Answer to the question are you a sinner saved by grace or a saint

Welcome to episode 166.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 166. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. If this is your first time with us, welcome aboard. If you are a frequent flyer and you were here at our last episode, you will know that I ended— or actually had the whole episode asking a question, and it was based on the question: are you a sinner saved by grace, or are you a saint of God? And I wanted you to go over your head, and I didn't want to give you my answer, or I didn't want to tell you what I thought the Bible said about it. I wanted you to see what you were thinking in your own soul, in your mind, will, and emotion. What are you telling yourself? And I brought up a couple of scriptures. The first one was in Proverbs 18:20 and 21. 18:21 says, death and life are in the power of the tongue. And those who love it will eat of its fruit. And 18:20 says, a man's stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth, from the produce of his lips he shall be filled. Those scriptures are pretty basic, but it just talks about what you say and what you say about yourself, or what you say about others, or what you say about your situation. It— words have power. And if you're talking to yourself and you're calling yourself something Like you say, "Well, you know, brother, I'm just a sinner saved by grace." And if you see yourself as a sinner, well, I believe that you are against the 8-ball. I think you're halfway beaten with that acknowledgement. I believe that you have already succumbed to a negative thought process. Barna came out with a survey and said 78% of Christians have a negative self-talk. Daily, 78% of the things that Christians say to themselves about themselves are negative. That's real close if you're going to do math, and we know math is not an exact science. So if we're going to round that up to 80%, and that's 8 out of 10, so only 20%, and that doesn't even say that 20% of your thought process are positive. That just says that 78% are negative, so 10% might be neutral, and the other 10% might be positive. But how bad is that? And when we talk about Satan and we talk about the punk and we say that he is the accuser— we don't say it, the Bible says it— he is the accuser of the brethren. He is going to accuse you, and he does it day and night. And he does it in such a way, he makes you think that it's your thoughts. So you're having these thoughts about you, and then what comes out of your mouth— now I got to find the scripture, but I've got it in my head— out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. And let me find that real quick. That quote was found in Matthew 12:33-35. It's also in Luke 7:43-45, and I'll read Luke. For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. And that is in red, and that is Jesus. That is God speaking, and he is letting us know that what is inside of you is going to come out. And if you keep milling things around— and that's what Satan wants. Satan wants us to keep having negative thoughts about ourselves. He wants us to keep milling those negative thoughts inside of our head over and over and over and over again, because what is on the inside of us ends up coming out. And so if we keep meditating— that's why we need to get into the Bible, get into the Word. This is soapbox moment number 752. We've got to be in the Word of God because if you want to know the truth, only the truth is what's going to set you free. And Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus is the truth. Jesus is the Word. And if we don't get to know this Word, then we're going to fall. I remember though, Aaron— was it Aaron Neville? I don't remember, but it was an old country song. It says, if you— you've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything. And if you don't something inside of you, something to anchor to, well, you're going to go by whatever makes you feel right, or whatever you think is right, or wherever you hear the most every day, day in and day out. But if you've got it anchored on the Word of God and you got it to where it's immovable, well, then you're going to have something that you can deal with. Now I want to read one more scripture before I start talking about whether we're a saint or we're a sinner saved by grace. And that is found in Revelation 12:10. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren who accused them before our God day and night has been cast down. And then we go to my favorite scripture, and they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. So there is the accuser of the brethren, that is Satan, that's the punk. And what he does, and he's very good at what he does, he's a deceiver and he just accuses. Now he accuses you before God and he accuses you to yourself, and he brings in these evil thoughts or these dumb thoughts or these negative thoughts and all of these things, and they've been playing on and no one has really caught— you don't really call them out. And I say you when I'm talking to me Really, because I hear these thoughts in my head all of the time, and I've just never really talked about it much, and I've never really said anything. And you know, when you live with somebody— my wife and I, we kind of talk about this a lot. When she says something negative about herself, you know, I'll say, well, that's a very positive self-talk. But then I'll spurt something out of my mouth, she goes, oh, Mr. Positive, look at that negative self-talk. And you don't realize that you're even doing it. And this conversation is going on 80% of the time in most Christians' head. So I believe with those numbers, even if it's over 50, even if it's just 50% of the time is negative, that's not gonna give you a positive self-image, that's