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The Rock Family Worship Center
Taking The Church Outside The Walls
The Rock Family Worship Center
More Than An Opportunity
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We challenge the idea that Jesus offered only an opportunity and walk through Scripture that says the cross accomplished reconciliation. We explore how grace as a gift changes assurance, obedience, and how we live right now.
• defining salvation as healing, restoration, wholeness, rescue
• reading 2 Corinthians 5 on reconciliation already accomplished
• all things reconciled through the cross in Colossians 1
• once for all in Hebrews 10 and what that means
• faith as trust not work, grace as gift in Ephesians 2
• addressing belief and confession as responses not triggers
• assurance in John 10 and working out salvation in Philippians 2
• fruit as evidence of identity, not currency for approval
• rejecting cheap grace by seeing grace’s power to transform
• living present to heaven-now rather than someday-only
Here's the problem though, when you start, and I was telling Ronnie a while ago, when you start looking at this, the title of this is More Than Opportunity. Jesus is more than just an opportunity. The problem with looking at this and breaking it down, and you're going to see this in here, is that you have to start asking a lot of questions. You have to be open enough with yourself to be willing to go there and ask some questions. Now, I'm going to say this because I want you to understand this this morning because we're going to go into some places that some of you may not want to go to. But I'm not here this morning to try to change your mind, to try to get you to think like I'm thinking, or to say I'm right and you need to believe this. I just want you to take scripture and just read it for what it says. We always talk about, and I hear every church say this, we're going to let scripture interpret scripture. And that's what we should do, because Jesus is the word. And everything we read through the scripture should be through the lens of Jesus Christ. So if we're going to let Scripture interpret Scripture, then what we're going to see and what I'm going to show you this morning is that there's a lot of scripture that we read that we let assumptions take over. Assumptions that's been pushed in there begin to take over, and we're no longer interpreting scripture with itself, but we're letting these assumptions take over. So that's kind of what we're going to look at this morning. So again, the title of this is More Than Opportunity. When I started thinking about this and really asking that question, it sounds like a really small question to ask, but it's really big. Because when I start asking the question and say, was Jesus merely just an opportunity? I believe you got to ask another question if somebody believes that. And if they say that to me, the next question out of my mouth is going to be an opportunity for what? I think that's a fair question. If you're going to say that he was nothing but an opportunity, nothing more than an opportunity, then I think you have to answer the rest of that question. An opportunity for what? And I believe when you really start drilling down and asking that question, what it comes down to is an opportunity to go to heaven. An opportunity to miss hell. That's what it really comes down to. So I'm going to show you some verses. I've got quite a few verses this morning. They're familiar verses, but I want to slow down and really just look at them and break them down a little bit and ask ourselves, what does the word actually say? Rather than just taking assumptions. So let me start off asking you this. How many of us have grew up thinking that God's favor and God's blessings depend on you getting your response just right? Think about that. That if you believe the right way at the right time, then maybe you'll be saved.
SPEAKER_00:Think about that a minute. Sounds awesome.
