The Grace of God

Colossians 1:15-20

COL-132

Our subject is "Hymn in Honor of Christ," number 22 in Colossians 1:15-20.

Near the end of His First Coming ministry, when the nation of Israel had rejected Him as the Messiah of God, Jesus announced a new work of God in the form of what He called "the church." He moved out of the territory of Israel, across the line, into gentile territory. And there, He revealed to His disciples His plan to build something that he called the "ekklesia," the church. They didn't know what He was talking about. They had never heard that word before, in this context, as a special body of believers. They had never seen anything like this in the Old Testament Scriptures. This was something totally brand new because the church is a special body of believers made up of Jews and gentiles, with special grace privileges. And that is the key word tonight – the grace of God.

Few churches understand about the grace of God. They're very powerful, and they're very popular, and they're very hoopla and gung-ho. And people who don't know better think that that's all there is. And the sad thing is that most Christians do not understand exactly who they are in relationship to God, as members of the body of Christ. That is seldom spoken of, and seldom referred to. And yet it is the heart of what goes on in this age. And grace is the name of the game.

The church of Jesus Christ, at the point where He announced it – this special group of people with grace privileges was in the future. It was to begin on the day of Pentecost, and it was to be built, Jesus indicated, by Himself as something that was a special possession to Him. The church was to be the body of Christ, and Jesus Christ, as Paul has pointed out to us in Colossians 1:18, was to be the head controlling and directing the work of every believer's life.

The purpose of the church was never to fulfill the covenants of God with the Jews. The church has nothing to do with those covenants that God made with the Jews – the fundamental covenant with Abraham – the great promises that God gave Abraham: a people; a descendants; and, an eternal land and a kingdom, with a dynasty ruling forever. That promise was expanded in the Palestinian covenant, relative to the land; with the Davidic Covenant, relative to the dynasty of the royal kingdom; and, in the New Covenant, which promised an act of God the Holy Spirit where Jews would be born again spiritually by the grace gift of God, and where they would then be related to God under the power of the Spirit, no longer under the Mosaic system. The Mosaic system, of course, never saved you. The Jews made that terrible mistake, and they still make it to this day. But the Mosaic system did make it clear to you how good you have to be to get to heaven.

So, there was no doubt in anybody's mind, once they went through nothing more than the ten commandments, let alone the whole 613 requirements, that they were not going to make it.

So, the purpose of the church was never to fulfill these covenants of God with the Jews. Jesus came the first time, indeed, to bring in the promised Old Testament kingdom of Israel on earth. That was His mission, but as you know, He was rejected by the Jews as their Messiah. And when they did that, the kingdom of Israel was postponed to His Second Coming. And in the meantime, He was going to turn to a new thing – building a body of believers special unto Him, never revealed before in Scripture, called "the church," the assembly of the living God. And that's why it was appropriate for Him to cross the line out of Israel to make this new declaration of this dramatic new thing which was going to take place. When the church age came, it was a special ministry of God the Holy Spirit, and He indicated that when God would raise up Israel as the leading nation of the world, there would be a great outpouring of the power of the Holy Spirit. So, so Jesus announced that in a few days they would have something called the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which had never happened before on the day of Pentecost, and He compared it to the Scripture of Joel, which connected, in the tribulation, that God the Holy Spirit would bring to an end that period, and the Jews would enter a 1,000-year Millennial Kingdom where the Spirit of God would be in great power upon them.

One of the places that that has been referred to in the Old Testament was the passage in Ezekiel, which we did not read this morning, Ezekiel 39:28-29: "Then they will know (the Jews) that I am the LORD, Yahweh, their God, because I made them go into exile among the nations." That's where they are now: "And then gathered them again to their own land." That's where they are now: "'And I will leave none of them there any longer. And I will not hide My face from them any longer. For I shall have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel,' declared the Lord God." So, this is one of those Old Testament passages that said that when God brings the nation back together, in the purpose of establishing His kingdom upon this earth, it is going to be a great outpouring of the work of the Holy Spirit upon them.

