Identification Truths Plus 2012

Left off, having answered question eight, how does a believer determine if a behavior is okay for him? And I think the general consensus is that we're not going to try to reconstruct the New Testament Ten Commandments for believers, which isn't just a general consensus, it's a biblical principle. So let's start with question nine. Do we need to have restrictions placed upon our or other's believer's behavior? Should we place restrictions on other believer's behavior or our own?

I would say on our own if it masters us. Okay. So if something is causing us to sin and it masters our behavior and our mindset... I think we need to... We need to maybe have a personal restriction there. Well, with the Lord's help. But it's not a law, it's a personal liberty decision. Right, right. And if by the question you're talking about a set of rules, as we've talked many times restrictions like Romans chapter 14 talks about being a stumbling block. I should be careful not to offend others conscience even though I may feel liberty in a matter. Paul said where he talked about all things are lawful for me but not expedient. Words along that line. So let me ask this. If we're talking about a grace system, do we want to use the word restriction? Maybe better than law. Restriction is better than law. Could we restate it in a more gracious, grace-minded way? That's really the thing that we want to look at. I'll share a personal story, and I think it's one of those things where if you look at Romans 14, this is a story of application from that.

But in my own life, one time we were going on a trip to go camping with the Doyles and some other families and we stopped at a Chipotle on the way up to the campsite and I ordered a beer to have with my burrito. I didn't think anything of it because on occasion I'll enjoy a beer with it. I don't get drunk, don't go out partying, those kinds of things, but I thought I'll have a beer. And I sat down at the table and these children of another family stared at me and they just had this look on their face like, you're going to do that?

And I realized that I, while it was not a sin issue for me, it was going to be a stumbling block for somebody. And so while I'd already had a few swigs of it, I just threw the rest of it away. It's way better to have thrown away a couple dollars some kind of beverage and not cause somebody to stumble in that case. But I wouldn't say it's a restriction. If we say it's a restriction then now we're talking about something where we've got a rule.

Somebody last week mentioned something about, I think it was Al, talked about dancing and playing cards and the traditional areas of restriction that we're used to in the last hundred years of Christianity. I think it's funny because the Puritans, whom I'm not going to quote at all for any doctrinal direction, used to actually have it be a principle that they didn't trust any man who wouldn't sit down and have a beer and smoke a pipe with them. Because that was culturally acceptable. So the restriction was that you really shy away from somebody culturally, if they did that. But if we're walking by grace, how do we restate that? Maybe restraint.

Because that has the idea, perhaps, of personal. I think what you're after is that if you have any restraints, the restraints tend to be focused on restricting the behavior of the old man. The new man in Christ doesn't need any restraints or restrictions. Because his life functions and operates in a holy manner without any external influences on him. That's why Paul could say that it's lawful for me to do anything. But there's some principles involved here that restrict, use that word, restrict my freedom or my liberty. Is he restricting the old man? No. But his focus is on the spiritual well-being of somebody else rather than himself. So we could say an abiding believer, a believer who is beholding the Lord, is going to be someone who is not thinking about the restraints, but is focusing on the relationship.

So that would be a good way to say that. So is that the word? Is what the word? Abiding? No. Restrictions. So do you have a better way of phrasing that? Well the thing is that we would stay away from the principle of restrictions and instead focus on the principles of abiding. So the way is to look at it in the light of a positive relationship rather than the negative legalism. A restriction to the old man would be sacrificial in a sense to him and the new man because of the principles involved. There's no real sacrifice because if you have the liberty to do all things, but there's a principle above your liberty, then you're just abiding by a higher principle and you're not restricting anything really.

You didn't suffer because you didn't have your beer. Yeah, no. You know, what about Jesus telling, didn't he tell the disciples, go and whatever's set before you to eat it? Say that again. Paul was the one who wrote that. Yeah, someone, yeah, in the Bible anyway, you know, whatever's set before you to go ahead and eat it. Didn't he say that? Yeah, he did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And I remember reading about the man that would deliver Bibles. to Russia, you know, it was a dangerous, dangerous time. And I know they would offer him a beer and so, you know, the people in root, he would share what they gave him. I mean, he would give what they gave him. He was given it, he didn't buy it.

