Grace Life Part 7 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

Grace Life Part 7 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

The Grace Life Part 7 with Pastors Lawson and Aaron Perdue. In this episode of Grace For Today you’ll learn the difference between a healthy respect for God and an unhealthy terror of God.

Grace Life Part 7 Transcript

Friends, I’m gonna be sharing today with my son Aaron. And we’re gonna be talking about the difference between a healthy respect for God, a healthy fear of God, and a unhealthy terror of God. I don’t believe that we should be afraid of God, terrorized by, I believe that comes by religion and from the devil, and it actually drives people from God. So stay tuned. I believe you’ll get some great revelation in this broadcast. Blessings. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re here with us today and we are sharing on how grace frees us and specifically frees us from the fear of man. Not only does it free us from the fear of man. Fear of man and legalism are kinda connected and so we’re gonna talk about how it freezes from legalism and the fear of man, and really legalism feeds off of the fear of man. And we looked at that a little bit yesterday. But today we’re gonna go ahead and move into Galatians 2:16-21, and talk about how we are justified by faith and not by the works of the law. And when Paul makes his statement in Galatians 2:20, “I’m crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live yet not I, but Christ lives in me in the life, which I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” He’s actually talking about when he says, “I’m crucified with Christ being dead to the law.” And there’s actually four deaths, we’ll talk about it in a later broadcast, but four deaths that every believer needs to receive if they’re gonna really move forward in their relationship with Jesus. Death to sin, death to the law, death to self, and death to the world. But a lot of times people don’t really realize in Galatians 2:20 what Paul’s talking about in context. When you read this, he’s talking about being dead to the law. So let’s look at this in Galatians 2:16-21. Aaron, do you wanna read Galatians 2:16-21?

Yeah. So it says, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified. But if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not! For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God. I’ve 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 faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”

So wow, what a powerful group of scriptures. But right in the middle of this, Paul says, “I threw the law, am dead to the law, that I might live to God.” The law it says in Romans 7 “is holy and just and good.” But the problem is us. We are sinners and we need a savior. And the law was never given to save us. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 1, “that the law was not made for a righteous man, but for unholy, for ungodly, for murders of fathers, for murders of mothers, for men stealers, for perjury.” This vile, if people are living violently wicked, you can take them to God’s law and show them that they’re wrong. If people are living religious and self-righteous, you can take them to the law and show them they’re a sinner. The law was made for sinners, but when you come to Christ, you don’t go back under the law to be justified. And that’s what Paul’s addressing. He says in the last verse there, verse 21, he says, “I do not frustrate the grace of God because of righteousness came by the law, Christ died in vain.” It is frustrating to try to serve God out of a legalistic mentality when you’ve been saved by grace. And that’s when people find themselves in this deal that Paul talks about in Romans 7. “I wanna do what’s right, and I don’t wanna do what’s wrong, but yet I do it.” That’s not talking about the normal Christian experience. If you’re living that in that challenge, one of two things has happened. Either legalism, religion has messed you up or you’re not born again. Paul’s talking about his experience as a Pharisee before he got born again and that he’s not talking about the normal Christian experience. A lot of people don’t even like to talk about Romans 7. But just like Romans 6 says, “We’re dead to sin.” Romans 7 says, “We’re dead to the law.” And just like sin will kill you, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life,” Romans 6:23. Legalism will kill you. Legalism is deadly. And that’s what Paul is addressing here. And so he goes back, when we look at this, he says, “We need to know there’s some things you need to get down in your knower that you need to know. Man is not justified by the the works of the law.” We are not justified by our performance or lack thereof. “We are justified by the faith of Jesus.” Abraham receive righteousness by faith. Hallelujah. We receive righteousness by faith. There’s only one way to receive righteousness. Rahab the harlot receive righteousness by faith. There’s only one way to get right before God and that’s believe. Praise God. And in the Old Testament, they believed in the redeemer who was going to come in the New Testament. We believe in the redeemer who’s already come. So they were putting their faith forward. And we looked back on the cross when Jesus died on the cross and said, “It is finished.” We said, “Praise God, it’s finished. It’s done. It’s complete.” And so saying that you’ve gotta add something to Jesus is like saying he didn’t finish it. You’ve gotta perfect what he did. You can’t perfect what Jesus did. It’s already perfected. It’s already completed. It is already brought to an end. It’s already been closed. The deal’s finished, it’s over, it’s done. You can’t go back. And so he says, “Man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus, even as we have believed in Jesus that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law.: So we’re justified by the faith of Jesus and not by the works of the law.