SPEAKER_01:It sounds very spiritual. But if I start believing that what happened in my life with Christ depends on what I do and whether I get it right, what does that say about the cross? That it was half done? That he just went to the cross, he gave his life, and he completed it halfway, and then the other half is what I choose to do. I just have I have a hard time putting that together. Because I believe that what he did on the cross was totally sufficient. I believe what he did on the cross was absolutely complete. So I want to challenge that assumption. Because what most of us assume about the cross is actually opposite of what the Bible actually says. And I believe it's time that we got to start breaking down and tearing down some of these assumptions that we have and saying, I'm willing to put my assumptions, what I believe, what I assume is biblical, what I assume that Jesus is saying. I'm willing to put that on the side just for a minute and say, what does Scripture actually say? I may go back to that and believe that. That's okay. But am I willing to put it down long enough just to say what does the word actually show me? How does it interpret itself? So let's take a look at some of the assumptions about salvation. Because I think this is really what it comes down to. When you talk about more than an opportunity, we're talking about, it comes down to the to the question of salvation. So this is where a lot of people don't want to go because they think this is a done deal. We already know what the Bible says about salvation, and they just kind of leave it at that. But I want to dig a little deeper. I want to challenge that this morning. So I've already got them locked the door so y'all can't leave until it's over. Uh if you get mad with me, you're just gonna have to suffer through it. But I think before we do that, before we can challenge the assumptions of salvation, we have to define salvation. We have to know what we're talking about. You can't define, you can't really talk about something if you really have a don't have the right definition on it. So you really gotta ask yourself, what are we talking about here when we're talking about salvation? Let's break it down real simple. The word, number one, you have to look at the word, the Greek word, which is we we say this all the time, you should know it's sozo, S-O-Z-O, sozo. That's the Greek word for salvation. And the definition of it means to heal, to restore, to make whole and to rescue. To heal, to restore, to make whole, to rescue. Now I can stop right there and say the cross accomplished all that. And it did. But a lot of times we say, we believe that, but I got something else that I gotta do to make it happen. I've got to act this way, or I gotta dress this way, or I gotta go to this church. And if I do all these things, that it kind of kick starts what's already been finished. I have a hard time with that. So that's why I'm challenging it. I'm just asking you to look at it. So again, when you look at those definitions, heal, restore, make whole, and rescue. I think when you really look at it like from that perspective of what salvation really is, it answers some questions. I believe salvation brings justification. What is justification? It's being restored to the right standing of who we are. It brings reconciliation. What is that? That's being restored in relationship to the Father. It brings sanctification. These are, I'm just bringing out words that we hear in the church all the time. Sanctification. What is that? That's restored living. And also healing. What does it mean to really be healed? I'm not saying just physically in the body, I'm saying physically, emotionally, mentally, in whatever way. To be healed means to be restored to identity of who I really am in Christ. So many people teach the cross makes reconciliation possible. Now think about that just a minute. The cross, what happened on the cross with Jesus makes reconciliation a possibility. The problem with that, for me, right out of the gate, is when is it going to happen? That's the question I have. If it's only a future possibility, when does it happen? Will it happen when you get to heaven? Well, according to the verse we read last week, two-thirds of the people ain't going there. So that tells me what he did on the cross to reconcile the world failed. I'm being funny, but I'm being serious. We've got to look at these verses and look at what they really mean. We can't say he reconciled the world and then turn to another verse and say half the world ain't even going to heaven. It just don't make sense to do that. So when we look at these words, justification, reconciliation, sanctification, healing, and then we ask that question and we start looking at the cross, I believe we just got to be real with ourselves. Sometimes we got to take that spiritual hat off of always trying to be so spiritual and just use common sense. Say, what is this really saying to me? If the cross makes reconciliation only a possibility, then our mental agreement, me agreeing with it, me making a decision and doing things the right way is actually the deciding factor. Now think about that. He went to the cross, he did what he did on the cross, he started the work of reconciliation, and now it is up to me to do the right thing to complete the work that he started. Does that sound like the gospel? It does to a lot of people because they teach it, but that is not the gospel. That's not what the Bible says. The Bible says he went to the cross. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their sins against them. That's done already. He doesn't need me. We are not worshiping such a weak God that he needs me to finish what his son went to the cross for. Now we'll get into a few minutes because I know that some of the questions is probably stirring in your head. Well, what do we do then? We're going to answer that. We don't just sit back and just let whatever happens, happens. We have responsibilities, but it's not to complete the work of Jesus. So the reality is Christ reconciled us completely. It wasn't just a possibility, it actually happened on the cross. Turn with me to this scripture and look at this. 2 Corinthians 5, I just quoted it, but I still want you to read it. 2 Corinthians 5, 18 and 19. We've read this verse so much, but I keep coming back to it because it's so powerful. It says, now all things are of God who has reconciled us. Catch that past tense in there. We call it past tense. He's reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Powerful verse. Now note that it says that he was reconciled, was reconciling. Okay? Not counting sins. That's done. If you really pay attention to this and read down and dig into this, this was actually done while we were still enemies. So there goes the whole idea that if I do it the right way, then I'm going to finish reconciliation for him. He finished it while we were still sinners, before I had the opportunity to do anything right. He finished the work. He reconciled the world. It's not after we come and done the work, it was all dependent on what he done. So there's a time, this is going to be, I'm going to try to, I want to slow this down a minute because this is a really brief sermon. But I was just wanted to key in on specific verses and get you to look at them. And I started thinking about when assumptions kind of shift the focus. Because if we take scripture and we don't read it for what it actually says, but we just assume and import these assumptions into it that's been passed down to us from generation to generation, it actually changes the focus of how we look at that scripture. That's the number one thing I'm trying to get people to do. I'm not trying to get you to agree with me. I'm just trying to get you to say, what did scripture actually say? Not what pastor from 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago said, but what did scripture itself actually say? Some think that God made it possible, now it's up to us. That's the whole theme behind this. God made it possible, and now it is up to us.
