Galatians 2:20-21 | Midweek Bible Study | Pastor David Flores

What happens when your relationship with God stops being about performance… and starts being about grace?

In this powerful episode of Family of Faith, Pastor David Flores walks through Galatians 2:20–21 and explores what it truly means to live by faith in Jesus Christ. This conversation tackles shame, striving, condemnation, identity, failure, grace, and the freedom found in knowing that God’s love for you does not disappear when you fall short.

If you’ve ever felt like you had to “earn” God’s approval… this episode will challenge and encourage you deeply.

In This Episode

• What it means to be “crucified with Christ”
• Why many Christians live trapped in performance and fear
• The difference between striving for God’s love and living from it
• How grace empowers transformation instead of excusing sin
• Why failure does not disconnect you from God
• How the enemy uses shame and condemnation
• Learning to live daily by faith instead of fear
• Why religion creates fault-finders but grace produces freedom
• The importance of receiving God’s mercy and love

Key Scripture

📖 Galatians 2:20–21

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me…”

Memorable Moments

• “You are loved if you succeed, and you are loved if you fail.”
• “Stop striving to earn God’s love.”
• “Grace is not permission to quit — grace is empowerment to keep going.”
• “The enemy wants you focused on your failures instead of God’s faithfulness.”
• “You’re not living life alone. Christ lives in you.”

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Well, we're glad you're with us tonight again. We're going to be going through uh the book of Galatians, Apostle Paul's letter to the churches in Galatia, not just one church, but all the churches there. And uh we're we're in chapter two on the second half of it. And we started uh a little bit of this, what we're talking about tonight. So I'm gonna review it uh briefly. But we're glad you're with us. And uh, as I said a little earlier, uh jot down some questions you might have, or some some points, or some uh a verse or something part that you'd say I'd like a little more uh expansion on that, a little more insight, or you have a question about it. And uh I was telling them, darn that maybe on uh one of the next times as we finish this book, this chapter here, that maybe we can have a time where we go through the word with questions and some fellowship, you know, some discussion or some questions and answers, all right? So praise God. So get your Bibles open, your your uh tablets, your phones, or your super watch you might have, and and get over to Galatians chapter two. You know, I grew up watching Dick Tracy, and you never heard that, so you'd have to not only might not even make Google, but you gotta Google it. And uh he was a super cop and uh born out of the comic strips of the 40s and 50s, and and um he had a watch, it was a radio watch, and he could talk to the the commissioner, the chief of police, and different things on his watch. Never thought that day would come, and now we got all right. You can talk to our watch, and you think people were weird talking to nobody because they had an earbud, and you said, Who are they having a conversation with? Now they're talking into their watch, and so praise God. We got the word in so many different ways, and that's the powerful thing about it. So, Galatians chapter two, we're gonna start reading here on verse uh 20. All right, we'll go down verse 20 and 21. We touched on 20 last week, and we'll touch again on the middle of that because there's too much in here, too, too much depth to just uh fly over. And I'm not about having the Bible said just to fly over. It's not uh, I'm not giving you uh, you know, uh uh New Testament survey where we're gonna hit you know all these books, 30-some books in three weeks. Now we're gonna take some time. So you're in Galatians chapter 2, and we're gonna read in verse 20. I've got a couple of versions here. I'm gonna do the New King James version. It says, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. All right. And we we did some of that, and I want to go over uh some highlights of that and go into the second part of that verse. We all recognize that Jesus was crucified on the cross. So what the apostle is telling us we need to do is identify with him that he didn't go up there for his own sake, he went up there for our sake. And so when he was on the cross, we were on his heart, we were on his mind. Everything he did was for our sake, okay? He took our place, he was our substitute. We should have been on the cross, yet he took that cross for you and for me. So when we recognize that and we can acknowledge that, living what is called the crucified life, it doesn't mean that you get a cross and carry it around, or it doesn't mean you go and uh, you know, just uh be in torn-up clothes and look down and destitute