Grace Changes Everything, November 9, 2025

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Well, good morning, fellowship. Man, what a joy it is to be here with you all today, whether you're joining us here in the worship center, in the chapel, of course, online, here at home, and all across the world as we sing praises to the only one who is truly worthy of our praise, Jesus Christ. And for any of you who are relatively new with us this morning, my name is Ben Parkinson, and I'm one of four, we call, teaching pastors here at Fellowship. We have the privilege of leading and teaching the church across all of our campuses in the team-oriented way that we do. So if I haven't had a chance to meet you yet and you have some time after the service, I'll be at the Connection Center here on this campus and would love to say hi to you. That'd be a blessing to me. And we are currently in a sermon series, preaching through the book of Galatians that we're gonna get to in just a moment. But before we dive in to that this morning, I do wanna let you all know about a special gift that our church is gonna give to various food banks across Central Arkansas this week.

As many of you know, starting on November 1st, the federal funding to what's known as the SNAP program, which stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance, has stopped on a national level. And although we don't know how that'll play out in the weeks and months to come specifically, what we do know in talking to our partners who we support on a regular basis here in Central Arkansas is that that's having a profound effect on them. I mean, more and more people who are used to receiving benefits through that federal program are now coming to the food banks looking for assistance, looking for help. And we're thankful for our governor allotting some half a million dollars to that this month to try and help with that. But just for you to know what the state is up against when it comes to this program and all that it means, the impact that it could have, Arkansas is receiving from the federal government $41 million a month towards that need. And so you can imagine how our food banks are doing with people swelling and coming to them. We know so most people will find other different ways to meet that need, they won't all come through there. But we wanted to come alongside the food banks in this moment that we give to on an annual basis, just so you know, your generous giving here at Fellowship, part of that goes to support these food banks through our local missions giving every year.

But we felt compelled praying and asking the Spirit what we can do to give an extra $100,000 across the different partners that we minister to in the different communities we have campuses this month to try and help meet that need. So we wanna let you know about that, as well as to let you know that as we've talked to these food banks, as we've asked them to say, hey, how can we help? What can we do? They've obviously said, yeah, the money is helpful, but they've said the bigger thing that is helpful to us, because whatever we give is gonna feel like a drop in the bucket to the need. Ultimately, they said, we need volunteers, we need people to come and serve and to know these families and to help bring them to a place where they're not dependent on these programs anymore for their sustenance. And so the Arkansas Food Bank, I already said, man, they have volunteers with everything in the news going on there, filled up till February with volunteers. But some of the smaller food banks that we serve around Central Arkansas, for you here at West Little Rock, it'd be the Roland Crisis Center, it'd be St. Mark's Food Pantry here in town. I mean, they've said they would love volunteers from our church to come and help them.

So we would encourage you, as we have said this year, we wanna pray together as a church and ask God how we can be a picture of his kingdom coming from heaven to earth, like Jesus prayed to be a picture of the kingdom that's on its way when he returns. Man, we would ask you to pray and see if you or your family or your D group may wanna be a picture of the kingdom of God to those in need by volunteering with one of those food banks. Of course, you can go to their website, again, Roland Crisis Center or St. Mark's Food Pantry, or you can always talk to our missions team about how to get involved. They would love to connect you and plug you in in that way. Part of how grace changes us is that the more that we believe that we've been given everything we have by the grace of God and that we didn't deserve it from him, that opens us up to giving of our time, of our resources, of our talent, of our energy to those around us, whether they deserve it or not. It's one of the ways that grace changes everything in our lives. So pray about whether God would ask you to do that with us in the coming months, which really is a lot of what we've been talking about here

in the book. of Galatians for the past month or so. That even though all of us have a natural bent to view our lives and our relationship with God and each other through a law-like lens, if you will, the reality is that viewing all of life and our relationship with God through that lens of grace is what changes everything in our life for good. Which is why we've been preaching through the book of Galatians, because it's a letter that's all about the difference between grace-like thinking and law-like thinking. In these first two chapters that we've looked at over the last four weeks, God's shown us some important ideas about grace through the Apostle Paul as he's been writing to make sure that these churches in this area are not being led astray by what are known as the Judaizers or the circumcision party who are coming behind Paul to try and undo the beauty of what grace had done in their relationship with God. First, one of the major ideas that we've seen is that there really are two fundamental ideas on the earth at war for the hearts of mankind. That is grace-like thinking and law-like thinking. And that believing in the grace of God to you in Christ and its implications for your life is what makes all the difference, all the difference. Next, we look at the reality that because grace has been completely accomplished by God in Christ for us,