SPEAKER_00:But here's the problem with that that turns faith into work. Says in the word, you know, what is faith.
SPEAKER_01:Faith is a substance of things hoped for, evidence of things not seen. Faith is not work. Faith is not doing something to get something. That's not faith. But when we say that God made it possible, now the rest of it is up to me. We're turning faith into a work. We're saying that I've got to be good enough now to complete what he started. So we're not trusting Christ anymore. We're not trusting in what Christ done on the cross anymore. We've put our focus on making sure that we do the right thing to qualify us to meet his expectations.
SPEAKER_00:And he's already qualified us. Check this verse out, Colossians 1, 19 and 20. For it pleased the Father that in him all the fullness should dwell. Verse 20.
SPEAKER_01:And by him, use that word again, to reconcile all things to himself. By him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through what? Not your works. He made peace through the blood of his cross. This is not talking about what I'm doing to make it right. This is not talking about he went halfway and now it's up to me and it's up to you. This is saying that he reconciled all things to himself because of what happened on the cross through the blood of the cross. All things, we say this all the time. I gotta say it again though, because it says it here. All things means exactly that. All things. There's no exception in there. There's no fine print after that verse that we gotta read and say, all things but that dude just strung out on drugs. All things but that person over there that's been divorced three times. There's never any fine print down there that we need to read. All things means all things. Now we're gonna believe it when we read that. Or we're gonna bring some assumptions in there that says, surely he couldn't have meant that. That's an assumption. We're assuming what God meant here when he is just saying all things. Period. I love it because when we read the Bible for what it says and we read, let scripture interpret scripture, we don't have to assume.
SPEAKER_00:He tells us what he wants us to know. We just got to be willing to see it. In Hebrews 10, 10 through 14.
SPEAKER_01:Just another one I want you to look at right here. It says, by that will we have been sanctified. There's that word we talked about a while ago, sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. Now, I hope you see what's going on here. He's talking about what's going on during that time. The priests are doing certain things. And he says, that's not going to work. Nothing you're doing can compare to the cross. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. From that time, waiting till his enemies are made his footstool. I'm throwing a few verses out here for you to look at. And I hope you'll go back and read through them. Because notice, even in this verse in Hebrews, it says again, once for all. There's no repeated tryouts. We miss it, we come back and try again. We miss it, we come back and try again. It don't say that. There's no opportunity that this is not an opportunity you can miss. You it's already done. It's finished. That's why we actually call it the finished work.
SPEAKER_00:Because he did everything that needed to be done. So living from truth and not assumptions.
SPEAKER_01:Don't you think for a minute how that can change the way you think, the way you live? Now this is the tricky part right here. If you live your life like reconciliation depends on you and what you do, you're constantly anxious, you're always trying to qualify. You're counting sins of yourself and you're counting sins of everybody else against them when Jesus says, I'm no longer counting those sins. And you're fearing God's rejection. If it's all about me finishing what Christ started, that's a pretty heavy task to put on me.
SPEAKER_00:Can I do that? What do I need to do?
SPEAKER_01:What's good enough? Is just coming to church on Sunday good enough?
SPEAKER_00:Who makes that decision? Who tells me when I've done enough to qualify? Did I pay enough tithes last year?
SPEAKER_01:I didn't miss any. Church. Maybe I missed a couple of Wednesday nights. Is that still good? Am I still in? I mean, you see, there's no guidelines there. Who sets them? We do. And what happens is man starts making those guidelines. Better make sure you pay 10%. I'm going to go back at the end of the year, we're going to see how much you made, and we're going to see if you paid 10%. If you didn't, sorry, you're going to burn. I mean, it's just crazy. That's rules and that's rituals and that's things that we put in there. Man made to do what? Because we think we're trying to qualify to get into God's good graces. And he's already finished it. It's like a kid trying to, I was thinking about this. It's like a kid, a small kid trying to earn their parents' love every day. They're always doing something to try to earn their parents' love when the whole time they've been loved as much as they possibly could. But every day they don't see that. So every day they're doing something better and better and better to try to earn their love. That's what we do.