and say, you know, I've just been through uh uh the worst time of my life, but I'm living for Jesus. It's not about that. It's inside your heart, it's in your attitude that because he was crucified for us, we recognize that our old man has died in that same motion that Jesus did for us. So we no longer live. And when we talk about that old man, and some of you are not even past 25 yet. You're you say you don't know what old is, okay? So we're talking about your original, your OG, okay? Your created human being, spirit, and that that uh found out what right and wrong was. Maybe that was an early age, maybe at two years old you found out, explored more, five, ten adolescent years, you found out a lot, what was right, what was wrong, you know. And um, but when we find those things out and have what we call the age of accountability, where you know what's right and wrong, and then we just begin willfully going against the things that are wrong and doing them, okay, or what is right not doing those. And so then we intentionally live that way. We make those choices. And so, you know, I'm I'm back to teaching, so I'm always hearing, make good choices, make good choices. As the kid is making the worst choice he could ever make. But we're telling them, make good choices, make good choices, you know, trying to remind them and they're like, uh, good choices. Like they don't realize at a young age, at five, six, seven years old, that they have the power to make a choice. They think they're just doing this unnaturally. It just happened, you know. Uh I couldn't help myself. No, we're making choices, and we're today we're making choices all the time. And I believe many of you have made a choice for Christ. You've made a choice to live for Jesus, you've made a choice to accept his sacrifice on the cross in our stead. You've made a choice to believe in him. All of these things are choices. You don't just happen to get saved, you don't just get happened to become a Christian. You don't happen to, you don't even get born into, you've got to choose to be one. All right. And that's what was said in the Bible, even in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, even so more. You choose to believe. All right, you believe in Jesus Christ, the Lord and the Savior. And so as we're reading the scripture, we recognize it's not us who longer lives, but Christ lives in us. In other words, we're going to live for Christ. We're going to give him our life. And that doesn't mean that we don't do anything that we used to do, so to speak, you know, and you just get up in the morning and say, okay, Jesus, what do you want to do today? You want to go to work today? Okay, we'll go to work today. You don't want to go to work, oh, we won't go to work. No. We're talking about the life that you're living now. You are allowing him to live it through you. You're allowing him to live the life through you. And also understand that you're not ever living your life alone. That you he did this so that he could live with you and you would be with him. Okay. It's always God the Father's uh desire was to be one with his creation, whether it was in Adam and Eve or even now to our times, and Jesus prayed that we would be one with the Father. And so that's the desire here, that the life that we now live in the flesh. So here we are in the flesh. As long as we're on the earth, we're going to be living in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God. One version says, I live by the faith of the Son of God. So we know it's his faith according to Hebrews 12. We live by his faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. You need to just take a pause and think about those last two statements. He loved me and he gave himself for me. Those are two statements that we have to acknowledge that are true and will never change, that are a fact and it's not going to be, but it is a reality that God showed his love. Jesus showed his love for us on that cross. So it should not be questioned whether he loves you or I should question whether he loves me. Now, the thing that I'm going to get into a little bit further here is that in our day-to-day life, we make choices, and many times we make wrong choices, okay? And when we do those things, all right, we we were raised many times of thinking if I do the right thing, I'm loved. If I do the wrong thing, I'm not loved. And you get into that scenario of living for an for a result, living for an affirmation, living for, you know, uh a star on your on your chart. You did good, you know. And so years ago, you know, they came out with all those, when I was in college, they came out the with the uh test, you know, you're what kind of personality you are. And so they did that when I was in college. Then they came out with the anagrams, I guess. And so you can find out if you're this, you're that, or whatever. And then, you know, the love language came out. Gary Chapman wrote the book