I'm afraid that I have been severed from Christ and fallen from grace.
What do I do?
Part two.
Hi, welcome to today's little lesson.
Thank you so very much for joining me.
It is a delight.
On our last little lesson, we began trying to address a question of one of our beloved
viewers, and that is, a person who is afraid that they have.
And what happened to the Galatians, according to the apostle Paul, had happened to them.
Paul wrote in Galatians five and verse number four, you have been severed from Christ.
You who are seeking to be justified by law.
You have fallen from grace.
And in this particular view of the situation, they had watched somebody's YouTube video
on baptism and how that you're not really saved unless you're baptized.
And she became very concerned about that and then got baptized.
And then became concerned, "Oh, now I'm trusting in my baptism."
Maybe she watched another YouTube video that said that.
I'm trusting in my baptism and so now I fallen from grace because I'm seeking to be justified
by what I've done, rather than what Christ has done.
Well, you can see how the devil could just get in there and bring some chaos to people's
minds in this regard.
We are saved.
Those of us who are saved.
We are saved by grace.
Why are we saved by grace?
Because there's no other way to be saved.
If you're a sinner and I happened to be in that category.
And I happened to be a hundred percent certain that everyone viewing this video, except for
maybe if Jesus is watching it, which I doubt that he is.
But he knows, of course, everything I'm saying.
So in that sense, he is watching it.
But every human being other than Jesus, we're all sinners.
The only way we're going to be saved is if God shows us some grace.
That is undeserved favor or mercy, you might call it.
And so, there's going to have to be forgiveness on God's part.
Or we're not going to be saved.
So it's impossible to be saved by works.
It's too late.
Now, if you could have been perfect all your life and never sinned once.
Well, then you wouldn't need Jesus's death to save you.
You wouldn't need him to die on the cross, you wouldn't need God to forgive you of your
sins because you wouldn't have any sins to be forgiven.
So you wouldn't need to be saved by grace.
But because you have sinned and because I have sinned, we all need to be saved by grace.
And there's a means of how we acquire and take hold of that grace because it doesn't
happen automatically.
See, not everybody's saved even though God has grace.
Even though Jesus died for the sins of the entire world, the bible says.
Not everyone saved.
So how do you acquire that grace?
It's by faith.
You believe.
And what do you believe?
Well you believe in Jesus.
Who's Jesus?
He's the son of God.
So if you believe in Jesus, he's the son of God, you're saved.
But of course, if you believe that, if you believe he's the son of God and you're going
to stand before him one day and give an account.
You're going to want to do what he says.
So there's a component of obedience that always follows faith.
And so people who do believe in Jesus, when they read his commandment that they should
be baptized.
Guess what?
They get baptized.
And people who profess to believe in Jesus, who would refuse to be baptized after they
know what Jesus said about it.
Prove that they really don't believe in him.
You understand the logic there.
Baptism doesn't save us, but it's one of the many things that proves that we have faith
that has acquired the grace that saves us.
James said it a little differently.
Faith without works is dead and cannot save you.
It's useless.
James said, read it for yourself in James chapter two.
The problem in Galatia was they were all lining up to be circumcised because of some false
teachers who came in after Paul.
And look at Paul says prior to that verse I referred to at the beginning of our little
lesson here.
This is Galatians 5:2, behold, I Paul say that if you receive circumcision, Christ will
be of no benefit to you.
Why is that?
Because in their case, they were believing that circumcision was the key that opened
the door to their salvation, not Christ.
And that's wrong.
But remember that Paul, he actually got Timothy circumcised after Timothy believed in Jesus.
And that was so he wouldn't cause any offense to their Jewish audiences that they were preaching
the gospel to.
Because those Jews were so certain that they should be circumcised.
And that they wouldn't listen to anybody talk about God, he wasn't circumcised.
Paul got Timothy circumcised.
Not because he needed to be circumcised to be saved.
No.
But because he didn't want to cause any offense to the gospel to the Jews.
But he goes on it, I testify again to every man who received circumcision, that he is
under obligation to keep the whole law.
Tough road to hoe there.
You have been severed from Christ, you are seeking to be justified by law, you have fallen
from grace.
Listen to this, here's the good news.
But we, through the spirit by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness.
For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything.
But here's what's important, but faith ... and not just faith looks how he goes on.
Faith working.
Faith working through love.
And so there's another indication of the true believer.
One who's true and believes in Jesus, he loves.
We love because he first loved us.
If we believe that he loved us and he died for us and he's the Lord.
Well, we're going to love him.
And we're going to love others according to his commandment, to love others.
And to love our neighbor as ourselves and do unto others as we'd have them do unto us.
He showed me someone who's not a lover and I'll show you someone who's not a Christian.
Amen.
That doesn't mean that Christians are perfect in love.
No, the Bible talks about we can grow in love.
It's the first fruit of the spirit.
Fruit is first immature then it becomes green and grows and eventually it ripens and matures.
Same thing in every Christians lives.
A life we're all, hopefully, growing in love month by month, year by year.
None of us are perfect.
Sometimes the flesh gets the upper hand, but we feel bad about that.
Why?
Because our nature has been changed.
We're now lovers because the grace of God has changed us.
So as I wrote to this dear viewer, I'll say to anyone else who is watching this video,
struggling with the same thing.
You haven't fallen from grace unless your answer to my question, why are you saved?
Is, "Oh, because I do thus and so.
And I have been baptized."
Well, then you've fallen from grace.
True Christian, when you ask them, why are you saved?
The first thing comes out of mouth is Jesus.
Or Jesus died for my sins.
Or God showed me grace.
And part of that, grace is the fact that I'm living an obedient life nowadays.
Because I've been transformed, the Holy spirit came to live inside of me.
And I'm a new creation in Christ.
I've been born again, all by God's grace.
That's why I did get baptized because God changed me and I wanted to be obedient to
Christ.
And I saw his commandment to be baptized then I got baptized.
So it's all grace, just wonderful grace.
All right.
Well that's all the time we have for today's lesson.
Thank you so much for joining me.
If you're not involved in caring for the least of these.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a look at Matthew chapter 25.
The last part of it, Jesus talked about the least of these.
And that's how we show our love for Jesus, by caring for the least of these.
Well, that's primarily what the ministry of heaven's family is all about.
Ministry that I'm blessed to direct.
So if you're not involved in caring for the least of these, well, we've got away that
you can do that.
Visit heavensfamily.org.
Until next time, God bless you.