Now, Pentecost, Jesus said, was similar to that. It's not the fulfillment of the Joel passage. That is still following the tribulation, because in the Joel passage itself, these tremendous disruptions in the intercellular spaces in nature would take place just before this outpouring of the spirit of God upon the nation.

So, Jesus made it clear that someday there will be on this earth the kingdom of God ruling over all nations, with Israel as the world's superpower; as Jerusalem the capital of a world government; and, Jesus Christ reigning over all nations as King of Kings, as the world ruler. So, Christians today are not serving God in order to bring in the kingdom into existence on the earth. If you ever hear a preacher talk about bringing in the kingdom, all the red flags should fly up, and you should say, "Adios, muchacho." He would not say that unless he were totally disoriented, virtually, in what the church is all about, and he cannot possibly instruct you in what is your privilege and your status as a member of that royal family. He can't do it. And if you're a young person, do you want to waste your life listening to hoopla that will not enable you to understand what the power is of being a member of the body of Christ, and Christ as your Head.

Now that's reality. That's not playing upon the emotions. That's the real thing. We are not bringing in the kingdom. Christians today are serving God to build a church. We're building up the body of Christ to its destined completion. And we're doing that by telling people the gospel, and bringing them into a born-again relationship to God. Then we're training those people in the full counsel of the Word of God, what is their privilege and faces of living under the grace system of the church age, so that they go out and are capable of serving God, propagating the gospel, both home and abroad, until one day, the last person destined to be part of the structure of the church will believe. And when that happens, we're out of here. The rapture will take place.

That is what we're doing today. And the Bible is very explicitly clear, for example, in Ephesians 4:11, that God has provided the means for that to happen. He has given prophets, who wrote the Scriptures. We no longer have prophets. He gave us apostles, who were in total charge to put together the organizational structure of the church. We no longer have those. Then He gave us evangelists. We do have that – people with a special gift for getting the gospel across so people understand it. And God will clarify it and bring conviction. And He gave us pastor-teachers to take over the converts, and to train them militarily to be able to equip them for their service. It says, "for the building up of the body of Christ." If the pastor in the pulpit fails you, and does not follow those three steps there in Ephesians 4:11-12, you're in bad, bad circumstances. It says that he must equip you. That means militarily give you the equipment for spiritual combat– the Word of God, doctrinal understanding, in order to prepare you for the ministry, your personal ministry for God, and your mission for which you were born. For what purpose? In order for to build up the body of Christ.

It's very simple, but in the Greek language is there are three prepositions that are hooked together. If the preacher misses number one, and he plays on your emotions, and give you a good time, you're going to stand at the Judgment's Seat of Christ as poor and shredded as a plucked chicken with nothing, when you could have had everything. This is a serious business not to understand the doctrine of the church, because when you understand that, then you know what the business of the local church is.

We are building the body of Christ. But if we're not trained and equipped to do that, you cannot possibly do that work. It's the same thing in military matters in the human realm. You cannot just give a person a gun, and tell them to go out there and to be in a combat situation. He'll be an easy victim. There are all kinds of things that must be followed carefully, and kept in mind, not the least of which is a high spirit of morale. And morale is based, as General Patton said, upon the soul of the soldier. It's based upon great personal integrity so that those who are with you in combat know that they can trust you and depend upon you to stand by them. And most of all, you'll take your orders. This is our problem in the Christian life. We can't get Christians to take their orders from the Lord. They're taking their orders from their sin nature. They're taking their orders from society at large. They're taking their orders from some gummed-up church ministry that doesn't have the church doctrine and understanding straight. And peoples' lives are being frittered away. It is a terrible thing, as the Bible says, to waste a believer's life, and for him to fail in his potential for rewards eternally in heaven: "What shall it profit that kind of a Christian, if he gains the whole world in all the esteem and in all material things, and in every other way, and then he loses the value and the potential of his life. There is no value.