it has the power to save anyone. And we looked at Paul's journey and the fact that the Apostle Paul who once persecuted the church now was one of the foremost apostles for the church. And that if grace can save Paul, it can save truly anyone. There's no one beyond its grasp. And then of course, the following week, we looked at him speaking to the bringing of Titus into the midst of the apostles, a Greek, someone who didn't know anything about the will of God from the Old Testament, wasn't a part of his people and yet was following Jesus faithfully. And we said not only can grace save anyone, but grace is also for everyone. No matter what's your ethnicity, no matter what's your background, what's your past, what's your race, there's no one that should ever feel unwelcome among the people of God who wants to come and follow Jesus Christ. And then of course, last week, we looked at the fact that even though grace is as amazing as it is, because our hearts are so bent on law-like thinking, because the world around us is so bent on law-like thinking, we're constantly tempted to still believe somehow that it has something to do with us, that our salvation has to do with us. And that somehow that separates us from those around us

who aren't doing the same that we are. We looked at Peter's hypocrisy, even though he would say he's thankful for the grace of God, to him still was tempted to separate himself from the Gentiles when he was around the Jews, to compete with them, to look down on them for the way they weren't following God the way he was following God, that it still is a temptation of ours to wrestle with in the midst of our relationship with him. Which brings us to the two verses that close out chapter two of Galatians, we're gonna look at this morning. That's right, just two verses, really just one we're gonna look at today. We're gonna slow down and take a look at one verse that really summarizes all that we've looked at in these first two chapters. In fact, when I read these verses, if you've been around the Bible much at all, or church for a long time, or whatever, you may say, oh yeah, I know that verse, or I've heard a message on that verse, which is, well, we're gonna slow down and look at it just phrase by phrase today. That after Paul speaks about his confrontation of Peter that we looked at last week, and the hypocrisy that he had to challenge Peter on of grace is indeed true,

he summarizes all that he's been saying with these words, look at it with me, Galatians chapter two, verses 20 and 21. He says, I have been crucified with Christ. He is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. In the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. Very words of God. And when I came across this passage to preach, one of the things that struck me is how much it reminds me of other passages and other letters that Paul has written to the churches in the New Testament. That one of the things that you see over and over again, and the letters of the Holy Spirit pinned through Paul's hand is that he'll be talking about the grace of God, he'll be talking about the gospel and all the implications it has in our lives, and then all of a sudden as he's writing, he'll just kind of explode into these moments of praise or into these moments of prayer, right? They just kind of say these big high glorious things that feel so overwhelming in his spirit that they really are sharing the heartbeat of what he's trying to get at in a unique way. For instance, in the book of Ephesians,

he's preaching along, writing along, talking along. about the grace of God and all that it means to the church there at Ephesus. And then all of a sudden in Ephesians three, his writing turns into a prayer, just kind of merges into this prayer where he says that you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. That you may be filled with all the fullness of God. And he says now to him who's able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever, amen. Right, he just explodes. He wasn't praying the whole time, but all of a sudden he just moves into this prayer just extolling the glory of God for what his grace means. We saw it in the book of Romans last year when we preached through Romans and got to chapter eight, Paul's preaching along about the grace of God and all that it means in our lives. And all of a sudden he kind of moves in this moment where he says, no, in all these things we're more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I'm sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present,

nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. He's preaching along and all of a sudden he just boom, lays it out there in this kind of powerful moment, this explosion of praise to God. And I think that's what we have here in our passage in Galatians chapter two, verses 20 to 21, it's one of those moments. Paul's talking to these churches in Galatia about the difference between law-like living and thinking and grace-like living and thinking. And all of a sudden he comes to this moment of expression where he wants them just to get it and to feel what he's saying. And he says, for I've been crucified with Christ. And it's no longer I who live, but it's Christ who lives in me. And he says, in the life I live now in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loves me and gave himself for me. He just can't contain it anymore. And he just shares it and pens it in this beautiful way in these two verses. I think it's a moment of being in awe of what God has done, of what God is doing, of what God will do in Paul's life because of what Jesus has accomplished on the cross for us.

