Identification Truths Plus 2012
Randy Peterman · Sep 9, 2012
Identification Truths Plus, No. 35
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926327218046

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

Alright, well let's get started. We'll keep carrying on from last week in the lesson we left off at question 8. And so we'll pick up with question 9 and we'll keep moving through. And if we just hustle right through this, Courtney's prepared to teach the next lesson. Let's ask question 9 here.

The best understanding of grace is comprehended by whom? Who is primed to understand grace? That's a big question. It is. People who stumble and fumble and know that they're forgiven. Okay. That's a really good answer. The recipients of grace because scripture says that the world doesn't understand the things of God. that the spirit has to reveal. And so people aren't looking to God for understanding. They're not going to understand anything about salvation by grace. Okay. Within the church, I'm going to restate the question just to make sure everybody's on the same page. I have several good answers. If you have lived a generally righteous life. And if we're honest, that's really nobody. But if you think that you lived a righteous life, are you going to be receptive to grace?

I'm a Pharisee. No, you're not. And so it is the person who recognizes their lowly state who is so overwhelmed by grace and can start to comprehend the need for grace and start to see how that fits into their lives. If you're still trying to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, then that's not the context for grace. That's legalism. That's worse. And so grace is best understood by those who know they're unworthy. Everybody agree with that? Yeah. Alright, cool. I always like it when no one wants to fight me over something.

You know, how about this, I don't know, like the prodigal son might have recognized it more than the brother who was hanging around or thinks who was there the whole time? Yeah, he thought he was bringing something to the table, the brother did, but the prodigal son definitely came in knowing he was worth nothing, he'd spent his inheritance, he was owed nothing, and he walked away and said, I don't need you. And then he realized the error of that decision. So those who are unworthy are more likely to understand grace and their need for it.

So question 10. Use your best efforts to define grace. Something more than we get what we don't deserve. Remember that we're developing a definition. So what's your working definition for grace? It's nothing you've earned. It's nothing you've earned, okay. It's a gift. Let's collect all those parts. That's a good start. Unsolicited blessing. Okay. Last week you had that same topic come up. When you first started last week, you said, what is... We're going to keep asking that question so that everybody formulates it.

Can you out-spend God's grace? Or out-send? We'll use the word send instead of spend. Sadly, yeah. You can? I think so. How much grace does God give you? Oh, I meant the opposite. So if you send just the right way, God doesn't cover it? No, what I was meaning is there's no amount of sin Sadly, there's no amount of sin that I can do that God won't cover. Sadly? I mean... I'm confused. I'm getting worried, brother. What I mean is, it's sad that people do sin. Oh, sure. I mean, you know, it's wonderful that he covers, but only more than we can put out. And what is grace based on? Where do we get grace? Christ based on God's nature. Christ on the cross. That's the more right answer, sorry.

What was the word that Mike used in the introduction that he said was a pretty decent synonym for grace? Does anybody remember? It was an F word. Okay, then I have a question about my answer. Sorry, I go backwards. So there was no grace before Christ died on the cross? Is that what we're saying? That's a good question. I don't think that's what we're saying, but it's a good question. Who can answer that? I can answer it, but I want to see if anyone else in the class has got it. I think there was. I think there was grace. Or we're going to be toast.

I think we have to get away from the idea though, is that in the Old Testament, God was being a nice guy every now and then. Because of the consequences of man's sin, if he's going to act graciously towards man, he's got to have a reason to do it. He just can't put sin aside and say, well this one time, I'm going to be nice. just because I'm a good guy. That's not his temperament. When sin offended him, it separated man from him permanently.

And so, in order for God to have any sort of movement towards man, he has to have resolved to some degree, or potentially resolved, the barrier, the problem. So when he institutes like the mosaic system, and he covers their sins, he does it on the basis of a credit card, knowing that what was going to happen with Christ on the cross, that he could cover man's sins, until the time of the cross he could do away with them. But he didn't act because he just, put it this way, his love didn't overpower his justice and righteousness and holiness. Severs explains it pretty well.

He said, in the old days, the priest had to enter Holy of Holies and offer a sacrifice for the people every year to satisfy God's need for payment for sin. But in a sense, that was God's grace in providing a way for the people to come to Him. It was an outward sign of their debt and that God was going to deal with it, but the sacrifice itself didn't actually satisfy it. It was just an outward sign. So, let me introduce you to an acronym. This isn't part of the lesson plan, but we've gone here, so since we're here, let me introduce you to an acronym.