on love language, and so you found out what your love language was. All I know was my love language back then, when we got married, my love language was uh touch and words of affirmation. That was my love language, okay? Touch and words of affirmation. Well, guess what? It's changed. I still like touch, but I don't really need words of affirmation anymore. Can I hear you? I don't need words of affirmation anymore. Because I'm it's too late. I already ran through the gate. I'm far down the road. I don't need you to tell me, you're doing good, Pastor David. Back then, I need a good sermon, Pastor. Well, I loved your talk, Pastor. You know, whatever. Back then, yeah, I needed every little bit of word of affirmation just to think I did okay, therefore I can go on and do the next Sunday, go on and do the next week, or whatever. Whatever it is, not just being a pastor, but being a husband, being a father, all of those things, words of affirmation. And um I realized as I matured, nothing that we say about you, okay. This is me, that I matured in myself and how I thought about myself. That I didn't need somebody to pat me on the back and say, You did good. I know when I did good and I know when I bombed. I know when I did something right and I know when I did something wrong. I didn't need somebody to point it out to me, praise God. But you know, it's always nice to hear someone say, Thank you for that word today, Pastor, or da-da-da. Thank you for this, thank you for that. I appreciate this, appreciate that. That's always good. But I learned to know that I'm not living for myself because when I'm living for myself, that's what I that's what myself wants. But when I'm living for Christ, I don't want that accolade, I don't want that affirmation. I I want to say, God be the glory. He's the one who did it. He, I if not for him, I can't I can't put two sentences together. It's him, it's all about him, it's the it's the anointing, it's the grace, it's what he's done in my life. And so I don't know what my second love language is yet. Praise God, I'll I'll discover it. But I I just know that that as we grow and we live this life in the flesh for for the one who loved us, by the one and for the one who loved us. That's important to know that we're loved. It's important to know that we're accepted, and it's important, and I know it's a spiritual truth, and I know sometimes we are more in the flesh than we are in the spirit, and so we regard that which we experience in the flesh as greater impact in our life than that which happens in the spirit. And I know that happens to all of us, it happened to me, and it's true of all of us because that's how we live every day. We wake up and we open our eyes and we see physical things. So we're now in the physical world. But if you wake up and close your eyes and you didn't see any little anything physical, I don't suggest you try this, but if you want to try it tomorrow morning, you wake up, close your eyes, and the first thing you do is talk to God, who you can't see. Now you're starting to project living in the spirit instead of living in the flesh, okay? And and acknowledge that that that realm is greater. And so growing in faith and growing in Christ, it's always coming to know that the realm of God is greater than the realm I'm living in here. Much greater because that realm that I don't see created the realm that I do see. Okay, and so you have to understand that the realm you don't see, the God you don't see created everything you do see. And so that's the greater power. Everybody say greater power. Since you know, I grew up with the the comic books, superheroes. Now they got them in in um movies and everything. So all the kids know they have superheroes, you see it all over the place. Everybody that somebody asked me the other day, uh Mr. Flores, what's your superpower? You know, I don't know, sir. You know, you little boy, I don't know what my superpower is, you know. But you know, everybody wants to have a superpower. Well, we all do have superpowers because the Lord is within us, the Lord's grace, his mercy, he empowers us. So we're living now this life by faith in the Son of God and of the Son of God, who loved us, number one, and number two, he gave himself for us. So a price was paid for you and me. So sometimes we skip right over this verse. We just recognize the first part, crucified with Christ. And I don't longer live, but it's Christ who lives in me. And we that's it. That's all we really know. We don't ever quote the last part of it, but the last part of it is the foundation of how you live for him every day is that you live by faith in him and because of faith that he's given us, and that you realize that the foundation of your everything is he loves me. I'm loved. I can get up in the morning because I'm loved, I can go to work because I'm loved, I can go do something difficult because I'm loved, I can accept the challenge because I'm