous in God's eyes, but we're not *really* righteous. Which is absurd. When we understand that our being justified means that we're put in right standing with God as though we had never sinned or had a sinful nature, we see that it's God's eyes that really count.

One final note on this: Some want to add good works to our salvation as a condition for salvation, which Paul condemns as "another gospel" that is really not a gospel at all. So they will point us to the book of James where James says that Abraham was "justified" by his works as well as his faith.

This is where language study itself becomes fun.

The word translated “justified” actually can mean two things: 1) "declared righteous", and 2) "shown to be righteous". James is simply saying that when we are born again, we are changed, given a new heart. I'll speak more on that in a moment.

But when we are “justified”, we are "declared righteous" by God completely by faith alone. But because we are given a new heart, we will indeed have some fruit in our lives. James recognizes this, and points out that we are “justified” (that is, "SHOWN to be righteous") by those fruits, those “works”.

This makes perfect sense, doesn't it? God declares us righteous by faith, and we eventually *demonstrate* that righteousness by our lives.

Don't let anyone confuse you by simply quoting James and saying, “See, we are saved by works plus faith”. This is the false doctrine of Galatianism.

3. The third gift of the New Covenant is a new heart.

This is the gift Paul speaks of in 2 Cor. 5:17 where he says that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away, behold all things are new.

This is the new heart spoken of by the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, when God promised a New Covenant, where our heart of stone would be changed to a heart of flesh. This new heart loves Jesus Christ and hates sin.

This new heart is our very nature, our very spirit.

When we are born again, our very spirit is changed. The Bible speaks of it as a death, and a new life. Our old man, our old nature, our old spirit was crucified with Christ on the cross, in a mysterious, but very real way. And we were given a new nature, a new spirit.

Often the church teaches that believers continue with hearts that are “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked”, denying Romans Chapter 6 which clearly says that we are “dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ”.

In conjunction with this, the church often teaches that we are still sinners by nature, not understanding Romans 7 which clearly teaches that sin is IN our members, but is not us.

For example, in Romans 7:17, Paul writes, “So now, no longer am I the one doing it [that is, the sin], but sin which dwells in me.” Of course when we sin it is "us" as a total person doing the sinning, but Paul is making the wonderful point that it is not "us" in our new nature, our spirit, our nature that's sinful, but that when we walk by our flesh instead of by our spirit, sin which is not us, but dwells in our members, takes over, and we sin. “So now, no longer am 'I' the one doing it, but 'sin' which dwells in me.”

More on now in our fourth gift of the New Covenant, where we see what it means to walk in the Spirit.

4. The fourth gift of the New Covenant is Union With Christ.

“...he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.” (1 Corinthians 6:17)

When we are born again, not only do we receive a new spirit, but the Spirit of Christ comes to indwell us. And we become one spirit with Him.

This is an amazing thing. Talk about Emmanuel, God with us! The New Covenant has provided for God IN us. It's hard to articulate the importance and wonder of this truth. “Christ in you, the hope of glory”, the Bible says.

Do we then become God, as the New Agers blasphemously teach? Of course not. But our spirits now dwell with His Spirit in these jars of clay, and the more we realize and walk according to that truth, the more amazing life is.

Now verses of Scripture that didn't mean so much come alive.

When the Bible says to be filled with the Holy Spirit, we understand that we already have the Holy Spirit, but we want Him to have greater and greater control of our whole being, body, soul and spirit.

We want Him to renew our minds through His word, and to tame our tongues, and to live His life in us so that we don't walk by the flesh.

When the Bible says that if we walk by the Spirit we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, we now understand that when we walk by the *Holy* Spirit, we also walk by *our own* new spirit.

When the Bible says to be filled with the Word, we understand that the very Spirit of God is in us to understand and apply that Word.

When the Bible says that all things are possible with God, we realize that this is the one and only God who now dwells in us.

When the Bible says that we have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer we who live, but Christ lives in us, we realize that this is literal, even while it's spiritual.

But the church too often reduces this glorious walk of the New Covenant to merely a “new” Old Covenant of “rules to live by”, a sort of law-based behavior modification.

When they say, “Preach the Word”, they often mean “Preach the law”. But preaching the Word without an understanding of the New Covenant could be done BY unbelievers TO unbelievers. It can be deadening, instead of enlivening.

Or as the Bible puts it, "the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life". That's why we are encouraged as preachers of the New Covenant. In union with Jesus Himself, our lives have new purpose, new power, new ways. He is our life. We can never go wrong in surrendering to Him.

