transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, April 24th. The greatest wealth God offers his followers is spiritual, not material. Tap into his boundless resources to nourish and strengthen your soul. Don't miss the conclusion of our series, Grace for Today, and learn how to walk daily in his abundant favor.

Speaker 2:
[00:23] Do you make up rules for yourself in order to discipline yourself and find yourself breaking them? And do you sort of harshly criticize yourself when you don't live up to your own standards and your own expectations? Do you feel distant from God when you're not serving him or doing something that you would consider sort of spiritual? And do you feel close to God when you're doing something that you think is religious or spiritual? And I wonder if oftentimes you feel driven by such phrases as these in your thinking. I must, I should, I ought to. Well, there are many, many people today who are living under that same attitude, never quite sure whether they have pleased God or not. That is Old Testament living. That's Old Covenant living. And Jesus said, I have come to set you free. I'm establishing a new covenant. Things are about to change. And the next day God established that covenant. Now, I say all that as a background to say the most important thing, and that's this. The Bible says that you and I have been saved by the grace of God. For by grace, God's unmerited, undeserved favor, His kindness and goodness and graciousness toward us, not regarding our worth or our merit, but in spite of what we deserve, God has acted toward us in grace. And through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, He's made it possible for God to remain just and holy and at the same time work among us as sinners in such a way that God looks upon us as absolutely and totally redeemed from all sin, past, present and future. It is purely an act of grace. It has nothing to do with what we deserve. And so when we talk about grace, God's new lifestyle, we're talking about the way God deals with us today. So I want to give you seven words that I really believe sort of summarizes and sort of capsules this whole life that we call a life of grace. The first one is acceptance. In the Old Testament, their acceptance by God was based on their performance. It was based on living up to rules and regulations. When they didn't live up to those rules and regulations as they should, then they felt unaccepted by God. And so they lived under the bondage of law. Their offering of their sacrifice was absolutely essential to their getting God's acceptance. When Jesus Christ went to the cross, he settled once and for all the basis of our acceptance. Our acceptance in the eyes of God is based not on behavior, not on conduct, not on performance, but it is based on a condition. And that condition is that Jesus Christ, having died at Calvary and having taken all of my sin and my receiving him as my personal Savior by faith, settled once and for all and forever the very basis of my acceptance in the eyes of God. It has nothing to do with conduct, nothing to do with behavior, but a condition. You and I have become the children of the living God, not based on our goodness or our righteousness or our promises or our hopes, but based on the work of Jesus Christ when he died at Calvary. His death settled once and for all the basis of our acceptance. Now, what does that do? That means when you and I wake up in the morning, we go about our day. We don't have to be looking to think, I hope I did enough. I hope I prayed enough. I hope I read the Bible enough. I hope I didn't say anything wrong. God, I don't want to have to go down beside my bed tonight and pray and hope God loves me. Friend, loved forever through the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. He paid your sin debt in full. And you will never be free of the bondage of fear, of wondering if you have done enough, wondering if you've lived up to it, wondering if you've reached his standard. What is the standard? Listen, God says it is grace. God's unmerited, undeserved favor, because listen, the truth is, we cannot deserve what God has done for us. You can't. Now listen, if you can't, and he's already provided for, then you can relax. You can relax. You know what the problem is with some Christians? They can't relax. They've been in legalism so long that they can't, it's like they just formed that way. Man, I've got to have rules. I mean, if you take away the rules, I'm gonna feel very insecure. Well, listen, what about the love of God? What about just enjoying God loving you? Based on nothing but the nature of God. Now, here's our problem. Our problem is pride. We think, well, I gotta do something to deserve it. No, you can't. Listen, that's the flesh. You will never be able to deserve the love of God. It is acceptance based on what Jesus did to the cross. The second word is assurance. Assurance, what is the basis of our assurance? The basis of our assurance, he says, for by grace, God's undeserved love, God's graciousness and kindness toward us, God's forgiveness toward us based on not what we deserve. For grace, by grace, you are saved through faith. That's not of yourselves. It is not of works, he says. Lest any man should boast. And there are so many believers who are not sure of their salvation, and I want to say to all of you, dear folks, and I say it as loving as I know how, who have been taught that you can be saved today, sinned tonight, and go to hell tomorrow, my friend. There is no peace in that. There is no joy in that. And I want to ask you a question. What ever happened to grace? That is, if grace is God's undeserved favor, undeserved, if it is something He does for me, I cannot do for myself, then what ever happened to grace, the love of God poured out, and poured out, and poured out upon His children. Listen, through His Son Jesus, He paid the penalty for my disobedience. He paid the penalty for my doubts and my frustrations and anxieties in life. I don't have to pay the penalty for that. You see, we forget this. That's the most important thing Almighty God ever did, was to give His Son to you and to me. So the word is assurance. The