It makes a difference. Well, the thing is that the beer is not the problem. The beer, you know, Paul, when he writes to Timothy, he says, Hey, your stomach's hurting. What does he tell him to drink? A little wine. A little wine. He didn't say get drunk. No. We want to avoid drunkenness Ephesians chapter 5, 18. It says don't be drunk. Right. But this is a personal liberty issue isn't it? Right.

And if it was a stumbling block for someone, and I know people that it is, I don't have alcohol on me. And we rejoice in fellowship because that's why we're there. Not the alcohol, it's the fellowship. And we'll get into that too, what that stumbling means.

Yes. Versus offense. It's very specific what Paul is talking about, what stumbling means versus offending somebody. And what the judgment is. Yeah, I mean there's a bunch tied up into that, what that means. We'll get into that a little bit later. Okay. I'm going to get real personal. Okay.

I don't drink and I don't drink because for me it's not, God made me very aware that it isn't for me. But for other people I don't see, like if you knew that and let's say you didn't drink because you know that I didn't drink, I would find that as weird. It depends on the person. I've had people express to me that they, in the flesh, have an addiction problem. And so just by keeping it away from them, it doesn't cause them to stumble and think about, boy, I really wish I could have that beer. Well, see, but then it's like assuming that I, like if it was me, it would be kind of assuming that I would think that because it's just like God made it so a non-issue that it would be like, you know, eating a rock or something. It's like, you know, it'd be like people are more worried about it than I would be.

It's very conditional to me of knowing you. There are people that I know and I know them and so I do that because I know them and I love them. If I know you and I know that you just don't personally have alcohol, then I'm going to respond to that in one way. But the liberty issue is that what can I do to be abiding and have fellowship with you and we grow together in the Lord, rather than what is it that I'm doing specifically. Because there could be other things.

Mike has always asked, you know, is it okay to watch a Broncos game? Watching a Broncos game was by itself not a problem, but if there was somebody who was really obsessed with sports for a long time, and I actually, I used to really love baseball, not football. Baseball was my thing. Well, I would sit and I would talk baseball trivia, and it was the thing that controlled me. It was the thing that mastered me, which is really silly to think about now, how immature I was. yeah but okay let's say that and let's say you know everybody's like oh don't watch baseball around Randy and you're like no that was like long ago and I don't care and it's not a master and you know I'm not going to stumble on it. I guess it comes down to knowing what the relationship is.

How does this man to play when Peter was in that upper room and the sheep came down with all different animals and the Lord said slay and eat and he said not so. I think Peter was just waiting for the invention of the barbecue. He just wanted to smoke the meat. That's what it was. enlarged what I've made plain.

How do we relate that to us today? Well that's the principle of eat whatever's put in front of you in general. I mean the thing is there are things that you're going to want to be conscientious of. Bob Eccle here is a research doctor. He teaches in one of the other same school classes. He has done a lot of research on nutritional things and it's very concerned about people eating a healthy way. And so you might have health restrictions. I have food allergies, so I have to be careful what I do and don't eat.

So there's those kinds of things, but the principle there is that you have liberty. The Lord has given liberty. Eat these things. The Jews would call those things unclean entirely. I've heard believers say, well you shouldn't eat any pork because pork is against the Ten Commandments. or the Old Testament Law, not the New Commandments. That's not... we're not under the law. So that doesn't apply to us. Now you might make decisions to not eat pork belly. Or you might make a decision, you know, I want a lower fat cut of meat or something.

But the principle is that you have liberty there and you're not setting yourselves under the law of commandments. You're walking in grace. You're walking in relationship. I think the key verse is that 1 Corinthians 6.12, though, because it explains, Paul says, all things are lawful for me. Boy, that's quite a statement by a Jewish rabbi.

But not all things are expedient. All things are lawful for me, but I won't be brought under the power of any. And so, that's the principle. It has nothing to do with with all my thing. Everything, I can do anything, I mean I'm free, I have the liberty to do whatever, but there are principles that apply to what I do. And these two principles, they may be or not expedient for me to do it, and I won't be brought under the power of any.