not gonna give you the power and the authority. You're gonna think, "Well..." And I think with that thought, and with those numbers, and with that stuff going on in my head, And then probably in your head, and it's going on in church leaders' heads. And when it comes out in the pulpit, I mean, I guess it's a badge of honor to think that, oh, you know, and I hear people preach a lot of times saying, oh, we're just barely getting by, it's a tough world out there, or we're just barely— we're just sinners saved by grace. And I'm going to read a couple of scriptures. We are not sinners. And my answer to the question is, are you a sinner saved by grace, or are you a saint? I believe the undeniable truth in what the word of God says is you are a saint. You are a saint of God, and you were a sinner at one time. And if you have not accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and you have not got— come into salvation, then yes, you still are a sinner. The Bible is clear. Romans 3:23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But when you become a Christian, your whole spirit man changes. It comes alive, and you are no longer a sinner. You have been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. You are now seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Your spirit man is exactly like it's gonna be when you get to heaven. So your spirit man is 100% sanctified. It's just like Jesus. When God looks at you, he sees your spirit man. He just looks at you and he does not see any problem. Now the problem we have is in our body. It's in our mind, will, and emotion. That's our soulish realm. And it's in the world that we're dealing with, constantly negative. It's constantly coming against us. Again, we talk about this very often about the three enemies. We also have the accuser of the brethren. We got the punk or his imps or any demon that is constantly giving us negative thoughts. And if you don't have enough negative thoughts, you start talking some scripture or you start getting positive, you start making good tracks towards going doing something good, Satan sends somebody out and says, "Hey, you need to start giving him some negative thoughts." And so then they'll start bringing these thoughts in. And that's why when I hear people say that God does not speak to his people, I guess Christians that mean well, I guess they're feeling negative because they've made a determination that God just don't speak anymore. And so if he don't speak to this person that's got the microphone, then he ain't speaking anymore. I've heard a few of these guys say people that hear from God, I mean, they don't say they're full of crap because they're probably better people than I am, but they pretty much imply that these people are misled. And the Bible is clear. Jesus said that his sheep will hear his voice. And so I don't claim that I hear it all the time, but I hear from God most of the time. And I've said it multiple times on this podcast, what I hear in his word. And with that said, let's read what Jesus said in Luke 5:32. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And then Luke 15:7, I say to you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repents more than over 99 just persons which need no repentance. Likewise I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents. And then let's read what Paul says in 1 Timothy 1:15, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. And I think this might be where people think that we're— if Paul said that he was a sinner, Apostle Paul was an animal. I mean, this guy wrote two-thirds of the New Testament. So if he said he was a sinner— Paul said that he came into the world to save sinners. Of whom I am chief. He came in to save sinners. After you are saved, you are no longer a sinner. Let's read this same Paul in Ephesians 1:18. The eyes of your understanding be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. And there's multiple other scriptures in Ephesians, and I would encourage you to read Ephesians because he says that he calls us saints in 2:19 and 3:18 and 4:12 and 5:3 and in 6:18. I didn't want to go into reading all of those scriptures because this has gone on a little bit further than I wanted, and we may pick it up in the next episode. But I just want you to understand that yes, all have sinned, but while you're sinning, you are a sinner. When you become a new creature in Christ. Now you're a saint. You have been changed from a sinner to a saint. Now you're a saint who sometimes, maybe occasionally, sins. That doesn't mean you're a saint does not sin anymore. The saint— you are not of this world anymore. You have been translated again into the kingdom of Christ. So you just got— we just got to get in our mindset that we are not sinners. Some people may say that, that this is just semantics, but I think it's important. I think words have power. Death and life is in the power of the tongue. We have got to understand that Satan comes against us in our mind. And that's enough right now. I just looked up at the clock and I've gone on a lot longer than I wanted to. Let's pray. God, I thank you so much for everything that you put in your word. Lord, I thank you that you came to save a sinner like me. And God, I thank you that when I accepted what Jesus— what you did on the cross for my sin, that I am no longer a sinner, Lord, but I am a saint, and I am a child of the King in your kingdom, and I am no longer of this world, but I am in heaven, and I am seated in heavenly places.

I—

Lord, I thank you that I don't have to understand all that, but God, I thank you that that's what your word says. Lord, we thank you, we love you, we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you on the next episode.

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