Grace - Living by Reckoning

Good morning. Again, we're continuing our study on the doctrine of grace. So last week, we looked at the title slide for last week was, Nobody Would Invent This. And what were we talking about? Grace. That's right. Nobody would invent this. And we looked at that pretty in depth.

And Mike, you've already mentioned the reality of grace this morning. And that's what we talked about last week was the reality that grace is counter culture. It's no human system would ever design such a thing where the guilty party does nothing and the innocent party does everything, right? But today we're moving from the knowledge of grace to the living question. Do you believe grace? Not do you know about it, do you believe it?

Mike introduced us to a concept a couple weeks ago now that we're gonna dig into this morning, and it's the term reckoning. We're gonna look at that. Another word we use for reckoning is faith, trust, believe, consider. But reckoning has an interesting accounting perspective, so we're gonna dig into that a little bit and review that. Counting something is true. So let's start with the question.

Now, not a question in your handout. This handout that I've attempted to try with you this week, I don't know if it's our jam. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. You be honest with me and you tell me. It's going to make you think a little bit, and I'll be pretty precise as I go, but see what you think. But most importantly, learn what the Lord has for you, most importantly there. You see up on the screen here a question.

Someone asked you, are you saved by grace? Your answer, absolutely, right? Absolutely. You'd say it without hesitating, possibly. But if I were to ask you, are you living by grace, would you hesitate? Would you have to think about it? And I'm not saying your hesitation is like, oh, absolutely not.

I totally, you know, didn't check in for grace this morning at all. I'm saying, did you hesitate in the sense of, I don't know? Am I? I don't know. That hesitation is today's lesson. So why is grace true for salvation, but feels negotiable for Tuesday afternoon? Whatever. Because we have the same nature. Yep. And what's his name? Repeat your own name to self. Not out loud. It's edemic, right?

We inherited that guy. We'll talk a little bit about that. We trust grace to get to heaven, but what do we default to for the living part to get through the week? I gotta do this, I gotta do this, I gotta do this, I gotta do this, I gotta do this, and if I check it off and I feel progress and I'm doing a good job and I can sit at the end of the day, lay my head down on the pillow and say, Lord, I did a good job. Thanks for getting me through it.

Sound about right? The answer is about faith, not as a mystical feeling, but as a reckoning. And that's where we're starting today. Any questions so far? But the flesh hears faith and thinks feeling, a mystical sense, a warm fuzzy experience of God or optimism. Are you optimistic? I think God's gonna do something great today.

I just know it. And I'm not trying to minimize the fervor we have towards the day and walking with the Lord. I'm just simply saying that faith is not related to that feeling that you may or may not have. It's not a kind of positive thinking about your day. Right? It's reckoning. Logitimai.

It's an accounting term. Put it on the books and count it as settled. If God says something about you and you can see in the scripture that that is a settled thing, then you can put that in the books for yourself today. That's logitimai. That's reckoning. God says you are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. They says, that's on the books. I count it as true. Let me say that again. God says, you're dead to sin.

Separated from it. Today, in the situations that you're gonna go through today. And you're not only dead to sin, but you've been made alive to God in Christ Jesus. We've got that double hand around us. Where are you? That's where the Lord says you are. He goes on in other verses in Colossians to say that you're hidden with Christ in God.

I don't like that word consider. I'll consider it. Let's keep going with it. Maybe it'll grow on you since it's in the scripture. But if God says you're dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus, faith says that's on the books, I count it as true. The same way that faith says I...

Did I lose my... Nope, I lost it up here, okay. You guys are good. In the same way that I trust the Lord for my salvation, I trust the Lord in the situation. Okay? Now, It's not a someday thing. It's not after you feel a little different. Somebody might say, after I get my coffee. You know, that might be me. It's not after you perform a little bit better than you did yesterday, right? It's right now. You have been placed in Christ, and that is a fact that settles it. It's in the books. That's the foundation of everything. when it comes to this reckoning.

Let's see if I can get this a little bit bigger for you guys. I really like in point three here on the handout, it says, all is not same for 10. Same reckoning is true. And that's a really, really important thing. Sometimes we think of this as well. It's just, you know, count it as if it's true, even though it's not. No, this is talking about positional reality. You are then to see the three. Count on that. It's settled in the books.

The word pretend is a good one because it resonates with us, right? We have to pretend sometimes. That's what we think. But here's where it gets very important for us. Faith is not believing God will do something. I had to think about that. Faith is believing He already has. And I was like, okay, you know, self, you know, how does that relate to my situation right now? Well, if God said it, that settles it. That's what Mike's told me. You know, it's come to this, you know.

