You In Christ and Christ In You
Mike Doyle · Jun 14, 2009
You in Christ & Christ in You, No. 24
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926136293353

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

Okay, lesson 18, everybody have one? Question number one is kind of long and I started out by saying we've seen so far the following, that grace is the state or the system under which we live, Romans 6.14, not under law but under grace. Grace is seen in a person and that person is the Lord Jesus Christ. And grace is the only way that God operates. He does not operate any other method or any other system or any other way now than grace. He only operates in grace. So what I want to do now is look at some other principles.

And the first question was, can we see God's grace in nature? Did I give you Romans 1? So, let's start off with how smart you are. How many think you can see God's grace in nature? How many think you can't? Only during scuba diving. What do you see in nature according to Romans 1.20?

What's visible? Unity. What's that? Unity. Beauty? Of the world. According to the verse, for the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen. Right? And what do they cause you to understand? That the things that are made even by His eternal power. So when you observe His creation, what do you observe about Him? That He's powerful. And you also observe that He is God.

So that they were without excuse. You can see God's power in nature, but you do not see His grace. Don't see it there. It's beautiful. It's wonderful. It's organized even with all this infestation with sin. You can go scuba diving and it's a wonderful thing, but you know those big fish are always munching on the little ones. So, you don't see grace, I don't think. I don't think you see grace in the creation. You can't see non-salvation for sinners. That's right. You don't see the work of the cross.

So, the background for grace, whenever grace is used in the context of salvation for man means What? What does man contribute to? When God comes to the table with His grace, what does man come to the table with? Sin and death. That's it. He's weak, he's sinful, and he's condemned. That's his contribution. He can't do anything, he can't bring anything other than that, and God brings His grace. And so you could say that a man that understands grace usually doesn't have any trouble with it as long as he recognizes that he's unworthy. If he thinks he's worthy, then he doesn't get grace.

Okay? So, everybody okay so far? Question two. Grace has, as we have defined it, is the unmerited and unlimited blessing from God based on the totally adequate work of Christ. And that was Macaulay's definition, and I happen to think it's the best one I've seen. So what would you say unmerited means? Something undeserved, something you didn't earn. That's right.

Ephesians 2.5 says even when we were dead in our transgressions. So here we are, totally separated from God, soaking up in our sins. What does God do? He made us alive together with Christ, by grace you are saved.

Unmerited. Now, I'm one of those guys that came out of a religious legal system, and the whole environment was from the Baltimore Catechism forward was a system of earning salvation. And I had to be good, and if I wasn't good, I had to be confessing, and I had to avail myself of all of these, what I call superstitions, in order that I might find my way into heaven. And the biggest concept for me to overcome when I was led to Christ was the grace issue. That God requires of me to believe Him and that's the only thing He requires.

And I don't get credit for believing. There's nothing I can do. And not only that, He will save me for all eternity. If I made a decision to exercise faith in Christ, that would be the last decision I'd ever have to make. Right? What is there beyond that, in terms of security? Nothing.

That's a gracious proposal to me, or to any human being, and it's very difficult when you know that it's grace coming at you, that what do you do with that? We are a meritorious people. We are workers. We earn. We live under a law system. Whether you're Jew, Gentile, American, Iranian, wherever you are, we live under a lost system and when grace comes at us, we really don't understand it.

Romans 5, 6-10, for a while we were still helpless at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. When I first read that verse I thought to myself, you mean the Lord didn't call me and ask me if it was okay? Would it be okay if I died for you Mike? No, He didn't do that.

So verse 8, but God demonstrates his love towards us, and while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Verse 10, for while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son. 20, the law came in so that the transgression would increase, and where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. So again, I think it's important that we get in focus that we come to salvation under one or several kinds of law systems, all based on my performance in order for God to be somehow happy with me or satisfied with my behavior, enough for me to be included when we get to the gates of heaven.

How many people, non-believers, have you spoken to in your life that said, well, you know, I think what God's going to do is kind of great on the curve, I'm going to balance stuff out and I think I'll have done enough good things. That phrase alone, I've done enough good things, indicates that there's no understanding of unmerited. No understanding of unmerited.