Paul expressing this overwhelming joy of how God actually grows us in grace over our lives in a way that truly changes everything. And I say in a way that God grows us. If you notice there in your outline, I kind of have there at the top, man, how does God grow us over the course of our lives in grace? I don't have in there, how do we grow ourselves in that? How do we really work hard to understand it? Because I don't know about you, but in my walk with Jesus, my personal journey of growing in grace, of understanding grace more and more, of putting to death my law-like thinking and embracing grace-like thinking, which I still struggle with every day of my life. For me, I know the biggest leaps and bounds of my growth in that, my relationship with God, have usually come when I'm not walking in grace, when I'm walking with a law-like mentality, when I'm living in this law-like way. And it's when God just patiently walks through that with me and begins to show me step-by-step, moment-by-moment, how that's not leading to life, it's leading to death, how that's not leading to joy, it's leading to kind of pain and suffering, how that's not really leading to me wanting to be with Him more and follow Him more and engage in my relationship with Him more, but I'm kind of getting more and more distant

and aloof from Him. He walks through that patiently to show me, yeah, Ben, this is why grace is what matters more than the law. This is why you need to let go of your law-like living and follow me in what I'm telling you. I think there's a reason that Paul writes what he writes to the Philippian church in Philippians chapter one, verse six, different letter to a different church, but look at what he says. He says, I am sure of this. Notice he doesn't say, I think it might be true. He doesn't say, I'm gonna give you something I have an opinion on, but I'm not really, he says, no, I'm absolutely sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus. He says, I'm absolutely convinced that if God has begun your journey of faith and your understanding of grace, He will continue to bring you through things in your life and to show you truths when you need them the most and administer to your spirit in ways that He will continue to grow you toward understanding grace and all that it means until you see Him face to face and you're finally conformed completely to His image. It's God doing that work in and through us. And that even the frustration

of returning to law-like thinking and realizing the futility of it, that's God's grace to us. It just makes me wrestle within my mind whenever I'm sitting around saying, am I experiencing the joy of trusting in grace? Great, that's God's love for me. But even when I sit around and say, man, am I feeling frustrated with trying to. control God by my law-like thinking, or control others, or control my own life, and I'm frustrated because it's not working like I want it to, he says, you know what? That's also God's love to you, that he's letting you be frustrated in that and see the futility of it in your life. He'll keep blessing us and he'll keep frustrating us in love to keep growing us in grace instead of in law and our relationship with him. If you want a great personal example of this in the scriptures, man, go and spend time reading Abraham and Sarah's journey for the 13 chapters between Genesis 12 and Genesis 25. They're a great illustration of wrestling with law-like thinking versus grace-like thinking and what it means when you finally come to the end of yourself. So how does God do that? How does God grow us in grace over the course of our life? How does he help us appreciate

the difference between the two? Well, there's three ways that verse 20 tells us. We're just gonna look at that one verse. Actually, verse 21, Mark touched on last week if you were here about the fact that, man, if this isn't true, Christ died for no purpose, you can go and listen to his message last week and he spoke to that reality. I'm really gonna focus it on verse 20 this morning. It's all we need to dive into today. The first way that Paul says that God grows us in grace over the course of our lives is he says that we come to the realization that I've been crucified with Christ. I've been crucified with Christ. And the first way he's growing us in grace after we come to faith in Jesus is that he's continually crucifying the law-like ideas that we're tempted to cling to in our lives. He keeps crucifying those over and over and over again whenever we try to lean into them. That every time I'm tempted to think that my sins have separated me from the love of God, he comes along and reminds me that I was already crucified for those sins with Christ. And every time I wanna think that maybe he, yeah, maybe he loved me when he first created me. He made me in his image when I was a baby and I had all this hope and promise

for all the incredible things that I could do for him, the reason why he gave me life on the earth. Maybe he had hope for me back then when I was a baby, but now after 52 years of failing him and letting him down over and over again and not loving people the way that I could and that I should and all these times, surely he doesn't still view me the same way. Surely he doesn't still love me the way that he did in the beginning when I was innocent and full of potential and all these kinds of things. Whenever I'm feeling that, he reminds me of the crucifixion. He says, Ben, that's law-like thinking that you think somehow your obedience earns my affection for you and your sin unearns it. No, the gospel comes and says, when Christ died on that cross for you, it's as if you were with him on that cross in the eyes of God. You've been crucified with him. So God doesn't hold anything against you in your relationship with him anymore. What that means is that everything the Bible says, something hard for me to wrap my head around, everything the Bible says when you read through it about what the righteous person deserves compared to the wicked person, guess what? In Christ, you and I deserve what the righteous person is promised.