loved, okay? And not only loved, but I am loved uh now, and I'm loved if I'm successful, and I'll be loved if I fail. I'm loved. Say it, I'm loved. And you gotta understand that. So with God, you're loved, fail or success. It doesn't matter. That doesn't change God's love for you or for me. And so that gives us a little spirit jump, you know, that we can just say, Well, I'm gonna go for it. But what if you fail? What if I don't? What if I fall? What if I run? Praise God. Doesn't matter. God still loves me. So whatever I do is not gonna change his love for me, not gonna change his love for you, okay? And that's an important concept to begin to wrap your brain around because when we do fail, that's when the enemy rushes in to get us to back off. Not only we feel guilty and maybe we even feel ashamed or even embarrassed, but then we start to feel distance and a disconnection because the enemy wants us to be disconnected, even though the truth is you're never disconnected. But he wants us to make us think we're disconnected because we feel a certain way. That's when you have to go back to principles and concepts and foundations and truths and facts that you know, knowing the word of God, say, regardless of how I feel right now, I know God still loves me. I know so God still loves me. You know, when I wrecked my wife's car, you know, back in uh 1988, you know, and I had to call her on the phone, I first thing I want to say, I might have to go to the hospital. No, the first thing I said was, I'm sorry, I wrecked your car. As I was laying down, you know, and the EMTs were checking me out and whatever. You know, I don't I didn't want to say anything of that because I don't want to spoil and think I'm I'm all you're using that excuse. No, I I I first of all, I'm sorry I wrecked your car. You know, did I think she was not gonna love me after that? You know, she was gonna hate me forever now, and uh, you know, and all this. Sure, those thoughts all go through our minds, right? How are people gonna respond? How are they gonna react? But the truth was that she still loved me. She let me come home, amen. And here I am today, going on 40 years, okay? So, you know, the enemy tries to give you all these crazy thoughts because, you know, he's number one, he's a loser. He doesn't have any community, he has no support group, he has no one who will tell him the truth because everyone around him is a liar, okay? So he can't, he doesn't have anything to believe in, all right? And he already knows that God is God. He knows everything that God is because he tested it and found out it was true. And so here he is giving us all the mess he's lived in all the time. And and then we have to understand this. He loves you, and and ultimately he proved it by giving himself for you and for me. He gave himself for you and for me. So if you ever wonder, well, I don't know if God loves me, I don't know if Jesus loves me. Just remember this, John 3.16. Just remember he died on the cross. Just remember he gave himself for you. And that should be enough because it should be enough because this is a faith, uh uh faith relationship. This is based on what I know God said is true, and I then choose to believe it. And my power to believe is greater than my power to to uh figure out what's going on right here. If I can believe, I can do something, then I can pretty much get to that. And God can empower, God can grace me, God can give me insight, God can bring helpers, whatever, to get that thing done. So it's all about believing that God's word is true. All right. So he loved me, he gave himself for me, he did that for you, and that should be something we learn to work on our foundation. When we do fall, when we do do make wrong choices, that we can get up, as we were saying last week, we get up, you know. God didn't design us to fall and stay there. He designed us to if we fall, we get up. Not only in Old Testament, I was here, I was, you know, my grandson's doing the old testament, and he's doing the whole Bible actually, but we're stuck in the Old Testament right now, in the in the minnow uh Bible series. And one time the other day, the you know, the there was sin, and then he said, and God, you know, sin cannot be around God. So da-da-da-da-da. I said, Yeah, I know. Thank God that was Old Testament, New Testament. Jesus even sat down with the sinners, hallelujah! Praise God. So, but even then I thought, wait a minute, when Adam and Eve sinned, they were the OG sinners, and God went and found them. So now I have to check my whole theology. But, you know, I grew up that way. You mess up, boom, you're gone. You're gone. And then you project it on your parents, and then you project it on your friends, and you project it on your your spouses and whatever. I mess up, boom, I'm gone. That mentality was the fear, not the fear of the Lord, it's the fear of being disconnected, the fear of being rejected. That's how the devil put that in us