Grace

The distinctive principle governing the operation of the church is God's grace. So, let's take a look, first of all, tonight at the concept of the grace of God. The whole church operation, the whole church ministry, is the product of divine grace alone. What do we mean by grace? Grace is the unearned blessing of God. We don't deserve it. We don't earn it. God gives it to us. But something had to be done so that God was free to pour that kind of loving grace upon us. And that is that He had to have His anger against us satisfied – the anger that God has against sin. His rant had to be assuaged. And that is what Christ's death upon the cross has done. The justice of God, which demands death for sin, was satisfied. Somebody died, and somebody paid the price.

It is very important for you to remember 1 John 2:2: "And He Himself (Jesus Christ) is the propitiation for our sins." The word "propitiation" means "satisfaction for justice." And not for ours only; that is; for we who are Christians, but also for those of the whole world. For those of the whole world? For every person that has ever been born, and for every person who has ever come into the human race? Yes, He died for the whole world. So, some people are in Hades this evening, awaiting transferring to the lake of fire, whose sins have been paid for? God's not angry at them anymore? That's right. God's justice has been totally settled. All they had to do was accept the gift of eternal life? That's right.

However, how many times have you sat in church and had this all confused? How many times did you sit there, and maybe you were an unbeliever, or you could put yourself in place of an unbeliever, and some guy wants to know how to go to heaven? "Raise your hand, and we will pray for you. Come down the aisle, and join our church, and we will accept you." There are many things that people do to confuse what it is that God requires to be saved: "Open your life. Take Jesus into your life." Did you ever read that in the Bible? "Give yourself to Christ. Did you ever read that in the Bible? All these pop-Christianity phrases are not in the Bible. There is only one thing is in the Bible: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." He is not a liar. What He claimed He did on the cross to pay for your sins so that He is your satisfaction is true. He is not a liar. Accept that, and you're saved. You're home free.

So, grace is something you cannot earn and you cannot merit. It is something that God can give you because His anger and His wrath and His own righteousness have all been satisfied, so that He can treat you with perfect justice by taking you into His heaven. The church is to show forth the glories of this position in Christ. This is a glorious thing to be in.

Ephesians 2:6-7 put it this way: "And raised us up with Him, and seated us up with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." You are now in a position as a Christian of being raised up with Christ from the dead. You have been raised up from your spiritual death. This is positional truth. You're not seated with him yet in heaven, but you're just as good as there. In position, you're there. And he did this in order that, in the ages to come, He might show the surpassing riches of the grace of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Christ is going to point to Bob short, and Christ is going to say, "He was a lowdown, no-good skunk, and he carried on. No, He's not going to do that, but He's going to be a trophy of grace. Every one of us, with everything we are and shouldn't be. He's going to point to us very proudly, and say, "This is a trophy of My grace. You should have seen him before." But thank God there will be no television screens and no internet for that in heaven, to bring all the stuff up on us that is in our background. All that's gone forever, covered under the blood.

However, you'll remember what you were, and you'll remember, as you look around that heaven with awe, that if it wasn't for the grace of God, you wouldn't be there. Grace does it all.

Now, any group of believers who does not understand the separation from Israel, won't let grace work. When they want you to give money, they're going to talk to you about tithing. They'll have big signs up there: "Everybody a tither." Whoa! Wait a minute. How dare you insult me to tell me, and tell me that I'm supposed to tithe my money to God. I'm a member of the royal family of God, and I'm indwelt by the Holy Spirit. I read Scripture, and I know what my duty is about giving. And I go to the Spirit of God, and I say, "What do I do?" He may tell you, "I want you to give 30% this week." Fine. This week, we're a little short. You have to get these bills paid, but keep it down to 5%. But never a week goes by but on the first day of the week you come through for the Lord God by an act of your grace. That's it. And that is the glories of the grace of God that he is referring to here. And for all eternity, this which He freely bestowed upon us, we're going to be so proud to be able to be pointed to by the Lord Jesus Christ as someone that He did these things for, in the riches of His grace and His kindness toward us. That is a great kindness what the Lord Jesus Christ did.

Now I can tell you that we've had people who have been very uncomfortable, and not very happy. I can tell when they walk out, they don't usually shake hands with me. But when they don't like the sermon, they don't shake hands with me. When they really like it, they say, "Thank you, your majesty. It was very good. But if they're irritated, I have enough discernment, and I see it. And what they don't like is this idea that Romans 12:1-2 says, "By the mercies of God." Grace is one of His great mercies. Give your body to Him. Give your life. A lot of Christians really don't want to do that.

