Law and Grace

We'll invite you to a special opportunity on December the 17th. We have a live recording at Long Hollow Church from six to eight p.m. We're gonna be giving away swag, bundles, get to see us in person, and we got a lot of fun things where you're gonna be able to participate in the recording itself. Will they be able to ask questions like Candy asked questions? They will. I have a question. There you go. That's right. They will be able to ask questions. That's a great question. Candy's gonna answer questions. We're gonna have fun. You're gonna meet the team. The whole team. Behind the scenes team. It's gonna be incredible. And we're gonna have a special insight from the text we're saving from Matthew chapter five, or actually Matthew chapter six. Oh, really? For our studio audience to hear. So looking forward to being with you December 17th of this year.

Make sure you come and be with us. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome to the Forgotten Jesus Podcast. I'm your host, Adam French, here with Robbie Gallaty and Candy Gallaty. Yes. So Candy just got back from Missouri, right? I did, yeah. It was Jackson, Missouri. Connection Point Church with Chris and Lisa Vaught. Shout out to our friends. Yes, it was so fun. Several podcast listeners, right, you said? Lots of them, yes. In Missouri. Lots of women came up. Can I call it? Mizzou. Mizzou. Oh, yeah, that is. Yeah, it was awesome. And so I invited all of them to our live recording that's coming up, and we had a great time. When is that?

When's the live recording? December the 17th. December the 17th. Here at Long Hollow Church. I love that, I love that. There we go, six to eight. Giving away shirts and hats, merch. We got some bundles, what do we call it? Swag bundles we're giving away. Swag bags. And it's new stuff, too. Brand new stuff. Nobody's seen it. Nobody has it or seen it. You gotta be in the building to get the free stuff. That's true. Side note here, but that's. Gotta be here. That's a day before our anniversary. Oh, don't forget. Let's go. Yes. Can we put that on your calendar? Yeah, no. Robert, make a note of that, please. No. Oh, hi. I knew it, I knew it. No, he's actually told me about it about a month ago. 22 years.

Everything's going on. No, 21 years. Big plans for you. 21 years. Now, Adam and I, Jeremy, had lunch with one of our podcast listeners last week. Who knew? Oh, really? That a faithful podcast listener was no other. Oh, I know who it is. No other than. Double J. Double J, Jeff Jarrett, the wrestler, Hall of Fame wrestler, who's a Long Hollow Church member. Love him. What we learned from that meeting the most was that Jeremy knows more about wrestling than I may know about the Bible. I mean, this guy, he was calling out names I've never knew. Like producers, cousins, cousin. Oh, that's so funny. He knew all the things. Jeff was impressed. Jeff looked over, he's like. He texted us later and said that Jeremy guy. That Jeremy guy, he knows his stuff. You remember the match, you and Hogan, or you and the under, or you and the Rock. He's like, yeah, how you knew that?

Yeah. Yeah, we were trying to impress Jeff. That's so funny. We couldn't, we couldn't. Couldn't impress, yeah, Jeremy took the cake. He actually said, next time we go on a lunch with me and Jeremy, you and I, I'm out, so. That's awesome. We had a good time, but no, he's a podcast listener as well. And by the way, if you could do us a favor, and I was listening to a podcast a while back, and the host up front said, hey, if you benefit from the podcast, do us a favor, like, share, and here's the big one. Jeff reminded us, subscribe. Oh yeah, money shot. Subscribe for us, please. A lot of you, most of the listeners, I think 80% don't subscribe, but they go 70% is the average on a podcast. They don't. Are you serious? And subscribe to our YouTube channel. What did you say? Robert, can we get a go, please? I said, we need a little basketball goal where we can shoot a money shot. Yes. Like, I would do that.