In fact, really in Christ, what the Bible's saying is that God is constantly blessing us with what he promises the righteous person, whether we realize it or not, all the time, because of Christ, because we've been crucified with him in our relationship with God. I don't know about you, that's hard for me to wrap my brain around because even growing up here in a church that preached grace my whole life, I just didn't have ears to hear it the way that I should have heard it. I know for me, even though I appreciate what Jesus did for me on the cross, whenever I would come across the verse in the Old Testament about the righteous and the wicked, I still felt all this pressure to say, all right, I gotta be righteous to get those blessings, and if I'm wicked, man, I'm gonna get those cursings. I still viewed my relationship with God through that lens in a lot of ways, even though I believed in the grace of God to me on the cross to forgive me of my sins. It's so hard to truly embrace the full implication and the weight of what Jesus Christ has accomplished for us on the cross. Then on the one hand, when I ask myself, do I deserve what the righteous person is promised? I used to just say, no, I'm totally depraved, I'm wicked, I'm evil, of course I don't deserve it.

That's true. At the same time, because of the gospel, God also says, yes, you do deserve it because you were crucified with Christ. You were crucified with him on that cross. It's a hard mentality for us to get into that we actually do deserve all the blessings of God in our lives because of what Christ did on the cross for us. The Bible says he gave us his righteousness as a gift. That's not just words on a page, he actually means that. So we don't deserve it because of our own righteousness, but we do deserve it because of what Christ has done for us. who were crucified with him in the eyes of God. Which doesn't just apply to our relationship between us and God, it applies to our relationship with those around us as well. That when someone sins against me, my law-like thinking wants to react to that, that offense in a way that says, how dare they? How dare they do that to me? In a way that feels justified in being offended or in being angry or in being prideful. And saying, I can't believe they did that to me or I can't believe they did that to someone else. I would never, right? That is that law-like thinking. It says, I would never do what they've done. I would never be that bad. I would never be that evil. I would never hurt others or God in that way.

Our law-like thinking moves us then to fight and to argue, to separate and to hate others around us for their sins against us. And yet grace comes and it says, if I've been crucified with Christ and if I've paid for my sins against God because of what he's done for me on the cross, then guess what? I gotta apply that to the person who's offended me too. He's also paid for their sins when it comes to me. Now I know that can get confusing because you're like, what if they don't believe in Jesus, Ben? Well, that's an issue between them and God with how he's applying what Jesus did on the cross for them and his relationship with them. But what the Bible does tell us and show us is that when it comes to our relationship with them, if we're gonna receive the grace of God to us and what he did on the cross for us, when the Bible said Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, he's giving us the gift of grace to say Jesus also died for their sins against me. And I can rest in that. I can rest in that for me. I can have peace in the midst of that. That if he's paid for my sins against God because of what he's done for me, then he's paid for the sins of the person who's offended me as well.

He's paid for their sins on the cross as if they also died with him when it comes to what I'm feeling in my relationship with them. And it makes me ask the question, what more do I need to feel satisfied in their offense against me? I mean, no matter what it is they've done to me, if someone came to me and said, Ben, you're really frustrated with this person, they really hurt you, they sinned against you, man, it's been really hard, what do you need to be satisfied? I don't know, Malachi, I need a lot of things from them to really feel like I've gotten justice back from them. What if we hung them on a cross? Would that do it? Well, yeah, I mean, I guess that would do it probably. There's really not much more I could ask if you're asking me what would pay me back. In fact, most of the things that people do to me that hurt me and hurt my feelings or that are sins against my partner, whoa, whoa, whoa, we don't need to go that far. I'm not saying I need that from them. Oh, well, great, well, then guess what? They've been crucified with Christ when it comes to what you believe about the gospel of grace, so you can go ahead and forgive them. You can go ahead and live in peace.

Now, it doesn't mean you have to restore the relationship with them necessarily. It doesn't mean you still don't maybe have some things, your relationship between you and them that you would have to work out, but what it does mean is you don't have to live in bitterness. You don't have to live in anger. You don't have to live in hatred. You don't have to waste your life, which a lot of us do, thinking about, dwelling on, being bitter about, being frustrated and angry with someone that has hurt you because you can say they've been crucified with Christ as far as that goes. It's fine. I can let it go. I can enjoy my life. Whether they ever ask for forgiveness from me or not, Christ has been crucified for me and he's been crucified for them, and grace frees me, not only from living in guilt and shame for my own sins that I can't take back and do over, but it frees me from living in anger and bitterness over other people's sins against me that they can't take back or do over. I've been crucified with Christ, and because of that, I don't have to earn the right to be forgiven

and loved by God and others, and others don't have to earn the right to be forgiven and loved by me. God's grace to me is meant to flow out of me as grace to those around me. That truly frees me to experience love and joy and peace with God and others in a way that law-like thinking will never let me do. It will never let me do. If we live with law-like thinking, we're stuck. We're stuck in guilt over the things that we've done that we can't take back. We're stuck in shame over the things we've wasted that we can never repay. We're stuck in anger and bitterness over the things people have done to us, the way they've ruined our lives and wasted our lives that we can never get back. We're stuck because our pride won't let us give others what they need to feel like the law's been satisfied for them, and their pride won't give us what we feel like we need for the law to be satisfied in our hearts. No, our guilt and shame won't let us believe that we're worthy of forgiveness by God or others, so we'll spiral in self-pity or a sense of being worthless or unlovable in our relationship. Keeps us equally stuck.