Well, but the church is to show forth these glories that God has placed upon us. What the death of Jesus Christ did was that it removed all the limitations which were imposed on the expression of God's love toward a lost sinner. How was that done? Please remember that there's only one thing that God loves in you. That's His own absolute righteousness. He doesn't love you. He doesn't love your sin. He doesn't love your sin nature. He loves His absolute righteousness. And when God wanted to express His love to you, He had first to place His absolute righteousness in you, which is what happens when you trust in Christ. Then the Bible says you're justified. "Justified" means you're just as good as Jesus Christ. You have His absolute righteousness in you. Now God can pour His love on you without restraint.

So, every Christian should understand that no matter how bad things are in life, you're under the flood tide of God's divine love. But how about you as a Christian? He's not interested in your service, and all your hustling, and all your good intentions, and all your promises. He's only interested in what the Spirit of God can produce of divine righteousness in you. And when the Spirit of God is in control, and you're in fellowship with Him, and you're true to doctrinal principles, then He's going to flood you. He's going to flood you with righteousness, and God's love cannot help but pour toward you because you are the target. It's like a piece of metal flying toward a magnet. It's just drawn to it. It is the absolute righteousness of Christ functioning in us that draws the magnificence of His love to us.

Well, when that love is functioning, you don't do all those dirty pig / dog things that some Christians do in their lives. When the functioning of the love of God is there, you're so appreciative of Christ (and that's what love is), that you're devoted to Him, and you're not going to insult Him. You know that He said that you are His glory. And you're not going to debase Him any more than a wife wants to debate her husband. She is to be his glory. And that's what we are as the bride of Christ.

So, the absolute righteousness is now ours. All limitations for divine blessing have been removed. Did the Jew know something like that? Not on your life. He struggled and tried, and struggled and tried. And Paul said, "Nobody ever made it. Yes, they got to heaven. Yes they got saved. Yes, they got blessings in a material way when they managed to obey. When they didn't obey, they lost it all." Here God the Holy Spirit comes in, and he changes your tastes. You can take the pig; wash him up; and, put a ribbon on it. But on the inside, he's still a pig, and he'll go back to it. But when God transforms, you lose your taste for all of that. And you're never going to treat yourself in His presence as something less than what you – are a member of the royal family of God. And you're never going to do that by making some kind of promises. You're never going to listen to some preacher who says, "I'd like anybody who tonight would like to rededicate his life to Jesus Christ to come forward." And people do that all the time in churches. What are they rededicated to? Zilch. Do you want to dedicate your life to Christ? Then learn the Word of God, and function upon it. But the preacher doesn't teach the Word of God. He gives us a little sermon.

I was very disappointed in my big church, whose sign I go by every week to see what gospel passage that preacher's going preach on, because I know every Sunday he's going to preach on the gospel. The sign was blank. Why? I thought, "Well," I thought, "they've taken things down. They're getting ready." The middle of the week, it was still blank. I'm getting nervous now. Come Friday, the thing was still blank. And I said, "Don't tell me he's preparing a sermon on something other than the gospel. I'll bet that sucker has prepared a sermon other than on the gospel. He's there studying. He couldn't even tell him what to put on the board, because he hadn't finished deciding and working it all out. Until Mrs. Danish types my sermons Sunday morning, I don't know what's going on – what's go, and where I'm going to go. And I'll bet he was working on a new sermon that had nothing to do with the gospel.

Well, if that's all you get, once you're a Christian, you're in a bad way. Salvation is a gift. Therefore, it removes all human obligations, and it removes all credit from the participant. You don't have to prove that you're saved by making Christ your Lord. You should make Christ your Lord, and you do that when you confess your sin, but you're still going to be a child of God even if you don't do that. How you conduct yourself will be a matter between you and God's discipline.