It's C.O.M.E. It's Content, Object, Means, and Basis for Salvation. And the object of our salvation throughout all of the Bible is always the same. The means for salvation is always the same and the basis is always the same. I'll go over this in a second. But the content changed. Why does the content change for salvation?

Did Adam and Eve have Christ already on the cross, dead, buried, resurrected and ascended? No. So the content of their faith was only what was revealed up to that point in time. But the object of their faith was always God, the means of salvation was always through faith, and the basis was always the work of Christ on the cross, even if they didn't understand that.

So C.O.M.E. is a good acronym to remember. But the idea is that it's based on the work of Christ Jesus, or grace is based on the work of Christ Jesus, even if the people didn't fully understand what that meant. In Genesis chapter 3, God tells the serpent that the Descendant of Eve is going to crush the serpent's head. It's the first foretelling of the Messiah.

But they didn't understand what it meant. So the content changed because Revelation is progressive throughout Scripture. What the object means and basis were always the same. So it's more of a time issue. A human time issue. Humans perceive the time-space continuum and we have this problem with things happening globally or internationally or universally even. We can only perceive the scope of what we're observing.

But God doesn't have any limitations. God wasn't worried, oh no, is my son actually going to be able to make it onto the cross and die and then be resurrected again? I'm not sure if I can do that. He knew exactly with great 100% certainty that his son was going to die on the cross and pay for the penalties of sin for all of mankind. So everybody's good with that? Alright, so let's come back to question 10 and ask it again.

We've got all the pieces. You guys have checked off all the pieces. Let's see if we can come up with one definition that summarizes everything. It seems like what Mike was saying a couple weeks ago was that we live in an environment of grace. Yes. It's our life that we live in. But I didn't know about the F word. Okay, the F word was favor. The blessing of God is favor.

Alright, so what's our working definition? I'm going to use Chester McCauley's because I think it's probably the most terse and yet meaning laden definition. So write this one down if you haven't already. Grace is the unmerited and unlimited blessing of God based upon the totally adequate work of Christ on the cross. We're going to dissect that over the next couple lessons. It's really important. But it's unmerited, it's unlimited, it's a gift, so it's undesired. You didn't know to ask for it. Or at least I didn't. Maybe you're sharper than I am.

And it's based on the work of Christ on the cross. Has everybody got that down or agree with it? Nobody wants to stone me for heresy or anything? It was based on the totally adequate work of Christ on the cross. That concept of adequacy is really important. Because if Jesus didn't pay for all of it, what if he paid for 99%? Then there'd be merit. Then there'd be something you brought to the table. So, it's important that it's totally adequate. Sam Dalton used to have another one that he was always acronyms. I think somebody said it upstairs, maybe.

The acronym GRACE. If you can't remember Chester McCullough, it's the other one. GRACE, the acronym. God's riches at Christ's expense. OK. That's good. I like Chester better, but if you're stuck and you can't remember, just remember the acronym GRACE. Yeah. All right. Any questions or thoughts on that? Otherwise, we'll scoot.

Mike, if that's the definition, how do you make it apply to what Russ was talking about, and we talked about a few weeks ago, that it's an environment that we live in that's not just a principle. If we live in the environment of grace, then the principles would be unmerited, unlimited blessings. And they would be based on what Christ did, and anything that was brought into that environment that had any kind of a smell of merit or limited God in any way would spoil the environment of grace. So I think it's a lot more than, you know, just a principle that you neatly tuck away in your theology someplace and try to remember and I think it's a total environment that God has placed us in and it's the only way that God deals with us now. He won't deal with us on any other basis other than grace. Which makes it tough for us because we're always meriting and limiting and working.

The prayer request for the political state or the general state of the country and obviously with politics being prime right now as we come up to the election. This week I saw a lot of people all worked up for the actual cost of the dresses that the wives of the candidates were wearing. Just all up in arms. You know, well this person spent five times as much as this other person. That just must mean that they're going to be fools with our money because the wives' dress cost this much money.

And merit was immediately applied into this situation which there was no discussion about the content. No discussion of the quality, the actual track history or record. It was immediately about distresses. These groups of people were fixating on this one thing. And it's funny to me because we look at merit and we look at those kinds of things and it makes it easy to start dissecting. Separating from politics, we could talk about the issues of, are you righteous?