Any sort of addictive behavior means that it controls you, you don't control it. And so that eliminates anything that might be addictive to the old man. Looking at the flip side momentarily, if I do start setting up these restrictions, the thing that happens immediately is the old man takes advantage of that, starts getting proud of the fact that I'm I'm not, I don't drink and you do and therefore I'm somehow spiritually superior. Or I don't play cards or I don't, yeah all of those restrictions. Now you quit preaching and gone meddling.

I don't, I make sure that I always drive the speed limit or half a mile less. If somebody kills somebody, shouldn't there be a restriction against that? Okay, so what you're talking about is moral law, and the Lord actually gave it in the Noahic Covenant. I don't know, I'm just saying that there should be a restriction against somebody killing somebody. Right. And there is. And there is.

There's a biblical moral law in the Noahic Covenant. When Noah gets off the ark, the Lord explicitly says if one person kills their brother, because he's pointing to Cain and Abel, you're to kill that person in capital punishment. So that nine question would be yes, right? Well, you know, it's like for non, for believers, though, I mean, I mean, I would think for a believer, the thought of killing somebody else wouldn't even cross your mind.

Yeah. And abiding believer isn't going, let's see here. Everything's lawful for me. Let's go on a killing spree. That's not the point of the passage that's taking that passage out of context. There's no question that there are specific commands even to the believer under grace like not to murder, not to commit adultery. You don't have to be really spiritual to figure those out.

But to decide whether you should drink alcohol or not, or smoke, or dance, or go to Bronco games, But there's no, you know, First Californians 321 says, I will only go to Raider games. Yeah, but it doesn't say you shouldn't. like cut your body or violate your body?

Does it say that anywhere? Well, it might say it anywhere, but I'm not sure. In the Old Testament it says that. Pick your brains to see if there is something like that. Okay, so what we've done is that we've made it a, we need to make sure we have a proper distinction between that are conditionally relevant to a human body.

Something that is wrestling with the sin nature. Versus the principle here of the abiding believer that is making the decision to be abiding, to be beholding the Lord, and stop wrestling with the carnal lusts. Paul writes in Romans chapter 6 that we should reckon ourselves dead. If you're reckoning yourself dead to the sin nature, the consequence of that is that maybe Colossians 3, that you're beholding the Lord, that you're setting your mind on things above. And so with that as a consequence, if you're setting your mind on things above, what is the outcome of that life? If the life of Christ is being lived through you, what's the consequence of that? I'm asking you. Well, I mean you live a pretty peaceful and free life.

How much of that is spent figuring out whether or not you should play sorry with your kids or grandkids? I've never played sorry. How about Monopoly? It doesn't matter if it's cards or whatever. You don't think about should I or should I not play this thing that is otherwise somewhat neutral, but instead you are saying, okay, here's this opportunity to love my family and live out the life of Christ. And so it stops being about the restrictions. The restrictions are no longer the focus and instead the Lord is.

My dad and mom came over on Thanksgiving and they spent most of the day at our house and we had a great time with them and at no point in time did we stop and think about what restriction that we were or were not violating and instead had great fellowship.

In fact my sister-in-law Kelsey was over with us and she was telling us that other people that she had invited that were an acquaintance that she had, didn't want to come over to our house because we were believers and we were going to be judgmental and we also didn't want to have a bunch of beer and watch a football game or something like that.

But it was one of those things that kind of struck me as really strange. It's like this is Thanksgiving where we're supposed to be thankful And there was this other thing that needed to have happened or else it wasn't going to be a good Thanksgiving. That's a very peculiar attitude. But for us, we just wanted to get together and worship the Lord together and fellowship together and be thankful together. We didn't think about restrictions. They weren't part of the equation. Can I add one other quick one? Sure.

When Paul, this question, when Paul says, like he kind of really keeps, wraps on his body, beats his body. Okay, buffets his body. I was wondering what does that mean? And run the context of what we're talking. Okay, so Paul in that case is talking about the suffering that he does and the endurance that he's had to take on as, you know, we could look at 1st Corinthians chapter, I'm sorry, 2nd Corinthians chapter 11, where he lists all the things that he has suffered, not first grade, second grade, he lists all the things he's suffered through. Is he doing that in arrogance? Or is he doing it to outline and exemplify his endurance?