So, God, God has provided us with the magnificence of His grace, and He did one thing else. You should know this verse in Galatians 3:22. It says, "But the Scripture has shut up all men (all mankind) under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe." God, as Judge, has declared that everybody is a doomed sinner, for two reasons: One, because you were born with Adam's guilt upon you. That sends you to hell. Secondly, because you have your own sins that you commit. That adds to it. And, you have, because of your birth through Adam, you have an inherent sin problem with the sin nature. So, God says, "Here's a triple-whammy, and I hereby declare that every human being is under sin. Now you're condemned, and I now declare upon you the penalty of death.

Now, what are you going to do to get out of that? Nothing. There's nothing you can do. You cannot produce merit that God accepts for salvation when you're under the judgment of sin. And what this verse is saying (Galatians 3:22) is that God has pronounced every human being morally guilty, and there's no way you're going to get to heaven.

So, now we're talking about the church. The body of Christ, the university church, is our foundation. But we had this local church expression. How do we deal with grace in the local church context? In the Old Testament, it was a works way of life. You did what you did to get the blessings of God. You performed legalistic acts. You kept all kinds of rules. You went through all kinds of rituals. You went through all kinds of ceremonies in order to get the blessings of God. Why on earth is the church so filled Easter Sunday morning, and on Christmas day? Because Christians think that there are holy days in the church age like they used to have in the Old Testament. And on the holy days, you better perform the acts of worship under Judaism, if you wanted the blessings of God. And because all of this is confused, and not made clear to Christians, they think they're working under the Old Testament system. So, they think that Easter's a very holy day, and that Christmas is a holy day, and they should be in church, and they get extra merits with God for that.

No, (in contrast to the Old Testament) there is no way of doing things to be blessed. Grace is the rule in the Christian life today. The church age is the age of freedom. That's what's so wonderful about grace. It is the age of freedom from all these laborious things of trying to do what is right. It is God Who gives you the power to do what is right. It is the Bible that tells you the principles of what is right and what is wrong. And please don't make the mistake of thinking that what I'm saying is that Christians don't have rules to live by. Every one of the ten Commandments is repeated as a rule for Christians to live by in the New Testament, except one. It doesn't repeat the one about the Sabbath day. And yet, I think there's a moral principle there – that one day a week we set aside as the Lord's Day, which is Sunday for us, and we should use it as a day of spiritual refreshment. And that means all day long. And we shouldn't see how we can minimize the participation of people in the church services.

"Let's make the church service real early. Let's cut out anything before the church service. Let's get the church service at 5:30, and get people in and out, so that they can go to the show Sunday night. That's what churches are doing. What are they telling people? It's not the Lord's Day. Boy, that's a tricky little thing that Satan has put on churches, and they all go along with the crowd.

Grace must be the guiding principle in the local church operation. For example, that must be the case in how the Word of God is taught. The Word of God is taught in a public form like this. I don't know what you're thinking. I don't know whether you're saying "Amen" or whether you have great mental reservations, but that's irrelevance. It's between you and God. My job is to feed you the principles of doctrinal truth. And we appeal to you on the basis of the fact that you have a position in Christ which is now secure, and that you may have blessings in fullness if you function upon these principles of doctrine. You live by doctrine, and you do that because you're God's royal family.

That's a tough analogy today because the royal family, for example, in England is a shoddy outfit, and not much of a role model to anybody. But since Jesus Christ is our King, we have a very qualified role model. We are the royal family of God, and that's how we're going to live – as royalty. But the Word of God is our guide to that royal conduct. But it's up to you to do it. It's up to me to explain it to you, and not to fail you at that equipping point. But then you must decide yes or no. And you should see what reaction I get from some people when I say something like that. They really don't like it, because it means that the world is out of their lives. And they don't want to be out of society.

