Faith and Hope What about the law Part 2

Welcome to episode 107, 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 107. We are continuing our talk on our lesson on faith and hope. We've added in grace. We're talking about the law. This thing is getting overly complicated in a hurry, but it's a big, big topic. And I, I'm trying to get— what I've tried to do is I try to teach things maybe give you one thing to think about so that you can walk through your day and just kind of let that just mill over instead of trying to get through this whole thing in 10 minutes. And oh, here, this is what faith is. We give you one little thought because faith is such a huge— there's been books written, there's, there's whole lessons, there's whole courses that you can teach or that we could teach or we could learn on faith, and people a whole lot better than me have taught about it. Really, I just want to introduce this, and I want to encourage you to get into the Word because the Holy Spirit is the greatest person to teach you on faith, and he's used such wonderful examples throughout the Word of God. But I— when I'm looking at the Bible and I'm looking at love, if you, if you need a picture of love, just start at the Gospel of John, and it, it says that God is love. And if you understand that love that Jesus is the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus is the Word of God. But if God is love, then Jesus is love. Then how Jesus acted throughout his whole life, that shows you how love acts. That's how— that shows you how love interacts with people. And it also shows the faith. If you can kind of look at how Jesus used faith how he walked his life and the example that we— when we— it says that when, when people— and I— you may have heard this— when you're looking for an example, just look the way Jesus lived his life. And you know, when you hear words like that, you think, well, yeah, that's probably good. And I've heard that, but you know, I've never just sat down and just thought about— and, and just thought about with faith in my mind how Jesus walked through his life with in faith. And it said— the Bible says that the just shall live by faith. And it also says that it's impossible to please God without faith. And so faith is a big deal. And we've talked about before that God is not mad at you or I. God put all the punishment on Jesus. So God's not here looking to— he's not up in heaven with his arms folded and we're with a big old poker stick looking just to hit you with it., you know, with like an electric shock, or, you know, if you mess up, he's not there in heaven trying to do that. God is a perfect Father, and he's got his arms open, and he's saying, hey, take another step. Hey, take another step. We talked about the law yesterday, and I want to walk back into that, because the law, if you look at, and you're trying to keep the whole law, and I think it's in James, and it is in James, it's James 2:10, for whoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point, is guilty of all. That is powerful. And then keep reading. For he who said do not commit adultery also said do not murder. Now if you do not commit adultery but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. And I want to stop there. If you're trying to keep the law and you break one thing, this is what this is saying. And that I've said that in a previous episode. But if you're trying to keep the whole law and break one piece of the law. You're guilty of the whole thing. You might as well— if you murder someone, you might as well commit adultery while you're at it, and you might as well go rob a bank, and you might as well— you just pick any of those laws. You might as well break the Sabbath. You might as well lie everywhere you go, because you are guilty of the whole thing. And why go— why get thrown into hell for just breaking one rule when you can break them all? You're still going to end up in the same spot. It is a big deal. The law, it was given to show man that he could not live by the law and to show man how sinful— I guess is the only word I can come up with— and sin. Again, remember we talked about sin. The definition of sin is missing the mark. Sin is not— it's just a horrible person and they're going out killing people, you know, and shooting people and all that. Now that is a form of sin, but also to him, to, to know to do good and to do it not, to him that is accounted as sin. So if you know to do good and give somebody a piece of bread or a cup of water and you don't do it, that is sin. So you don't have to be a horrible person to miss the mark. And again, this life as a Christian, if James goes on to say that we just need to continue in the law of liberty, The most free person is the person that has accepted Christ and is no longer bound by the law. And that is a wonderful place to be in. Now, grace is a higher standard. That don't mean— and Paul's going to get it, we're going to get into Romans where Paul says, well, what, should we just keep sinning so that grace abounds even more? And he says, heavens no. The goal is not— if you've accepted Christ and become a new creature in a