He used it in the context of self-control and focus on the goal. And he compared himself with an athlete. I don't just beat the wind and do all this stuff just for activity's sake or to make myself beautiful. I'm focused on living out this life of Christ and focus on the goal of conforming to Christ and being in Him and like Him. And so He says the sufferings of this present world are nothing to be compared with the glory that awaits. So it's worth the conditioning and the focusing and the suffering that might go along with it. And he's talking about his apostolic position and role. And it's important that we understand that as far as I understand you're not an apostle.

You haven't seen Christ. sense. But you are called to be self-disciplined in the sense of abiding, but it's not a sense of like, okay, Russ, I need a little bit more marathon action out of you. More running. Make with the physical. That's not the point of that passage. It almost seems to.

It's like, why would I do all this if I really truly didn't believe that God, that Christ came down and died for us. And I think, why would I be doing all this stuff with this goal, with this self-discipline, when I could be, you know, laying around taking it easy. I could just be a rabbi. It would be all good. And that's true.

So with question nine, I think we have a resounding answer of needing to be focusing on the Lord and abiding and not being focusing on restrictions. So the next question is how should we deal with a fellow believer who has no principles? Pray and laugh. Not an entirely bad answer.

So this one is really important. There are different ways that different believers have tried to tackle this problem. We mentioned before the teaching of Lordship Salvation, and John MacArthur is a major proponent of that. Lordship Salvation says, we want to make sure that everybody is righteous.

And the best way to do that is to tell you that if you're not behaving in a righteous enough way, you're probably not saved. And so you better make sure that you're righteous. And if you're not righteous, and I don't see it consistently enough in your life, I'm not going to believe that you're a believer.

What about when they took somebody who was doing something that apparently wasn't right and took them before the elders and prayed and then if they didn't then they put them out of the church? There may be cases where... I mean in the New Testament does it say you should, if someone is doing something wrong, bring them before?

Yeah, well there are biblical instructions for how to deal with that. If we look at 1 Corinthians chapter 5, we see that Paul is dealing with this highly immoral person who's sleeping with his father's wife. Yeah, that's it. Which creeps me out. So Paul says, okay, we're going to have to send this one out until they repent. Yeah. But then they would come back. Does it bring into question their salvation? No. And that's a key detail. So how do we deal with the believer?

I think you should make it clear there that in that case, the man in question was not repentive. In other words, if they had talked to him and he said, oh you guys are right, I shouldn't be doing this, I want to stop, then there wouldn't have been an issue. But he wouldn't stop. And so that's why they put him out. I've got New King James, so the wording may be slightly different.

Deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. So it's always about restoration. It's always not about the judging and the setting up of who's higher in spirituality and the rest. It's always about And in 2nd Corinthians, it's worked. And he wants readmittance and they will let him in. So Paul has to say, hey, let the guy back in.

You know when the Lord went after the shepherd, or went after the 99 and the one had gone on, and it just dawned on me, it wasn't a brand new, I mean it wasn't a sinner out there that the Lord was after. That had been one of the flocks. Well yeah, in that case it's one of the flock, but as believers we tend to have a fleshly response to the flesh and that doesn't put us in a better position. If you have a fleshly response to the flesh, that's just like a husband and wife fighting. going back and forth, or maybe the husband and wife, maybe two kids, like my daughters this week, being on vacation, kind of exhibited those behaviors. Were they going to fight back and forth and back and forth? And at no point in time is it going to get better, and neither one of them is more righteous, because it's the flesh. And so the believers need to respond to all things in a spiritual way. So the question is, how do we deal with a believer who does not appear to be living under gracious principles?

Okay, pray for them is a good answer. It might be part of multiple options. Okay, come alongside and attempt to teach them. Should we put some rules on them? Wouldn't that help them? I got a lot of smiles. I'm going to assume that you don't agree with me. We need restrictions. You need more rules and that will fix everything. You should memorize the Ten Commandments.

