This spring we reach an important milestone in our building project, with the breakthrough imminent between the old and new sections of our church building. The new extemsion doubles the space available to us for church events and the new space will include a larger social space with coffee bar and more facilities for parents with youung children. A movable partition will allow us to use the new extension as a separate space or the whole building for larger events. This means we will have more room to grow as a congregation, but more importantly that the building becomes a better facility for community involvement. 

If you would like to make a donation to help us complete this work, please use the Donate button on the home page. Many thanks.

Pastors Message:  True love comes in person.

 

“Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.”                                                       1Cor.15:34

 

 

Many religions would agree with us that God must be love. Yet apart from knowing Christ, no man can truly know God because only Christ revealed the love of God, the nature of God (1John4:8). What the appearance of Christ revealed is that the love of God is so great (the nature of God is such), that He refuses to give us anything less than Himself (John 3:16). This is why scripture makes no distinction between grace and the person of Christ. Grace is not merely a quality that God has to some measure, rather grace finds its truest and purest expression in the person of Christ (as does truth and love). This is why the apostle John could write that “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17) and the apostle Paul that “the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men teaching us to deny ungodliness…” (Titus 2:11,12)

The God that Christ revealed did not stand back from us and send love or grace as some thing. True love comes in person. If your child or loved one was lying dying in hospital, no-one would have to tell you or explain to you that sending them a text, or even sending a friend with a message of support, is not what love does. Love comes in person. Every human being who has ever loved another knows this and that is why even a child can understand the truth of the Gospel; if God is love, then love had to come in person and He did, in the person of Jesus Christ.

So, the righteousness of God is not a thing that God sent, while He remained apart or aloof from us (John 1:17). The righteousness of God given to us, was His very presence; God incarnate in human flesh (1Cor.1:30). Jesus was, as the Nicene Creed declared: “God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father.” Why? Because God who is love, does not know how to give less than Himself, for that is what true love does. And so …“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? (Rom.8:32). If God gave us His son and there is nothing greater than His son, then how can He withhold any thing from us, for that would be to cherish a thing more than His own Son.

When this truth dawns, that in not withholding His Son from us that God has already given all that He has and is to us, then the effect on our soul is to be flooded with peace and thanksgiving (Phil.4:11-13). No longer when my life is facing a crisis do I have to attempt to awake God to action or persuade him through my prayer or suffering to “release” His favour on my life. Because of Christ, no longer does man have to strive to enter God’s favour, instead He now calls us into His rest (Hebrews 4;11). But there is no rest for the man who refuses the revelation that Christ was God, fully giving Himself to man, even to the point of standing in our place and living our lives. Refuse the revelation that your old ‘self’ life was put to death on the Cross (Rom.6:11, Gal.2:20, Col.3:3) and that you are now joined to God and one with His Spirit (1Cor.6:17) and you will never find rest, for you will be constantly chasing righteousness as some thing to be gained rather than some one to be submitted to and received (Rom.10:1-4)  

The righteousness of God is not merely a legal standing before God. The righteousness of God is nothing less than God from God. This is why we can absolutely expect that Christians should grow in the likeness of Christ and bear the fruit of His Spirit, His life (Gal.5:22,23). If the righteousness of God that we receive, is merely a legality, (God letting us off the hook), then you should expect little change in the life of someone who has received the righteousness of God because there has been no change of heart (Matt.23:25,26). But if the gift of God’s righteousness is the gift of His presence, then there should be a great and powerful change in the life of everyone who receives the righteousness of God, for in the presence of light, darkness cannot stand! In the presence of union, separation cannot stand. In the presence of the truth of the love of God, the fear of separation (death) cannot stand. In the presence of the Spirit of faith, unbelief (the root of sins), cannot stand.

The Bible says; “As a man thinks so he is.” (Prov.23:7) Jesus put it like this; “Be it done unto you according to your faith.” (Matt.9:29) I believe the more we will receive/acknowledge/take hold of the righteousness of God as His very presence with us, the more His presence manifests and effects our lives, bringing transformation into the likeness of Christ (1John 3:2). Let His life be your root (your life) and His life will appear in you (John 15:5). The apostle Paul wrote this to the Colossians. “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. ² Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. ³ For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴ When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.” This speaks of the work of the Spirit to renew our thinking, so that we no longer think of ourselves from an earthly (‘separated from God, us down here, Him up there’, mind-set), but to think of ourselves from heaven’s perspective (hidden with Christ, in God).

What happens if Christians do not awake to the enormity of what Christ has done; that they are entirely new creatures (2Cor.5:17) in whom God chooses to make His home? (John 14:23, 1Cor.6:17). Then they will continue to think and so speak from an Old Covenant ‘separated from God’ mind-set and so their message to the world will inevitably always emphasise what man still needs to do for God, rather than what God has done for man. To put it more bluntly, Christians who have yet to grasp that it was not their repentance that saved them but Christ, can’t resist adding a little self-effort as an essential ingredient in salvation and so inevitably always reduce the Gospel from the good news of what God has done for men, to good advice on what men need to do for God.    

Why don’t people want to hear the gospel these days? Well we could blame a lot of things; TV, wealth, media, schools and Christians frequently do. We love to complain about the government or the media or the rise of other religions, (as if these things suddenly got more powerful than the Holy Spirit). The answer is much simpler. People are not against good news. People haven’t changed from the time of the book of Acts. People still want to hear good news, it’s just that when they hear the word “Gospel” today, they simply do not associate that with good news!

That’s because for years the gospel they have heard has not been preached as the news of what Christ has done about men’s sins. It has been preached as the news of what men need to do about their sins. That’s what happens when for 2000 years men keep adding to the Gospel. Eventually you end up with a message, not about Christ and what He has done, but about men and what they need to do. I am not saying that men do not need to repent from their sins. I am saying that men cannot repent from their sins if you don’t give them the Gospel, the good news that they can now be reconciled to God, by believing in what Christ has done about their sins (2Cor.5:18-20). Don’t ask men to believe in themselves. That’s not the gospel. Ask them to believe in Christ. Don’t ask them to do something about their sins. Don’t leave them with the impression that God has done nothing about their sins, but He will do something about their sins…if they first will do something for Him. Remember always, that the Gospel can be summed up in two words; “He first”

Don’t just expect men to love God, when the Bible says quite clearly that we can only love God because He first loved us (1John 4:19).

If the Gospel can be summed up in two words; HE FIRST, then religion can be summed up also in two words; YOU FIRST. If you first will do something for God, then He will save you. Religion thus leaves men’s hope on themselves, not Christ and that is why religion is powerless to save men. Repentance is not the root of salvation. Repentance, (men turning from their sins), is the fruit of salvation.

Men are “saved by grace, through faith and that not of themselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8,9). If men are saved by grace, if men are saved by the gift of God…then for God’s sake offer them the grace of God, offer them the gift of God; Christ!

When you present Christ, never present Christ as the reward for their repentance.

