800. The 800 Club: Looking Back - Believers Identified as Righteous

This week reaches a new milestone for our Growing in Grace podcast with the manifestation of program #800. In the weeks ahead, we’ll be reminiscing about some of the subjects that we feel have been some of the most significant when it comes to understanding the gospel of grace and what the finished work of Christ has provided for us. One of those is the gift of God’s righteousness.

Most church buildings are filled with believers who have assumed they are “sinners saved by grace,” when no such phrase is written within the pages. It’s a fake I.D.! We have inherited certain attributes from God as new creations in Christ and one of those is that we are now identified as righteous—the righteousness of God in Him.

   
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799. Paul: Saved and Justified by Grace - Not by Good Works (It’s A Spirit Thing)

This week we’re wrapping-up our series on Paul’s many exhortations about salvation as a gift by grace through faith, apart from works … and how it contrasted with what James and other Jewish leaders believed during many of those years in the early church. Paul puts the icing on the cake with the gospel in a nutshell when he reminds Titus:

“But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:4-7).

Paul went on to say that foolish discussions about the law should be avoided because it was useless and unprofitable. Why? The law had been put aside and ended with Christ. So, while Paul exhorts believers to good works—which can be profitable—they are a byproduct of our new identity in Christ as righteous and justified people. They contribute nothing towards our justification. A legalistic mindset will suggest that faith without works is dead—but Paul was repeatedly trying to show it’s the other way around—works without faith is dead.

   
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798. Paul: Beware of Those Desiring to Be Teachers of the Law

Back in the early church, one of the greatest challenges Paul and his company faced was to expose those who would promote a different gospel, which often blended the keeping of the Mosaic law with the message of Jesus. At the beginning of his letter to Timothy, Paul instructed him to confront those who were spreading such strange doctrines, as they desired to be teachers of the law, even though they did not understand what they were talking about. He went on to explain the law was never meant for believers in Christ.

As Paul explained to the churches in Galatia, it was a tutor to bring people to faith. Once faith is in place, people are no longer under the tutor (law). The hypocrisy of modern-day law advocates within the Christian church can be easily exposed—as they are selling a weakened version of God’s original, perfect standard, while ignoring the vast majority of what was given to Israel. Partake of either law or grace, but they were never meant to be mixed. One brought death, the other provides life.

   
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797. Paul: "Work Out Your Salvation" - In Context

Those who prefer to smother others with their brand of self-imposed religion will do all they can to quote Bible verses out of context to fit their pre-assumed mindset that works must be added to faith and grace when it comes to justification and salvation. The goal appears to be to put the responsibility of our eternity back on us and what we do instead of Jesus and what He did. It results in fear and uncertainty instead of peace and assurance.

This week we’re in Paul’s letters known as Philippians and Colossians … where Paul continues to communicate a gospel of grace which was very different from the message of a works-based approach the people were needing to break free from.

   
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