the fear of being rejected. God is never gonna reject you. I don't care how bad you and I may get, he's never gonna reject. If we call out to him, Jesus said he'll never cast anybody out. Never. The words of Christ. Why was he saying that in his ministry? Because there were many people who realized they were in sin, they had fallen short, they weren't gonna make it. And he and so it was they were raised that way to think, well, I will never make it. So I just accept where I'm at right now and hope for the best. That's not what God wants you to do, is hope for the best. He wants you to believe in the best. He wants to know that the best that has ever come is God and Jesus the Son, and He loves you, and that's a sure thing. Now that should help you get up when you fall down, that should help you keep going when it gets tough. That should help you when you're starting to question yourself, that someone believes in you. Say, somebody believes in me. When we were going through the most difficult time in our ministry, our pastor believed in us. And he said it. He would say it to us, I believe in you, David and Doris, I believe in you. And you may not think that means much to anybody, but when everybody's doubting you, and then you're doubting yourself, someone of reputable uh, you know, person can say, I believe in you, you'll take what you can get and you'll hold on to that and keep going. So God believes in what He's done in us, He believes in what Christ did for us. The Father believes that. And so this is just gonna help your foundation. And I'll say it this way, okay? Because this has been thrown around for the last 20, 30 years, probably even more than that, but it became so prominent that you know, if I tell you the good news, you're gonna take advantage of it. Now, see, to me, that's a demonic thought right there. I tell you the good news, you're gonna take advantage. What do I mean, Pastor? Oh, you mean God loves me so I can go mess up and mess up my life, maybe get to the point of death or messing someone else's life up, but then he'll rescue me and everything will be all right. It'll be okay. Well, see, that that that contradicts this verse because you're not living for yourself anymore, you're living for Christ. And so years ago, when I began to really dig into these things, and I realized, because I've heard preachers say, you know, you know, and so I'll say it this way it's not about you seeing how far from God you can get and still be okay. That's not the that's not the goal. You know, that's that's a little kid, that's what we do, you know. We're in the shopping center, we're at Disneyland, whatever, we're at the beach or the park, and we go explore, explore, explore. But as long as we can cook back and see mom over there, I'm okay. Until the point you get you you lose time, you lose track of where you're at, and you turn back and you don't see mom anymore. Now, what do you do? And that's what the devil wants us to do. Explore, go out, do do it now, do it while you're young, do it this, do it that. Uh, you know, it doesn't matter when you do it. If you do it, you want to make sure you're still can see God, still be connected. Amen. You don't want to be so far gone, and that can happen. You can be so far gone you don't even look for God. The mind is seared, it's just seared, like a like I sear my stakes on Sunday. Nothing's coming out of there until you cut it. And that's what happens with the mind. We can get ourselves in such a place that we think we can just get away with anything, or it's okay. Well, we I got a verse for that, and then you get so far away that verse never comes back because you've seared your conscience. We don't want to do that. We want to take this and take advantage of it in a positive way and live for God and keep going for God. Live for him in the flesh, by faith, in the Son of God, because he loved me and because he gave himself for me, I owe him something. Say I owe him something. Now that's the thing you don't hear in church because people say salvation's free. Are you kidding me? It's not free. It costs somebody something. Cost somebody something. There's, you know, if you've never been in the business world, you've never heard heard the statement, there is no such thing as a free lunch. That's in the business world. Okay. Now, if you're a salesman like me, you'll learn to tell them they say there's no thing as a free lunch, but if you come today, I'll give you a free lunch and you gotta watch my 90-minute presentation. It's still not a free lunch because it's coming out of my check. I'm paying for your lunch to come hear my presentation. So there is no such thing as a free lunch. There is no such thing as a free salvation. Somebody paid the price, and it was Jesus our Lord. Somebody paid the price, it was a Father who gave his only begotten Son. So you have to understand this when you're living for God and you're living for Christ, that there's