Louis Ferry Chaffer, not in the paper you read, but in the book that that came from, states a couple of times that grace is the most hated thing on the planet. You know why? Why is it so hateful? Why would people, I mean, hate grace, have such an animosity towards grace? Why would they? Because they don't get it. That's true. But why does it conjure up such animosity? It takes it out of their hands. That's exactly right. It takes it out of their hands.

When grace is extended to you, you have no contribution You can't increase it, you can't decrease it, you can't do anything but accept it or reject it. That's it. And you had nothing to do with the giving of the grace to you. It came to you from God alone. It's totally unmerited.

And it's unacceptable to an Adamic man, a son of Adam, who lost his first estate, didn't He sinned and he got booted out of the garden. So what's he trying to do? He's trying to get back, isn't he? We're trying to recreate that garden, right? And if we could figure out how we could fix it, we could get back in the door. So he's trying to earn it, right? That's it. Any sense of earning is merit. You see that? That's why it's so difficult to get your arms around it because If you sit and contemplate it, there's nothing for you to do but believe. That's it. Nothing else. It's hard.

So, St. Corinthians 2.9, and he has said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.

Most gladly, therefore, I would rather boast about my weakness, so that the power of Christ may dwell on me. Now, Christians, I think, mature Christians are probably the most powerful force on the planet. But they're only powerful as they're weak. Weak in what? Weak in their own strength. Your own strength. That's exactly right. Weak in your own strength.

Question number three then was why is grace the opposite of merit? Is that a confusing question? Did you look at Romans 4.4? Now to him that works is the reward not reckoned of grace but of debt. I think Macaulay probably gave the simplest and best example of what he means by this.

How many of you have jobs? Some of you do. How many of you have jobs in your lifetime? And how does that work? Usually a job is a contractual relationship between you and your boss, or if you have your own company, it's a contract you make with yourself. that if you're going to do X, Y, and Z, somebody's going to come and pay you for doing X, Y, and Z. So I go to work tomorrow morning for Mr. X, and he says to me, if you'll do X, Y, and Z by Friday, I will pay. OK. Comes Friday. I go to him and say, OK, I did X, Y, and Z. Give me the cash. Is that a grace story I just told you? No. He owes me because I earned it. Have you ever gone into your boss and said, you know, I work 40 hours. Would you be gracious enough to pay me?

Well, if you work for Courtney, you might. So what's interesting is the entire system, the entire economic system operates on the basis of putting people in and indebted to you. I had a closing on Friday, a real estate closing. I got a commission. I'm sitting there at the closing and my lady goes, boy, I'm paying you a lot. I said, you should have paid me more.

And what happened? I had her in my debt because I performed a service for her and she's going to pay me for it. There was no grace in that deal at all. Not a single, nothing. Even she said, well, you probably went over and above. I said, yeah, but I still, you still owe me. You see what I'm saying? We live in that system. You're growing crops. You're going to sell them. When you hand a guy a tomato and he gives you a buck back, what have you done? That's not a gracious act. That's not a gracious act. So you have to say that grace is totally the opposite of merit.

So here you become a Christian, you live in an economic environment like in the United States, and most of your relationships are based on some sort of legal premise. When you got married, what did you do? You took vows. What are vows? I'm going to do this if you're going to do that. Where's the grace in that deal? And so you come to Christ and you find out, gee, this is a whole grace thing. How does that work? I don't understand anything about grace. I don't understand unmerit. I don't get that. I don't know what it's like. I've never seen it before.

So when you understand, I think, that when it comes to dealing with God, we only have one contribution to our relationship with God, and that's sin of two, sin and weakness. That's it. There's nothing you can do for God to present him anything that would be acceptable to him. Because we're intrinsically, because we're from Adam, remember a few months ago we studied identification.

Why did Adam, why did believers, why is it necessary, maybe say it that way, was it necessary that God crucify everybody in this room? Why did he do that? Your sins were forgiven but then you were crucified. Why did he do that? Nobody knows, huh? He had to deal with the sin nature itself, not just the sins that we had committed. That's exactly right. He had to deal with that sin nature and the only way to do that is to kill it. To get rid of the person who has the merit.

Is Adam, I asked this question months ago, is Adam, Adam, Adam, responsible to God? Answer, yes he is, because he sinned against God. Are you responsible to God in Adam? Yes you are. You're responsible. You're a responsible man. You're responsible to try to figure out what to do about your sinfulness, because you've offended God. So, at the point in which you believe in the person and work of Christ with salvation, that's your last responsibility. You understand what I'm saying? Once you believe, what happens to you in Adam? You get crucified. Now who's responsible? Who's the responsible man now? Who is it? Is it you? Who's responsible before God for you? You understand what I said?