This week I was not righteous. of my own accord. Anyone righteous of their own accord this week? No one's raising their hand just in case you missed that on that one. No one has a nerve to. That's right. We don't have our own righteousness. We couldn't bring our own righteousness to Merida anyways. And yet there are systems of legalism where we will come and we'll scrutinize people's lives and say, well I don't know that Jesus is the Lord of your life. I'm not sure you're safe.

That's one of the places where was the idea of being a good Christian. Yeah. Because that ties right in with your environment of grace. Yeah. I'm a Christian or I'm not a Christian. Yeah, that's right. And the goodness is all of God, not of me. Yeah. Because my Bible says, as you received Christ Jesus, so walk ye in Him. Yeah.

Rooted and built up and grounded in that faith. And it's just so easy for me to point with pride to the things I did last week for God, as though my whole life isn't by God's unmerited faith. And that's really a fundamental thing, it's the whole life. When I went yesterday to that Bible thing, they had some really interesting speakers giving a tour. And this guy did from Noah to Moses or something. And then he talked about how now we're under grace. And it sounds like an oxymoron to me, but he says we're under the law of grace.

Yeah, and I didn't say anything, believe it or not. It's much like the question last night, where it's the controlling, or last night, last week when we talked about the controlling, question three, with the controlling system. It's beyond just the scope of being a principal, like Mike said. It is the operating system.

It's the whole of how God deals with us and interacts with us. You know, I think this all goes... it always, to me, ties back into our identification. We're placed into Him. We operate in the new creation, in Him. We operate in that system of grace. And it shouldn't be foreign, it shouldn't be struggle. two natures, and everything of this world is contrary to grace. Everything we do is merited.

Like I said, we kid when Mike and I go to lunch. We bought lunch last week. Yeah. I did. He says that every week, that's why. He's using grace. It's in love too. There are a lot of things in the scriptures about in love. I think you still have to understand that, because how can God give you this unlimited, unmerited grace, or unmerited blessings?

Well, He sees us in Him. And it goes back to John 17. If He loves us so much that relationship with His Son, we're in that same relationship. And that's what John 17 points out, is that He wants that same relationship with everything. intimacy that they have. Well, we have that same intimacy now.

That's where, as I said, if you understand who you are in Christ, then I think you begin to understand how you can have this unmerited, unlimited. Because the old man, the old nature, always is going back to law, always going back to works, always going back to merit. Let me ask the next question based on what you just said. It's not in this handout next question. But how does that impact the body? How should, since God sees us and we interact with him in grace, how should that impact the body? The body of Christ. The body of Christ. If vertically we're under grace, are we also under grace horizontally?

That's really important. There's particular folks in my life, when I look at the past, where I've seen people be gracious towards myself and my family over and over again. Benevolently generous. Not looking to say, well, let's see, we did this thing for the Petermans, or we helped the Petermans in this way, but we've used up all of our generosity towards them. Because they have never paid us back to the same level. Does that sound familiar?

Or do we operate in grace, in the body? I also think that transcends physical and financial advice that it extends to, let me pick the right words here, to spiritual growth of the body. Well it doesn't extend to the Holy Spirit, I mean boom, that's it right? It's rooted in the abiding principle, yeah. Let me ask you a question. Sure.

What if you extend yourself like I did with my friend and she wants me to take her out again? Are you supposed to, in a way, work against yourself to continue grace unto others? Okay, so in this case what you're asking is... What I'm asking is if I do it again I'm really limelighted.

No, what you're asking about is where does your stewardship of your body have boundaries. Is that what I'm asking? Yeah, because you just said to me, hey, I have a stewardship of this knee, and if I wreck this knee, then not only can I not help her, but I may not be able to help others. That's true. So the question is, are there other people? You can ask the Lord, will you provide other people that can help her? Will you provide other people that can help me help her? There's those sorts of opportunities that exist.

But if you're... because it's very easy to say I'm just going to give until I die and yet do things that are not stewardship oriented. That's kind of the question. You have a stewardship of your body. I also think there's an element there in which you You go to the Lord about those issues. You ask Him, what would you have me do? Because I belong to you. The knee is yours too. If that's what you want me to do, then I'll do it. It isn't because you don't do something because the need is there. You do it because God has called you to do it.