Don’t ask men to believe in their repentance. Don’t ask men to believe in themselves. That’s not the gospel. Don’t present a God who is no different from themselves, a God who says, “Well if you do this for me, then I will do this for you.”

Don’t give them a religious God. Give them the true God, the one whom the religious hated, the one who demonstrated His love for them in this, while they were still sinners, He died for them (Rom.5:8). Give them the true God, who when men had given nothing to Him, He gave everything to them.

So Church, let us awake to righteousness and sin not (1Cor.15:34). Let us awake to the truth, that the righteousness we have been given, is nothing short of the very presence of God, for true love came in person and in His presence sin/separation can no more exist than darkness can exist in light. What makes the darkness to go? Only the light. What purges our life of sins? Only the knowledge of God, knowing what God knows and this is what God knows; you have no need to sin, to grasp for life, for life Himself has been given to you (John 3:16).

“A Glorious Dawn.”

 

Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.”

                                                                                                             Romans 7:4

 

When Jesus laid down His life for us, it was not done through gritted teeth, but for the joy set before Him, flowing from His great love for us (Hebrews 12:2). To walk in our new life of union with Him, will mean walking in the revelation that our old “self” or single, apart from Him, life…. is dead and buried. Our water baptism is the public proclamation of the death of our single life and the birth of our married—"to Him who was raised from the dead”, life.

When I married Nicola, I laid down my single life. To some it may look like a great sacrifice, to give up the freedom and autonomy of a single life. But I let the single life die because of the joy set before me. The thought of being married to Nicola meant that I never looked back with any regrets. I just asked, “Where do I have to sign!”

A marriage and the life of union that involves, may look from the outside as something which has cost a life-time of sacrifice. But from the viewpoint of the person who loves in that relationship, the truth is that whatever they had to lay down of self, it was worth it, to experience life as the union of two hearts.

Sometimes when our children were infants, sitting in a high chair at the dinner table, they would reach over and grab a knife. Have you ever tried to prise something out of the hand of a child who doesn’t want to let go? We discovered that the easiest way to prompt them to let go, was to offer them something even more shiny and interesting! God too intends that we lay down our old self-sufficient life, not as a sacrifice (with gritted teeth), but as a child lays down one thing to take hold of something more beautiful.

Whenever Christianity is preached as sacrifice and hard work, there has not been the full revelation, that what we lay down is nothing compared to what we receive. The apostle Paul was beaten, whipped, imprisoned, rejected, slandered and abandoned by former friends for years, yet his description of all that was; “our light and momentary troubles.” Yes, there was a cost to walking in union with God, but when he considered the enormity of what he had received, Paul wrote this;

“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” (2 Cor 4:17)

When we come to see that life as a New Covenant believer; married to Christ, so surpasses in quality the life of those still married to the law and slaves to sin and self (Romans 6:5-7), only then will we begin to understand why God has appeared for years to remain deaf to all our plans to improve our self-lives!

Here is the Gospel; God will not help you to save your ‘self’ because God doesn’t want your independent, cut off from Him, ‘self’ to be saved! He never made you to be a “self”, to live apart from Him. In fact, God doesn’t know what a self-life is. He has never had one! He has always been an US. In fact, this is the first truth proclaimed in the Bible. “In the beginning God created…” (Genesis 1:1) The Hebrew word translated ‘God’ throughout Genesis is “elohiym”, which is the plural of the word “eloahh”, describing the supreme deity. Even the very scripture which describes the creation of man, declares God as saying; “Let us make man in our image after our likeness…” (Genesis 1:26)   

God, who has only known life as an “us”, made you and I to be in relationship with Him, joined with Him, ONE with Him, as the Son is with the Father and the Spirit. This is the union Jesus described and anticipated joyfully for us, in His prayer to His Father.  “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; ²¹ that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. ²² And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: ²³ I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. (John 17:2--23)

We can’t by ourselves, join our ‘selves’ to God, (even though mere religion keeps telling us we should try). Only God can join Himself to man, for only God can overcome the distance/barrier between self-life and God life, between sin and holiness and here is the good news, the Gospel; HE ALREADY HAS.

That’s called the Finished Work. Through His Incarnation, His perfect life, His atoning death and victorious resurrection, Jesus Christ, the God-Man, the only one who can join God and Man, has cleared the way for anyone who wants to, to receive an entirely new form of life altogether not a self-life, but a joined life (1Cor.6:17,19,20), a life called; “married—to Him who was raised from the dead.” (Romans 7:4). He has only attached one condition to this new life……You must receive it as a pure gift of God (Eph.2:8).

So why do so many of us as Christians still live as if our “self” didn’t die on the Cross, still live as if God must be persuaded by our prayers and our piety to come and join His life with ours? If God has not withheld even His very life, His very Spirit from us and now lives in union with our spirits (1Cor.6:17), why do so many of us still live as if we are waiting for Him to move and still pray as if we can persuade Him to do more for us or give more to us? You may not like the answer.

If you as a parent, the single greatest influencer of your child, keep addressing them as if they are a disappointment to you and are not yet worthy of you, why are you surprised if they grow up to be overly self-conscious and bound by anxiety and condemnation? Likewise, if you as a Christian have spent years sitting under teaching that repeatedly has you separated from God’s presence by your sins and running back to the altar regularly to repent, then don’t be surprised if you think, pray and behave as if Christ’s once and forever sacrifice for all sin, for all time (Hebrews 10:11-14), is not enough and is only made effective when topped up by your “repentance”.

The problem with mixing a little Old Covenant (Law) into the New Covenant (Gospel), is that it subtly moves Christian’s faith from Christ to “self”, from God’s righteousness to self-righteousness. Only the light of the Gospel that proclaims salvation to be “not of your ’selves’, but the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8,9) can cause the only repentance in believers that enables them to walk in the spirit, in their union with God’s Spirit; the repenting of their self-righteousness (religion).

How hard it is to let go of the product of our own best efforts for God. Abraham wept many tears when the Lord told Him that the son of His flesh, Ishmael, would never live the blessed life of the son of the Spirit, Isaac (Gal.4:28-31). Law and Grace cannot live together in the same house! Only when believers see the eternal glory of Christ as freely gifted to them, can they lay down the bling of a glittering religious identity and take up the heavenly gold of their union with Christ in God.

This nation desperately needs the Church, those who carry the name of Christ, to repent of their religion. For this reason, at River City Church we preach salvation (justification and sanctification), as entirely the gift of His grace (Ephesians 2:8,9), for only a gospel that lifts our eyes entirely onto Christ, can transform the face of the Church to be as a shining light (Colossians 3:2,3, Hebrews 12:2, 2Cor.3:18). Only the gospel of God’s grace (Acts 20:24) can call out a people who have sat under the shadow of the Law, into the glorious dawn that the appearing of Grace has ushered in (Titus 2:11).

Arise Church, out of the darkness of self-righteousness and into the glorious light that the message of God’s righteousness proclaims (Romans 1:16,17). For your glory has come and now we can see why Jesus rejoiced to lay down His life, for that glory is nothing less than marriage to God, that we may bear the fruit of His life, the us life. Only as we repent of self-righteousness can we bear the light of God’s righteousness and only that light has the power to reveal to this generation that the glitter of this world’s separation from God, is utter darkness compared to the true light of union with Christ.