something there to help motivate you to never quit, never stay down, always get up. Amen. Always do it and realize this that God is merciful, God has grace, amen. His love is awesome, praise God, but don't frustrate the grace of God. Don't try to push it. Don't try to test as the devil tried to get Jesus to jump, kill himself, and see if God will save him the Father. Jesus said, You shall not tempt the Lord thy God. You don't, you're not tempting the Lord thy God. No, you're living for God. And if we happen to fall, amen, let's get up and let's go to God. Let's get cleaned up, let's get forgiven, let's get washed in the blood of Jesus. Let's get washed in his water and keep living for Christ. Amen. That's what we want to do. So he goes on and says that the life that he lives. So his identity is with Christ. The life he's living is now living for the Lord. Now, I'll say this statement. Faith is a daily lifestyle. So that life that we live in the flesh, amen. We are now to begin with God every day and to continue with God. So it was it is your salvation wasn't a one-time thing. It's an everyday thing. Not that you need to get saved every day, but that you acknowledge your being, as we sang a song here, he's still saving me. He's still saving me. The apostle Paul wrote, Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Why? Because you don't want to get to a place where you neglect it, you take it for granted, or you begin to abuse it. And that's easily done because the devil can trick us. He can trick us again. Start thinking in a warped way and thinking, I can get away with it. Well, read your Bible or come over here and me and Joel, we'll go through the Old Testament and you'll find out you don't get away with it. Even Jezebel didn't get away with it. She got kicked, thrown out of the two-story window by two of her servants, okay? She didn't get away with it. Nobody gets away with it. So don't ever think that way, all right? So it's a daily thing. Every day we trust in the promises of God. We trust in his timing. We trust in his grace. So faith means depending on Jesus when the circumstances are uncertain. That's what faith means. I'm going to live the life I live now, every day in this flesh, I'm going to live by the faith in the Son of God who loved me, gave himself for me. I'm going to rely on him. I'm going to trust him. The amplified Bible says, I'm going to rely on him and have complete trust in him. And we're going to depend on him when I things are uncertain and I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. I have no idea. Okay? This is what we need to understand as we read the scripture, okay? And that what everything that Christ did was for us to not live alone. So never believe that you're alone. You're not alone. God has given the Holy Spirit with you. Jesus Himself said, Me and the Father and I will come in, we'll make our abode with you, and we will have dinner with you. Our fellowship, okay? So he intends to live with us and in us and be there at all times. All right. So think about one area today where you will trust God instead of relying on your own understanding. Think about some area that you've not been trusting the Lord in, but relying on your own understanding, your own strength, your own ability. All right. This is important because the apostle Paul was dealing with the religious mindset that if I just do this and check all the boxes, I'll be good. All right. But God didn't say you have to check all the boxes. He said one thing. He said two things. Actually, you believe in me and love me and love your neighbor as yourself. Believe in me. That's what he said. Whoever shall believe. He didn't say whoever checks all the boxes. All right. And so you may come into condemnations because you have the box checkers around you. And they are always quick to criticize you and quick to point out the times you don't check the box. Oh, you missed that. Oh, you missed that. Oh, you said that word. Oh, I heard that. Is that what I hear an attitude here? You know, and everything, they're just about ready to bring you to a level of condemnation. They mean well. I believe they mean well, okay? But I don't have any friends like that. But I believe they mean well. I said that for a reason. Because after 67 years, those friends don't hang around you. When you stop telling them, why are you telling me this? You can always bring out the scripture. Uh you have a log in your eye. But I'll get to my spec out. But you take care of your log, okay? Because almost whack me in the head every time you turn. Okay? Because that's what religion does. It makes us all fault finders. It makes us a fault finder. Always trying to find fault with somebody. Why? To disqualify them? Because then there's the attitude. Where does that come from? I'm getting all philosophical, theological. It comes from the place where if I feel better about me and I'm better than you, maybe I'm closer to God.