Why do we need to not give them law? You need to ask this question and make sure we have a really simple answer for it. Why do we not want to give them a law or rules? Could you say it would be better if you didn't do this? I mean, be gentle about it, however. Is the problem a lack of walking in fellowship or that they don't have rules? What is the fundamental problem for the believer who is not abiding? Is it that he doesn't have enough rules or that he's not abiding? He's not abiding.

So what's written here, and I want to just say it, it's a simple sentence. The reason we don't want to give someone the law is because the strength of sin is in the law. Okay? When you hit somebody with a new rule and give them a new law to make them more righteous, what is the sin nature going to do? It's going to flare up. It's going to abound. And it's going to say, this must make me spiritual, following the law. That's where the Galatians were. Or he's going to say, I don't want to be spiritual.

I like it. You know, I often find myself when I realized the attitude I've had when I've been walking in the flesh, going, wow, that is a very infantile attitude. But while I was walking in the flesh, I didn't think it was infantile. I thought it was pretty sophisticated of myself. That's the arrogance of the flesh. But we don't want to present more laws because that's just something else that the flesh will get riled up by. And the flesh isn't the answer.

So question number 11, what is our judgment about our own behavior and that of others to be based on? What do we base our judgment in our own life and on other believers on? I guess then what sort of relationship we're in with God, with Christ, Holy Spirit. So it's that personal walk. Yeah, and I guess if our behavior isn't reflect in that, then something's off kilter. Okay, that's good. It seems like grace is awfully important. Okay, it does seem like grace is important, absolutely.

What about other believers? How do we judge other believers? This is really tricky because there is no command that we don't have any ability to judge the actions of others. The question is how do we respond to that assessment? So you're saying the behavior is sin? We're evaluating. Think of yourself as an assayer. You're not judging in this case. You're trying to evaluate what the behavior is. You're trying to find out. It is this.

How do we make those estimations? I could see Laura driving her tractor on the farm. You don't have a tractor, do you? Do you have a tractor? I wasn't sure if you had one. If Laura's driving her tractor on the farm, can I tell if she's walking in the spirit or not?

Sometimes maybe you'll see her going, ahhh! Because something went wrong. But sometimes when you look at somebody driving on the road, you can't always tell whether they're abiding or not. So some behaviors are going to be very difficult. If I'm tying my shoes, you're not going to notice that an abiding Randy is tying his shoes, or a calm Randy is tying his shoes.

So this question is asking us an important thing. How do you know if someone is abiding? Is it up to you to know if they're abiding or not? it's valuable for you to know. I guess you'd have to see, alright, let's say you're ordering a beer at Chipotle and someone judges, oh, you ordered a beer. Or if it's like, you know, over the past year, you know, Randy's been drunk, like, you know, maybe it's like over a period of time and kind of watching and Well, this is where we really need to focus on the principle of relationship and fellowship.

You know, when Courtney taught on John chapter 17, what was Christ's prayer for the believer? They weren't listening, obviously. Courtney, we have to review that. They'd be in Him, and He in me, and He in us. So that there would be tremendous intimacy in the life of the believer with God the Father and God the Son. Inside the body, because we have that tremendous potential for intimacy, it should also be logical that we would have that intimacy with one another.

I know... I'm going to be careful how I say this. I'm going to pick a different target. My wife knows when I'm not walking in the Spirit. Often. Because it'll be obvious because of the way I'm saying things and how I'm acting, that I'm not walking in the Spirit.

It's good for her to know that. It's good for her to also be able to come alongside. And at times either bluntly state, hey, Mr. Carnal guy, set your mind on things above. And other times she needs to come along and say, what's going on? I can see something's eating at you. And then I'll vent and then she'll say, well, let's have a spiritual attitude about this and what's the Lord doing?

And that is an appropriate way for that kind of thing to be dealt with. But the judgment is based upon biblical truths and knowing. Knowing one another. It's not that I've observed from the outside and I've got my checklist and I've looked up, you know, you're not matching up. Go ahead, I've got both of the others.

What struck me was in 1 John, John says, but if we walk in the light, As He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. What's interesting is that if you are walking in the Spirit and so am I, we don't have a problem. The second thing about that, though, I think that maybe we should discuss is if you walk into any room, some of the believers in that room are going to be mature, and some of them aren't.