I like something that Paul writes in Romans 4:4. “He says, now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt.” So he’s saying if you’re working to be right before God, it’s not counting to make you more, it’s actually counted against you because you’re saying that grace isn’t enough, that Jesus isn’t enough. So if you’re working to try to add something to Jesus, it’s actually counted against you. It’s actually the opposite of what you’re trying to accomplish. And it’s kind of funny. For some reason there’s just this huge appeal to a lot of people to go back to tradition, to go back to works, to go back to.

2 Corinthians 3 says, “There was a glory of the law.” And people, they get some self gratification out of trying to do it themselves. And you can’t do it yourself. And you can’t perfect what Jesus did and just believe on Jesus, period. And let Jesus work through you. Let Jesus live his life big in you. We can’t live the Christian life without the Christ life. We can’t do it on our own. That’s what the gospel’s about. That’s what the whole Bible’s about. The Old Testament, man failed in his innocence. He failed in his knowledge of good and evil and his conscience. He failed in his ability to govern himself. He failed in the human family in the days of Abraham. He failed in his ability to perform. And under Moses in the Law, man could not not keep the law. And then Jesus came and did for us what we could never do. Jesus came and completed it. He finished it. And all we need to do is believe Jesus, believe in Jesus changes everything. So he says, “No, that a man is not justified by his performance, by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even as we have believed in Jesus that we might be justified by the faith of Christ.” We are justified by faith in Jesus Christ and not by the works of the law. “For by the works of the law, shall no flesh be justified.” Man, I don’t wanna be the best sinner that ever makes hell, I’d rather be the worst saint in heaven than the best sinner in hell. And he says, “By the works of the law, no flesh is gonna be justified.” If while we seek you, this is Galatians 2:17, “To be justified by Christ, we ourselves are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid.” So what he’s talking about here, he’s actually saying, if you go back to be justified by the Law it actually makes sin stronger. It’s like condemnation. It actually leads you back. The Bible says, “There’s no condemnation. There’s no judgment against those who are in Christ Jesus, who walked God after the flesh, who aren’t trying to do it in their own strength and power, but after the spirit.” Romans 8:1-2. But the law condemns you and brings you back into that sin life. And you don’t wanna do that. You wanna get free from it and realize. Listen, God got over it. God let go of it. God’s freed me now. I need to walk free.

Amen.

Praise God. And so he goes on and says this in verse 18, “For if I build again the things I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.” What Paul says is, “When I believed on Jesus, when we believed on Jesus, we destroyed law keeping, we destroyed performance for righteousness.” And he said, if you go back and try to add something onto Jesus, it’s like building that thing again. Boy, legalism doesn’t let go easy. These people that get ahold of legalism or legalism gets ahold of them, man, they’ll say they got a revelation of grace and then they’ll be back to preaching that old garbage. Let’s call it what it is. I hate to be so blunt with you, but Paul was blunter than me. Praise God. He said, “It’s just going nowhere. It’s doing nothing. It’s hindering you.” And he says, he talks about those who are hindering you, talking about legalists. He says, “For I threw the law died to the law that I might live to God.” The whole purpose of the law was to show us that we couldn’t make it on our own. That we’d give up and believe. He said, “I died to that, that I might live to God, that I might believe on Jesus.”

Remember when I was 18 years old, I went to college in Pittsburgh and I was trying to find a church there. And it took me a few months to find a church, but I was visiting one church, kind of a larger church in Pittsburgh. And I went there a few Sundays, but the last Sunday I was there, they had a guest minister there that Sunday. And he preached a very legalistic message. He was preaching on the fear of God, which the fear of God is great, like just having a reverence and awe, a wonder for God. But by doing that, he was actually preaching against the love of God. He’s saying too many people focus on the love of God too much, which really the love of God is also the grace of God.

[Lawson] Right.

Right. So he’s saying too many people preach on the love of God and that’s what causes people to get off track ’cause they don’t really respect God. And that’s why they fall from grace and sin. And my wife Heather actually found a journal I kept. When I go to church, I take notes and things, but she actually found this journal from when I was 18 years old. And I was taking notes from this minister and she saw that I’ve put in like all caps, like “I disagree.” And I wrote down like, this is the love of God that you keep his commandments and they’re not burdensome. So when you really love God, when you really understand his grace for you, his mercy for you, his compassion for you, it’s not hard to go and sin no more.