And you'll know. It's like somebody comes up and wants money. Well, some people you give money to, some people you don't. Well, what's the criteria? You ran it under the Lord's nose, so to speak, and there wasn't any resistance, and so you did. The next person that comes along, you don't. So I think that all of those kinds of questions, what should I do now? What should I do about that circumstance?

Some of them are covered in the Word of God carefully, but one of the things we're going to cover in the weeks to come is because the environment of grace, the word of God does not cover every do and don't like the mosaic system did, then we are free based on principles to make decisions about what we should do in any given situation. And it's based on the principles, not based on do's and don'ts. So, we'll get into, I don't cause my brother to stumble. Christ died for him. I'm not going to jeopardize who he is based on that. So they operate on principle.

Now, I was last week in dealing with an issue in California. I told these people, I said, look, they said to me, well, this person keeps their family and they keep harassing us. And what are we going to do? I said, go get a restraining order against them. And they said, well, that's not a Christian thing to do.

I said, I can't find anywhere in the Bible where it says that you have to continually suffer attack, that you can stop it if it's appropriate to do so, especially if they're not believers. But I see Paul all the time, he would never ask God to relieve him of criticism, He would always ask them that he would arise above the criticism. So criticism isn't, but attack is a different thing and it depends on the circumstance and how God would lead you. And also, too, don't you think that God could lead you through other people?

Like, you're saying this is the thing and we're kind of saying, like, you know, it might not be a good idea to, you know, go dragging that lady around. Or it might be a good idea to, you know, have a restraining order. So sometimes, I mean, maybe not, definitely not all the time, but sometimes ask somebody else and they might even, you know, be... Yeah, the Lord will figure a way. Yeah.

Not that you just cut them off, but, you know. But you also have a certain strength and frame. You're kind of a small, bold little gal, and so, you know, you only have so much energy. I mean, you can't, like, a 400-pound person, it's dangerous for them, too.

Right. Yeah, I had to hold the oxygen tank, the heavy oxygen tank, and she said, don't pull it out of my nose. Let's ask the next question because it's very applicable I think. Question 11, let's ask this and we'll keep the discussion but we'll keep moving through the questions.

Can one distributing grace, in this case we'll say it's Helen, be put under obligation by those receiving grace? That's the person that you gave a right to. Or, and this is the actual biblical context, as a believer can I put God under obligation? He gave me grace, can I make him obligated to do that?

No, of course not. That would be the unsolicited part. Okay. Also the unmerited part, because if I somehow can get God in a box, where he owes me, then I've created a merit situation where he has to perform, based on what I've done. And I think we do that a lot. How about, well we all need to pray because if we get enough people to pray then God will have us do what we want. Like it's a prayer democracy or something. So the question of obligation is that one, in this particular case, one benevolent, caring, kind, loving action does not mean that you have to do that every time. The obligation is not there. There is no obligation in gifts. It's not a gift if there's obligation.

Yesterday we were talking to Kaylee Kays as she was walking with us and she told us that the school that she's been going to has several giving levels and programs for you to donate to the school. but they're at very specific quantities and amounts. They want you to give to the school, but the students have a minimum gift value, if they're going to give, of $150 or some number like that. That's not a gift.

That's an obligation. That's any number of things. But instead of saying it's a gift, you said, no, here's the box. It's got to go in here. That's the same way when a church puts out the tithing call. It's not grace. It's got to be 10%. If it's not 10%, then you're not living up to God's standard. That's not grace. The tithe is a joke. Because even in the Old Testament context, that's not what the Jews gave. They gave somewhere between 35 or more percent, depending on what was going on. It wasn't 10%. So when you hear tithe, most people take it out of context.

Unless they say it was just the amount that they gave for a specific part of what they were fully responsible for. I don't want to divert from the main thought, because it's so good. When you said that, my mind flashed to the collection for building the tabernacle. And I had to tell the people, stop, because you've given them over.

There's more of an example of grace. Responding to grace with grace. It kind of goes to, we'll touch on it later, I think, is what is your response to grace? What is the only response you can have to grace? Thank you. Thank you. That's it. And that gets you that understanding that there's nothing obligated to the giver. There's nothing that we did to receive it. And we really put that in perspective. That's really the response to grace is thank you. Because I'm not obligated, I'm not making God a debtor nor am I meriting that.

