1067. Is There Such a Thing as a License to Sin?

Within varying degrees of legalism found in a mixed-covenant church culture, it has been said that grace can result in a license to sin if it isn't balanced with a message of religious law and works. The concerns that grace alone will cause people to be disobedient and choose a sinful lifestyle is the equivalent of blaming Jesus for the choices people make.

Avoiding sin is good advice, we've said this for years. The foundation of the gospel is God's unchanging grace and love. It's important for us to grow in our understanding of such an abundance of this unending grace from God. It is grace that teaches us in producing a more fruitful and godly way of life by His Spirit. This is rooted in knowing we have a new heart ... and have already been declared righteous, holy, sanctified and perfected in Him.

Not everyone will instantly grasp the freedom they have in grace, and yes, some will choose to follow their own fleshly desires and make poor choices. It can result in hurting ourselves and those around us. We've seen more people go this direction due to legalistic ideologies—realizing they can't keep up with the demands, thereby giving up. But as a new creation in Christ, our heart really doesn't want to run towards sin. As Paul said, all things may be lawful, but not all things will be profitable or beneficial. Thankfully, we can live the life God desires for us in the Spirit, realizing Jesus conquered and took sin away ... and nothing will ever come between us and God. When we catch onto this, it inspires a motivation that religious activity can't match.




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722. True or False: God’s Grace Encourages Sinful Behavior

We recently received a correspondence that included a comment: “You can’t keep all of the Law, so don’t even try to keep any of it? Ok. How’s that adultery working out for ya??”

This was submitted from Program #711: The Dangers of Mixing Law and Grace (Part 1).

We take a few minutes to address this mindset which is rooted in a commonly misunderstood theory from the world of lifeless religion. Paul declared we are not under law, but under grace. Just because this is our reality in the New Covenant doesn’t mean God unleashed the dogs so they could run out into traffic. Grace does for us what the law could not … teaching us to deny ungodliness apart from fleshy, self-righteous effort.



   
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682. 1 John 1:9 (Part 6) Bottom Line: Acknowledging Sin Leads to A Confession of Jesus

This is the sixth and final program from our recent series on the Bible verse of 1 John 1:9. We summarize with the conclusion that the Apostle John was not instructing believers in Jesus Christ to continually confess all of their sins to God in order to receive a fresh forgiveness every time they commit a wrongful thought or action. If repeated forgiveness were still needed from God for each sin, Jesus would have had to offer Himself repeatedly with the shedding of more blood. As we begin to see that John was addressing unbelieving people in the first chapter of 1 John - and then continue reading the other four chapters written to believers - we’ll begin to see the bigger point John is making… a confession of Jesus Christ.

To acknowledge a sinful condition leads (unbelieving) people to realize we have all fallen short of God’s perfect standard and have need of a Savior. His blood has brought forgiveness and cleanses us from all unrighteousness (once for all). Confessing the Son - the Word of Life - allows us to receive His life through belief, resulting in salvation and righteousness. It results in us abiding in Him; but to deny the Son is to deny God. As people who have been born of God, perfect love has guaranteed our forgiveness in Him is certain and we can now have boldness in the day of judgement… “because as He is so also are we in this world.”



   
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581. "How Can I Be Sure God Has Forgiven Me?"

Forgiveness from God has nothing to do with whether you confess all of your sins or because a pastor or priest declared it to be so; it is because of the blood of Jesus that has already been shed, once for all. Christian religionists have hammered a single verse from the Bible to imply you must confess every wrongdoing in order to be forgiven and cleansed. This week, we’ll quickly run through a list of passages showing the assurance we have already acquired when it comes to God’s forgiveness.



   

420. Struggling With Sinful Actions

Many believers in Christ become frustrated when they struggle with acts of unrighteousness. We take a practical look at these challenges through the gospel of grace. Sometimes we can get ourselves entangled by doing what we don't really want to do because we're approaching it from our own strength or not recognizing the entirety of what we've been freed from. The good news is Jesus dealt with the ultimate sin problem. We no longer need to try to crucify the flesh because in reality, we were crucified with Christ.

In this episode we talked about "the flesh," and we mentioned some past episodes in which we had previously talked about it. Those episodes may be helpful in understanding more about where we're coming from:
Episode 405. The Destruction and Removal of Sin
Episode 406. What is the Flesh? (The Good, the Bad, the Ugly)

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