Not meeting them, he's already met them. Has he not? By the virtue of the fact that he's already met the requirements from God, you get to live under grace. There's nothing left to do. Everything about Christ is totally satisfying to God now. Everything. So, you know, people that have trouble with the security of their salvation don't understand the grace they live under. They don't understand that everything about them is because of the responsible acts of another person, Christ himself. And it's not something he's going to do, it's something he's already done. How much grace is enough? How much is enough? 20 gallons. 20 gallons? Four pounds? Six miles? How much do you need?

No, but it goes forever. So if you believe it just goes and goes. It never ends. That's really good. That's really good. John 116 says... What did I do? 116. Oh, I'm sorry. 116. I can tell who did their homework. Do we get a star? You write it. No grace for you, Buster.

For of His fullness we have all received grace for grace. How cool is that? The word for is a preposition which means exchange, so it's grace in exchange of grace. When we exchange grace, what do we get? When you exchange grace, what do you get? Grace. You get grace back. The New England standard is grace upon grace. Yeah, that's really cool. The Savior says it's an unchangeable whole. Grace. It's infinite. Just as He is infinite.

My colleague tried to define it like this. Let's say I wrote you a check for $50. And I went and checked my balance this afternoon. What would my balance be? $50 less than what it was before? If I was living under Grace, I'd have $5,000 more in there than I had. If I wrote a check for $5,000, I'd have $5,000,000 more in there. That's how Grace works. the more you use it, the more there is. And that's a tough concept. We operate on a give and take legal system. If I do 25 steps from you, you're going to pay me $25. You're not going to pay me $26. Our deal was $25. So if I do $24, you don't pay me. See that? In grace, if I did 25 steps, you'd give me a million. If I did two steps, you'd give me a million.

That's how grace works. So, this is another principle. In order to get grace, you've got to use it. Well, how do you use grace? What is that all about? Okay, and that sets up a good premise. The Greek word for grace is charis. I've read Aristotle's definition, and I've read some other definitions, and it's just somebody doing something for somebody else, based solely on the goodness of their heart, with no expectation in return. Now, if I come to you and I do something for you in grace, I can say, I charised you. How would you respond? What would you say to me? I would say thanks. Do you know what the Greek word for thanks is?

It's the same word. So the way you use grace is to receive it. You just take it. If we are to live, if we are to grow in, which means inside, the knowledge of the Lord, grace and truth, that means we're in an operating system. It means it operates all the time, 24-7. Now, we may not, because we don't take it, may not be experiencing it. But that doesn't change the position of the grace we live in.

You see that? Sometimes it's almost, I mean, you get the sense that, well, you know, one of these days the Lord is really going to get mad at me because he's been letting me slide for a long time. This grace thing is going to run out. Don't you get that sense? That's why I think the rabbit trails are tangential things a few weeks ago.

What does that look like at three o'clock today when you take grace? What is that? And I think some of it is the latter part of the, you know, we look at the unmerited and the unlimited part. What is grace? And I think, what is it? Unmerited, unlimited, what?

Blessings of God. I think that's what you're taking. It's just the blessings of God. The more I put all this together, everything fits together. As I look at, who can separate us from the love of God? Love, so he's pouring out his love. How does he do that? He blesses us. He's the ultimate one who wants what? The best for us. Everything fits together in this. So taking grace is just receiving what he wants to give to us.

It comes in all shapes and forms. It comes in trials. I think it comes in blessings. It comes in everything. That's what taking grace is. And then that falls into rest and peace and all the things he's promised to us. I think that's what taking grace is. It's just taking those blessings and knowing that he loves you.

And it's a very hard concept, as you said, or maybe it was a few weeks ago or something, when you said it's like taking grace. What is that? We've defined it, but what does it look like at 5 o'clock today? Well, in essence, we've moved into question 5, because that was the question. What would you say is the key to receiving abundant grace?

And the key is, thank you, the key is, is to stop saying to God, let me pay you back, but just thank Him. And the key verse there is Romans 5, 15-17. But the gift of God is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, abound unto the many. If you could spend profitable time, just meditating on verses 15 through 17 in Romans 5, because it contrasts what both men brought to the table of mankind. Adam brought sin and death, transgressions, Christ brings grace. You see that?