“The Father I never knew. 2017.”

Friday 24^th–Sunday 26^th February

www.graceriver.org

 

Friday 24^th February 8pm at River City Church

Fellowship Meal runs from 8 till 8.45 followed by testimonies.

“Making a name for myself in the world” (The prodigal son).

Searching for identity and worth through achievement.

The journey of the prodigal son.

 

Saturday 25^th Seminars held at River City Church, 87-89 Irish St, Derry/Londonderry BT472DA. www.graceriver.org

 

         10am: Seminar 1: The Unveiling of the Church.

Why can’t the new wine of His grace be held in the old wineskin of our religious performance? An examination of the differences between an Old Testament and New Testament mind-set, the danger of mixing the two and the paradigm shift in thinking and experience that the Gospel brings.

                                          

Coffee Break

 

         11am: Seminar 2: From milk to meat.

“Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.” Hebrews 5:13.

What is the teaching on righteousness that brings believers into maturity and fruitfulness? Why did Paul describe the revelation of “the righteousness of God” as the power of God unto salvation?

                                        

Coffee Break

 

        12am: Seminar 3: Grace, faith and revival.

What is the dynamic between grace and faith that brings us into rest and effortless change? What is faith and what or who is it meant for? How to recognise when biblical faith has been replaced by faith in my performance (faith in my faith). Is a restoration of New Covenant realities a foundation for revival in the Church?

 

12.45—1.30pm      Lunch (Tea/coffee/light bites)

 

         1.30pm: Seminar 4: Healing and Grace 1. How to receive.

Testimonies of Healing through the revelation of Healing in the atonement. “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” 1Peter4:10

                                      

Coffee Break

 

       2.30pm Seminar 5: Healing and Grace 2. How to give.

How to minister healing in the power of His grace. Teaching and testimony of believers growing in their experience and expectation of the manifold grace of God, to bring physical healing from disease and point a nation to the Cross.

 

3.15pm Close

 

Saturday 25^th 7pm at The Glassworks, 33 Great James St. Derry. BT48 7DF.

“Making a name for myself in the church” (The elder brother).

Searching for identity and worth through sacrifice.

The journey of the elder brother.

 

Sunday 26^th 7pm at The Glassworks, 33 Great James St. Derry. BT48 7DF.

“Receiving the name He has given me,” (The good Father)

Finding identity and worth through the gift of sonship in Christ.

Coming home by grace to the Good Father.

Pentecost Sunday 15^th May

2pm at the Guildhall.

 

A celebration for all, of the gift given for all;

The Holy Spirit.

Hear the most radical message in the world;

what religion can never do, Jesus has done.

God is no longer counting your sins against you and wants you to receive His life, His Spirit and all the healing that comes with His life.

 

Music, Message and Ministry of healing

The speaker will be Phelim Doherty with music led by Allan Bruce and Elidh Patterson

The service will last for approximately one hour and tea/coffee will be served afterwards with a team available to minister healing.

This event is being organised by River City Church Derry/Londonderry with support from Charis Bible College, Belfast. 

 

The Grace of God is Cross-community.

All welcome.

This is a free event.

 

www.graceriver.org.    Tel: 07977410467.

 

School of Grace.

May 13^th 2015

New Wineskin for New Wine.

Galatians5:1-9

¹ Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

The word “therefore relates to what Paul has just stated in the previous chapter. There he clearly speaks of the two covenants, old and new, as like two mothers, Hagar and Sarah. The first giving birth to slavery, the second to freedom and the offspring of these two mothers, Ishmael and Isaac, cannot mix together in the same house. Those born of the flesh always persecute those born of the Spirit (Gal.4:29)

The recurrent theme throughout this letter to the Galatians is Paul’s warning of the dangers of trying to mix the two covenants.

 

Still today, most of the disagreements in the modern church stem from confusion about the difference between the old and the new. Without a clear understanding of what Jesus accomplished, we end up living in guilt when we should be living in joy. We see in the scriptures that there are three main covenants referred to.

1.     God’s covenant with Abraham. Under the Abrahamic covenant, God’s people were blessed simply by virtue of being a descendant of Abraham. What brought the blessing of God was their Pedigree, the fact that they were a natural member of Abraham’s family.

2.     God’s covenant with Moses. Under the Mosaic covenant, God’s people were blessed by virtue of their obedience to the Law. (Obey and you will be blessed, disobey and you will be cursed). What brought the blessing of God was their Performamce.

3.     God’s covenant with Jesus. Under the New Covenant. God’s people are blessed by virtue of their acceptance of the free gift of Christ’s life as their life. We are blessed not because of our natural pedigree, or our performance, but simply by our Position in Christ.

To understand this more fully, please go to http://www.freewebs.com/graceandfaith/thenewcovenant.htm

 

“Stand fast” is an expression of the Greek word “steko.” (“to hold one’s ground”). The fact that Paul gives this instruction, shows that our freedom in Christ will be challenged and one of the enemy’s greatest weapons is legalism. We must resist every temptation to be drawn back into self-effort.

The liberty we are to stand fast in, is liberty from the oppression of the Old Covenant.

Even a little of the Old mixed in with the New, results in the liberty of the New being stolen from us, which is why Paul warns in v9 “A little leaven, leavens the whole lump”. Jesus declared this truth in Luke 5:36-39, when He warned that it is not possible to patch a new piece of cloth unto an old garment, nor put new wine in an old wineskin. In both cases the incompatibility of the Old with the New will lead to damage. We cannot mix our performance with Christ’s and think that “I will do my best and Christ will do the rest”. The work of Christ is not to patch up our old try our best life, but to gift us with a perfect life; His life.

The Old and New Covenants cannot be mixed because they are opposites.

·       The message about the Law is ALL about you and your performance (Deuteronomy 28:1,15).

·       The message of the Gospel is ALL about Christ and His complete and finished performance on our behalf (Rom.10:4).

 

Under the New Covenant, we are blessed through simple faith in Christ’s finished work. But in Galatians 3:12 Paul declared that the law is not of faith. That means that the Law and the Gospel (Old and New covenants) work by totally different principles.

If you are trusting in Jesus for your salvation, you cannot also be trusting in yourself and your ability to keep the law. If you are trusting in your ability to keep the law, then you are not trusting in Christ. It’s one or the other, not a combination (mixture) of both!

The Old Covenant fulfilled its purpose. It revealed the perfection of God and man’s inability to be perfect as God is (Rom.3:19). Jesus did not come to destroy the Law but to fulfil it (Matt.5:17). As a man, representing mankind, He totally fulfilled the requirements of the Law. He merited for us all the blessings of the Old Covenant and He took upon Himself all the curses of the Old Covenant (Gal.3:13), so as far as the Old is concerned it has run its course.  Jesus, by His blood has established a New Covenant that rendered the Old one obsolete (Hebrews 8:13), just as the moment you sign a new will for your estate, any old one becomes redundant.