I just bought one. I would probably make it too, hon. Listen, we should put, look, we can put one right there and one right here, right? And then you can shoot either one. Yeah. So me and Robbie will just dunk ours, and then you take the shot. Ooh, okay. I want it right there. I don't want to get hit in the head, though. You'd have to watch it on YouTube to see it, but. That's right, that's what it is. Okay, last week we did, or the last few weeks, remember, we did a long journey through. Romans, right? The book of Irresistible, Andy Stanley. We used it as a launching pad, you know, sorry. But we're not, we don't have anything against Andy Stanley, other than we think he's wrong in the Old Testament, but other than that, you know, I mean, and probably off on some other things. But anyway, anyway, we used it as a launching pad for talking about what was Jesus' view of the Old Testament. And we talked about he didn't come to abolish, but to fulfill the law, remember? Yes, beautiful. And I think it's an episode that,

if you're just checking out or you're a new listener, you want to make sure you, I think it's two, right? Did we do two? I think we did four. Did we do four? Is that right, Chris? Yeah, make sure, Chris. I think we did four. It's always longer than. It's so rich. We always say we're going to take a detour, and then it's a long journey. Like, we're kind of like the Israelites. You go for six months, 40 years, you're there. We're sitting there. But it's really a foundation of everything that you do, and the reason why I think you're appreciated so much in just the Christian culture and Western culture when it comes to Christianity, because you're pointing people to the foundation of our faith. Everything that Jesus said comes from the Old Testament. Testament, and we just, the title of the book, I'm not trying to be funny, we've forgotten that. Yeah. Right. It's out of our pocket. We've forgotten that. And so those, those podcasts really lay a foundation for everyone. So I thought it was wonderful. I was excited the whole time. Yeah. And we love, and listen, the fact that you're listening and you tune in every week shows that you have a desire to learn and grow in your faith. I was reading the Bible this morning, I'll just tell you about this. And I started to make some connections between, I'm preparing for I'm preaching through Matthew on the genealogy of Rahab and Tamar and Bathsheba and Ruth. It's

coming out this week. But I started to think about these ladies and because, and the Lord just reminded me in real time, because I've read the Bible now for 22, 23 years as a Christian, November 12, 2002, which was what a week, five days ago, five days ago, 23 years ago, I accepted Christ. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. 23 years ago. And I've been reading the Bible every year since then. Right. And so what happens is now just by listening and studying the word, I'm able to make connections in the word because the word layers upon itself. It's almost like I took up, this is not going to be surprising anyone, but I took up graphite drawing. I'm drawing pictures of graphite. I showed you Stella likes to draw. I'm working on a real hyper-realistic drawing of candy. Not ready to release it yet, but coming. But here's the thing, in order to have depth, in order to have three-dimensional appearances of a piece of flat paper, you have to layer. And so it's a light, I don't know if you know this, but there are different levels of pencil. 4H is really hard, but it's light. 2H, HB, H, and then you get to softer pencils, harder color. 2B, 4B, 6B, 8B, 10B. So you get this range of color. So you start with the 4H, then you build it with the HB, then you do the 2B, and the same thing goes with the Bible. Every year you read the Bible, there's no wasted time. Every time you sign up or listen to our podcast, God is putting another layer to your Christian faith. And what happens is the more layers you have, the more depth you have to see through the word or in the word than somebody who doesn't have any layers or no time in the word. All right, let's get back to Candy. Can you quote Matthew 5, 17 through 20? Let's see if you got this, cold. 17 through 20. Do not think, or don't think. Don't think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets, for I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly, I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter, nor one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all things are accomplished. What verse is that? Now you just finished 18. Therefore, whoever. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For truly, I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter into the kingdom. Perfect. Okay, there she goes with the snap. We'll give her a money shot for that. I mean, that was cold turkey. Okay, do me a favor. Give me that, just a reminder. Chris had a question. You had a question. You said a lady came up with you. Chris talked, people were asking about our Harmony of the Gospels book. We hadn't promoted this in a