Secondly, grace has to apply in financing the Lord's work. All grace giving has to be Holy Spirit-led. It has to be free will. It has to be private. Nevertheless, it is a duty. Don't ever make the mistake that you can come to church some Sunday, and that Paul's principle of: "Let every man set aside to give on the first day of the week" doesn't apply on certain Sundays. Now, I don't mean you have to come actually that Sunday. You might send it by the mail. And when you send your check in through the mail, I write on the envelope for you: "Apply on Sunday." So, God knows what you intend to do with that check, however you give it. But the point is that there's an orderly progression. You never say in your mind, "Let's see, did I give last week, or didn't I?" Now you look at your record: "Yeah, I did. No I didn't." And I don't care whether you're a young person who has just earned 20 bucks mowing the lawn, you have a duty to God, come Sunday, to give some of that to the Lord.

Those wonderful Christians, who were in a poverty status in Macedonia, in 2 Corinthians 8–9, which, incidentally, is where Christian giving is described, and you won't find any tithing there. That's the grace principles of giving there in 2 Corinthians 8–9. Paul says, "These Macedonian Christians, they were poor, and they gave out of their poverty." He says, in fact, "They gave beyond their poverty." They gave more than they should have. They went over the line. But Paul knew what was going to happen. God was going to come right back, and His grace was going to supply them.

When I was a teenager, I read a book about a man. The title of the book was Borden of Yale. Borden was a young man who had inherited wealth. He went to Yale University, and was very active in missionary work. He became involved in missionary enter enterprises, visiting mission fields with mission organizations, and he was a great contributor. And I used to admire, as I would read the book. A problem would come up, and they would alert people who were supportive of their mission work in some particular activity of the funds that were needed, which is what the pastor has to do with you. And when things didn't come together and the need was there, Borden of Yale would write the check. And I thought, as a teenager, "Boy, what a great way to treat God. If I ever come into vast sums of money, I'm going to see to it that when God's work needs something, I'm not going to stand around and wait to see how much other people will give. I'm going to run up to the front of the line. I'll take the reward. I'll give it.

Well, as years have gone by, I realized that the same principle applies even when you don't have that much. You can be like the Macedonians, because grace prevails. You give out of your poverty. You give out of the less that you have. But you always give. That is the duty.

Now, I know there is the gift of giving. Very few people have that. You don't have the gift of giving unless you have vast financial resources. That's what Borden of Yale had. One of his spiritual gifts was the gift of giving. And it was to his great joy and delight to pull out his checkbook, and write what the mission group needed to carry on the Lord's work.

Grace has to determine how you've received members into the local church. Nobody should come into the local church except those who are saved. When I took over Berean Memorial Church, over four decades ago, I had 35 people. I found several of them who had come walking down an aisle. They weren't saved any more than the man in the moon. Well, I don't know whether the man in the moon is saved or not, but I don't think he is. I do know that Joseph Smith has told us that he had a vision from God information that there are people up on the moon. Did you know that? They walk around. They're dressed like Quakers, and they look like green cheese. We know that from Joseph Smith, and he's a prophet of God, and he wouldn't lie to us.

In any case, these people were not saved. And so I said, "You have 30 days. Start participating in Berean ministry, or your names will be removed from our list. Well, it was a denomination that's very big. And they never heard of anybody removing any anybody's name from your denomination list. And they couldn't believe this. And sure enough, after a while, they started coming back in, and those who didn't, were out. Grace says you come in, but grace says you perform your duty as a Christian. And you participate in that local organization as a saved person only. You don't have a voice if you're not a believer, but if you are, then you have a vote. And yet be very careful how you bring people into the church because of that.

Many years ago we had a lady from a big denomination, a Reformation denomination, which did have an appreciation for the Bible. And she wanted to become a church member. So we met with our executive committee, and they listened to her testimony on the basis of her salvation. And as they listened, it was: "I really treat people as best as I can. I try to keep the ten commandments. Oh, I love the golden rule." And so the red flags went up, and they said, "Ma'am, we're not really satisfied that you understand what it is to be saved. We would recommend that you keep attending church. Come and see us three months from now." Well, she was indignant, and so she left. But by the grace of God, she didn't make the one mistake so many in our tradition have made. She did not quit attending. As soon as the dissatisfaction guy quits attending, he's in a tailspin. And he's pulling the stick back, trying to get himself back oriented, and he's never going to do it, because he's doing it the wrong way. He's going to plow in. She kept attending and listening to the instruction. Then she did come back and said, "I'd like to meet with the committee again. And when the three men sat down, she said, "The first thing I want to tell you is that I'm so grateful that you did not accept me as a member of Berean Memorial Church. I was no more saved than the man in the moon." So she had the same opinion about the guy up there. And she said, "I was just not saved. And I was so shocked, but yet, as I listened, I realized that I was going by the rituals. I wasn't Christian. Now I learned what it is to trust in Christ."