 

Stop trying to move God. He moved!

We cannot enjoy the New Covenant if we still have an Old Covenant mind-set.

Under the Old Covenant, the blessings of God were a wage earned. Under the New they are a gift given.

·       Under the Old Covenant, God is the one who responds to us. A wage is the response of the employer to the work of the employee. With an Old Covenant mind-set, believers are waiting for God to respond to their work (prayer, sacrifices, church attendance, financial giving). They are trying to ‘motivate’ God to act.

·       Under the New Covenant, we are the ones who respond to God, for the one receiving a gift is the one who responds. God has already given the gift, (John 3:16) and our response is to receive by faith what has already been given.

 

Faith does not move the hand of God; the hand of God has already moved and faith simply receives what God now offers as a gift. It is knowing God as so generous that He has already given us all we need, that enables us to pray in faith in order to receive what has been freely provided (Mark.11:24). We cannot be double-minded about the willingness of God to give (James1:7,8) The good news of the true loving nature of God (Gospel of God’s grace) causes faith to arise in our hearts, faith to stop believing that we have to move Him and start receiving the move that He has already provided.

If a sinner asked you, “When is God going to save me?” what would you tell them?

It is not up to God to save sinners, it is up to sinners to receive the salvation that God has already freely provided. At the Cross our salvation (wholeness) was won by Jesus in its entirety. Through the Cross salvation and healing has been made available to all to receive by faith (Gal.3:13, 1Peter.2:24) It is not up to God to heal the sick, it is up to the sick to receive their healing. What Paul was warning the Galatians is that the greatest hindrance to receiving all that God has provided for us in Christ, is the “wage” mind-set, the Old Covenant thinking that we have to earn the blessing of God. Such attempts to ‘move’ God estrange us from the very grace of God (Gal.5:4). Trying to patch the grace of God onto an Old Covenant belief tradition that says we need to move God, results in a tearing in our minds of the union between us and God in Christ.

 

Time to grow up.

Why do so many believers remain in spiritual infancy and struggle to mature into the victorious life of Christ? Why do so many look back to their salvation experience as the best time of their Christian life?

The reason is our reluctance to believe that we can live a life pleasing before God without the Schoolmaster of the Law looking over our shoulder (Gal.3:24) Many Christians are uncomfortable and disturbed by scriptures that declare truths such as the Law is now obsolete and God is not imputing their sins against them. They are disturbed because they cannot see, without the Ten Commandments and the threat of God’s judgement hanging over them to restrain them, what will stop them from becoming lawless?

What they fail to see is that Grace is not merely the absence of Judgement, it is the presence of God’s divine influence in our lives. God has not done away with sin and the Law and stopped there, He has replaced the external law with an internal law; the law of the Spirit who gives life (Rom.8:2). He has replaced laws designed to point out our fallen nature with a nature that has no desire to sin. Hebrews 8:10 declares God’s confidence, “I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts…” A Christian has no need for an external law because he now has an internal nature that needs no law to restrain it; Christ’s nature (unless you believe that Christ needed the Law to keep His behaviour under control)

God always planned to give us a nature that did not need the Law or threats of punishment to restrain it. This is what the prophet Ezekiel spoke of;

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” Ezekiel 36:26,27.

 

God has placed within believers a new spirit; the Spirit of Christ and it is because of His Spirit in our lives that we live a life pleasing to God. All glory goes to Him and not to our performance.

Why should we attempt to live a life apart from God’s life in us, yet that is what we are doing when we attempt to return to a life of seeking to move God to bless our lives. We are separating ourselves from the truth that in Christ, we now only have one life and it is a perfect one (1Cor.6:17,1John 4:17). Let us not fall away from the grace that we have been given; the new sinless life that is within us. Let us allow the Holy Spirit to convince us of our righteousness, our union with God, that as faith in the enormity of Christ’s work rises in us, we find ourselves experiencing the joy of those who know, that where sin abounds grace does much more abound. Let us stand fast and remain in that truth and allow the fruit of this new life to abound in our lives (John 15:5). Let the Holy Spirit renew our thinking so we can take hold of the enormity of the love of God (Eph.3:17-19). Let us agree with Jesus; if we are to hold the new wine, we require a new wineskin! The mind of Christ in us is that new wineskin. Let us believe His Word and think His thoughts about us and others will see His life in us, they will see a people growing up into Christ. (Eph.4:11-24)

 

Metanoia to Metamorphosis

 

The word “gospel” (old English God-spell) is a translation of the Greek word euangelion (eu-‘good’, -angelion ‘message’)

The good news that the Gospel proclaims, is the revelation of a truth that runs contrary to the religious traditions of men and “the basic principles of the world”. (Colossians 2:8) A basic principle of man’s religious logic is that God blesses those who deserve to be blessed and so religion across the world, in its multitude of forms, presents man with various requirements/works that he must fulfil to attain God’s blessing.

We could say the common feature of man’s logic is that God blesses ‘good’ people and good people are those who do good things (as opposed to bad/evil people who do bad things). Notice two things about this principle.

1.    People are defined by what they do. They have a works-based identity.

2.    God is defined as someone who agrees with our view of good and bad.

 

This belief system however is built on a lie; that man is able to make himself good. (doing to become)

 

God in His mercy, through the giving of the Law (Old Covenant), has dealt a fatal blow to this lie.

 “So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law. For the Scriptures say, "It is through faith that a righteous person has life."  (Galatians 3:11)

“Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God's sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.”             (Romans 3:20)

 

Man in his self-reliance and pride believed what we could call the ‘original lie’; that he, by himself, is capable of doing something to earn godliness.

“Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. ⁵ For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”             (Genesis 3:4,5)

The lie here is that man can be like God through what he does. But God had already breathed His Spirit into Adam and shared His life with Him. God was the source of Adam’s life and identity. In believing the lie that he could source life and identity for himself, through his own efforts, Adam turned away from looking to God for his life and turned to look at himself for life.

“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.”     (Genesis 3:7)

If man-made religion is man attempting to cover over his own falling short of the glory of God (Romans3:23), then man has continued sewing fig leaves together ever since!

·         Religion’s solution to restoring man to God’s presence is always to look to man’s ability. (Romans 10:3)

·         God’s immediate answer to Adam’s nakedness; to provide a covering from an animal skin (Genesis 3:21) declares that God always saw Himself and not man, as the solution to restoring man to God’s presence. Man would ultimately be restored to the covering of God’s glory; by the shedding of blood. In fact a lamb had been chosen (Jesus) as the solution, even before the problem appeared (1Peter1:20)

 

Man-made religion in all its multitude of shapes and forms, continues to point man to the wrong tree. It says in effect, “This is good and this is evil and now that you know this, you should do good, that you may become good.” The lie in this statement is that man can become like God merely by doing.

The Law, “Thou shalt not…” was given to man to show him that it is impossible for any man to become good apart from God. No man can be made righteous by his own efforts. (Romans 3:20).