SPEAKER_00:We do that with God. Familiar verse.
SPEAKER_01:And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. I don't think anybody in here, anybody in any other church would deny that. We have known the love that he has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him. This is this is uh this is inclusion. Anybody who says inclusion is not biblical, he's in me and I'm in him. You know what that means? That means we're included together. That's inclusion. He didn't say you are outside of me or I am outside of you. That's exclusion. This is talking about being included, being brought together as one.
SPEAKER_00:That's the definition of being included together. One more verse right here, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.
SPEAKER_01:Again, I'm throwing a lot of verses, but these are important for you to see.
SPEAKER_00:For by grace, wait a minute, wait a minute, we gotta stop right here a minute.
SPEAKER_01:For by your good works, for by how much work you put into it, for how good of a Christian you are, for how much tithe you paid, for how many times you went to church. That's what we put on it. But if we go back to Scripture, strip all that junk away, and go back to Scripture, by grace you have been saved. We can stop right there, but for by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God. How many times have you ever asked for a gift? Sometimes we may have when we've little, but most of the time, if somebody gives you a gift now, they give it to you just because they love you, they want to bless you, they just think a lot of you, or whatever. They just come up and they say, Hey, I want to present this to you.
SPEAKER_00:You didn't ask for it. It's just a gift. He said, This is a gift. That's scripture now. That is scripture saying that.
SPEAKER_01:For by grace you have been saved through faith and not of yourselves. It is a gift of God. Now, somebody can argue this all they want. And all I'm gonna do is take them right back to the scripture and say, let's talk about this. Let's not talk about opinions. Let's not talk about who taught you that and who taught me that. Let's talk scripture and what it actually says. Because I don't know no other way to break the scripture right here down than to just take it for what it says.
SPEAKER_00:Your belief doesn't make the cross work.
SPEAKER_01:The cross makes your work, it makes you work in the right kind of way. And it flows from peace, it flows from joy, it flows from love. See, when we're talking about the finished work, we're not, a lot of people say, oh, y'all just saying you ain't got to do nothing. No, we're still gonna work. There's things we're still gonna do, but we're gonna do it out of understanding who we are and not trying to gain acceptance into it.
SPEAKER_00:Big difference. So we've got to stop assuming and start believing.
SPEAKER_01:Believing what?
SPEAKER_00:Believing his word.
SPEAKER_01:When I wrote that, I thought, man, I want I know what Paul felt like now. Because Paul was always writing and rebuking the churches, not rebuking sinners out there. He was rebuking church people. He was writing to the Corinthian church and he would say, boom, he'd lay it down to them. And you'd be like, man, these are Christians he's talking to.
SPEAKER_00:But it's time that we talk to Christians. It's time that we talk to the house, to the people in the church. And say, we've got to stop assuming, and we've got to start believing the word of God.
SPEAKER_01:If you've been living like reconciliation is a maybe and it's gonna happen one day, or that God's love depends on you getting it right, you gotta stop.
SPEAKER_00:That's as simple as you can put it. You gotta stop that, and you gotta read the scripture and see what the scripture really says. What does it tell me? The Bible's very clear.
SPEAKER_01:Christ reconciled you. Period. He made peace with God. You are already in, not maybe, not possible possibly, but it's done.
SPEAKER_00:You're reconciled with him already.