new creation. Your spirit man is 100% just like Jesus. You don't want to sin. I mean, you— but sin is not— that's not the standard anymore. This— the standard is living like your Father, living like Jesus by love. If you try to— and I've used this example before— when you look at love, what the standard of love is, you know, the law says you can't commit adultery. That's the law. And God says don't do that, it's wrong. So the law— everybody knows that that's wrong. Everybody knows you should not do it. Why are people still doing it? Because of love. Because they, they either don't love their spouse anymore, or their love is wax cold, or whatever reason that they give. But if you truly love something, you're going to do everything you can not to hurt that thing that you love. And, and that's where the love of God— if I— if you truly love God and you have given your life over to him and he is your Lord and Savior and he's the King of Kings, if you If you declared him to be the king and you give your life over to him, you try to please him because he first loved you. And so that love is mutual and you're like, look, I don't wanna disappoint you. Now, you know, you're gonna mess up. Perfection again is not the goal, it's reflection. We are to reflect the glory of God. Jesus has all the glory. God has all the glory and he's shining his glory onto us. And what we do in this dark world, if we can just be a reflection of God's glory, we can show them the love. We can get in the vine and grow the fruit of the Spirit. Then love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control— I probably missed one. But if we start growing that fruit and the world can see that something's different about us and we just react different, you know, they're sitting there trying to keep this standard, and, and they, if they don't know God— now they may read the Bible and they may say, well, you know, I'm good enough, I do this and this and this and this and this. I'm telling you, you cannot keep the law. I don't care what you do, there's not one person listening to this episode, and I don't care when you listen to it, there's not one person that has not sinned. Not one that ain't messed up. The good news, the too good to be true news, is, is it don't matter. It does not matter because all sin was put on Jesus. He paid the price for all sin, and that's past, present, and even future sin. And so if next Thursday's sin has already been paid for, it better have been paid for because he can't pay again. And if he died 2,000 years ago for you to be saved, he better— that same death better be good for next Thursday's sin, because if it's not You and I are both in big trouble. But the good news is, is it has been paid and it has been done, and we're not bound by the law. Because if you're bound up with the law— if you've ever tried to meet a standard and you've ever tried to be perfect, perfection, what it does to me, it just locks me down. And that's why I'm here on this podcast. Everybody that's listening to this podcast knows that I'm not perfect. I don't claim to be perfect. Done is better than perfect. Me getting on episode 107 and getting it done is better than sitting in a room with wringing my hands worried that I'm not going to say the right thing. I guarantee you I'm not going to say the right thing, but I'm praying that God through his Holy Spirit will help bring out some of the stuff that I'm saying to encourage you to get in the word of God. I make a horrible Holy Spirit. I am here to encourage you to get into the Word of God and let the Holy Spirit speak to you. He is right there with you. He's with you all the time, and he's never gonna leave you. He's never gonna forsake you. If you got him there anyway, why not talk to him? Why not use his knowledge and his truth and his understanding and his power? Why not use— if he's gonna be there, why ignore him? Why not just enter in and say, hey, Holy Spirit, How about this? What do you think about that? That's faith. And we're not even— I know this says faith and hope. The law is a big deal, but we, you and I, are not held to that standard if you've accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. And in the next episode, I'm going to talk about kind of what I see. And again, it's Gregology, and what— but what I see is, is a problem for the church is they kind of sort of use the law to whip you and me into shape. Now you can't, you can't do that, you know, that's not right. A Christian shouldn't ought to do that. And we're not, you know, I'm not bound by rules, I'm bound by grace. That's enough for this episode. I appreciate you being here. Let's pray real quick. God, I thank you so much for giving us the, the Bible, for Lord giving us your word. And Lord, I thank you that Jesus is the word, and that if we spend time in his word and your word that we will spend time with you. Holy Spirit, I pray that you would just open up people's hearts and minds. Lord, encourage and empower and inspire them to live the life you've called them to live. 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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