 

The Gospel is the good news that God did what man could not do and what he did not deserve.

“For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son…”  Romans 8:3

God reconciled man to Himself by the shedding of His own blood and gifted him the righteousness that he could not attain himself by doing good things.

“For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God's wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.”    (Romans 5:17)

This message, that man’s salvation comes by God’s “wonderful grace” and not by man’s doing good (religion), runs contrary to both this world’s religious traditions and man-made philosophies.

“So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it's all nonsense.” (1Cor.1:23 NLT)

This message of Grace sounds the death knell for all religion, which is why the Pharisees persecuted He who was full of grace and truth (Jesus) and why the religious spirit of man (pride) has opposed the message of grace ever since. (Matt.20:1-16, Galatians 4:21-31)

 

Down the centuries man in his pride has struggled to accept His total dependence on the grace of God. Men from the beginning of the Church age, have sought to mix back in religious tradition and the basic philosophy of this world; that we become by doing, into the Gospel of Grace.

Paul warned the Galatians that to even mix a little ‘doing to become’ with grace, would change the gospel (good news) into no gospel at all. In Paul’s eyes the message of grace was the Gospel.

“I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel.” (Galatians 1:6)

“But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.”  (Acts 20:24)

Paul also warned them that to mix man’s performance (Law) into the message of grace would result in the gospel becoming powerless to change a man from the inside out. He would be left merely trying to change from the outside in (behaviour modification). (Gal.3:5)

Those of strong enough will power to manage to keep rules and regulations (doing to become) can give the appearance of ‘holiness’, but Jesus was scathing of this ‘cleaning the outside of the cup while leaving the inside dirty’ (Luke 11:39). He pointed out that this type of ‘repentance’ produced men who were like the white-washed tombs of the day; clean on the outside but full of corruption and death inside (Matt.23:27)

The pure, undiluted, unmixed Gospel of Grace is a radical message and only a radical message can produce the radical change (heart change) that religion (outer behaviour modification) cannot produce. This is one way we can tell if the Gospel being preached is the Gospel or another; is it producing completely new men and women or merely religious men and women? (2Cor.5:17)

 

Jesus knew that a man’s outer actions are only changed when his heart (what he believes) is changed (Luke 6:45). Because He did not define men as ‘good’ or ‘evil’ merely by their performance, but saw all men as equally in need of the grace of God, He gave Himself freely to all men and for all men. His love for those whom the religious defined as ‘sinners’, was and continues to scandalise man’s religious pride.

The true Gospel is good news not just for the Church but for the world!

 

The gospel of the grace of God is the good news of the finished work of Jesus Christ. It is good news to the world precisely because the finished work of Jesus included the sin of the whole world. All sin has been paid for. 

“And He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:2)

“But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God,”  (Hebrews 10:12)

God has reconciled the world to Himself through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

“God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” (2Cor.4:19)

 

This message of reconciliation; that God through Christ, has now finished all the work that is necessary for everyone who wants to, to be reconciled to God, is good news for everyone in the world. This is why at the birth of Jesus, the angels declared that the news of His birth would be good news for all people (Luke 2:10).

It is good news precisely because it is not news of God demanding something of man, but news of what God has done for man.

Good news is either good news or it is not.

Other ‘news’ such as the trials and tribulations that befell the Israelites under the Old Covenant is also true ‘news’ but it is not ‘the good news’, not the Gospel. News that anyone who refuses the grace of God, His offer of eternal life through Christ, is choosing to remain apart from God for eternity, is also true news but not ‘good news’.

The good news is that God has provided a way for anyone who wants to be with Him, to be with Him today, as soon as they believe in what He has done for them. (Romans 10:9)

Grace is freely given to all men, but faith is needed for men to receive the wonderful truth, the love of God, His very nature, His Spirit, His life. But even this faith is itself a gift of God, for the Gospel itself carries the power to enable men to believe.

“So belief comes from hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ”. (Romans 10:17. ESV)

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8)

 

What God has done for man is a past event. The Gospel is not “If you will do something for God (repent), only then will He do something for you.”

To infer that anything else is required of you but faith is not good news. That is the manmade religion that Paul declared to the Galatians that they were slipping back under.

“So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?” (Galatians 3:5)

 

We saw in our School of Grace study on ‘true repentance’ that the very word ‘repentance’ itself is not an accurate translation of the original Greek word ‘Metanoia’ used to describe the ‘change’ that the Gospel brings (Matthew 4:17). Unfortunately the poor translation of this Greek word into English as ‘repent’ has led to a diminished understanding of what true metanoia means.

Our common understanding of the word repent and repentance is that it means to feel sorrow or contrition for ones actions, with this remorse leading to a change of action. There is nothing wrong in itself with feeling regret/remorse over sin and a desire to change, but this does not constitute true metanoia, for we can feel guilt and remorse over sin and attempt to change our actions without any revelation of the true character of God, without a revelation of Christ.

Unfortunately this attempt to change ourselves by being ‘sorry enough’ to change, has led many into a hopeless cycle of ‘repenting’ again and again but never finding victory over besetting sin. The problem with this definition of ‘repentance’ is that it focuses on a change of action, but the truth is that our actions are only the fruit. The root is our belief system, what we are believing about God and ourselves.

What Jesus’ ministry and teaching brought about was a change of belief (heart), which led to a change in actions. Without the power of the Gospel to bring true metanoia, the best man can do, is his own willpower and self-discipline. He tries to change his actions, without a change of beliefs and the result is men who have only, as Jesus pointed out to the religious, “cleaned the outside of the cup” (Luke 11:37-40)            

 

Because sinful thoughts and actions are the fruit of wrong belief, you can try your hardest to do good and not evil, but even if by some miracle you stopped ‘sinning’, you would still not have the life of God within you, for what is needed is not a change of action but an exchange of natures (a heart transplant). The root of man’s problem is not what he does, but what he believes, for we are designed to be born of (to become) what we have believed. (Prov.23:7) You can prune a thorn bush back as much as you like but it will never become a fig tree because its roots are thorn bush! So it is equally fruitless to tell a man to be holy, if his whole life is being formed from a root belief that holy is something he is not. The answer to his problem is to change the root of his nature; to gift him a new heart, a new spirit. The prophet Ezekiel was given a vision of this exchange which took place at the Cross; man’s sin for God’s righteousness.

“Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. ²⁶ I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”   (Ezekiel 36:26 27)

 

Yes true faith is seen by its actions (James 2:18), but those actions are the fruit of a changed heart, a changed way of thinking about God and oneself, a paradigm shift in thinking, not just a greater effort to change oneself fuelled by guilt and willpower.

The Gospel of Grace is that God has already done everything necessary for man to share His life and when a person hears and believes what God has done, they will find their belief system (heart) so changed, that God’s way of living life (fruit of the Spirit) becomes theirs, for when the root in a man is a mind led by the Spirit, the life he lives will be a fruit of the same Spirit.

“So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.”  (Romans 8:6)

 

In other words the truth itself, about how much God has already done for us, is powerful enough to change the way we believe and so live.