So even when Paul was in jail and wherever else he was, He always would thank God, no matter what he was going through. He was constantly thanking Him and that wasn't even enough. Did he thank Him just because he thought, gee, I've got to be a good example to the rest of these guys in prison and so I better be thankful? No, I think he realized grace and accepted that free gift.

And you know what's cool about what you just said? The Spirit of God is at work 24-7 to make every one of us realize the grace we live in. That's what that book is all about. That's what especially Paul's epistles are about, is to demonstrate, to show us, to educate us about what grace is and how it operates.

So you have a man like Paul, he was THE grace guy. The word charis is used in the New Testament 180 times. Do you know how many times Paul used that 180, 160? He knew what grace was. But he didn't know it because he was smarter than the rest of us. He knew it because God showed him. And demonstrated it to him. And usually demonstrated it to him through hard times. Through tough times.

When you pretend to associate grace more with sin, because that's what people base their salvation on, which is true, but then they don't look at living under grace. we don't look at the blessing side, that's the harder... we always think we only need God's grace when we sin. It's harder to get a panel around the other side.

Most believers have two elements of grace locked up. The first one is that their fire insurance is paid up. That they're not going to go to hell. And the second one is that if they confess their sins, they're cool. That's hardly scratching the surface of what grace is. That's hardly even entering in to the fullness of what grace is. The fact, by the time you get to Romans 6, the fact that you were crucified with Christ is such an overwhelmingly gracious fact, it's tough to handle it. We were at Betsy Blackney's funeral What day was it? Friday?

And so they were singing some of her favorite hymns. But the one hymn, oh man, I'm so bad at this. But the one hymn they sang, in my mind, they missed the best verse. And the best verse has to do with that God's salvation is so gracious and magnificent I barely can take it in. That's the way grace is. Grace is one of those things that's like, Really? What hymn am I talking about? I think it's the love of God. Yeah, and it's verse 3. Yeah, there's three verses. I scarce can take it in. What a phrase that is.

That's somebody who understands grace. You understand grace when you understand what that man said. Let's see. So how can God give unmerited grace to someone who deserves judgment? How can he pull that one off? How can he give unmerited grace to someone who deserves judgment?

Because of Christ. See, it has to be on the basis of what someone else did. Do you see that? Again, Romans 3, 24 and 25. being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood. What does the word propitiation mean? This is the 25 cent Christian word. Satisfied.

So does God have a legitimate claim against you to condemn you before you're saved? Anybody escape that condemnation? Because you're a sinner by position, you're a sinner by practice, and you're a sinner by condemnation from God. Wednesday night we're studying Romans, and we're just kind of halfway through one, and the indictment is coming down.

And Paul is saying, you know, man, you're without excuse. And boy, he's just laying it out, so that by the time we get to the middle of chapter three, everybody in the room is going to say, I always thought I could get out the back door, but I guess I'm stuck. I'm really stuck. I am stuck because now I have to depend on God.

So Christ is the one who satisfied the righteousness of God. His justice. He took care of that issue. All of God's wrath against sin was poured out on Christ. all of your personal sins, all of it. The sin you're going to commit this afternoon was paid for 2,000 years ago, right? My buddy across the street, his sins are paid for. God is satisfied about the punishment due to that man, right?

But he's not saved, why? Because he won't receive the grace. No, because he doesn't believe. Yeah, he doesn't believe. Mike, we have a friend who defines grace as God's riches at Christ's expense. At Christ's expense. Yes, that's exactly right. So, grace rests upon the redemptive propitiation work of Christ. It rests on what he did, not what you've done or I've done. It is the death of Christ that satisfies God and allows him to freely make grace available to all men. Oh, by the way, when Christ died, then God was under an obligation to give us his grace, right?

Was he? No, he wasn't. Even though he's satisfied, he's under no obligation, because one of the principles that Courtney pointed out over the last couple of weeks, you cannot put the grace giver in a debt position. You understand what I'm saying? You can't go to God and say, now, Christ died, now you owe me. Then it's not grace.