while. You hear us talk about this, but this Harmony of the Gospels book is one we use. It's the CSB, which is the Christian standard version, the version I use. I think we did a podcast on this a while back of different versions. Robert, Chris, link that if you want to know why we use version we do and why versions are different. But this is a way, this is how interpreters, translators have put together a chronological order of the events of the life of Jesus in real time as they unfold. Now, you're probably, oh, I didn't mean to do that. Sorry, I didn't mean to do that. That's for the book. That was an accident. I'm sorry. I didn't want too much. No, maybe the book did itself. But the point of doing this is this. I know what you're saying. Some Bible scholars are saying, but that's not how they were written. They weren't written for chronological. I get that. But there's a way to study the Bible as Jesus unfolds his ministry, when Jesus selects disciples, when Jesus reveals his, all that's important. And you miss that if you don't know chronologically in order of what's happening. And so the only Bible gospel that says they're going to attempt to do that in a chronological successive order is which one? Anybody know? Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, which one says I'm going to be Luke. Luke, Luke's the only one who says I'm going to attempt Theophilus to do that. So what we have here is a great way to follow up. We use this all the time. Candy was at an event recently. A girl walked up to her with this CSV. Yeah. Harmony of the Gospels and said, Candy, can you what? Can you sign it for me? But how can you sign it? I have a question. Sign it with, I have a So one of the shirts that's going to be here that you have to be at the event on December 17th to get is new shirts that say, I have a question. I'm excited about that one. Vivian will be wearing that one. Vivian, you get to choose a couple, but Vivian's gonna go with that one, I think, to wear. Okay, let's talk about, just for recap now, we talked about how Jesus says, I did not come to abolish the law. So what does the word abolish mean? We talked about this a couple weeks ago.

Abolish is another word for... Chris, can you help? Talking to the mic, Chris, you know it. Chris, what do we have? Chris, you got this written down? Abolish means to do away with, right? To do away with. Okay, to do away with. Jeremy? Destroy. Destroy. Replace. Replace, yeah. Replace can be one. Misinterpret or set aside, okay? That's what it means. Misinterpret's the key word. But destroy, nullify, it means nothing. I don't need it, I'm done with it. It got me here, it doesn't get me there, okay? The word fulfill, you have to define the terms to understand, and you have to define the terms in the context back then. The word fulfill means to what? To interpret. I'm not gonna cheat. Okay, you're gonna cheat. Is it to interpret correctly? Okay, that. That's what you said last week, right?

That's exactly what it means, but that's the punchline. Most people think... Honey, it's a miracle, I remembered that. That is pretty good. So fulfill means to interpret correctly, but it also means to complete the design of something. So the illustration I used was the Old Testament, if you remember, was a pencil sketch drawing, whereas the New Testament would be Jesus coming to paint by number and fill in with color, make it three-dimensional. Think of the Old Testament as black and white, as kind of a grainy picture of the Messiah. Jesus comes and fills it full with color, and it's high-def, 4K, larger-than-life LED. So that's kind of... So what does that mean? You don't get away of the pencil drawing, get rid of the pencil drawing. You don't get rid of the sketch from the Old Testament. You have to have the sketch to draw the picture. Right, well, it's kind of like if you really do a paint by number, or like a color by number. You know how we used to do it when we were kids? And you have the whole entire outline, even the numbers are in the outline, so that's how you know what to color. So that's what the Old Testament is. That's a good point.

And when you put... That's a good one. Jesus comes in, you know, and it literally brings the color to life on the sketch. Well, look at that. Yeah, you take it even deeper. So when you take your paint and you paint over that little section that says number three red, you paint over it with red, you don't see the three anymore, but the three's still there because it's under the paint. And you're filling it in. So it doesn't go away, you just fill it in. That's a great illustration. Fill it in, like fulfill, you know? That's good. Well, even to bring it home. Got it, that's me. You said this yesterday. Somebody said they like our buttons, by the way, Sunday morning. Yeah, no, there was some people that came up to us. You said this yesterday from the stage. So you can even make it like from a biblical perspective. You said grace never expects less from the law. It always expects what? So like you're saying, it's adding more to the picture. Jesus is adding more. When you do like biblical principles by biblical principles.

You know, I've been sending grace a lot. That was a powerful statement, by the way. Yeah, thank you. People behind me was like, what did he say? I'm passing around my notes. Like, just read it. Well, let me tell you. Total side note here. You should totally create a picture that we can do by the color by number for people. How fun would that be? You know, that's how we pay in the kids area. When it first was built, somebody outlined it. There was outlines. I was telling Stella this last week. I was like, me and your mom pay on the same. But like something for the Forgotten Jesus listeners. Or I met a teenager who listens. Forgotten Jesus, paint by number podcast picture. That would be so cool. Gotta get them on December 17th. No, I'm just kidding. That is not gonna be ready by then. No, let me just tell you. Work in progress. This is a sidebar. I don't wanna spend too much time, but I will tell you this. I've been studying intensely recently the word grace from an ancient perspective. And this guy has gotten a lot of criticism