SPEAKER_01:Can you imagine what would change in your life today if you really believed that the cross didn't make reconciliation just possible, but it actually finished the work? Could you imagine how you would read scripture differently if you read it through a lens of completion and not through a lens of possibility? So let's stop assuming. Let's start resting in what his word actually says. Let's start living from the reality that Christ truly did it all. And everything he's done for us is enough, it's sufficient. I believe that. Now, when I when I got done with this, just like we did Wednesday night, Ronnie kind of played devil's advocate Wednesday night, and we talked about what people would say if we're if some if I'm talking to somebody that's not a part of our church, and I'm talking, I'm saying some of this stuff that I'm saying to you now, what are they gonna say? How are they gonna respond? Because the key to it is again, I'm not trying to convince them, come over to my side. I'm just trying to get them to look at what Scripture says. So I begin to think about that, and what's some of the rebuttals that would come up? What would people say if they heard me say, teach what I taught today? If they hear this message, what's some of the questions that they're gonna have? And I believe one of them would be this. They would go straight to the word, and that's what I want you to do. And they would say, but the Bible says we must believe or confess with our mouth. Doesn't that mean that our decision matters? The Bible says we must believe and we must confess. And they're gonna be questioning that. So if we got to believe and we got to confess, don't that mean that my decision plays a part in this?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, belief matters.
SPEAKER_01:Confession is real, but they are responses to what God has already done, not to kick reconciliation into place. I don't have to believe to be reconciled. He's already reconciled me. Believing in it and grabbing on to it basically just means that I've accepted what he's already finished. It don't make it all of a sudden become true because I believe it. There's lots of things I believed over the years that just absolutely was not true, but I believed them. Scripture in Romans 10 and 9 and 10. I don't know if I gave, did I give you that one run? Okay, I'll just read. If you declare with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe with your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. That's what it says. That's scripture. Okay. So they're going to scripture when they say that. But we have to understand, and they have to understand what's being said in that scripture. Notice it doesn't say, if you do this or if you do that, God will start saving you. The salvation is already in place. The declaration flows out of me believing it. Once I confess it, once I believe it, now something starts flowing out of that. But it don't make that happen.
SPEAKER_00:I've misinterpreted that verse for years.
SPEAKER_01:Now again, there's nothing wrong with speaking the word of God and confessing and believing. I need to believe that what he did actually mattered. And I need to confess. What is confession? Again, homologo, saying the same thing. Confession is not coming to an altar and telling God all my junk. All the things I've done wrong in my life. Confession simply means that I speak what he spoke. I repeat his words, come into agreement with what he's already said. The problem is a lot of times we are not confessing his word, we're confessing assumptions. So all I'm saying is let's get into the word. Let's confess the word of God. He's already reconciled me. God was in Christ reconciling the world.
SPEAKER_00:How can I confess that what he already said? Now listen to this.
SPEAKER_01:How can I confess that he has reconciled the world and is no longer imputing their sins against them? That means just repeating what he said. How can I confess that if I don't believe it? If I think it's going to happen one day, therefore it hasn't happened yet. How can I say the same thing he said? Because he said it's already happened. So it's making me really start looking. What does confession really mean? What does believing really mean? Because if I want to say the same thing he said so that me and God is in agreement, I've got to believe what he said. I can't assume that he says past tense, it's already done, but yet I just don't believe that, so I'm going to assume that it's going to be done one day when I get to heaven.
SPEAKER_00:That's two different time periods. His word says it's already completed.
SPEAKER_01:So if I want to confess, as this scripture says, then I've got to say the same thing that he said.
SPEAKER_00:That it's done.
SPEAKER_01:If people reject God, this is one of the top questions people ask about finished work. If people reject God, won't they lose their salvation?
SPEAKER_00:Isn't ongoing obedience required? This is a tough one. I'll admit that.
SPEAKER_01:But this is one of the questions that people ask. True obedience flows from salvation. It does not earn or maintain salvation. Again, I'm operating out of who I am in Christ. I'm not trying to get to a place, I'm not trying to earn it. In John 10, 28 and 29, he says, I give them eternal life, and they never perish.
SPEAKER_00:No one can snatch them out of my hand.
SPEAKER_01:I would just be have to question somebody and say, let's read that verse, let's study that verse out. What does that mean? I've given them eternal life, and nobody can snatch them out of my hand. Jesus explicitly says that once we are in Him, no rejection, no failure, no struggle can reverse the work of the cross.
SPEAKER_00:Obedience is the fruit.