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. ¹⁷ For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:16,17)

 

What the Gospel of Grace reveals is something radically different to what every religion and philosophy of the world has imagined, so radical that our natural religious mind cannot grasp it apart from a revelation of the Holy Spirit.

“However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. ⁷ But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, ⁸ which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹ But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”^{[c] 10} But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.”   (1Cor.2:6-10)

 

What truth is revealed in the Gospel of Grace that has the power to change a person’s heart? Look again at Romans 1.v17.

“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”

The startling revelation is that God is not requiring man to become righteous through what he does (doing to become/works righteousness). The Old Covenant pattern of man trying to become holy enough through his own obedience and discipline (the law of righteousness) to merit the blessings of God has been abolished. Our righteousness, a righteousness that is ‘of the law’ is no longer acceptable, as God’s gift of His own righteousness through faith in Christ, is ‘the end of the law for righteousness’.

“For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. ³ For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. ⁴ For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” (Romans 10:2-4)

You can’t have it both ways. Either we are made righteous by faith alone in what Christ alone has done (Grace), or we are made righteous by the things we do (Law).

“And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.” (Romans 11:6)

 

If you are trying harder to ‘do’ better’ to ‘become’ a better Christian, then you have not submitted to the power of the Gospel, the gifted righteousness of God. You may look holy and zealous in your efforts to overcome sin, but your very efforts to become holy are rooted in the same old lie, that you need to ‘do to become’, the lie that God has not united Himself with your spirit and remains aloof and apart from you. But what does the Gospel have to say?

It speaks of what God has done, not of what we are to do, that on hearing of the enormity of what God has done for us, our lives would become rooted in His love and being rooted and established in the love of God, His Spirit of love within us would produce the fruit of His life; His holiness, something that our best efforts can never produce.

“…that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may be able to comprehend with all the saints what isthe width and length and depth and height— ¹⁹ to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17-19

 

The Gospel of Grace declares that our hope is not that we would ‘do to become’ but our hope is nothing less than the living presence of Christ in us. In other words we are saved not by attempting to do something for God, but by resting in (believing), what God has done for us.

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins”.  (1John 4:10)

·         Religion says “Get your life cleaned up for God”

·         Grace says “Jesus IS our life.”

“For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴ When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.” Colossians 3:3,4.

 

To see Grace through hearing the Gospel, is to see the radically generous nature of God and as our way of thinking about God changes (Metanoia) then we find our very lives are being changed (Metamorphosis) into the likeness of Christ.

“And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed (metamorphosis) into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2Cor.3:18)

 

So let us keep looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2) that we may continue this journey of ever-increasing glory. Do not let any preacher pull the veil over your eyes again (tell you to do if you want to become) but keep your faces unveiled (don’t mix law with grace) so that you may contemplate the truth about the Lord’s glory; that Jesus has now done what He told His father He would; He has shared God’s glory with you.

 

“I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.” (John 17:22)

 

·         How would you answer someone who asked you “What is the Gospel?”

·         How much has your Christian life become about “doing to become”?

·         What is the power of the Gospel?

 

 

“If you want to know why there are so many downtrodden, defeated Christians, just look at the message they are being taught; saved by grace, transformed by will-powered performance modification.”  (Ted Nelson)

 

 

 

 

 

Pastors Message. “The unveiling of the Church”

 

But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. ¹⁶ Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. ¹⁸ But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.    2Corinthians 3:15-18

 

That is a report of what is happening in River City Church and right across the body of Christ, in every place where Christians are reckoning themselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ (Romans 6:3-11). The Veil is being taken away, the veil of guilt and condemnation that lies over the hearts and minds of all believers who have not seen themselves as righteous but still as sinners.

Why does this veil need to be taken away? Because a veil is a hindrance to intimacy.

When a man and woman are married, the moment the words are spoken, “I now declare you husband and wife” what is the very next thing that happens? The Groom desires to kiss His bride. Traditionally that is the moment when her face must be unveiled for the veil is a barrier to intimacy.

The Lord wants intimacy with His Church. He didn’t die to gain church-goers. He didn’t die to start a new religion, but a new creation, a Spirit-filled body. The work of the Holy Spirit is to draw back any veil that lies over our hearts that is preventing us from boldly drawing near into the fullness of the intimacy, the sharing of the Father’s love that Jesus died that we would know (Jn. 17:23)

The moment Jesus died on the Cross, the curtain/veil in the temple was torn in two, signifying that the way was open for man to live in the presence of God, for union with God to be a reality. This is so incredible that the Spirit of God has to exhort believers to draw near with boldness through the veil (Hebrews 10:19-22) We have to be exhorted to draw near, to go through the veil, because something is holding us back and to understand what that is we must remember why the Hebrews had to be exhorted to draw near to God (Hebrews 10:19-22).

For generations they had lived with guilt in their hearts over sin and the belief that if they could only become more obedient to God’s commands, then they could know the presence and the blessing of God in their lives to a greater degree (Deuteronomy 28.v1,2). The beginning of Hebrews 10 describes the system these people had been living under for years. It was a system based on sacrifices atoning for sin, but crucially not dealing with sin consciousness and the guilt and condemnation that goes with sin (Hebrews 10:1-4) No matter how many sacrifices were made, a veil of sin consciousness remained between them and the presence of God.

How many of us in the Church too have been making sacrifices for God for years and still haven’t found the intimacy with Him that our hearts are searching for? A veil of condemnation remains that causes us not to enter fully into the liberty that Christ won for us (2Cor.3:17), for any life whose hope is based on their own sacrifices for God cannot be freed from sin consciousness.

The Jews retained a consciousness of sin. They retained guilt and condemnation over their sin, because they knew that under their sacrificial Law system their sins may have been covered over by the blood of sheep and cattle but they still weren’t getting through that curtain into the holy of holies. There would be no communion with God in His presence for them, rather all the continual sacrifices did was to constantly remind them of their sin (Hebrews 10:3)

Old time religion, the belief that it is the sacrifices we make for God that gain us His presence, His blessing, may make us feel good/righteous temporarily, but they cannot take away the veil, the consciousness of our own sin that prevents us from “drawing near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.” (Hebrews 10:19-22)

That condemnation, that feeling that no matter how hard you try you still aren’t good enough for communion with God is a killer. It kills intimacy with God which is why Paul declared to the Corinthians that “the Law Kills” (2Cor.3:6) Under a Law mind-set the Bible says that people live with this veil between them and God that they can’t break through. This belief in their hearts that they are not good enough for God, effectively acts as a barrier to them drawing near Him and knowing intimacy with Him.

When we recognise sin consciousness in the believer as a barrier to intimacy with God, we can see that far from accusing the brethren and continually reminding them of their sin, the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church is to lift up the power of the Cross to unveil to believers that they have been made righteous in God’s sight. To see what Christ has done in you is a life changing experience. It is to see as in a mirror that your primary identity is no longer the first Adam (sinner) but the last Adam (righteous). As the Spirit continues to draw our attention away from the sin in us and onto Christ in us (Romans 8:16, Ephesians 1:18, Colossians 1:27) we are being transformed into His image from glory to glory (2 Cor.3:18)

So River City Church, let the Holy Spirit pull back the veil. Reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:11), so that we can look with unveiled faces as in a mirror the glory of God and so this generation will see the image of Christ shining from His Church.