See, it's got to be out of the goodness of his heart only. And once he's satisfied about the sinfulness of mankind, he can offer the grace. He can be gracious, because there's nothing to hold him back. We insult God if we don't apprehend the totally adequate work of Christ. God needs no help in grace. He does not need our help.

I thought your first statement was interesting, that because of the cross of Christ, God is not only free to save meritless sinners, He is also free to keep them who is saved. Yes, that's a great statement. Not only is He free to save you, but He's free to keep you. That's probably what happened to Ananias and Sapphira. We got in a jam like that. Live in the Holy Spirit. God didn't do anything. He gave us kind of a split path. You know what's interesting about Ananias and Sapphira? Yeah, you know what's great about Ananias and Sapphira? When they died, where did they go?

No stop off in Purgatory. Yeah, so let's see how this works now. They lie to the Holy Spirit. God takes them out. What did they suffer? I mean, would you rather have stayed here longer? If that isn't an example of grace, I don't know what is. Not only disciplines him, but won't allow the perversion of grace in his body. That's cool. They knew they were doing it. They didn't confess it. No, they had a scam going. That's right. They did. Sure. And it was for the benefit of somebody else. But what punishment did they suffer? Nothing. I mean, you think about it.

If Peter walks in a room now and says, Roger, you're going And you would say, if you understood, great. OK, let's get it out. Let's go. I don't have to spend any time in the hospice. I don't know. It's wonderful. I get to go home. I know I was a bad guy, but you know, your grace is overwhelming. You see how that works. Now, the rest of us would be absolutely. We would learn the lesson about those two.

Romans 4.13-14 For the promise that he should be heir of the world was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise of no effect. Talking about Abraham. Now, Abraham was promised something by God, right?

He told him, made several promises to him. I'm going to make you a great nation. I'm going to bless all mankind through you. Okay? Now, did Abraham have to believe God in order for God to carry out the promise he made to Abraham? Understand the question? Did Abraham have to believe God in order for God to carry out the promise he made to Abraham? Answer, no. God was going to do it anyway. So the promise is of grace. Now Abraham did believe God and because he believed God he personally was declared righteous but his faith had nothing to do with the promise. God was going to do it anyway.

You see that? God extends grace to us. You're going to live in it whether you believe it or not. Whether you like it or not. And we look at circumstances how Moises said there's no such thing as a tragedy in a Christian's life. Well if we live under grace, how could you say my illness is a tragedy?

It's not. It's a grace act. You may not see why it is when it's happening, but it is. Yeah, and that's hard to comprehend. When you see somebody suffering big time, I mean, you say, okay, this is grace. That's kind of hard at times. It is hard at times, but as we grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we begin to give him credit for being gracious. We begin to understand, because we live in a gracious environment, well this is typical of God. This is how he operates in grace. Whatever it looks like on the surface, we understand grace well enough to know that he is functioning in grace only. He is not punishing anybody. Even James, the legal beagle of the epistles, says that God intercepts your sin to condemnation and uses it for your approval.

Isn't that something? Those who are of the law cannot get the blessing. So if you have any sort of a mentality that I am somehow working really well and God is really pleased with my performance, you're not living under grace and you don't get any. Do you understand that? That's a hard one.

There's no such thing as a partial legalist. We're either one or we're not. You're either legal or you're not. You're either legal or you're gracious. There's nothing in the middle. When you sneak up to that little pond of law and stick your toe in it, you're in it. So, what's the only word that is appropriate for living under the system of grace which man can do that will not ruin the whole principle? I hope that question is clear. Thank you. Yeah, and after I answered it, I thought, that's what everybody's going to think, but that's not the word I'm looking for. Here's what I'm looking for. Look at Romans, I think it's, is it 316 or 416? 416. He's talking about salvation.

He says, for it is of faith that it might be of grace. to the end of promise might be sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but also to those which is of faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all." Faith is of faith. The only word, and I could have phrased it better, the only way that we enter into grace, by taking it, is by believing. You see that? We believe the grace. I'm with you.

Sometimes I read the grace of God and I really do think in my mind, no way, He expects more of me. Especially when we get to those dreaded logical imperatives. We get to those suckers and boy, God is demanding that I da da da da da. And if I do da da da da da, He's going to bless me more.