And a truth that we learned in, I think it might've been in the Second Timothy, finishing that up, was that Well, not as Monday night, actually. Faith is always in a finished work. It's been done. And so faith is believing He already has, not He will.

Look at Ephesians 1.3. I've got a little bit of a quote here, but...

Ephesians 1.3, the verb tense here is very critical.

So, he blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. What's that word? Blessed, he did that. Okay, now the question is, when did he do that? Well, in typical fashion to the scripture, and especially the Pauline writings, Paul is giving us doctrine and then asking for exhortation. Well, what's the exhortation here?

There isn't one yet. You've been blessed and it's past tense. So this is a completed statement. It's done. This already happened. Remember, faith has its object in the finished work of what the Lord has said and done. So here's the question that many of us are living with. The problem isn't what God hasn't given. God is not withholding resources from you. Let me say that again. God is not withholding resources from you.

Do you believe that? Mike? I don't think you can go very far in this conversation without talking about the fact that The faith is in the facts. But it's also, and probably more important, to be in the person who gave you the facts. Right. And so, as we grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, we begin to realize who He is and what it means for Him to be God. Yes.

And that He tells us something He never shades the truth. It's always right out there. And it's always true. And it's never, you make it true. I've done it. Yeah, one of the ways we could say it is, would the Lord Jesus sit there and lie to you? Would He sit in front of you and lie to you? or not tell you the whole truth, or hold something back from you. I've been given the life of Christ, fact. And then he's gonna withhold something from me? That's personal. Would he do that? See, that's where the temptation to eat came from. Did God really say it? He's withholding something from me. What was it in their case?

And it's really at root the same for us, too. The problem isn't that you haven't believed what he's already given, you're waiting for him to give you more when you haven't yet reckoned on what's already yours. Let that sink for a minute. It's not that you haven't believed what he's already given. Yeah, that is a problem, right? You think, I believe what he's given me, I trust him, but then we don't. We turn right around and we don't.

Growth in the Christian life is not receiving more grace. I had to let that one sit with me, too. It's seeing and reckoning on the grace you've already been given. We're catching up to what the Lord has already said is true. J.D., I want to back up just a little bit. I guess clarification on everything is based on finished fact. What about future and faith in what He's promised us? I think it's not based, I mean, it's based on His finished work on the cross, but He has promised us, you know, I was looking in 2 Corinthians where the Father of all mercies and comfort, He'll comfort you in all afflictions. Right. That's future. Sure.

When we're talking factual time, if we're talking about an event in time, there is, faith is still 100% operating in the same way. It could be operating in the hope of the truth of the Lord. But in this case, we're talking about the finished work of what He said He's done in you, in the believer. It just seems like, I mean, our faith and all that is not only in finished work, which is true, but I think it's also our faith and... Yeah, well, I guess maybe I should have said it in the positional truths, right? Anything that is positionally true of you affects how you approach every single situation that you're hoping for the outcome in the future. Those positional truths have to be reckoned, counted as so, in order for that to be the life of Christ working through, in this case, a health concern and things like that. I think the faith, when we talk about the faith, it's not only in the finished, but faith in what He's promised us too.

I had that lopsided apple. Well, no, it was going to be a perfect circle. You had the string and I mean, we were getting there. But it's that we said that God loves me, right? And I love him back and I obey him and he rewards me. And in the middle was faith, right? Faith was what ran and fueled it. We said it's not our efforts last week. But faith is what keeps that circle moving. And that's what we're talking about today.

So, God loves me. And so what are the promises that I have based on God's love? Well, Obviously salvation, but most interestingly, His love extends to your sanctification as well. That means your here and now experience. He loves me in my condition. So what do I do? Well, I recognize that there's this link from He loves me to I love Him back because He's given me new life in Christ. And that's personal, and that's what Mike was referring to, is that it's not just the faith or the reckoning that I've been saved, therefore I gotta go work this out today. It's, hey, self? I have been given a brand new life in Christ right now.

Do I believe that? Am I reckoning on that? Is that something that could be in the books for you? Because God loves me and he did that for me. And Christ literally lives in me. Am I counting that as true? Not someday, right now. Christ loves you. He's given you the life of his son. Not only saved you, but has given you the resurrection life.