It's just the only thing you can do is say thank you. I'm going to swap the order of questions 12 and 13. We're running out of time, but I'm going to swap the order of them because I think 12 could be a different kind of discussion than 13. 13 is, is it dangerous to teach grace?

Yes, because now we're all going to run amok. That's right. We're not going to do anything for anybody. That's one of the fears that the legalist presents is, oh no, now you're just going to teach the people to do whatever they want and people will run amok.

Now you've ruined the righteousness that God demands. Which is revelatory of some other problems. Is it dangerous to teach grace? I think if you don't understand it, it is. There's a movement today called the free grace movement. And what they're teaching is dangerous.

Because like they teach from the salvation standpoint, they say that The only thing you have to do is believe in Jesus. But they don't mention his work. Well, they left something out. And so, just if you recognize that there is a Jesus, then if you believe in him, God will save you. Well, that's not exactly the gospel. And I think if you move that on to how you live your life, it does end up in anarchy. Yeah. If inherent teaching of grace is given, then it is an issue. Yeah.

Grace is presented one of two ways. The reformed people presented that you're saved by grace, not get busy under a lost system. Or you're saved by easy grace or free grace and that's how you live and you can do what you want. There's a misunderstanding that grace in and of itself is a greater motivator than law is. It motivates the new life of the believer to respond to the grace given to him.

The thing that I've been impressed with recently, strangely enough through worship music, but there were several songs that talked about intimacy with the God of the universe. And when you think about that, and grace enables you to have intimacy with the God of the universe, how could you not be motivated by that to desire deeper intimacy?

I mean, Courtney obviously talked through John 17 earlier this year. That's a theme there. And that's really important. I'm not triggering Courtney. No, no. It's more, you know, or dangerous to teach grace. Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? Yahtzee, let's party! Sin abounds, grace superabounds. He's dealing with the exact same thing 2,000 years ago. And then in 15, what then? Shall we sin because we're not under law, but under grace? In both instances, may it same things that he taught, because he saw the same thing.

You know, these Jews who are under the law suddenly are grace? Gee! Now I got it. Anarchy crazy. And Paul says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. May it never be. I mean, we ask the same question. You know, this is an observation I just had. Spiritual growth that, in the conditional sense, that is progressing over time, requires an environment of grace. I agree. If it was a legalistic system, we couldn't grow progressively. We wouldn't grow at all. You couldn't grow at all. Grace is the only way, it's the only environment in which the believer can grow, and that's really important.

Al? When you ask about dangerous to teach grace, it was dangerous to Christ, wasn't it? Because the legalistic system of the day, the religious authorities, couldn't stand to have the legal part challenged. People want to have it all spelled out in black and white. doesn't allow himself to be put in that box that we create, even though we try to force him in. And the Pharisees were terribly upset. And you find it just in the business world. People are tied to their procedures and rules, and many of them get very uncomfortable if you ever go outside that box.

And so it seems to be something that's built into us an obligation, a merit, whatever. But that's the first flag that you'd raise up in your mind that says, that's the old man. Because the new creature in Christ, there is no obligation, it's to receive the grace, the operating system you're in.

And every time I think I've got to do, or my motive, Helen, I think, you know, if your motive is, you know, I've got to do this because God's going to smile on me a little better. Because if I help that lady, God's going to smile on me just a little bit more because I helped her. That's the old man speaking. Because God doesn't...

What do you need to add to what Christ has done on the cross to make you more worthy or acceptable to God? You buy your heart motive, I do it because that's who I am in Christ. But if it's because if I look at my motive and say, because you're wanting to do something to earn merit, to impress God, to be acceptable to God. And that then diminishes what Christ did. Because it says it wasn't enough what Christ did. I have to add a little bit to this.

And that's always the old, the flesh, the old man. That's why the importance of the identification or separation from the old man. You know, my whole life I see that when I see my motives go to, OK God, yeah. Oh, wait a minute. You know, it's like, no, that's the old man. and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery. You know, and Paul, you know, this is the end of Galatians where he's just put a case against, you know, law versus grace. And, you know, stand fast, stand firm in your liberty. Don't put yourself back under that law.

And, you know, I just, you know, when you say about the lady, I keep thinking, that's fine, but if there's an obligation that you're doing it to impress God or to think, That's the old, old. Or even worrying about what she's thinking about too, right? Yeah, because she asked me to take her somewhere this Saturday. I didn't want to tell her what happened to me. And I didn't, but I just said I had other plans. And that was kind of a... I'm not going to say lie. You know, your plans were to recover. One thing, real quick.