unknown 26:04

More spirit.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

More spirit. Well, there's Pastor David. He's been doing this. Well, let me find something wrong with him. I mean, Pastor Doris, the first time I think I she might have met me or went out with her or whatever. I had a high water pants. Oh, there's something wrong with him. His pants are four inches too short. You know. But that was fixable. You know? And back then at USC, they were three to four inches too short and they wouldn't wear socks because they were wearing topsiders, boat shoes, because they lived on the yacht. Well, I didn't have a yacht. I think I had a blow-up raft, maybe, but not a yacht. But I was at the school, nevertheless, I don't care, and I didn't pay for it. I was on scholarship. Hallelujah. Praise God. Anyway, so you think about what the enemy tries to do is to get us to think that we can be better by putting other people down or finding fault in them. And that again is religion that's wrong. You got to live by faith. You've got to live by faith in God and know that He loves you. He loves me. He loves all of us equally the same. So when we go down to the next verse, that was my 25-minute mark, okay? Praise God. This is in case you know, understand, trying to guess what that was for. So when we look at the next verse, we look at verse 21. And verse 21 says it this way in the uh in the New King James Version. Let me just throw that out to you. You can think about it uh next week. Or all right, verse 21. Let me get the new uh King James Version here. Okay. Verse 21. So in verse 21, he says it this written this way I do not set aside the grace of God. Another one version says, I don't nullify it, I don't uh neglect it. All right, I do not set aside the grace of God. What does that mean? In other words, I don't put it on the shelf and I'm gonna live my life without it. Okay? No, you better make sure, along with all your armor, okay? Uh Ephesians chapter uh six, armor, you take you take the grace of God with you. Making sure it's with you, all right? I don't set it aside. For if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. And so he was always talking to them about don't get caught up in all your do's and you're doing right and checking your boxes, that you forget the grace of God is what got you to where you're at today. The grace of God is what's sustaining you, but for the grace of God, where would I be? And the mentality that we we just get to get caught up in ourselves and not realize it, that we're not living with the grace. We're living on our merit. We're living on what we can do and what we can achieve and what we can accomplish and what things we've racked up and say, here's my resume, Lord. You know, we don't want that. We want to live in the grace of God. Yeah, you can be blessed and you can have everything you've ever dreamed of and praise God, and somebody can not know you and look at you and say, You must be successful. Then they get to know you and find out where your success comes from. It comes from your love for God, it comes from your love for people. Uh, there's so many different things. So let me get another version here that says it this way. The amplified says, Don't treat God's gracious gift as something of minor importance and then defeat its very purpose. Don't don't do that. Don't never set aside grace, all right? Always have grace with you. Why is this an important point? Because in that day, in our day today, still, all right, it wasn't too long ago when some famous personality said there's more than one way to get to heaven. On national TV, there's more than one way to get to heaven, you know. So it's it's still going on there. And that's that's uh that's what humans are trying to do, find a way to peace and and and and tranquility, you know, utopia, and just you know, all this stuff without God, trying to find it without God. And so don't set aside the grace of God, okay? Paul he warns us, he says, if our righteousness came through keeping the law, all right, then Christ died for nothing. So you can't throw it away. What does that mean to me and you and in a working everyday life? Okay, that means that I'm going into a situation, I'm depending on God's grace for this situation. Help me do my job today. Help me uh find out what's going on wrong here so I can fix it, Lord. Help me by your grace. See, grace is an empowerment. Grace is not an open door, grace is an empowerment for heaven's blessing, heaven's wonders, everything God is pours into you and to me because of his grace. He gives it. We don't discern it. We sing the song, we don't deserve it, and we can't earn it. That's grace. That's his grace. He just gives it to us. And sometimes we need to come to a place where we can learn how to receive gifts. That's one of the phrases in the songs we sang earlier in the first part of worship. I'm learning to receive, or you're teaching me how to receive. So you got to receive salvation for what it is and how it's come. And then you got to live your life and receive God's grace for every day. Every day. So what does this mean? So so I blow it, okay? I forget to turn in my this thing. And I, you know, I remember I forgot to turn in the uh turn in the attendance, okay? You know, that's several thousand dollars right there, uh, that that school could lose because I didn't turn the attendance in, okay? And then they call you up, say, Mr. Forge, where's your attendance sheet? Well, didn't I turn it in? Isn't it here? No, no, oh man, it's under a pile of papers, you know. Uh, you know, and then when you could just feel terrible about yourself, you can feel