Law-like thinking keeps us stuck, church. It keeps us dwelling on our failures in a way that's not helpful. Keeps us dwelling on others' failures in a way that just wastes our time, wastes our life, and God wants you to have abundant life. What Jesus did on the cross, and believing that because he did it for us, it's as if we were on the cross with him, it's part of how grace changes everything. If you're wondering, y'all keep saying grace changes everything. How does that actually happen? That's one of the ways it happens. You say, I've been crucified with Christ. Whenever Satan comes and attacks you, I've been crucified with Christ. I can let go of the things that are keeping me from enjoying my walk with him, my relationship with others, I've been crucified with Christ. But how does that help us stop hurting God and others? That may be the way that we can deal with the things we've done in the past that we can't fix or correct, but Ben, does that just mean I'm doomed to continue sinning against others over and over again with no hope of being transformed, with no hope of changing, with all the ways the scripture will say,

man, if you preach grace too hard, doesn't that mean you're condoning sin, you're letting people off the hook, they're just gonna keep sinning and sinning and sinning? I mean, is there any hope for me to change? Is there any hope for others to change in their behavior towards me? Does it actually change the way we behave? Look at the second part of verse 20 with me. That's why Paul doesn't leave it, that I've been crucified with Christ. He goes on to say, and it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. It's no longer I who live because of the grace of God now, but Christ who lives in me. Paul says the gospel of grace not only shows me that I died with Christ to pay for my sins, it also shows me that he lives in me to empower me, not to have to continue to hurt myself or God or others around me anymore. Then the same way that Jesus was resurrected from the grave after he died for me, I've been resurrected too to live a new kind of life empowered by him. The part of what it means to believe in Jesus or to follow Jesus or to become a Christian is not just that we believe that we're forgiven because of what Christ did, but that we also believe that we're a new creation now. Those things go hand in hand. And there are some factions of Christianity

that just leave you stuck in, I'm kind of a worthless sinner and I'm always gonna be, but Jesus forgave me. That's part of it. But the next part is very important. That guess what? You're also a new creation in Christ. And you don't have to keep wallowing in the sinful ways that you've been living that are ruining your life and the life of those around you. You don't have to keep hurting yourself and others in your relationship with God. No, you actually can be transformed and obey God in healthy ways. But that also is part of what it means to believe in Christ and that God continually reveals the power of Christ he's given us to let go of our law-like filter and live in grace. That's the second way God continually draws us towards him and conforms to his image and shows what grace is all about. He continually reveals the power of Christ he's given us to let go of that filter and live in grace. So there's one thing I'm learning, not learned, I'm still learning over years and years of walking with Jesus and trying to grasp his grace, is that obedience really isn't just about knowledge. Obedience really isn't just about knowing what's right and wrong. Oh, if I just knew it was right, then I would do it more.

I just didn't understand. Now that I understand, I can do it. It's not really just about knowledge, is it? Obedience is about believing. It's about faith. It's about believing that the things God asked us to do or not to do, he's asking because he cares for us, because he loves us, and because he loves others, and because he wants us to have the most abundant life possible. It's about believing that when we disobey him, we're hurting ourselves as much as we're hurting anyone else. We're hurting ourselves as much as we're hurting him. Obedience is about believing that whatever we think we're gonna get out of disobeying God, he actually wants to bless us with in a better way if we obey him. I mean, I don't know about you, anytime I'm tempted to disobey God in some way, to do something that his word tells me isn't best for me and best for others, the reason why I'm tempted to do that is because I believe there's something I'm gonna get out of it that I can't get by following him, by obeying him. There's some trade I'm making in that moment where I'm like, okay, I understand what God's asked me to do but I'm gonna do this other thing over here

that he's asking me not to do because, man, I'm gonna get this whatever it is that I don't think I'm gonna get if I follow him. It's a lack of faith. It's a lack of believing that if we follow his will for us, he will actually bless us in better ways than if we don't. He will actually give us more of whatever it is that we're trying to get by disobeying him. It may not be tomorrow, it may not be exactly in the timing that we want, but if we trust him and obey him. obey Him and follow His will for us, He's gonna bless us in so many better ways than if we take the cheap road Satan's offering us for the quick fix of some kind of temptation that's just gonna lead to actually ruining our lives in the long run. That's the story of the Scriptures. Satan promises short-term joy for long-term pain. Jesus promises obedience and abundant life when you follow Him, if you'll just trust Him that what He's telling you is because He loves you and He cares for you. So sometimes what hinders obedience and obeying God is just that we don't believe that it's gonna be better than disobeying Him. But sometimes, if we're being honest, what hinders us from obeying God, from walking in the joy of obedience with Him, is that Satan's constantly trying to convince us