 

Gal 3.v5,6

Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?— ⁶just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”

Paul was saying here “Galatians, there is a supply of the Spirit, a supply of the life of God, a divine flow, a river of life, the anointing to work miracles

Think Galatians, how did that river begin to flow in your midst?

• Did you work for it, did it come because of your obedience to the Law?,

or

• Did the Spirit flow in power in your midst because you believed the gospel, because you received by faith the promises of the New Covenant?

 

Can I put that question in another way, for I believe that this is a question we as a church need to hear and have the right answer to, if we too are to know a free flow of the life of the Spirit in the midst of us.

 

• Did you make the Spirit move because of your performance, your obedience to the commands of God?

Or

• Did you let the Spirit move because of your faith in His promises?

 

I think that is such an important question; how does the Spirit operate in the Church, in response to what, religious activity or faith, that it would be good to remind ourselves of what Jesus said.

.  John 7.v37-39.

⁷On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. ³⁸“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” ³⁹But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

 

Notice here a great truth that Jesus declares about the flow of the Spirit in the life of a believer.

How does someone receive the flow of the Spirit, the river of life from God?

John writes “He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive.”                      We receive the Spirit by believing, not by doing.

Jesus did not say, He who works for me, out of His heart will flow rivers of living water, but He who believes in me.

What I want to show you this morning is the great truth that Paul declared to the Galatians and the Colossians and all His churches; that

The way the Spirit flows in the life of a believer does not change from the way He flowed on the day you got saved.

He always flows by the grace of God, through faith.

 

. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, ⁹not of works, lest anyone should boast.

What I am going to show you today is the Spirit moves in the church, in your life and mine, from first to last (your first day to your last) by the grace of God……

and the moment we turn away from believing that our salvation, from first to last, is all by grace, we will find that we have turned away from the supernatural power of God and back to the natural efforts of men.

The river of miracles dries up.

So the river of the Spirit flows by the grace of God through faith.

 

 

River City Church, we are not called to make the river flow, but to let the river flow.

Today we are going to be talking again about a subject that you are going to get very familiar with this year; the difference between the Old covenant of the Law and the New Covenant of Grace.

Difference between Old and New Covenant is the difference between doing and simply being.

You don’t do sonship, you simply be a son.

I don’t do anything to be a son of God, through faith in Christ, every believer has been made by His grace, by His gift, a child of God

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: ¹³who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.     John 1.v12.13.

 

The Old Covenant and the New Covenant are worlds apart.

Which world are you living in?

Biggest difference is the difference between Law and Grace.

This difference centres around the issue of performance.

. Whose performance are you relying on; ………………….Yours or Jesus’?

 

Believers like you and I have been robbed of the joy and the peace of our salvation, robbed of strength, because we have repeatedly attempted to try and hold the New Wine (the life of the Spirit in us) in an old wineskin called ‘My Performance.’ X2

What did Jesus say would happen when we try and put new wine in an old wineskin?

 

Matt2.v22

And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.”

 

The New covenant of Grace does not fit into the Old Covenant of the Law.

You cannot mix Law and Grace, because like that fermenting new wine, Grace is too powerful to be held, to be ministered through the medium of your or my performance.

If you could earn grace by your obedience to commands it would not be grace, for grace is unmerited favour.

 

I think that most of us have no problem understanding grace in terms of our salvation experience, when we got born again.

We understand that as stated in Ephesians 2.v8

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, ⁹not of works, lest anyone should boast.

 

We clearly understand that our justification in God’s sight, the forgiveness of all our sins, was an act of grace on God’s part that we did nothing to deserve.

It is a gift.

 

We all learned as children what you do with a gift, you simply receive it and we did that by believing.

For by grace you have been saved through faith…..it is the gift of God.

 

Gifts have the most wonderful effect on us…..they produce joy.

When we were children, receiving a gift was an occasion of great joy.

Now that many of us are parents, we have come to see that the giving of the gift, gives as much joy to the giver as to the receiver.

This holds true for the gift of grace.

The Lord spoke of the joy in heaven when one person receives the gift of the grace of salvation.

And so for many of us who have received this gift of grace, our most joyful experiences as believers were at the time of our salvation.

 

If we can see a connection between a believer’s joy and their experience of grace, then it comes as no surprise for us to hear so many talk of those days after they were first saved as a time of great joy and peace and indeed liberty.

Often the prayer of David can be heard on believer’s lips.

“Restore unto me the joy of my salvation.”

 

What I want us to ask ourselves is…..why do so many believers in the church have to pray that prayer, asking God to restore their joy of salvation?

What happened to the joy of our salvation?

The question I am asking is….

Who or what is robbing us of our joy? (and by implication our liberty)

 

Now that is an important question to ask, for when you rob an individual or a church of their joy, you rob them of their strength and their witness.

Ask yourself why is it that the ordinary person in the street, if they were thinking they would like to go somewhere to have a great experience of joy during this year of culture, how many of them would have visiting a church at the top of their list?

How many of them would put church at the bottom of their list?

The sad truth is that for most folk who go nowhere on a Sunday morning, a church would be the last place they would consider going to find joy.

 

Time for another question…

 

Where does the joy go?

How is it that subsequent to salvation, for so many folk, our joy appears to leak out of us and so out of the church?

 

The answer I want to present to you is very simple.

 

Burst wineskins always leak.

The reason why so many of us, as individuals and churches, cannot hold our joy, is that we keep trying to hold the new wine of the life of Grace in an old wineskin called Performance.

 

We embrace grace at the hour of our salvation and for grace read joy.

But then ever so subtly we buy into the belief that now that we have been saved by grace, we have to complete the job of salvation ourselves by all the works a good Christian is supposed to do.

After all everybody knows that good Christians

• read their bible every day,
• pray for hours,
• go to all the church meetings they are free for,
• give generously and generally live exemplary lives as a witness to others.

 

In other words for many of us, we have believed that our justification was by grace and faith, we just believed the truth of it and the Holy Spirit did the rest, but our lives since then, our sanctification, the setting aside of our lives unto God, living holy lives, we have come to believe is something that is down to our best efforts.

 

The moment we start to believe that; that somehow we can improve our standing with God by our own efforts, that we can wrestle out of Him more blessings through disciplining ourselves to pray harder or fast longer or give more, then we have stepped back from the New Covenant of grace and gone back to the Old covenant of the Law.

 

Now we are back in the waiting room of religion, waiting for God to relent and give us what we need, rather than standing in faith, rejoicing that we already have, in Christ, all we need , as Paul declared to the Ephesians,

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

 We have been graced with what we need and it will manifest in God’s good time and in the meantime I am not going to grumble and complain but I going to sing and rejoice by faith, because by the grace of God it is my privilege to live a supernatural life and it is supernatural for an apparently barren person to sing.