third word is availability. Think about this. Before in the Old Testament, only the high priest could go on to the Holy of Holies and be in the presence of the ark of the covenant. The very presence of God was symbolized there. And some priests could go on to other areas. But just think about the people on the outside, all the hundreds and thousands and millions of them, they couldn't get anywhere close to that. Jesus said, I'm coming to establish a new covenant. And the next day, when that veil was split from top to bottom, that was like God opening the door and say, hey, new relationship, listen to this, a personal, warm, intimate relationship with Almighty God, not just Jehovah God, the Omnipotent One who thunders out of Sinai, who sends lightning and clouds and thunder and roar and power. But what? Loving, gentle, heavenly Father. Tender, loving, kind, forgiving, generous, sensitive, that's what the Father's like. And you see, the life of grace is a whole different perspective about God. It is a life of acceptance on the basis of what Christ did, not what I did. It is a life of absolute assurance based on what Jesus did, not what you and I did. It is a life with availability to Almighty God because Jesus paved the way with His blood and Calvary. It is also a life of adequacy. That means in the Old Testament, they struggle. They did in their own strength. But when Pentecost came, something fantastic happened. And you'll recall those disciples, they worked hard trying to do what they should have done, but they kept on blowing it over and over and over again. And Jesus said to them in that fourteen, fifteen, sixteen chapters of John, He spent a lot of time talking to them about the Holy Spirit. And He said, now, when these things come to pass, what I'll tell you about, don't you dare leave Jerusalem. Don't even think about it. He said, you stay right here because something's going to happen. In this New Covenant relationship, something's going to happen. Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to send you the Holy Spirit, a person of the Trinity. He's not just going to be on the outside coming and going once in a while as in the Old Testament characters, but He's coming to abide and live on the inside of you. And He's going to live there forever. And everything you need, He's going to supply. You'll never have to do anything in your own strength, anything in your own power. I will do it through the Holy Spirit within you. It is the supernatural power of the living God. And so if you're living in the grace of God, you have, listen, you have the privilege and the right to claim the presence and the power and the enablement of the Holy Spirit to enable you to do every single thing God calls you to do, whether it is changing the diapers on a baby or whether it is being the president of your corporation. There's no difference in the eyes of God. The next word is abundance. Because you see, Jesus said, I have come that you and I might have life and have it more abundantly. What is the abundant life? I'll tell you what it is. Listen, the abundant life is life on the highest plane. The abundant life is the life of Jesus being lived in and through me. The abundant life is the life that God intended for all of us to live, and that's why He sent Jesus to make it possible, not in their own strength, but in the presence of Christ living within us. It is His abundance. You say, well, look, I've been looking for some of God's abundance, my friend. Here's what He said. He said that He's deposited to your account and mine every single solitary thing we will ever need. Now, I have to trust Him, and as I trust Him, then it's going to flow our way. And you see, some people say, well, you know, I want God to provide for me. Listen, here's what grace has done. By grace, God gives power to the weak. He gives purity to the dirty. He gives healing to the sick. He gives comfort to those who are sorrowing. In His abundance, He has provided everything. Now, let me ask you a question. If you had to make a choice between these two, which would you choose? If God were to say to you, you can have all the money you want. I mean, millions upon millions, you can have all the money you want. Or you can have my wisdom. You can understand my ways. You can know me intimately and deeply. You can know me intricately how I work and how I operate. You can know me as the God that I am. Which of the two would you choose? Give me the wisdom of God. Give me the ways of God. Give me intimacy with God. You see, you'd be a fool to ask anything else. Here's the reason. But think about, when you have the wisdom of God and you know the ways of God, and when God is working in your life and there's a deep, abiding contentment and intimacy with him, I'm here to tell you, there's not any amount of money anywhere in the world to compare with that. And besides that, there are money, they're gonna have to leave it here. What you and I've got, we've taken it with us. They're gonna leave it all, we've taken it with us. We're much richer than they are. And the Bible says that you and I have to be rich in the things of God, rich in the Word of God, wealthy in Him. When you start living in grace, here's what you're gonna discover. No valley, no mountain peak, no difficulty, no hardship, no trouble, no trial, no tribulation. That's not gonna get you down. You know why? Because you'll understand that these are part of the ways of God to mature us, conforming us to His likeness, shaping us up. And you see, He says, He came to liberate us, to set captives free. And you and I have the abundance of God. That's what grace is all about. You say, well, you know, I just don't think I would deserve that right. Listen, you will never deserve that. The Christian ought to just get that word out of their vocabulary. It isn't deserving, but what? Grace. Say it. Grace. It isn't deserving, it's grace. Next word is abiding. Abiding. The most beautiful way Jesus could ever have described, I don't know if anything else he could have said that it could have been more perfect than this. He said, I want to show you about my relationship to you. He said, I'm the vine, you're the branch. And