And that motivation gets us to obedience. When we reckon on those truths. Now, That between, I love him back, he loves me, I love him back, and I obey him, right here, between these two, is where it gets really sticky. Because this is where reckoning really hits the road for you. I want to obey him, I love him, I want to, but I'm Romans 7 and I can't.

And then you sit here and you cycle around and around and around. And you think, well, when am I gonna get to rewards? Is this circle meant to continue? Or do I just go from here? He loves me. He says he's given me these truths. He's given me his son, his very life. It's a present. reality, and he's given me the environment in which to operate, I really want to obey him, but I just, I don't know, I just get stuck right here. Do you know what I'm talking about? Every time that circle stalls, I love him and I obey him. It's because faith has been replaced by self-effort. You stall because of you. you get in the way. And instead of operating in grace, which is true, you don't reckon on that truth. And you think, human system.

And you get right back to law-based living. I'll read my Bible tonight. It'll make up for not getting to it this morning. Whatever, you can read your Bible whenever you want. The point is, you've put in a law for yourself, and now you're trying to get to that law. Maybe you really do want to spend time with Him. You couldn't that morning.

I'm not saying that, but you create this, I'll check off the list as I get through the day type of thing. Maybe it's different for you, but you understand the concept there of getting in there and stalling things out because I can do this. You drop out of the circle, and you go to work on your own, you start performing, and that's not living by what? Faith. It's not living by faith. You say last week that, I really like this, the sin nature is wired for outcome-based system, or the flesh needs to contribute to feel secure.

Yes. So, right in there, I think that's where the time issue is really important to understand. I recognize that He loves me, and I can't grasp the totality of it, but I know, demonstrated by the cross, I know He does. I want to respond, but I find I can't.

But at the same time, I recognize that Ma Stanford used to say that what God does is expand you to contain. Right there, the expansion is going on so that we can contain more of His love, which means there isn't any resistance to loving Him back, and there's no resistance to obeying Him.

So Mike's talking about the stall right here, and he's saying that over time you get expanded Through whatever trial, insert your situation that requires faith. You say, I've never needed to have faith in that. God's expanding you. Now, some of that daily classroom of living where He's expanding you, I've never been through that. Well, He's never given me anything that I can't handle because He's prepared me with everything necessary for victory here.

And it's already been done. I just have to walk in faith in His Word. And when I don't, and I say, I'm going to come up with a performance-based approach to this, I still expand. I just expand about the me monster and where he needs to go. Where does he go? He's crucified. Right?

I think the fact that you brought in the idea of hope, it isn't hope for reward necessarily. The hope is, I understand this, but I also understand that I need to grow to accomplish a purpose he's already designed for me. And when I get there, I look back And all I can say is thank you. I can never say, oh, I did it. No, you didn't. It was done to you. Here's where this connects back to grace.

We're talking a lot about faith and we're talking about the grace circle, but in order for you to, I mean, we're talking about a construct here, and the reality of grace is so much more beautiful than a diagram, but for this circle to continue to be experienced for the believer, it has to be a life that's lived by faith.

When we stall out, and it takes time, and we'll all stall out, okay? That's part of growth, that's part of the discipline, that's part of the classroom that the Lord has us in. But when we stall out, it's because we're getting ourselves involved performance-wise. There's gotta be a metric that we're solving for, if we're solving for it at all.

Right? So, grace stops being an experience for your life, and you're back into self-system effort, and That's never been solved by anyone, by the way. But it's attempted. So let's go on. Let's talk about kind of how this works out. The diagnostic question, how many of us grasp grace for salvation but default to law for daily life? You understand you couldn't earn your salvation, nobody could. Christ did it all. You rest in grace for that.

But again, we're talking about that tendency to bounce out of grace and get busy in some way, shape, or fashion. You jump to that completely different operating system. But Paul confronts the Galatians with this exact problem. Are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, or by the Spirit rather, and are now being perfected by the flesh. He calls them foolish for this stall. Is it foolish for us too? It is. It boils back to dependence on God. You're exactly right. The dependence becomes on you in the stall.

Just like Paul in Romans 7, he got to the cliff's edge. Oh, what a wretched man that I am. Who can deliver me? And then he pivots the next verse. And so does chapter eight. So the flesh says, you know, give me a task list. Let me earn acceptance. I want a job. That's what we said last week. Give me a job.

If I do this and get all these things accomplished today, I'll have a better chance of God blessing me. That sounds weird to say out loud, but that's the negotiations that we make with the Lord. And Paul calls the Galatians foolish. You started in the spirit and then you jumped ship and you tried to perfect that flesh. Put lipstick on a pig, that's what I told the kids.

