1075. You’re Secure in Christ Because of God’s Promise, Not Your Performance

In spite of whatever ups and downs you've had on this planet ... whatever inconsistencies and broken promises you've lived or experienced from others ... no matter what the struggles ... we have a guarantee. It's Jesus. While the religions of the world (often including Christianity) will tend to focus on 'our' doing, our methods, our efforts and our good deeds to be seen by others—God made an oath with Himself that you and I can't invalidate. Therefore, neither can He—because He is the one true Promise Keeper.

Behavior improvements are beneficial for us and those around us. But you are not identified by performance and what you're "doing for God." Our eternal redemption is not established on improvements but is based on 'being' perfect through an act that a Savior did for us. God will not relate to you on the basis of good or bad performance. On the other side of that coin, true peace and freedom will be more fully experienced when we stop relating to Him on the basis of our performance and begin to embrace our righteous identity that has been gifted to us by grace.




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1008. Was Rahab Justified by Works and Not by Faith Only?

There was a significant lack of knowledge in the early years of the church. The cross and resurrection changed everything, resulting in the elimination of a covenant that had been in place for centuries. Consider if a Jewish person who believed in Jesus after the cross ... but still also believed the law of Moses was still to be applied for all Jewish people ... just exactly what did that mean for them? How did the blood of Jesus fit into that compared with the continued attempts to be doers of that old word? And what did it mean for Gentiles who never had the law?

When encouraging them to work at fulfilling that law, faith alone would be considered insufficient for salvation and justification. Righteousness would continue to be pursued by works plus faith. It formed a mindset that people such as Abraham and Rahab were not justified by believing, but by works being added in order to make faith perfect. How is this much different from the legalistic mumbo jumbo many of us have heard in works-based churches for so long? Let's take a closer look at the Rahab factor in the context of being justified.



   
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864. "Be Holy." But How?

If the goal is to be holy, how does this occur? Is it attained by what we do? Works? Conduct? Would one even need be considered saved and a believer in Christ to accomplish an acceptable level of good behavior that could be considered holy … at least in the eyes of the religious community? And if it requires all of our conduct to be perfect, righteous and holy, who decides what is and isn’t defined as sufficient?

You can probably already see how muddy the waters can get when it comes to a works-based attempt at gaining favor with God. There is no assurance in any of it. This week, we look at some words from the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter regarding the gift of God’s righteousness and holiness through an inheritance.



   
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766. God Withholds No Good Thing - If You Walk Uprightly (And Now the Bad News…)

Some specific Bible verses seem to be consistently more popular among the Christian sermon circuit. And yet on many occasions, the verses are plucked out of context and contorted in order to appear as though they should be applied to the life of a believer within the New Covenant of Jesus Christ.

But what if the message turns out to be a misapplied myth or fable that isn’t really compatible with the gospel of grace? We look at once such example this week from Psalms 84:11 … where a conditional promise was announced for those under the Mosaic law who walked uprightly. The problem? Nobody ever accomplished it. But God provided another solution that wasn’t based on our walk.



   
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575. How to Attain Perfection (the one-step plan)

God has a requirement for all of us: Be perfect as He is perfect. How do we go about this seemingly monumental task? It hardly sounds like a good news gospel if we're going to apply our own works and efforts, because we'll never meet that standard. However, there is another way for us to enter into a state of perfection - believe in the work of Jesus Christ. The Jewish people could not arrive at being perfect through trying to keep rules, commandments or offering repeated animal sacrifices; nor could they escape a sin consciousness that brought them more guilt. With one sacrifice of Himself, Jesus brought an eternal perfection… And it looks really good on you!



   

552. Why Jesus Taught Two Covenants (Part 9): Be Perfect, As Your Heavenly Father

Jesus showed His disciples what the bottom line required when it came to trying to acquire righteousness through their works: It would demand that they be perfect. With this standard being taught, we can begin to see why many stopped following Jesus. They weren't rejecting a Christian message, but they came to realize their inability to meet the standard of perfection the law required in those commandments. Jesus did not always minister the good news gospel to His Jewish audience, but there was a purpose as to why He did this.



   

390. The Sermon On the Mount - Teaching the Impossible

Jesus told His Jewish listeners that their righteousness would need to exceed that of the Pharisees and teachers of the law. Why? Because they were attempting to establish their own self-righteousness through works of the law. Jesus summed up the entire teaching of the Sermon on the Mount by stating, "So be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." If that sounds like a recipe for failure, you're correct. The law demanded the impossible from us - Perfection. But it could not provide it.

The gospel is not about us establishing righteousness through what we do. But rather it's about God establishing it for us. This is what Jesus attempted to reveal as He spoke to these people prior to the New Covenant.

The Sermon On the Mount - Teaching the Impossible (14 Min, 9.6 MB)
(Click to Play or Right-Click to Download.)

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