that we can't do it even if we wanted to, that we don't have the power in us to obey God, that we're worthless, that we fail over and over again, that man, yeah, you can try to obey God, but it's not gonna work out for you. To which Jesus says to His disciples right before His ascension, lo, I am with you even to the end of the age. To which Jesus says to His disciples at the Last Supper that, hey, listen, I'm gonna go away, but I have to go away so I can send the Holy Spirit, the Helper, to come to you. And it says He was with you, but He will be in you. He will indwell you, He will give you power to do and to follow God in ways that you didn't have before. It's why we see the Spirit come in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost to indwell the early church. And while we see people believing in Christ with the Book of Acts, the Spirit comes and indwells them. That's why we talk about it here, that when you pray to receive Christ, invite Him into your life, the Holy Spirit comes to indwell you, to empower you. It's the power of Christ in us. That whenever we wanna think we don't have the power to obey God, so we may as well just send some more. He reveals the power of Christ in us. You say, Ben, how does He do that? Well, here's what I know. Whenever I resist the temptation to do something

that would hurt myself or that would hurt others around me, I've realized that's Christ in me. That's why I resist those temptations. Whenever I sacrifice something that my flesh wouldn't actually wanna keep for myself, when I sacrifice that for the good of someone else, whether it's my time, my energy, my resources, that's not me earning God's favor in my own strength. That's Christ in me, loving others through me. That's God's grace to me and in me, helping me experience the beauty of His promise. That to give is better than to receive. He says, Ben, I want you to experience the joy that giving is better than receiving. So I'm gonna empower you in this moment to make a decision your flesh would never make so you can experience the joy of that. That's Christ in me doing that. And the more I give Him credit for those acts of obedience in my life, as His grace in me, instead of taking credit for myself in my law-like thinking that somehow I'm doing that in my own power, the more joy I get in obeying Him. The more motivated I am to do it again. The more hope I have that I can do it again, because it's not about my willpower or my strength in that moment, it's about Christ in me, obeying God through me as a gift of grace to me, and if that's what it's about, He can do that anytime for as long as He wants to.

He can obey the Lord in and through me, as I'm convinced that that's what is happening in my life, as I believe and have faith in that reality. And not only does that heal the part of me that would struggle with hopelessness, that I could never do anything to please God, so why even try? It also heals the part of me that would struggle to swell up with pride when I obey God, that somehow I'm earning His favor again. This is what this reality does for me, when I see it through the lens of grace instead of the lens of the law. I never have to say, man, I could never please God because I have Christ in me. But at the same time, I never have to say, hey, look at what I did to please God, because I have Christ in me. Looking at my obedience as a gift of grace that He gives me the ability to do, it heals my sense of worthlessness, and it heals my sense of arrogance and superiority. That's the difference between grace and law. It takes obedience, and it moves it to this place of beauty and of grace, and of want to instead of have to. Not obeying God under a threat now of His wrath coming against me if I don't, I'm obeying God because He loves me and because He wants what's best for me, and I can't wait to do it to see

how He's gonna bless me in my life through that act of obedience. It completely transforms why I follow Him, why I obey Him. So just put these first two things together in this verse. I'm continually forgiven and loved and accepted because I've been crucified with Christ, and I'm continually able to experience the joy of obedience with the right heart and for the right reasons because Christ is in me, living through me to accomplish His will for me. Which brings me to the third and final thing Paul says that God's continually doing to help him live in grace and not in law. And that is that God continually reminds us in our life of how much he loves us and how we can trust his love for us in all things. He's constantly reminding us of his love for us in all things. Look at the last part of verse 20 with me. He says, in the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith. Faith in what? Faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So I live by faith that Jesus loved me. He loved me so much, he came and donned that cross for me so I could be crucified with him in the eyes of God. Says the life I now live, Paul says, I live by faith that he loves me, that he loves me,

that he loves me. And I know I've said this a lot on this stage. And guess what? You're gonna keep hearing me say it over and over and over again, because it's really what the whole Bible is about. Every letter, Paul's writing, he's saying the same thing. Every letter James writes, every letter John writes, every letter Peter writes, the gospels, all of it from the Old Testament, he loves me. He loves me. He loves me. And he loves me so much, he's willing to give his life for me, that's how much he loves me. And if he loves me that much, then here's what Paul's saying in this last phrase of what grace means and how it transforms your life. If he loves me that much, that means whatever I'm walking through right now in my life is not his wrath against me. It's not his punishment of me. I've been crucified with Christ. It's not him hating me. I've been crucified with Christ. It's not him abandoning me. Christ is in me. Christ is living in me and through me. He doesn't hate me. He's not abandoning me. He's not punishing me.