slowed down on yourself and discount yourself, okay? And think that you know you're worthless and and and you're gonna lose your job or whatever, and all of this stuff because of how you're performing and how you're there and what you're doing, and you did something wrong. And now what do you need? You need grace. You need to always go back to grace, always, for the grace of God. That's why the John Apostle John writes, he says, if you sin, he said, confess your sin, and he is just and faithful. Just and faithful to what, to forgive. So that's where you jump into grace, right there. You jump into God's arms and you trust in his grace, his ability to forgive, to love, and he and then he empowers us. So grace has so much working for us, but in an everyday way, it's helping you get through your day. It's helping you do what you need to do. And if you fall short, you man, you get back on the grace connection. Lord, show me how I need to solve this problem. Show me what I need to do in this situation, Lord. That's grace. That's you're asking God's grace to be manifested in your life. And so we can't earn salvation through works of religion or performance. I mean, most of us can understand that. Grace is God's gift through Jesus Christ. And here's the thing the devil will constantly try to get us entrapped in trying to work for our salvation or work for our for the love of God, or work for God's, you know, embrace and acceptance. And when we realize that that's not where it gets us, uh, any of those things we want, we need to realize it's about God's grace. So we fall back into his arms of grace. We say, Lord, thank you. Everybody say thank you. See, when you can say thank you to God, all right, you've humbled yourself, and you can be able to say, I'm trusting in your grace. Thank you for your mercy, that's awesome. Thank you for your love, that's awesome. Thank you that you're here for me today, Lord, and you're helping me. Grace is God's gift through Jesus Christ our Lord. And so when we stop striving to earn God's love, then we can rest in the finished work of Christ. So let's just close this up. So stop striving. So here's a here's a thing. We we've got to work hard, okay? We've got to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We've got to be doers, not just hearers only. We we've we've got to strive, in other sense, to to do all that we can do for the Lord, okay? But don't strive to earn his love. Don't strive to earn his love. He loves you the moment you get up. Smelly, need a bath, need to comb your hair. He loves you right there, okay? Your worst, okay? Maybe your worst is when you go to bed and you're instead of worse when you get up. But he loves you then. So don't strive for his love. Strive to please him. Strive to please him. It's a whole different thing. I how do we please God? Hebrews 11, 6, by faith, by believing he is, obeying him, trusting him, expecting him to show up when he says he's gonna show up and say, Thank you, Lord, for being there, expecting his grace to work, expecting his love and mercy to work, believing in him. That's how you please God is by faith, all right? Not by trying to earn it, by something else in your mind and your thinking. And so this is what the apostle Paul is trying to get across to the church. Let's stand up uh tonight. Thank you for hearing the word, all right, because I'm teaching this and it may be basic, but I teach it to myself because the enemy tries to trip us up at all kinds of places. All kinds of places. And when you realize that you're sensing and you're hearing the voices of the enemy, and you're saying you're just not good enough, you just you're just not gonna cut it, you know, all this stuff. You gotta understand right there, the enemy is trying to get you to look at your life, your shortcomings, and that you're not earning God's approval. You're not earning salvation, you're not earning love. And immediately you got to reject that and say, double your liar and begin to just worship the Lord, begin to thank him that he loves you because he is love, that he cares for you, and that he's proved his love through Jesus Christ our Lord. Just begin to thank him for all the things you know that he's done for you, and don't allow the enemy to get you trapped in trying to make yourself better to get God to love you. And realize that God loves you, but he loves you and you sense his love even more when you get up, when you press in, say, Lord, I'm gonna live for you. Forgive me for this day, Lord. It's a mess. Just forget it ever happened. Let's start a new day tomorrow and let's do something great for you. And that's what God loves when we begin to trust him by faith going in the future. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this opportunity to be in your presence, Lord, and the Holy Spirit's ministry as a teacher. We thank you, Lord, that the word of the Lord has been shared. And I trust, Father, that we've been able to deliver what you've placed on my heart, Lord, and your words and your words only would help each one tonight, Father, just firm up their foundation, solidify their walk with you, Lord. Lord, readjust their focus, maybe. Maybe, maybe give them tools and how to combat the enemy who's trying to get the get us to always look at ourselves instead of look at you. And so, Father, we just thank you tonight for that. The life that we live today, Lord, we pledged to live by the faith of the Son of God, by faith in the Son of God who loved us and who gave himself for us, Lord. That's what you desire. That's what we want to do, Lord, is live this life for you as you live it through us. In Jesus' name. Amen.