he says, now you are abiding in me, and I am abiding in you. And the life in the vine is now the life of the branch. And the big, luscious, juicy grapes hanging down here from the branch, that to refresh the spirit and the soul and the body, what is that? That's the life of the vine, living in the life of the branch and producing the fruit. You see, the Christian life was never meant to be a struggle, threatening, fuming, and trying and struggling. We've all been through that. But how does the branch live in the vine? It just rests in the vine and depends upon the vine for everything. Jesus is our life. Listen, He is our life. We don't have any life apart from Him. And this wonderful, abiding relationship is the work of God's grace. The last word is accountability. You say, oh, I was afraid you was going to get to that. Well, would God be a God of grace if I were not accountable to Him? Absolutely, He would not. Account, listen to, here's the difference. It's one thing to think in terms of accountability of this judgmental, condemning, scorekeeping God. No, we're talking about a loving, gracious, kind, heavenly Father to whom you and I give account every day. Wake up in the morning, Father, what would you have me to do today? Who would you have me to speak to? Father, would you guide my schedule today because it's yours? Would you just live your life through me today and, you know, the things that I'm going to face that I don't have any idea I'm going to face, and so therefore I can't get prepared for them, but you can be prepared because you can prepare me because you already know what's going to happen. Accountability is not bad. Now, if you die lost without Christ, you've got a lot to be worried about. But you see, when you and I stand in the judgment seat of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we stand before this loving, gracious Father, is He going to say, I told you back y'all know what I was going to do? No. Is God going to judge us by accusing us at the rewards judgment? No. That's not a time of accusing and condemning. You and I would only be there, could only be there with the grace of God. Listen, is He going to treat us graciously and kindly all of our life and get to the judgment and say, it's your turn? No. In those split seconds and nobody knows how long, we're going to see Him as He is and know ourselves as He sees us and agree with His judgment. And it's all going to be praise. You see, here's what the Lord Jesus' attitude is going to be at the judgment. One of my trophies, another one of my trophies. You see, He's not disappointed because He knew before you and I were ever born all the things you and I would do wrong in life, all the mistakes we'd made and all the failures we'd experienced. He knew all about that. You know what He decided to save us anyway? Do you think He's going to be kind to us till we get to the judgment and let the boom fall on us? No. He's a gracious, loving Father, and according to Ephesians chapter two, verse six and seven there, He says, You and I will shine forever in glory as trophies of His great grace. Because you see, angels can't experience it. No angel ever got forgiven of sins and now lives in heaven forgiven, but you and I do. We're trophies of His grace. So you see, here's the choice you have. Making laws and setting rules, living by legalistic domination, fear, uncertainty. I hope I'm close. I hope I'm accepted. I'm not sure. Or you and I can live in the wonderful acceptance that comes at the cross. We can live in the wonderful assurance that's purchased at the cross. We can live in the wonderful sense and awareness of the availability of my heavenly father, who's my friend, in the abundance that he provides for his children, in the adequacy that is ours in him. And you and I can live in this wonderful, relaxing, abiding relationship that it's his work and not ours. And knowing that when it comes to time to give an accountability for our life, that our loving father is going to be just as gentle then as he is right now. Let me ask you a question. Has there ever been a time in your life when you acknowledged your sinfulness and you realized that your sins had separated you between you and God and you realized that you were real entered and needed him? Maybe you didn't know what to do. And so you just said, God, I hope you'll be merciful. I mean, that's not sufficient. You see, to be forgiven of sin means that you realize that you have sinned against him and that there's not anything that you can do for yourself. You see, a lot of folks say, look, when I clean up some things, I'm coming to God. You'll never get there. You know why? Because the cleaning process is his work. Listen to me. It was the blood of Jesus at Calvary that took care of all the cleaning. You can't clean up anything. Listen, you may be able to stop a few things, but here's what you can't do. Now, watch this, your cleaning up yesterday's sins will never erase from your life, from your heart, from your spirit, the guilt of years of disobedience. Cleaning up today's acts is one thing, but erasing years of guilt, only the blood of Jesus can do that. And so that's why we say to be saved is to acknowledge that Jesus' death at Calvary paid your sin debt in full. And that when you receive Him by faith as a person, as my personal Savior, you're saying to God, Father, I do believe that You sent Your only begotten Son and He paid my sin debt. I receive Him as my personal Savior and I therefore believe that my sins are now forgiven, not by what I've done, but what He did. And I declare myself as a child of God based on His work, not mine. It's an act of faith. And then step into this wonderful, exciting journey of hand in hand, listen, hand in hand with the heavenly Father, not whom you're holding onto for the rest of your life, but in His absolute eternal grip holds you for all eternity. That's the life of grace and it is available to all who will call upon Him.

Speaker 1:
[19:17] Thank you for listening to Part 2 of Grace, God's New Lifestyle. For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our online 24-7 station. And if you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.