Some of them are going to be babes. Now, whenever you bring this subject up, everybody in the room assumes that they're the mature ones. But there are principles that I think are in place from 1 Corinthians 3, what the strong believer's responsibility is to a young believer, and that is to teach them.

Teach them what? The rules? No. Teach them grace. Teach them the principles of identification, their position in Christ and grace, for what reason? That they may grow too. So if you come at it from that perspective, you don't have to worry about so much the do's and don'ts of behavior. Once you begin to enter into the understanding of what the principles are, the grace you live under, Grace is the greatest motivator there is. And so a young believer will begin to respond to the grace in a manner that's consistent with the life that they have.

Actually, I'm going to expand a lot of these topics in the next three lessons, so I'm chopping at the bit on all these. We've got one last question. There are a bunch of them. But also, what it's based on in question 11 is, I go back to 2 Peter 3. grace and knowledge of him. It's a relationship. That's what it's based on.

And I think of Ephesians 5.1, Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. We're to be imitators. I mean, we're to exhibit the life of Christ.

Then these behaviors and different things, it's not about that. It's a relationship. I always go back to it's a relationship. It's who Christ is and our manifestation of Christ. Then all these others become trivial. Just a quick comment about the question itself. It says, what is our judgment about our own behavior? And that right away puts it in the wrong place. What does the scripture have to say about it? What's the principle of operation? And I think of speaking the truth in love. Our purpose in talking to one another is to edify, to encourage, and not judgment.

So that whole idea of our judgment really is... Well, I mean, the thing is that we have a mind that is part of who we are. So we are evaluating. There are times when I suddenly realize, I'm walking in the flesh. It's the Holy Spirit that convicts us of it, but we have a consciousness of it. The question may be refined to have slightly different terminology, but the principle still remains that we need to take a look at what is the thing that we're looking at when we look at our behavior, and then Because fundamentally the question is, am I abiding or am I not abiding? What is controlling?

Last question, before we ask the question, let's read 1 Corinthians 6.12 again. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. So question 12 is, how much liberty or freedom does a believer have? I know you're afraid of the answer. Infinite? The believer has liberty.

Is it based on earthly restrictions? Is it based on earthly rules? No. He says all things are lawful for me, which is an offense to the Old Testament law all the way. Mike and Courtney both in previous lessons and comments have commented on the fact that when you truly have been co-crucified with Christ, truly have an identification with Him, when you have that intimacy then what flows out of that is natural.

And the liberty that you have is not really license to do anything. It's a liberty to be all that you could be in Christ. It's a liberty to be that person that God created you to be. And it just flows out of that new nature, the spirit life. So in that sense, the liberty here doesn't include all things, but it includes all things that build up that spirit life.

The principle that's there is that we have some specific commands. We've already discussed that. There's some moral commands about, you know, don't kill people. That's a pretty direct... There's actually one exception to that, but we'll talk about that in a second if there's time. But not killing people or not stealing or those things, those moral commands are in play. But instead we're not sitting and looking for jots and tittles and meticulous application of the Ten Commandments or the 613 Laws of the Old Testament. Instead we're walking by liberty, we're walking by grace, we're walking in fellowship with the Lord. There is actually an exception to when you can kill. And can anybody think of what that is? War. Okay, war may be one of them.

But God, when he set in place capital punishment, said that there's justice that may be had in a civil situation. But the principle for believers is to be abiding and to be walking by the Spirit so that That liberty, as Al said, is something that is refreshing. It's the life of Christ. When the world sees the life of Christ, how do they respond to that? That's a trick question, really. Plus or minus? Plus or minus. For some people it's the smell of death, right? But for other people it's the life of Christ. And they go, that's way different.

Talk to me about that. All right, I'm done with question 12. We're down to the last 10 minutes, but I don't know, Courtney, if you want to jump up here. I can start if you want. Because actually, the first couple are kind of review, so I can do that real quick. Let's swap out here. Just going to go through a couple, just real quick, because it's a basis. And actually a lot of the questions we had today I'm going to touch on in the next three lessons, this one and the next two, about a lot of the questions.