Go to 1 John 5:3. And a lot of people read 1 John with this spiritual dyslexia. They think it’s about something that we do instead of who we believe. But what you quoted in 1 John 5:3 is exactly the remedy to that. I remember you called me that day that you went and you didn’t have a cellphone. That was your first year when you were a freshman. But you called me that afternoon and said, “Dad, you can’t believe that what this person was trying to present. Do you know who it is?” I had seen that that was advertised at that church and you were just trying that church out. And I didn’t tell you anything because I wanted to see what your perspective would be. And one of my great friends, Andrew Wommack, really had a distaste for this teaching that this person did. And the person also has some great teaching, but Andrew Wommack really had a distaste. So I was interested to see, without telling you anything, to shade your perspective, what your perspective would be. And you said, “Dad, the fear of God grows out of the love of God, therefore the love of God will keep you out of sin.” You said, “Because you love me, I respect you, and I want to do what you want me to do.” And because I know that God loves me, I respect him, and I want to do what he wants to do. And that’s exactly what 1 John 5:3 is talking about. This is the love of God that we keep his commandments. It doesn’t say that keeping the commandments makes you love God. It says because you love God, you keep the commandments and it is the grace of God that freed you from that legalistic mentality. And that mentality is so deadly for so many people and it just doesn’t bring long-term freedom.

When I came back for Christmas break, winter break, a few months later, one of my best friends, her mom was reading a book by that same minister. And she was really condemned from reading this book. She had been divorced and remarried. She thought she was gonna go to hell because she was divorced and remarried after. So I just told her to take that book and throw it in the trash. And I just said, that’s not.