SPEAKER_01:Why do I why am I obedient? Because that's just who I am. Why are you obedient? Because you realize who you are, and that's just something that comes out of it. It's fruit. But it's not something that we do because we're trying to be in a better position with him. And again, this just goes right back to scripture. This is not my opinion on this. This is going straight back to scripture in John 10, where he says, I give them eternal life. Now there's a lot of questions in there. You could break down eternal life and say, What does that really mean? What does perish? It says it would never perish. What does that mean? No one can snatch them from me. What does that mean? There's a lot of studying you could do on this.
SPEAKER_00:I'm just taking the word for what it says right here. Here's a question that I've got many times from people on Facebook.
SPEAKER_01:Never had them ask me this in person. So are you saying we can live however we want to and still be saved? That's probably one of the number one questions. And here's what I'd say I've never said that. I will never say that. The finished work of Christ reconciles us. What is that word reconcile? Brings us back into relationship. But transformation always naturally follows. I get transformed every day. I transform my thinking every single day. Every time I hear a new message, every time I read something, a revelation comes. I transform my thinking every single day. So we're not talking about that right here, because that's something that's going to continually change. It's not a requirement for salvation, but as a result of salvation. As a result of being healed, as a result of being brought back into relationship with Him. As a result of all that, now I'm being transformed. The more I understand who God is, the more I understand who I am. And things begin to shift. This is kind of crazy, but it makes sense to me. You can't separate a tree from its fruit. The tree exists because of God's work. Okay, the tree's there. The fruit comes naturally because of the kind of tree it is. Have you ever, has anybody in this room ever seen oranges grow on an apple tree? It don't happen. A tree is known by its fruit. What does that mean? If I look at a tree that's got apples on it, you know what I come to the conclusion? That's an apple tree. If I see an orange tree, I come to the conclusion that is an orange tree simply because it is known by its fruit.
SPEAKER_00:It's easy to determine what type of tree it is.
SPEAKER_01:If salvation is already done through Christ because of the cross, why does the Bible say we have to work out our own salvation? These are great questions. These are not questions I would look at somebody and say, oh, just hush, go on. You don't understand. These are great questions to ask. But this is what I'm saying. We've got to get in the word and be able to say, okay, let me get an answer to these questions. Let me know what to say. Paul says, work out your own salvations in Philippians 2. But notice the second part of it. For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. He even goes back to saying it's about God. It's not about you. It's not about what you do. We're not earning salvation. We are living in response to what God has already completed and accomplished. It's the difference between living from truth versus living for approval. One of the ways that I like to look at this and I like to talk about it, I guess because it made sense to me like this, was uh something that's objectively true of me and something that's is subjectively experienced. Jesus died on the cross to forgive me of my sins. He no longer holds my sins against me to bring me back into relationship, to provide salvation, to heal me. All those things is what Jesus went to the cross for. That is objectively true of every single person in this room. It's objectively true of every single person that's not in this room. He did that for everybody, for humanity. It is objectively true. Now, subjectively, some people don't believe that. Some people are asleep to it and they don't recognize that fact, so therefore there's there's Things that they're not walking in. But it don't change, even if I don't believe that, guess what? It never changes it. My lack of belief does not change what happened on the cross. Objectively, boom, it's done. Subjectively, I have to open my eyes up to it. I have to come to a realization of what actually happened. And then my life begins to, I experience these things in my life. Because the other question I'm going, I ain't going to get into today because so many people, it's a tough one, but people will say, oh, you're teaching, you know, that everybody's saved. Everybody's born saved. No, no, we're not. We're not teaching that. We're teaching that you have to step into things, you have to awaken to things. But it don't change what happened on the cross. That's already true of every single one of us.
SPEAKER_00:He did it for us. He did it while you were yet an enemy. While you were still a sinner.
SPEAKER_01:So that knocks out the good works. Well, the better I am, the more he knows he did it while you were still a sinner. So it's not anything to do with your good works. It's all to do about him and the decision that he made. Let me end on this one. This is one that we hear all the time. We've been hearing it for years. This just sounds like cheap grace. A lot of people call it greasy grace. You can go out and do what you want, live how you want.
SPEAKER_00:This is not cheap grace. Grace is powerful.