It's not his wrath against me. Whatever I'm walking through right now is his perfect love to me. And I know that can be so confusing. I know that can be so hard to embrace and to believe. I know it almost sounds insensitive in some ways, depending on what you're walking through. To say that whatever you're walking through right now, God is in it with you and he's loving you through it. That when he looks at our life, he's outside of time. He sees it all from beginning to end as one thing. We're in the middle of it on a journey walking through it. So we can't see the rest of it until we get to this. He sees it all in one shot. He sees it all as one picture. He knows what's coming around every corner in your life. In the moments he's frustrating you in certain things, guess what? It's because he loves you. In the moment that he's blessing you in certain things, guess what? It's because he loves you. In the moment you're walking through something hard, guess what? He's loving you in the midst of that. He can see the beauty of what it's gonna create in your life, in the lives of those around you. And one day when you see him face to face, we will see all of what our life was about and we'll look at it and we'll be blown away

seeing his love to us through whatever we're walking through. But what Paul is saying here in this phrase, in this third part of verse 20, is that when I believe that, right? That's what he says. He says, the life I now live in the flesh, what's it about? It's about faith. Says, I live by faith. Because I can't see what God can see. I'm not outside of time like he can. I can't look at my entire life the way that he sees it. I live by faith in the son of God and his love for me. I live by faith that he's loving me all the time. That's the faith that we live in, that the grace of God is so powerful in our lives that he's loving me all the time. Because I've already been crucified with Christ. That's how the Bible can tell me that I can have peace that surpasses all human understanding. Have you ever read that verse and wonder, how does that happen? I mean, I read it. Okay, great. How do you really have peace that surpasses all human understanding in the midst of chaotic situations? How do people look at you in the midst of what you're going through that is crazy chaotic and say,

man, that person has so much peace. This is the only way we have that. This is how that promise comes true. We live by faith that no matter how chaotic our lives are, no matter what we're walking through, God is with us. He cares about us. He's loving us and he has it in his hands. He has it in control. He's got us right there. And whatever he would change in your life to make it better, he can do like that. So it's not about him not having enough power. It's not about him not being in control. And it's not about him not loving us. That's how you can sit back and say, all right, God's got this. He's doing something I can't understand. He's doing something I can't comprehend. He's doing something to change me. He's doing something to change those around me. He's doing something to glorify himself. I don't get it right now, but I can rest and relax and know that, man, he's not gonna ask me to take on more than I can handle. He's not gonna bring me to the end of myself in an unhealthy way. He has got this and I can live in peace. But when the Bible says we can have joy in all things,

what does that even mean? How can you have joy in certain things that are just rocking your world? It doesn't mean you have to be fake Christian-y joy, like, oh, I just love the Lord, no matter what's going on while it's falling down around you. No, you can acknowledge the pain of what you're walking through. You can experience sadness. and grief and anger and all the things you see expressed in the scripture when you read through the book of Job and all those kind of things. We can throw our questions to the sky. It's not that we have to be fake about it, but there does come moments in our life and in our journey with God, no matter what's going on, where we can say, but you know what? I do believe whatever's happening, I don't get it. He's doing something amazing through it because he loves me. I can relax and I can experience joy in whatever the things I have that are good in my life. It keeps us from wasting our lives, church, in the ways that we're tempted to with our law-like thinking. I mean, I always know exactly what he's doing and what I'm walking through, but I absolutely can be sure that it's not because he hates me, because he loves me,

because I've been crucified with Christ. That's what we see in Abraham and Sarah's story, right? Every time they turn back to their law-like thinking, guess what? You get Abraham lying about Sarah to Pharaoh. When they turn back to their law-like thinking, guess what? You get them taking matters into their own hands, trying to control God with their actions and going to Hagar to give him the child he promised, even though it's not the child he promised. You see all this chaos come in to their lives and their law-like thinking, but guess what? When Abraham finally lets go of it all and trusts that God's loving him no matter what, then even when God says, take your son, your only son, who I promised you you would have and who I promised you would become a great nation and go up on the mountain and sacrifice him, you know what you see in Abraham? You see peace. You know what you see in Abraham? He goes to the bottom of the mountain, the men that are with him, me and the child are going up and we're coming back to you. You know what you see? You see the New Testament. It says Abraham didn't know how it was gonna happen,