Yeah, because it’s not producing. See, there’s a healthy fear of God. And that’s when we respect our relationship with God. And believe me, I don’t wanna do anything that violates my personal relationship with God. The gospel is all about relationship with God. And I don’t wanna do anything that violates my relationship with God, my relationship with your mom, my relationship with you boys, my relationship with my mentors in the gospel, my relationship with my church, my relationship with the young men and women I’m raising up and where I minister in Bible school, train young leaders. And I don’t wanna do anything that violates my relationship with the world. Frankly, if you get involved in major sin, it’s a distaste to the world. And you can cause your family, you can cause your mentors, you can cause other people that you minister to a lot of pain. And we don’t wanna cause pain. We wanna get people to move into grace. But talking about this, we’re gonna take a break in just a second, but it’s like Hosea and Gomer. Gomer went back to her other lovers, Hosea 1-3 you can read those chapters, but God told Hosea to go marry a prostitute and he said Israel is acting like a prostitute. And so he married Gomer and she had three children. Those children’s names represent really what Gomer deserved and what she was doing. But God did not relate to her because of her performance. He said, even though she deserves judgment, she doesn’t deserve mercy. She doesn’t deserve to be called my people, yet I’m gonna call her my people and I’m gonna give her mercy. And so we don’t get what we deserve. After Gomer receives all this love, she goes out and just says, “I’m gonna go after my other lovers who gave me this silver, this gold, this corn, this wine and oil.” And you know what, God said, “I’m gonna hedge up her way. I’m gonna stop her because she doesn’t know that even when she was living in sin, the good things that she received came from me.” And then Hosea, he was like this, singing this love song to her after she rejected him, but he went and bought her. He took everything that he had to purchase her for like half the price of a slave and a little bit more. And you know what, nobody sin will take you where you don’t wanna go. It’ll keep you longer than you want to stay. It’ll cost you more than you want to pay. And you know what? Nobody even desired her or wanted her, but he went and bought her out of that to be his own. And then you know what? She lived with him and never rejected him. And there’s people that have turned from God. They’ve went off into sin. Some of you watching today may think that you’ve committed the unpardonable sin. But I wanna tell you, if you desired Jesus, if you desire him, that is the Holy Spirit working on the inside of you, that you have not committed the unpardonable sin. God wants you to come back home. Amen. So come home to Jesus. We’re gonna take a short break and we’ll be back right after this break. Thank you so much for being with us. Friends, I’m gonna be talking about in this series about how grace has revolutionized my life. And you wanna get this because I’m telling you, it changed my home, changed my marriage, changed my children, changed my church, changed my business. Grace has changed about everything about me. And not in a negative way, in a super positive way. My wife Barbara says, “I’m not even like living with the same person. And not negatively, positively. She said, “I don’t know how it would’ve went on if you would’ve continued on the way that you were going” But thank God grace changed me. And do you know what? God is not a respectful of persons, he’s a respectful of faith. But I believe that the grace that’s changed me will change you as you believe the gospel. And I’ve got two things that we’re making available as a package during these teachings. One is my series. It’s a 10-part series on the grace life. It’s the most in depth preaching I’ve done. The other one is the “Revelation of Grace” with Andrew Wommack. Blessings. Friends, I’m so glad you stayed with us. We’re right here in Galatians 2 where Paul’s talking about “Man is not justified by his works, but by faith” in verse 16. And then he talks about, “If I build again the things which I destroyed,” he’s talking about law keeping for righteousness, “I make myself a transgressor.” He said, “I threw the law, died to the law, but I might live to God.” You know 1 Corinthians 15:56 says, “The law is the strength of sin.” And here’s the problem with preaching law. It does not help people overcome sin. It makes sin stronger. And I’ve seen people, great leaders in the body of Christ who are really struggling in the air of their life, bring in real legalistic, hard-nosed teachers trying to get themselves free. And yet they become overcome by that. And I’ve seen people who are livid in major sin and they’ll preach so hard against it. And you know when they’re doing that. We used to have one guy, he was really known in Pentecostal circles and he had a huge ministry and he would preach so hard against adultery and all these different things and people. Then it came out that he had a challenge in this area. And people came to me, said, “Surely, this isn’t true.” And I said, “Oh, it probably is the way he preached.” ‘Cause he was preaching against something that he hated, but that legalism had power over him. And he had moved really away from grace into religion. And religion doesn’t free you. It will kill you every time. And so he says, “I died to the law that I might live to God.” And when he says, “I’m crucified with Christ,” he’s actually talking about being dead to the law. And he says, “I do not frustrate the grace of God for righteousness came by the law and Christ died in vain. That’s Galatians 2:21. But in the end of this, we’re talking about we’re justified by faith and not by the works of man. And when you think about it, faith and fear are polar opposites. And I wanna take just a few minutes and look at 1 John 4:16-18. It talks about being free from fear. And Jesus came to free as not only from the fear of man, but he came to free us from all kinds of fear. And fear and intimidation is from the devil. So in 1 John 4:16, it says this, “We have known and believed the love that God has to us. God is love, and he that dwells in love, dwells in God.” We have known, and I like to say this and continue to believe. We need to continue to believe. There’s people that have got a hold of grace, but they’re going back. Paul was addressing these people, but we need to continue to believe in the grace of God, in the love of God. And he says, “We believe this love that God has to us. God is love. He that dwells in. We need to take up residence in the love of God. We need to take up residence in grace. We need to rest in the grace of God. Hebrews 4 says, “There remains a rest therefore the people of God.” And it’s not about us, it’s about him. And so we need to rest in the grace of God, rest in the love of God, rest in the finished work of the cross. He says in verse 17, 1 John 4:17, “Here in is our love made perfect or complete that we may have boldness in the day of judgment.” This is talking about future judgment, but you can be free of fear of future judgment. You can be free from the fear of death. Jesus came to save us free from that. Talks about that Hebrews 2:14-16. But you look at this, he says, “We can have boldness in the day of judgment. We can also be fear free from fear of the present and free from fear of the past.” Lord to God, there’s no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. I’ve seen people who’ve done something 50 years ago and they’re still condemned. They need to let go of it and go forward. Like the older person in my family, listen, I don’t know and I don’t care. That’s not who you are. You quit it years ago. You’ve lived for God, forget it. Go on. Man, God got over your sin at the cross. You need to get over it. There is nobody that is justified by their performance. Period. Amen. Only way you can be justified as a human being is by putting your faith in Jesus. And he says, “Our love is made complete perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world. Jesus is righteous, holy, sanctified, pure in this world. And we’re that way in the spirit when we believe on Jesus. “As he is, so are we in this world.” “There is no fear in love,” verse 18, “but perfect love casts out all fear because fear has torment. He who fears is not made perfect in love.” This religion torments people like this person you’re talking about. Reading the book earlier in the broadcast of this really religion and this wrong perspective of the fear of God. It’s turned in a wrong like God is an angry God. We don’t wanna be, that’s like Old Testament. There’s no fear of God before that. We don’t wanna live like that. But when you receive the love of God, you should have a healthy respect for God. But not this tormenting fear. Torment does not come from God. The devil wants to use that to drive you away from God. And religion in long term does not free people. It drives them from God.

I was thinking about, there’s a famous early American minister by the name of Jonathan Edwards, and I remember when I was in high school, we had to read a sermon of his called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. And the way like history and even English classes, they make that seem like that that was kind of the normal type of preaching then, just like God is angry and he’s out to, but really, one of my closest friends actually did some research and looked up other sermons by Jonathan Edwards. And that was an unusual type sermon for him, but it’s presented as this is all preaching in America.

Man, he would go to a town there and preach and they would close every bar in the town. People would hang from the rafters and say that they felt the fire of hell. And he was amazing revivalist. And I see signs of revival in America. I’ll maybe talk about some of them later. I’ve just heard about two great things. I went to that concert at this liberal university Christmas concert and they were glorifying God. You can’t take Christ out of Christmas.

Amen.

Hallelujah. And so God is so good. If you need prayer, if you wanna become a partner, if you want products, be sure and call us today. Thanks so much and blessings. We appreciate you.

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