And Grace says, I don't need your help. I don't need your help, I need you out of the way. So look at the contrast. Grace saves. Grace secures. Grace directs. It's the same engine all the way through. There's no handoff point from grace to law. No transition where the rules change. That's one of your little words on your worksheet. There's no handoff point. God doesn't say, I got you this far.

It's kind of like when you're teaching your kids to ride their bike. So what we think God's doing with it is like, hey, I'll see you in heaven. Good luck. And what do we do? Boom. Right out of the gate. Except for you, maybe, Henry. Maybe you got on that bike and you were just sailing. You didn't need any help. Well, you can ride the bike, right? What? Yeah. Well, don't ask me about scooters. That's a different story. But yeah, that's the idea there, but that's not life, that's not the Christian life. Certainly you fall, you Roman 7, you wipe out, certainly.

God's expanding our faith, he's teaching us about ourselves and how undependable, to Mike's point, we are and how dependable he is. So we get back up on the bike by faith and we say, okay, what's next? That's why the who question is there. That's such a common misconception of grace in the Christian life is that God is going to help you a little bit, but he expects you to do the, you know, Paddling.

Yeah. Well, it's always trying to balance grace and works. You know, not as typically when it comes to new birth, but certainly in terms of Christian life, what I've found with most Christians is they're trying to find a balance between grace and works. And they just can't accept the fact that the Christian life would be purely by grace.

That's right. No, it's exactly it. He's just getting you started on that learner bike. But man, when you get pushed off, you remember that feeling. I'm all on my own now. That's not the Christian experience. intended. That's not what he has for you. Now, yes, we take the handlebars and we do the work, only to find out it's grace that will sustain us, not our efforts, not our constant peddling.

You know, we have these kinds of conversations with friends, family, ourselves, others, but the idea, hypothetical, a man gets saved, that's grace. complete rest, I couldn't do anything, Jesus did it all, but then his wife challenges him on something, really gets under his skin, and it goes on and on and on, and all of a sudden his marriage starts to turn into an argument. Or he struggles with some sin pattern, and he struggled with it for years and years and years and years.

Or something happens, and Because that establishes the peace. It puts a lot of emphasis on how the person got saved. In other words, the message that they received was absolutely a grace message. It didn't get adulterated with Well, God's going to do this much and then you're going to do this much.

Like Billy Graham, get up out of your seat and come down. That's not part of salvation. Or confess your sins. That's not part of the salvation message. Or whatever it is. It's simple. You just receive the grace that God, receive the Savior that God has for you. It is simple, but we complicate it. And we stall things out. And in the example of the hypothetical man I'm talking to you about, I want to be able to provide for the family and all of a sudden he can't provide for the family.

And it's all on me. It's all on me. Try harder, Mike. Read your Bible more, Mike. No. Pray longer. And do better. Keep doing better. Stop talking. See, that's the thing. We have to keep going at it. You know what I'm saying? We have to tell the Lord, like, we know, I can do this. And we keep going with Him, and we rattle it off with Him, right? But isn't that the whole approach of Billy Graham?

I mean, most people that come down have already received the grace. And they're trying to do something so they come down. There's no handoff point between grace to law. God doesn't get you started in grace and then hand you over to the law. If you're doing that, you're running on two different operating systems, right? Grace for salvation and law for daily life. So the question we need to sit down with is, do you know about grace? You're saying, yeah, Billy Graham folks, they know about grace. Most of us do. The question is, do you believe it? Do you believe it enough to stop performing? Even stopping, how do I stop? How do I stop trying to do it? How do I stop peddling? Mike said something in a previous class that really cuts, I thought. It's a terrifying thing to let go of the only thing you feel is restraining sin. What's keeping you from sinning? Well, if it falls into the performance-based category, it's a terrifying thing to let that go, especially if you've gotten good at it.

It shows you where your desires are. That's it, that's true. It may show you what you aren't desiring. You feel like your discipline is what keeps you from sin. I mean, the mind has a really clever way, the sin nature is very clever at inventing these ways to restrain sin. You discipline yourself somehow, or guilt keeps you on track.

I feel really bad about it. That's enough to know. Like, I feel bad. Or maybe it's your fear. I am straight fearful that God's gonna take this away from me if I don't do these things. So when grace says, let go of the guilt, rest in Christ, count yourself as dead to the power of sin, the flesh screams back, but then what will stop me? What will stop me? And that's the core of the lie. It goes all the way back to the garden, right? It's the core of the lie. Grace isn't passive. Christ in you is alive and active and powerful. Do you believe that? His life is the restraint.