Grace has to be the way you take members in. Otherwise it's not God's way.

Grace has to deal with how you treat the priesthood of every believer. Out of the reformation came the restoration of the great doctrine that every Christian is a priest, not just a select group. Every believer is a priest. But you are not a priest for me, and I'm not a priest for you. You're only a priest for yourself. And therefore, we respect your right as a priest of living as unto the Lord. We respect your privacy, and we respect your right to make your decisions for yourself, even if they're stupid, and even if they're self-destructive.

Now, we will keep preaching the word to you. And if you open an opportunity, we will caution you, and we will give you advisement. And if you ask, we certainly will give you the best doctrinal instruction we can. But you are your own priest, and you do not have the right to be butting into other people's personal lives.

Now, we as an organization, do have that right? If I see somebody working in summer camp who is undermining Christian principles, and the ground upon which we are working, I'm pulling him out. I have a right to say, "You cannot be part of this group because of this and this and this, that you're involved in, or that is your procedure. But you as an individual – God is going to hold only you responsible for what you have done. He holds me responsible for informing you of the Word of God. He holds parents responsible for protecting their children until they're out from under their care (out of high school) to prevent them from being under the kind of emotional youth orientation that degrades Christ, and makes Him a good old boy, and makes Him a cool cat, Who would play on the emotions of their kids instead of their knowledge of the Word of God.

A lady recently said to me, "Dr. Danish, when I had a personal deep distress, I was getting the preacher talk about feeling the grace of God. But when you pointed me to the Word of God, and to the consequences of that implication," she said, "the joy of the Lord filled my soul." I knew exactly what she was saying. She got off from the subjectivity that preachers like to play on kids and people – their emotions. And she got onto "Thus saith the Lord." A Christian who has "Thus saith the Lord" knows how to take up the sword of the Spirit (the Word of God), and charge into battle, and make a big difference.

How you receive members in the local church determines whether they're saved or not, and what kind of a congregation you have. You have to apply to the priesthood of the believer – right living on the basis of the Word of God.

Then grace has to be applied on how you treat visitors in the service. We do not ask you to rise so all of us can turn and look at you. We occasionally have people in our congregation who have seen "The Exorcist" movie, and they saw that girl who said goes around in the circle, and they sit in church. You don't see them, but I see them. And these heads go around. I mean, they don't even turn their back. Their head just spins around. And they're looking at Mrs. So-and-So's hat. They're looking at this guy's haircut. They're seeing what this gal is wearing. And I mean it is really amazing. Well, we don't treat visitors by putting any pressures on them. We don't call attention to you, and we're happy to go up to you and to greet you. And if you say bug off, we bug. We let people live their own lives as unto the Lord. Non-pressure – that's very rare in the church, very rare. The pressure system is a way to do it.

When Berean Church was just a mission station, and I was a student at Dallas Theological Seminary, I was the song leader and Sunday school superintendent, just on the other side of town here. And the preacher had a visiting evangelist. And it was the last night. It was a Sunday night, and he was trying to really get people saved, and get a good record, and nobody was coming. And he says, "God has told me that that little girl right there needs to be saved." Now he's specific. That was not grace. Now, that was bad enough. But then he came down from the pulpit, and walked between people, and reached out to grab the girl, and to pull her up front, because she had to come up front to be saved. If she didn't walk, she wasn't saved. And this gal was screaming. Boy, that was a fun meeting. I mean, when was the last time you heard somebody screaming in the church service because the preacher has you by the arms: "Get in here? You're coming into salvation whether you like it or not. If we have to, we're going to shove it down your throat, one way or another. And I was appalled. So I said, "Well, that's it, Lord." And I came over to this side of town to a place called Second Baptist church, which was an alias for what became Berean Baptist Church, which was an alias for what then became Berean Memorial Church. It was that night. That's why you're stuck the way you are – because of that guy trying to pull this screaming girl out of that choir. Even I, who can stay on almost anything, could not stomach this.