Are we worthy of this? And I think the reason why, you know, we can't figure this out is because we think we're not worthy. But in Him we are worthy. And that's where I think, you know, we are worthy in Him. We are His legitimate offspring. And, you know, that's where I think, as you come to understand that part of it, you can receive this grace. Because if I'm so unworthy, if I am so unworthy, I've got to then do something. Because I'm so unworthy. That's Adam's mentality. That's Adam's mentality.

That's what I said, we've got to transfer into the knowledge that we're in Him. That's what I said last week, this 66 and 212 things that we have positionally, right now. That we're in Him, in Him. We are worthy to receive this. And you can understand why He wants to bless us. I have found it interesting, I've talked about 34 things we have in Christ several times. The last time was to the ladies in Parker. The 34 things that happen to us and the blessings that we have in Christ, right?

Invariably, about the time I get to 4 or 5, I'm looking out in the audience and I can tell, they are not believing me. They are not buying it. Because God is way too gracious. And when you start to lay those 34 things out, it starts to eliminate their little personal performance system. And when you start eliminating that, you get nervous. Don't you? And so, here's the system.

God gives us this wonderful book called The Word of God. And in that book, especially in Paul's epistles and John, it's all about grace. We discovered several weeks ago that the only way you find out about grace is because it's in Christ. And God gave us this tool to learn Christ. The whole reason you read your Bible is to know Christ. As you know Him, you begin to know and understand how He operates. He operates in grace only. That's the only way He functions. So you begin to see not only the principles, but the character of the One that we have to deal with.

You will not find grace in the Constitution of the United States or in Barnes and Noble. You're not going to find it there. You're not going to find it on Channel 9. You're not going to see it tonight watching the NBA finals. You're not going to find it. You're not going to find it diving on a reef. You're not going to find it looking at God's nature.

You're going to find it right in there as you get to know Christ. That's how you discover what grace is. because grace can't be disassociated from the person who's gracious. Do you see that? The person and the principle have to be together. That's why the study of the Word of God has to be focusing in on getting to know the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, because he is gracious. So when he starts to lay out in his Word these incredible blessings, You know, and we're always eager to get to the part where it says what we're supposed to do, rather than just receive what he's already given us, you know? I think, you know, to take it a step further, and I think Chet hit on it, it really boils down to, is what he did adequate? Is it enough? Is it?

I mean, if it's adequate, then why do you struggle with it? If it's adequate and grace is sufficient, you don't have to struggle. I think that's where people have a problem. Does everybody understand what he's saying? You come to a conclusion at some point that Christ really did, His work was really adequate. I don't need to add to it. There's nothing I need to do to make it more proficient, more efficient, and more beneficial. His work is sufficient.

So where does that put you? Totally dependent on him. Totally. And I have to tell you, dependence is a very tough thing to learn. You know, I learn it every day. Well, we as Christians, I don't know how many of us sort of admit it, I've seen it. Me too. But Roger is surprised. I understand what I'm saying. That's why I keep harping on this thing, because I don't think you can just nullify the fact that that's one thing God has asked of you.

First Christ is interceded on our behalf to confess our sins. He's faithful and just to forgive us. That's to say that Christians do sin. That doesn't mean we lose our salvation or anything that we do. The point is, it's an act of discipline on our part. He asked us to do that. Could I rephrase that and say it's an act of grace on our part? Because what do we do? By confession we receive the grace. Because confession means to say the same thing that God says. But Christ is our intercessor, he's our advocate.

We confess that sin, but so many of us just go ahead and do it and say, well it's just another little... But see, a person who has that apathetic attitude about sin doesn't understand grace. They don't understand it. Because they think grace means freedom to sin. It doesn't mean that at all. That's right, that's what the people were thinking about.

And that's what Romans 6.1 says, Shall we sin that grace may abound? Paul says, Oy vey, no way. What are you thinking? You know? But what I'm saying is, being the fact that we are human, and we still have that Adamic nature, when we do sin, we say we have no sin, and peace is not in us. And so if this is the sin, then please stay with us and forgive us. That's all in Christ's hands. All because of His grace. And all because of His adequate work.

All right, we will pick up next week, and I've got more questions for next week, too. We'll pick up, we kind of answered eight, we'll start eight, nine, somewhere in there. Okay, let's close. Dear Father, how wonderful it is to just begin to apprehend the grace in which we live. And Father, that we might continue to grow in the intimacy with your Son, who is the gracious one. Father, we thank you and we pray in his precious name. Amen.