The reason that I came to believe this stuff is true is when I see Courtney dragging 50 tons of stuff every week or every other week. I don't use him. Or you're doing Camp Elon and all this stuff and I'm going, These guys really believe that nothing they do adds to anything, but they're so busy doing this all the time, but it's not for trying to get brownie points. It just flows out of them. Can't not do it, maybe. It's not that they feel obligated, they just want to.

In 1 Corinthians, it's the best if you're involved in the body of Christ. Paul says that he planted and Apollos watered, but it was God who gave the increase. He said that, so Apollos and I share the greatest common denominator we could ever share, and that is we're nothing. If you're functioning in the body of Christ with the mindset you're nothing, it's perfect.

Because then you're not responsible for the outcome. You're just functioning. And it's God who gives the increase, and if God decides not to give the increase, you're not disappointed, because it's His job. If He does give the increase, you know, take it upon yourself, look what I did, because you didn't have anything to do with it anyway. And that's where the peace and rest comes from, that he promises. No, it's not, there's no problem. It's not a burden. Right. Because it's not your responsibility.

I mean, that's, you know, you cannot receive rest from the respecting who you are in Christ. That's the key. Alright, let's ask the last, or technically the second to last question. Explain the difference of God's grace in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Time. Okay. We kind of covered that question earlier, which is good. But there's a chronology that's there that we see in order to, right? We talked about the acronym C.O.M.E. Does Grace's definition change?

No. It functions the same. The difference is that I think in the Old Testament it's not the environment. God is acting graciously and the Jews are bringing sin and weakness to the table and he's responding graciously but it's not the environment they live in. where us, it's the whole air we breathe, the system we live in, operating. Is that dispensation? Correct, yeah.

And say that the word that she uses dispensation and that is the idea that talks about the household that God has established in this time. The church in Christ is a new creation, right? Is that said of the saints or the believers in the Old Testament? Are they new creations? No, they're not. Are they the bride of Christ? No, they're not. They're described as God's bride in several illustrations or allegories. Are they saved and are they saints? Absolutely, yeah. They're saved by faith, just like Abraham was. You read Romans chapter 4 and Paul says, hey, Abraham was saved by faith. And when you see the tomfoolery he engaged in, you know that they received grace. You know, when he shows up and he says, yeah, this is my sister, Sarah.

You know, that's nonsense. Al? Just when you mention that, you think of two examples particularly. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Yeah. And so it wasn't because It wasn't because of the law. It was before the law. And then with Abraham, as you already mentioned, Abraham believed to God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Yeah. But then it's like. Was it with Abraham, I'm sorry I'm not that familiar, but wasn't it that God said you're going to have a child and then they decide oh it isn't happening fast enough so let's go have somebody else give you one?

God's declaration that Abraham was righteous before him was only because he believed God. If he didn't believe God, he was still going to have the system. God was still going to create a nation through Abraham. He was still going to do everything he said. Because it didn't depend on whether Abraham responded or not. God said, this is what I'm going to do. And so Abraham believes him. He's counted righteous.

But then what happens? He's a couple of weeks down the road, or months, or years, or whatever it is, he's deciding God isn't moving fast enough. So he's going to help him out. Yeah, I'm getting near 100. That worked out well. Yeah, we're still for Abraham.

Sadly, that reminds me of my Genesis class I took in seminary where I heard a really large number of bad jokes. Which I will not share with you. Isaac was the first Hebrew international wiener. It was at the wiening party that Hagar was picked out. Really weird, sorry.

So we see that grace is the operating system for believers and because of identification there is a difference between the Old and New Testament. There is a difference between the Old and New Testament in that regard. Grace is the same. How it is appropriated is contextual and that is an important detail to recognize.

Any other thoughts or questions on the questions we have covered so far? Otherwise Courtney is going to take it away next week. Go to the next lesson. Heavenly Father, thank you for your grace. Thank you for sending your son to be a totally adequate sacrifice and that you identified us with him so that we could live in an operating system of grace. We ask that throughout the week we would Be reminded of these truths and they would just be embedded on our thoughts about interacting with you and other believers and Lord that we may be representative of that lifestyle lived. We thank you in Jesus name.