The Old Covenant is obsolete, as Hebrews Chapter 8 tells us.

The New Covenant has given us the Gift of Jesus Christ, and four gifts with Him:

Complete forgiveness...
the righteousness of God...
a new heart...
and union with our beloved Lord Jesus Christ.

The Four Gifts Of The New Covenant

2009-03-16T09:30:00.002-05:00

This week's audio message:

The Four Gifts of the New Covenant

Grace For Life audio archives are here.

The Wrath of Abandonment

2009-02-21T11:26:00.006-06:00

This isn't really about politics.

Well, maybe a little about politics.

But I am a Christian first, a believer and follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And way behind that, I'm a political Conservative, a believer in freedom of speech, freedom of religion, limited government, free enterprise, low taxes, constitutional strict constructionism, and right to life. In other words, I generally favor a republican (small "r") form of government, in which people freely and democratically elect their representatives, but with a Constitution which protects the freedom and economic sovereignty of its citizens, even unborn ones.

Almost always, when that type of government is not followed, it results in evil practices. Biblically evil. Few exceptions.

Such veering away from the foundations of our Republic is rapidly happening now, due to a radical Leftist President, and a nearly equally radical Leftist Legislature.

The essence of this is both a rapid erosion of freedom (including the freedom to publicly worship Jesus Christ and speak for His Word), and such evils as abortion, infanticide, and the stealing of the earned income of productive citizens to be used for Marxist or Socialist purposes.

Even Marxism itself is essentially a materialistic philosophy, anti-Christ, and has no interest in the spirits and souls of people, favoring the supposed "good" of the State, or those who by their sheer numbers prop up the power of the State.

Finally, such political coups require such blatant and enormous deceit by its leaders that it makes "normal" political deceit look like shining truth. My observation of such deceit in the current U.S. President and Congress is that it has reached the proportions of "The Big Lie".

You may remember that "The Big Lie" was a concept described by Adolf Hitler as a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously".

Except under the Obama administration, now only a month old, there are many such "big lies", too numerous to detail here.

Anyway, take a look at the following video, and then I would like to comment briefly on WHY I believe this is all happening:

Romans Chapter 1 speaks of the decline of peoples, individual and groups, in roughly the following pattern:

1. First, although knowing the power and attributes of God from the created world, they suppress the truth in unrighteousness, not seeking God.

2. Then there is typically a sexual revolution, which America experienced full force in the 1960's and 1970's, until today "shacking up", which was considered somewhat shameful when I was a kid in the 1950's, is now hardly blinked at.

3. Then there is a homosexual revolution, which we are currently in the midst of to an amazing degree.

4. Then, God reveals His wrath on a people, with a form of wrath John MacArthur calls "the wrath of abandonment", in which He, in one degree or another, "abandons" a people, nation, etc.

5. This results in a people of "depraved" minds.

John MacArthur, in an insightful message delivered during the National Day of Prayer in 2007, teaches this Romans 1 pattern regarding America, with a sobering conclusion that this "wrath of abandonment" has basically come about in America. (If that link goes dead, just go to family.org and search "John MacArthur, National Day of Prayer 2007")

MacArthur points out that "depraved minds" are minds which simply don't work like they should. They are illogical. Mentally defective.

So when we remark, "What's going on? Are these people CRAZY?!?", the answer is really, "Yes", in the Romans 1 sense.

Think of this next time you find yourself asking, "Is the Congress nuts!!!?" "Are the voters really that stupid!!?" "Has the world gone mad!!?"

A few suggestions:

1. If you are not a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, I urge you to "flee the wrath to come", believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and follow Him. (More here)

2. If you are a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, more than ever stay in the Word of God, and fellowship with Jesus. You need that truth, and you need that close communion with the Truth. You will not likely find truth in the mouths or programs of political leaders. Walk in the Spirit, be filled with His Spirit.

3. Pray for Obama and our other leaders. If you don't live in America, please pray for us. Hopefully, we can return the favor.

4. Don't be cowardly. It's been said that nothing is worth living for if nothing is worth dying for. If you think these are overly dramatic words, you need to study simple history better.

5. Stay informed, but don't fret and stew and hate. Walk in love, even as you walk in truth. Speak the truth in love. Leave the results to God. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord."

6. Be a witness for Jesus. Tell His story, His good news, His truth, His grace, in private and in public;
in letters to our political leaders;
in blogs and Letters to the Editor;
to your family who may be fearful in these times;
to a friend who may think that political power is the big answer;
to yourself...remind yourself regularly of who you are in Christ, and what He's done for and in you, and what is most important.