What we can say to people, other relationships, where these things come from. But I want to go quickly through our definition of grace, just to go back on it. Grace is the unmerited and unlimited blessings of God based on the totally adequate work of Christ. That's the basis of which we're starting all these from. All these relationships, all these liberty, freedom, all those different things. We are in the operating system of grace. That's the key. That's how we operate right now. So, we'll get into some of that. What does that mean by liberty and freedom? If we're under grace, no laws. We're not under laws, so we're free to do anything.

A couple of things, one of the quotes I liked, I saw in the Hungry Heart, I like this, and it put it in a good perspective. The law demands love God. Grace declared, God so loved the world. I like that. In the law it said, you will love God. Under grace it is the other way, God so loved.

It's a system that's poured out to us. The other one out of the hungry heart is, the believer is placed before the Father according to the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ and is, according to the Father's eye and heart, as his beloved, nothing less. That's how he sees us now, is in the beloved. He sees us in Christ, that in Christ part. That's how he sees us. So that's how he's dealing with us now, is we're in Christ.

That co-crucifixion, our being placed into Christ, That's a whole different ballgame now. And we have the flesh that we have to still deal with. We have two natures in us. The old nature and the new nature. But God sees us in Christ as his beloved. Just as looking at his son, he sees us.

Whole different system we operate under now. So, how do we live under grace? Is it by a set of rules now? We have just another set of rules. The grace rules. It's a whole other 614 different grace rules. Now, is it by a set of laws or is it a really new cool program? Is it not the purpose-driven life? Is it now the grace system? It's a new program by Bill Smith. It's a new program. That's what's going to get us under grace right now, right? You can go out and buy the book and you can have lots of Sunday programs that will have a new system of grace, right?

And it's a set book that if you pray a lot and you memorize a lot and you do a lot of those things, that's how we operate under grace now? No, it's not by that. So how do we live under grace? If it's not under law, how do we live under grace? Living in the Spirit? The Spirit living through us? Yeah. But how do you live under grace now that you don't have laws? Is it just a free-for-all? Paul says, you know, stand fast in liberty. You're in Christ. Okay. It's like God shows you how to live.

I don't know. Help me. You know, in the morning, I get my Bible out and my notebook and everything, you know, and the newspaper. And then I feel guilty. I see the headline, oh, I've got to read that. And then I get started in that. Now, what am I doing wrong? Well, get rid of the newspaper, number one. That, number one. You know, actually, it was one of those things for me personally, this is a personal. In the morning I used to read the Hungry Heart and read the chapter of the Bible and something else usually and one of the other helps or aids or something, you know, different things, some of the old believers.

But what I found is I don't read the newspaper, I don't do any, this is personal, this is not a rule of law. I just do it because I don't want to get, because once I start reading the newspaper or I see something or even read my emails, my mind is automatically drawn to something else. Me personally, I try not to redo anything before I do my study because otherwise I'm thinking. So if I had the newspaper right there, I'd be thinking about all those different things. So me personally, it's not a law. I just try and get away so it's just focused on the scripture.

So how do we live under grace now? By the Spirit. By the Spirit. But is it just by the Spirit? We walk around all day going, okay Spirit, What do you want me to do today? The GPS spirit. Is this how you do it? You just walk around and today spirit is going to write on the wall, oh Courtney is supposed to do this today. How do you know what you are supposed to do? It's just how I feel. How are you not going to feel? I mean, we do feel. Yeah, but is that how you're supposed to do it? You're supposed to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, which means you're supposed to live by the word via faith. So, so what word, what word do we... So, the Bronco game today.

So what, first Hezekiah? First Californians? Where is that? Where is that? My point is, is that I'm to live by faith, to walk by faith. Faith is preceded by my knowing and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ through the word. And so I function that way in faith under grace. create an environment where I'm restricted, I create an environment where I'm learning and growing in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus on an ongoing basis. I have a fellowship with him I know what's of him and not of him, and so I live that way.

So it's the Bronco game of him? So far today, it is. Well, yeah, that's the thing is he's got the plan, and so it's in there. God doesn't know that the Broncos aren't playing or whatever, and so we're in it. Yeah, if I had a call, like, I don't know what time, is it late game, early game? I don't know. But if I had a call, let's say it's a late game at two o'clock and somebody needed to sit and talk to me all afternoon about things of the Lord, the game just went Which is, we're getting warm running, at least where I'm heading on this.