I have a lot of fun at summer camp as I go through the food line. I come in and I say, "Well, Mrs. Wright, what kind of slop have you pulled for the inmates this afternoon? We're going to have a lot of fun. I bought three plastic chickens, and we're going to hang them right over the serving counter. So, as the kids go by, they're going to see these dead chickens hanging there, with their heads and feet in order to help them to see that this is gourmet cooking here. No, it is. And Wednesday night is particularly fun, because it's pizza night.

Well, we have to treat people with respect. Why? Because they're the royal family of God. And we treat our visitors as those who have come to be informed by God, not by our glad-handing them, so they can go home and say, "Berean is the friendliest church in town." That is not a good reputation.

Grace also comes in on how you view the authorities in the local church: the pastor-teacher; and, the deacons. They're responsible to God, and you treat them as those who have an authority conferred upon them by the congregation as the result of the leading of the spirit of God. And when they have that authority, then they can speak for Him. And when they're true to the Word, that's where their authority comes. When you see that they are compatible and in keeping with the Word of God, that's when you support them. The first time you have a preacher who's not compatible with the Word of God, you better think it over.

Now, sometimes you think that he is not in line with the Word of God, but that may be your own sin nature. You better put it on a back burner. If somebody has a track record who is on track and on target, you better think twice. But leadership in the local church is not a doormat for you to walk on, and to be able to pressure.

I once asked a lady who had been superintendent of a Vacation Bible School department to help me one summer. She says, "Well, I and some of the ladies have been talking with one another, and we've decided that we'll help you in Bible School if you'll run it for one week like other churches do. I was crushed. I was. I said, "Thank you Lord. Now I know what to do." And I always know that when God closes one door like that, He's got a better one. He opens another window elsewhere. And I got a tremendous superintendent in somebody else that I ordinarily wouldn't have gone to. That was a very disrespectful treatment of leadership by a little group of feisty women who are going to put their pressures on.

Then finally, there is how you deal with old sin nature failures in other believers. Oh, how grace has to come in here when other Christians do stupid things, or they break down. Just remember that there are no heroes in the Christian life. We are all worms. And we are all called upon to be worms who stay in fellowship with Christ, so that we can act up to our heritage. Our business is to confess when we step out of line; admit that we acted with bad judgment, without consideration; and, then we go on. Now, if there's anybody who deserves to have some vengeance because of what you have done, you leave it with God. If somebody needs discipline, don't you apply it. Keep your hands out of the discipline business. And as God says, "Vengeance is mine. I will repay." Just do the worst thing you can possibly do to a human being. And I do it all the time. I go to God, and I say, "Father, this is a problem. This is what this person is into. And I'm now delivering them into your hands for your discipline." And if you ever pray a prayer like that, and you're in temporal fellowship, all hell is going to break loose around the lives of those people. And in time, they will decide that maybe it's better to walk with God after all.

Grace, grace. That is our rallying cry in the age of the church. Did the Jew have grace? No. He had the grace (the kindness) of God, yes. But he didn't live by grace. He lived by this rule and this burden and that thing, but he wasn't able to be free in Christ. But we are. Why? Because we have the full counsel of the Word of God: the full canon of Scripture – a completed Bible. We have a local church provided for teaching that instruction, if the pastor-teacher is equipped to do it and does his job, and because we have the indwelling Holy Spirit, which the Jew did not have, in order to teach us, and in order to guide us. With that combination, you can't lose. How did Jesus make it in His humanity? Isaiah 11:1 says that He made it by functioning on the doctrine He learned under the power of the Holy Spirit. He did not use His deity. The way He made it in the devil's world is the way you and I make it. And when we live like that, under that grace principle. We'll never play the fool.

Our Father, we thank You for this time together.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1995

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