and you could say what you want. I think he's right on this. His name is Matthew Bates. And some people push back on him because they're critical of him. I've studied this guy. He's read a couple of books by him. I think he's right on this. The book he's writing is, the book he wrote is called Gospel by Allegiance Alone. Gospel by Allegiance Alone. Here's what he's saying. I think that's the name of the book. Fact check that, Robert. Gospel by, Matthew Bates. Here's what he said. He's a New Testament theologian and he's a teacher, professor. And he says we have misunderstood what the word grace means because we think, and partly right, we're partly right. We think that, and I'm priestess, right? Like if I give Chris grace, meaning I, we don't use for, I give him $100 bill and Chris says I didn't deserve it, didn't earn it. That's grace, okay? So we think grace is I give, there's no strings attached. But he said there's not. In the ancient world, this will frame everything different for you, right? Especially when it comes to salvation.

What he says is grace always has three parts to the giving of grace. There's always three things that have to happen when something is given as a grace gift. Number one is this, there has to be an offering of the gift from the person to the recipient. So that's one. No strings attached, you gotta give it to them. Number two is there has to be a receiving of the person of the gift or the thing or the possession. So you have to have giving and receiving. And then number three is, watch this, there is a reciprocity that is anticipated for the gift that was given. Now this is crazy. Watch, because here's what he's saying. He's saying, and you know this because this is how God created us. Are you saying like a thank you or are you thinking like actually something tangible? Well, it could be. Okay, watch this, watch how it works. And you're gonna see this in the Bible, it's gonna make sense. And I've been reading the Bible differently. I haven't talked about this a lot, so you're the first to hear about it. Thankfully, we don't have a ton of listeners, so if I'm a heretic on this, you don't have. Hon.

I'm playing, I don't think I'm heretical on this. Because this is what the ancient word meant, okay? What I mean is this, if you, for example, if I free you as a slave, let's just use slavery, and you get out of slavery, you feel like you owe the person who freed, he's not asking for that. You see, it's not that you, it's not that the person given the grace gift demands this, but there is a built-in mindset of, man, I need to return the favor, and I need to do something in response for you, right? Like an honor, reverence, right? As an honor, as an act of appreciation. Think of it this way. For by grace you've been saved through faith. This is not of your own doing, it's the gift of God and not a result of works. He's saying, you didn't earn this, okay? So it's not that you will work for it, however, when you're saved, you are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that you should walk in Him. That's the reciprocity part. So we miss, see, we're battling, is it grace or is it works? And it's both, because to understand grace fully, that's what Paul says, you've been saved by grace apart from works, but then James says, or Peter says,

those who are, or John, I think it's, those who endure to the end will be saved. Well, that sounds like works. No, it is a reciprocity thing, because if God saves me, I'm gonna wanna respond to that. If God saves me, I'm not gonna fall into idolatry. So it's not that it's demanded, like you gotta do this, that would be law. Grace is, if I help you, then I feel like I should return the favor to you. So as a Christian, when God gives grace through salvation, the natural response of a person who's truly been born again through salvation is, you're gonna serve the rest of your life, Jesus, period. Why would you not? We minimize that, and I hate to say it, but in a sense, the reformed crowd is like, any sniff test of grace, I mean, of works, they're like, ah, that's works, it's not justification by faith. Okay, I get that. We don't earn it, but once we've received it, we will respond to it. A lot of people leave the respond to, but am I making sense? The respond to part is what I'm getting to. I think Ellen said it. It's a heart posture, like if you're grateful for something,

I mean, we are grateful for the salvation that God has given us. How can you not help but do godly things? Totally. Like, do you see what I'm saying? For someone who you say is reformed, who doesn't think works are a part of it, then how do you live your life? What do you do every day all day? Because you have to be doing something that is in response to you being grateful for what God has done. You tithe, do you worship? Do you give to the poor? What do you do? That's a work. In response to the grace gift. Right, I was gonna say it the same way that she said, just say, I think the fruit of the receiver is the third thing. Yeah, that's good. It's the fruit of the receiver. Yes. Like, it's like when Paul talks about the grace of God compels me. Yeah, that's good. Like, we've talked about all the things that you've done in your ministry when maybe people that have not

hand or stewarded ministry right, and you said, you've always taught me, hey, I'm gonna be overly gracious. I'm gonna be overly kind because God's been so gracious to me. So it's a fruit of receiving. If you truly received it, like if you ever, we all have like grandmas, right? I mean, you've got a present and you're like, thanks. Yeah, socks again, wow. You're like, you made that. I can tell. That's a great, my mom made it. My mom made it. But when you talk about the grace of God, something that we know we don't deserve, then the fruit of that is like what you're talking about. So I would stand with you on that. I think it's biblical. Here's what Dallas Willard said, which I love this line. It bothers some people. I love this line. He says, grace is always against earning, never against effort. I love that line. I love that line too.