but he believed that even if he had to drive the knife into his son's chest and watch him breathe his last, God would resurrect him from the dead because all he knew is God said, Isaac is your promised child who you will have a great nation through. Now go up and sacrifice him. I don't know how it's gonna work. I don't know how it's gonna happen. It feels crazy to me, but here's what I know. I can trust that God loves me. I can trust that he's in control. I can trust that if I ask him for a fish, he won't give me a snake. If I ask him for bread, he won't give me a stone. I can trust that he loves me, which is why when they're walking up the mountain and Isaac says, God, dad, I see the fire and I see the knife. Where's the ram? Abraham looks at him and says, son, God will provide the ram for himself. He says, I don't know how it's gonna happen, but here's what I know. Whatever God requires of us, God provides. Whatever God asks of us in our relationship with him, he fulfills it. We're just asked to trust him and to walk in it.

And the more we have faith in that and believe in that, like Paul says, I now live by faith in the son of God that he loves me. The more we have faith that he's loving me, guess what, you can walk through those things in peace. You can walk through those things in joy. You can walk through those things and not have to fear and not have to fret and not have to live in the chaos of it. He says, that's how it happens. So I wanna wrap up with the beauty of what this simple verse is saying to us this morning about how grace changes everything in our lives. Whenever my law-like thinking tempts me to feel unworthy of God's love, grace reminds me I've been crucified with Christ, so I am worthy of God's love. Whenever my law-like thinking tempts me to believe that someone else is unworthy of my love, grace reminds me that Christ died for the sins of the world, so they are worthy of my love. Whenever my law-like thinking tempts me to believe that I'm better than others, grace reminds me that I had to be crucified with Christ in order to be worthy, so I'm not as great as I think I am. It gives me confidence when I'm beating myself up. It gives me humility when I'm puffing myself up. Whenever my law-like thinking tempts me to believe that I could never do anything to please God and wants me to give up on ever changing for the better,

grace reminds me it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and he can do anything through me and change anything about me that he wants. When my law-like thinking is tempted to think that someone else could never change or be worthy of love, grace reminds me that Christ in them can change them as well. And when my law-like thinking tempts me to believe that my circumstances are proof to me that God doesn't love me, that he's abandoned me, grace comes and reminds me that because I've been crucified with Christ and because Christ lives in me, my circumstances are a part of his perfect loving plan for my life. And he's using whatever I'm walking through to help me let go of sinful habits that are killing me and others around me, to begin to walk more in his ways that will bless me and others around me, to let go of the things that really don't matter in this life and to cling to the things that do, I can have faith that he loves me. And so I don't have to waste my life wallowing in self-pity, wallowing in sorrow, wallowing in shame because he is loving me. What does this verse mean? It means these simple things. I'm always forgiven and accepted. I'm always empowered and I'm always loved. That's why we have cards.

Maybe you got one when you came in or if not, you can get them on the way. that have this verse on them. We want you to take that card today and put it in a place that you see it every day. Put it in your car dash, put it on the mirror at home, put it in your Bible, put it somewhere where you'll see it all the time. I'd encourage you to memorize it. Because when Satan comes at you, and he loves to come at us and convince us this isn't true, to keep us stuck in anger, shame, guilt, bitterness, unforgiveness, whatever it is, he wants us stuck there. This verse, that's how powerful it is. That's why I spent a whole sermon just on one verse. This verse gives you everything you need to come back at him and say, no, I've been crucified with Christ. And it's no longer I who live, it's Christ who lives in me. In the life I live now in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. You can throw that back out at him anytime you need. And it'll be a blessing in your life. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, we come before you. And we thank you for your grace to us.

God, we thank you for how it truly can change everything in our lives. It can change us. It can change those around us. It can change how we see those around us. It can change, Lord, everything. We thank you for that hope. We thank you for that promise. And we thank you that you accomplished it for us. We praise you. We give you all the glory and all the worship for who you are and what you've done. Lord, may we believe that as a church family. May we be the kind of community that people walk into and they feel that from us. This unexplainable, overwhelming peace and joy, no matter what's going on, because you love us. You love us. You love us. We ask in your name. Amen. Thanks again for listening to the word of God. We are blessed to reach you throughout the week through whatever platform you're listening on. If you're needing prayer or you want to talk to someone about your walk with Jesus, reach out to us at fellowshipar.com slash contact. Have a great week.