Because if we didn't, if we live by law, and again, we'd have to have a sheet every day that the Lord laid out on us, first thing in the morning that said, you can't watch the Bronco game today, but you can do this today. You can't do this, you can't do that, you can't do this, and you are going to do this, and you're not going to do this. We'd have to have a list every day, laws, to say what we're going to do. We don't have that. So how do we live?

Part of it is the knowing. It's who we are in Christ. And as I say, as you know who you are in Christ, that becomes to be manifest more. As you grow spiritually, you grow. You're what? You're becoming more conformed to the image of Christ. So your responses are going to be more what? Out of your old flesh? Or as you become more mature, you become more apt to, I guess, to manifest Christ.

Now that's only one part of it. The second part is that He's laid out a bunch of principles. It's principles that we deal under grace on a lot of different issues. And that's the difference now. It's not a set of rules. It's by knowing Him and who we are in Christ. But He's also laid out several principles for us to function under. Which is cool. It's not a bunch of rules. It's now principles by which we live, which gives us what?

That freedom, that liberty to function in Christ. We exercise our own personality and style, you might say. I like the way Burns put it in the worship service, with that foundation being the biblical word, truth, and then the faith is built on that, the facts, and then the emotions come in too, the feelings, but they're not They're not the foundation.

They come out of the other. And it's through the Holy Spirit, too, convicting us, convincing us of who we are in Christ. It's by the Word. It has to be by the Word. And that's why I say we're going to look into a bunch of different things where we have principles.

So it's not just a free-for-all. Like there's, you know, get up for me. Get up and go to work. You know, the principle is that I'm going to I'm going to work to be able to take care of myself, you know? And that's kind of the guideline. The principle is, yeah, you've got to get up and work. Those are the type of operating, within the operating system of grace, we have a lot of principles and a lot of different things that will help us function in a system of grace. And that's the real key is that we do it.

And we're also going to, we're going to touch a lot on what we, you know, chomping at the bit about relationships. What I can say about you, and your behavior. A lot of those last questions, we're going to expand a lot on. About how I can, you know, well Holly, I don't like the way you do that. Can I do that? Sure. Go ahead and try it. Biblically, biblically what are you supposed to do? Not what Mike wants you to do, but biblically. What can you do?

And we're going to touch on that in a lot of these things, so we're over. Sometimes it might be right for one Christian and not for another. We're going to explore that. Because we have freedom. We have freedom. We can use the example of the beer. That would be a perfect example. I've got a hundred of them. But we already tapped a keg. I already capped that one, so we'll be able to expand on that and some others because we are going to get into that.

What if I walk outside after this and I have a smoke outside? Huh? Not that I'm doing it, but what if I did? You'd probably be smoking alone. But we're going to touch on some of those. Under Grace, how do you do that? How do you do that? And what does that mean? There are a lot of things we have under grace that we have to think a different way than the old law.

And guess who? We've got to go back to the identification parts. The old man wants to go back under that law. He wants to put us back under the thou shalt not and you shall not. And who's the one doing that? That's the old man. That's why it's so important to know the identification parts and who's doing this. So we're going to get my intro is now done.

We'll now start the lesson. Heavenly Father, we thank you for today. Father, we thank you for every day that you give to us. We just thank you, again, for who you are and just all the system that you have for us. Father, it begins with salvation. Just what a demonstration of grace, offering us eternal life through the Lord Jesus. And it's nothing of what we have done. It's the free gift that you've given to us. And then you've given us eternal life. You've placed us into Christ.

And Father, we operate under this amazing system called grace and the freedom that we have in it. And what a wonderful system about unlimited blessings poured out to us based not on our work, but on what Christ did on the cross. What an amazing system, Lord.

And we'll expand on that. And just thank you that you have in your word so many items that teach us about this system of grace. And we thank you for that. And we thank you for the Holy Spirit that indwells us. that will convince us of this amazing system of grace. So Father, we just thank you for this time and we do just uplift Vern upstairs as he gives us a message, just let him speak clearly your word and just prepare our hearts to receive it. So we do all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.