The flesh says, what's going to stop me? I've got to find something to stop me from doing the thing that I hate to do. What can I do? What can I construct in my life, a pattern, a thing, to get out of these sins? I've got to discipline myself somehow. Or if I don't, I'm fearful that he's going to take something or not give something. Ultimately, what that is, and we all wrestle with that, if I don't have any laws around sin, what's going to keep me from sin?

It's really a failure to trust that our crucifixion, co-crucifixion, is sufficient to separate us from the power of sin. That's what Romans 6 is all about. When you put anything else in place of that death, you're admitting that you don't believe the crucifixion death is sufficient. But it goes by so fast we don't have time to realize that.

And then the Lord expands you and He gives you time to think about that. That's one way to do it. But grace isn't passive. Christ in you is alive and active and powerful. The resurrection life, same resurrection power. His life is the restraint. Get that if you don't get anything else today. It's not you doing something to stop it. His life is the restraint. His life is the restraining power.

But you have to believe it. You have to count it as true. It has to be in the books. And it is. You just don't want to look at it and believe it. But it's there. Here's the truth. The distance between where you are and where God wants you is not effort. It's not effort. What is it? It's faith. That's the difference. Not more work, not more discipline, not more guilt, faith. Boy, I need this. Yeah, we do too. We all do.

Because Romans 11.6 says it.

What does Romans 11.6 say?

Without faith, it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. He's a rewarder of those who seek Him. Belief, that's the requirement. You wanna go out there and search for all the things in the world that you can quote unquote do, and mind you, belief is not meritorious to the Lord, but it is your responsibility. All right, a couple of questions for you. You can think about these.

Where are you still performing instead of reckoning? Where are you working to earn something God's already given? Think of a specific area. Maybe it could be marriage, it could be your sin struggle, it could be your worth as a provider. But what would change tomorrow morning if you started by counting or considering, I'm dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus? Where does that put the me monster?

Offline. And what's the operating system for you? all throughout, it's grace. And it's sustained by faith, not sustained by, our faith doesn't sustain grace per se, by any reach, but it does sustain us staying in this circle. Faith keeps us in that circle. God's grace is always present. But faith keeps us in that circle of grace. Are you running two operating systems, grace for salvation and law for the finer details of your life?

Start reckoning. I think that's one of the messages that Paul brings very, very clearly. That very first verse that we read, Romans 611. Who wrote this questionnaire? I wrote it. What's up? It's very good. Well, it's easier when you have AI to correct your spelling and give you ideas. Yeah, go ahead. I wanted to mention that in the Grace Surgical, coming up from obedience is the reward side. What's interesting about the reward side, what is the reward? And the reward is more of Him. More of Him. And so, the more of Him is the motivator also to obey Him. Because you start with Him and you end with Him. It isn't what He can give you, it's Him. Himself, who is life. Consider it. It's on the screen.

I was going to say the same thing, Mike. I think the faith and the trust comes by intimacy with Him, spending time. The more I know you, the more I trust you. The more I can rely upon you. It's the same with Christ. The more I'm with Him and know Him and, you know, intimately know Him, I trust Him more and more. And that grows my faith day by day. And then I can live in grace.

But it starts with knowing Him and just knowing Him intimately. Because I can trust Him. I know Him. It's been a lifetime of trying to trust, you know, trusting Him. And it grows and grows. And I think that's the basis for all of this. To know Him. That's right.

Philippians 3.10. And that's the beauty of remaining in faith, in the environment of grace, you come to know Him. And the fellowship of His suffering, it doesn't mean you're not suffering, you're fellowshipping with Him in the sufferings.

But it's to an end. God is conforming you. Out here in the stall, we're knowing ourselves. And we're coming to our end, just like Paul did in Romans 7. But thanks be to God. Let's pray. Father, we're thankful that you give us clarification in your word about our responsibility to walk by faith and that we see in the book of Hebrews that faith pleases you. And so, Father, as we think about the week ahead, may we just think about reckoning and considering what you've said is true of us. that we count true what you have declared. And Lord, as we think about just living under your blessings, we just pray that you would open our eyes to see that you have already blessed us, that it is a past tense reality. And so Lord, as we go through this week, we thank you that you've given us your grace and your love, and it's all wrapped up in knowing you. It's your name we pray, amen.