What About Grace and Law?

But now a righteousness from God apart from the law has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify. The righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. So the idea here to start with is is that we all deserve to be declared guilty as charged. [01:01:15] (32 seconds)  #RighteousByFaith

How can we summarize the gospel? Many ways, of course, but I like this verse. The next verse, please. Second Corinthians five. God made him Jesus who had no sin to be sin for us. Ain't that wonderful? God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. That's the gospel. That's the good news. That's the grace of God extended to this to this broken world. [01:10:37] (35 seconds)  #GoodNewsOfGrace

Redemption is a word taken from the slave market of that day. It is a word taken from the slave market of that day. The basic idea is that of obtaining freedom by payment of ransom. And I don't know how that payment was made in that culture, but I know I do know what I've learned about in the culture of Jesus' time, one third one third of the population might be under in in that category of a slave or a servant. And, normally, you are a slave or a servant because [01:02:56] (37 seconds)  #RedemptionIsRansom

But in Christ, every believer has a race to run, and every believer has a responsibility to finish well. I just ended the senior I entered the senior circuit a week and a half ago, turned 65, and you start thinking about this stuff. Like, I want to I wanna keep keep on I'm hobbling on the race, though. Right? I'm not running any races, But I wanna finish well. Right? I I and I really do honestly believe that for every single one, we have responsibilities until the day the Lord takes us home. [01:12:07] (33 seconds)  #RunTheRaceFinishStrong

Without a doubt, God can use each of us wherever he places us, wherever we are, and that brings tremendous purpose, to our lives. And in Christ, every believer is called to the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace. So I just wanna implore you and remind myself, tell your story. Tell your story. It's unique. Somebody else needs to hear. Somebody else that God's gonna bring your way needs to hear your story. Refresh your memory of how God poured out his love on your life just how he poured out his love on the apostle Paul. Different stories, [01:12:40] (43 seconds)  #ShareYourTestimony

So he starts off with this nice greeting, but he's got a hard word for them. He says, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel which is really no gospel at all. And that's the challenge with all of us. Like, there are things that people will say about their understanding of god, their understanding about the bible, and their understanding could not be the gospel. Right? It could be some, you know, positive thinking thing or some prosperity message or something else. [01:10:01] (36 seconds)  #NoOtherGospel

All of us. Every human being that breathes today. Guilty as charged before God who is holy. We're guilty as charged. Right? There's no one. There's no difference. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Now we're justified. Right? One way to think of justified is just as if we never sinned. Right? Now, we are righteous in right standing with God on the basis of our good works, on the basis of how good we are, on the basis of how religious we are, on the basis of all these things? [01:01:48] (37 seconds)  #AllHaveSinned

And I think and correct me if I'm wrong. Many people today think of the Christian faith as another version of the law. Just just repackaged. It's just repackaged. A religious rule book that we have to keep. That's what Christianity is in the eyes of many people. And if we're not careful, that's sometimes how we can present it, and we need to we need to be careful not to just kinda get into that dialogue with folks. [01:00:21] (33 seconds)  #FaithNotRulebook