SPEAKER_01:Grace is really powerful. It transforms. Assuming salvation depends on our own works, listen to this. When somebody says that's cheap grace that you're teaching, when I assume that everything depends on my good works, that's cheap grace. Because you're saying that what happened is not complete. And the rest of it's dependent on me. That's cheap grace because there's no grace needed. Now it's up to how well I perform, how good I am. It actually cheapens grace down when you say that. Because it makes our performance the measure. It ain't about grace anymore. It's about how well I perform. In Romans 6 and 14, it says, For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace. The cross is not a license to sin. Because I say this is a finished work does not give me a license to go out and live however I want to live. That's a misconception that people have with what we teach. It's freedom from fear.
SPEAKER_00:Listen, if I walk out here today and mess up, I still know who I am. You're not going to see me at the altar next Sunday getting resaved. Why? Because I'm still saved.
unknown:Why?
SPEAKER_00:Because it was nothing I'd done, it's what Christ done for me.
SPEAKER_01:And I just accepted it. The cross is not a license of sin, it's freedom from fear, it's freedom from shame, it's freedom from striving. Grace and powers change. It don't just offer a pass. So when we talk about this title, more than an opportunity, we have to look at Christ as being more than this. And this is the, you may think this is kind of crazy what I'm talking about today, but this is the truth. This is what a lot of people think. He was just an opportunity. He went to the cross. He went through everything he went through on the cross just as an opportunity. And if you want him, you take him. If you don't, you don't. That's an opportunity. That's what it means.
SPEAKER_00:But that's not what the Bible says. That is not what the Bible says. The Bible's clear.
SPEAKER_01:The problem is we have got away from the Bible and started relying on biblical assumptions. But this must be true because it's always been taught. I taught stuff for years that wasn't true.
SPEAKER_00:It's true, I thought it was true, but then I learned it wasn't, and I changed it and started reteaching it.
SPEAKER_01:We've got to be willing to open our minds up enough to say when something is assumptions, when it's just passed down tradition because it sounds good, and when it's actually the truth, the scripture, the word of God. But there's some things that's been passed down for so long, and we keep repeating it over and over and over until it becomes truth to us. Y'all have heard all this, somebody say something, they'll say, Well, that's what the Bible says. It ain't nowhere in the Bible. But it's been said long enough that somebody thinks that's got to be scripture.
SPEAKER_00:Sounds good, but it's nowhere in the Bible. So again, are we willing to open our minds up just enough to say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a look at assumptions and scripture. And when they don't line up, can I be real with myself? Maybe you ain't there yet. Maybe you want to hold on to all that, those assumptions. But we're gonna keep teaching this stuff. We're gonna keep teaching scripture as it as it is taught in the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01:And bring it up against that other stuff. Because if I look at it from that lens, then everything I read, if I miss this verse here, everything I read after that, I'm missing. I'm getting a wrong interpretation of it. I want everything that Jesus has for me now. I want to live the life that He's given me the ability to live now. It's not about one day. It's not about when I die. I want the opportunity to live this life out right here and right now. And if we read the Bible and let Scripture interpret Scripture, that He has given us that opportunity. He says this is about now. This is about how you live. Going through the gates, there's a wide gate and a narrow gate. The narrow gate's about now. It's about how do I live my life right now. We focus so much on the future that we've let it taken away our present.
SPEAKER_00:As long as we think we're getting there one day, we're okay. And half the people couldn't even tell you where there is.
SPEAKER_01:I know they'll use the word heaven, but I'm just talking about when you get into the Bible, there's a lot of stuff there. Jesus coming back here.
SPEAKER_00:We won't even get into all that because that'll tear everybody's theology up. That's why we say heaven here, heaven now. He talks about things on this earth and that's living here.
SPEAKER_01:I I felt like I was kind of scattered on this. I hope you'll go back and listen to it. There's a lot of verses. There's a lot more verses than what I even pulled out of here. I just pulled some of the main ones. There's tons and tons of verses that you could replace and put in here. But if you don't go back and look at them and actually, you know, become like a detective and say, what does this really mean? What was God trying to say through this scripture?
SPEAKER_00:What does it mean to be saved? Does it mean what we've always thought it meant? Or does it mean more?
SPEAKER_01:There's questions that we can ask, and I'm telling you, the more you do it, the more you will, I promise you, you will never run out of questions. Every time I read something, a question comes up, and then I figure that out, and another question comes up. And I believe that's where we should be at. Be willing to ask questions.