It is the sweetest most powerful song in the world, the song of the Lord, the song of faith is a song of victory. It is the song of heaven and the devil must flee when he hears it, for He can’t stand the sound of heaven, the sound of the presence of the anointing…joy.

 

 listen again

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, ⁹not of works, lest anyone should boast.

 

If we cannot boast about our justification, about Jesus dying for all our sins, then neither can we boast about our sanctification, about living the life of Christ, a life set apart unto God.

No man can boast in any part of His salvation.

 

The only way that boasting can be ruled out entirely then, is if our sanctification, our earthly lives being made holy, is also a work of grace that we receive by faith, that it too is not “of ourselves” but of the Spirit of God.

In other words that we don’t take the new way of being justified before God, by grace and faith and try and carry it in the old way of being sanctified before God, by the offering of the sacrifices of our hands. (our best efforts, our performance)

 

If we want to know why our experience has appeared at times so dry, where the leak is, that keeps draining away all our joy, then we only need to remember that the giving of the gift; (grace) and joy go together and so we need to ask ourselves, …..

 

“Are we still receiving the gift, the grace of God, as much today as we were on the day of our salvation, or is the truth that after some time in church, we picked up the idea that God expects us to finish the job that He started, that we are expected to now make ourselves holy, by prayer/fasting and any other work that will discipline our flesh.

 

Is that what has happened?

Have we turned away from

• simply receiving, back to earning.
• simply being, back to doing.

Have we backed away from grace and so backed into the Law?

 

Well we have already mentioned two ways we can tell.

1. Loss of joy.

To give a new believer the idea that God is judging them by their performance and so is withholding some blessing from them that they could receive by trying harder, is the surest way to burst their wineskin of joy. For the source of our joy is His flow of grace into our lives by His Spirit and to take our eyes of faith off His grace and fix them on our performance is to cut off our supply of joy.

Why do we need to keep receiving grace?

7. The Grace of God is the power of God to live the life of God.

 

2. Boasting.

If you today are comparing yourself with other believers and considering that you are doing better than them in some area, then in that area you have come back under the Law, for you cannot avail of grace and boast at the same time.

 

The apostle Paul warned His churches repeatedly about falling back under the law, under the idea that we can earn some reward from God through bettering our Christian performance.

He called it “putting confidence in the flesh”.

We call this legalism and Paul had to keep warning them because often after he had left a place, some legalistic Christians, (Judaziers) would come in amongst his new converts and tell them that they weren’t complete Christians unless they did something more than simply continue to put their faith in the grace of God.

There was no end of things people were starting to do to add to their salvation, to try and complete by works of the flesh what had begun by a work of the Spirit; from

• getting circumcised,
• to avoiding certain foods,
• to avoiding or keeping certain days or fasts or feasts.

 

Paul was absolutely unequivocal in his condemnation of any attempt by anyone to add any work to the grace that God continued to minister through His Holy Spirit, because He knew that the grace of God is the power of God to live the life of God.

·         To the Philippians He declared that they didn’t need to get circumcised because  “we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh”

·         To the Galatians “This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? ³Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? ….

He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

Present tense; Keeps on supplying. Why would we turn to our performance, when there is still today a constant supply by grace of God’s Holy Spirit.

But I want to finish by showing you what Paul declared to the Colossians, about how they were to carry, walk in the life of the Spirit

• To the Colossians.

Turn to Col 2.

Paul describes himself as in conflict. He is in agony over them as in the pains of childbirth. He knows that as young believers they are vulnerable to false teaching.

What is he so concerned about?

He is concerned that someone would come in and burst their wineskin, and so rob them of their joy and strength by telling them that they were not complete as Christians unless they added to the work of the Spirit some work of their own.

 Col 2.

V6

As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, ⁷rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. ⁸Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. ⁹For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; ¹⁰and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.

 

As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him

Your walking in Him, your sanctification, your life as a believer, must be lived on exactly the same basis/principle as how you were justified, how you first received Him; nothing of you, all of grace.

He gives you by His Spirit everything you need, to be who He has called you to be.

You receive it by faith, by believing that you already have what you need, that in Him you are complete, for in Him is an endless supply of grace, of power to live the life of God and we receive that enabling, that life today in the same way we did originally; …by faith, by simply believing that our Father in heaven is as good and generous as He says He is.

 

• Here is the truth that protects you against anyone deceiving you and stealing your joy and your strength.
• Here is the truth that sets you free Christian, if you have been lured back into believing that God is withholding something from you because there is something more you have to do;
  • some fast that you have not yet fasted,
  • some season of prayer that you have not yet prayed,
  •  some feast that you have not yet kept or not yet avoided.

 

The truth is that the grace of God is so generous, that you received everything of Him at your salvation. He has withheld nothing from you.

Don’t you know….You are always with me and everything I have is yours.

This is the truth that sets you free from performance, from the old mindset of the law, that if I obey more I will get more of a reward.

 

Last Important question.

Why do we do it?

Why do we slip back into thinking that we need to work harder as believers if we are to receive more blessing from God?

Answer: Because we have failed to understand that ..

 under the New Covenant, the blessings of God are no longer a reward, they are an inheritance.

You don’t earn an inheritance….you simply receive it.

 

During the week I heard a news report that an old lady had died in Dublin and left 500000 euros to an animal charity in Limerick.

I used to look after a lot of little old ladies cats.

Think how I would feel if I got a letter in the post this week that said that a little old lady whose cat I used to treat had died and left me 500,000 pounds in her will.

What would happen to my joy level?

Until I read some small print further down the letter….I inherit the money on my 99^th birthday………. if I am still alive.

Now what has happened to my joy level?

Now all I can see before me is a lifetime of effort to be strong enough to win that reward.

 

That’s what has happened to many of us in the church.

We got saved and full of joy at the grace of God and then some well meaning brother or sister introduced us to some fine print about the need to complete what God had begun, fine print about doing your best if you really wanted to receive God’s best

And ever since then many of us have slipped out of the party/the joy of God’s grace and delight in us and gone back into the fields of religion to try and earn from Him what He has already freely given.

If you stay there, you are in for as miserable a time as the elder brother.

You will spend years expecting God to give you this or that in response to all your years of good service to Him, but your experience will be that you don’t get so much from Him as an old goat.

Because how can he give you again, what is already yours in Christ?

Let me declare to you again the words of the Spirit to River City Church in this hour.

Don’t you know Church, you are always with me and everything I have is yours!

Therefore River City Church, He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

Is it by grace, through faith or by our works that the river of His Spirit flows?

 

Then let us rest from our religious works and let us go back into the party of our salvation, the grace of God, from which we slipped out the back door.

There is an endless supply of the grace of God to meet every need in this place and all we have to do to see the river flow is to start singing the song of faith, the song of victory and it is a song about the grace of God.

 

I fully believe in the laying on of hands for impartation and healing…..but to receive the truth that sets you free, you need only believe.