Always against earning, never against effort. effort. Right, because we're not doing it to get something. Right, that's the difference. We're already doing it because we've already gotten something. Let's get back to our text, because here's the, what happens if you fall into one of two pitfalls if you get off the middle road. On the one side of this you have legalism, on the other side of this you have liberty. Okay, so you have a legalism and liberty. Which produces bitterness. Legalism produces bitterness and anger. Okay, from someone who knows about legalism, Adam, tell us what legalism is about. Who grew up in a legalistic system where you had to follow every law. Yeah, I mean, I got saved when I was 21 years old, right, and it was a fundamental independent Baptist Church. And I went to Bible College and when I arrived on campus to my dreams in California to play basketball. Me and Robbie's story is so similar. When I got there they handed me a rule book and it was 372 rules, I think. And I was standing in line, I'm not kidding, I'm standing in line to register and a guy walks up and rubs his hand on my face. I've only been saved for three years, so you can imagine how my first response was, I won't tell that. But my second response was, well he said, you need to go shave because if you have hair on your face you're hiding sin. So what I, this is my. You got a lot of sin today. I'll tell you, right, Robbie, he's been sinning for 20 years. I'm a sin for man, man, golly. So my interpretation was, is you have scripture. Wow. But what the Pharisees did, this is the whole point of the oral law, they added to the scripture so they could look down on others. That's what we talked about, this conceit. I want to be what? I want to be richer. It's not that I'm rich, I want to be richer. It's not that I'm good, I want to be good or, you know, like, or it's not that I'm smart, I want to be smarter. It's not that I'm following God, I want to be following God better than you so I can look down. So that's what my interpretations of legalism is. Let me add to, not because I actually want to be closer to God, because I want to look across at the other church and say, we do this and you don't. Right. And this is why we're better or we're closer. Riches, Matthew 7, don't judge so that you won't be judged. It's like, because you will be, you know, you will be judged by the

same standard with which you judge others or you will be measured by the same measure you use. Let me ask you a question. Okay. Wow, she's asking you a question now. I'm not ready for this. Keep going, here we go. The guy who said to you that you had to shave because if you had hair on your face you were hiding sins, what would he tell a girl who had not shaved her legs in a couple days? I can go find him. I mean, I'm not sure. Because that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life. You couldn't see girls legs. It was a rule, two inches below your knee, so nothing can be two inches below your knee. Guys and girls had to be, what was it, three feet apart. You couldn't hold hands, couldn't touch anything. So, couldn't watch TV, couldn't go to the movie theater, yeah. That's why the three years I was in Baba College, I have no idea what happened in sports or movies, like those years were just gone. Because you were like, wow. Yeah, well, and you said earlier, the difference between, we were talking about this the other day, we were playing disco, me and Big Jerm, we were talking about there's a difference between being confident and conceited, okay. Confidence is someone who is put together but not deceived by themselves. So, they are put together, meaning they're pretty confident about what they have, but they're not deceived by who they are. A conceited person is a person who's put together but deceived by who they are, meaning they have blind spots and they don't know who they really are, right. So, they don't look in the mirror to get better. They use the Bible not as a mirror for their own soul, but as you call it, what do you say, a battering ram or a baseball bat to other people's hearts, right. Well, C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, he said conceit is, he says it's, what does he say, he's talking about glory, he said it's empty glory, right. So, you're trying to get glory for yourself, which Jesus taught us says what, there's no, like you're getting treasures here on earth, there's no, we don't glorify in ourselves, we can only glorify the Creator. Totally. So, conceit is, like I said, I'm better than, I gotta be richer, better than you because I'm trying to get empty glory. That's why you have people that they end their lives saying, man, I wish I spent more time with them. Nobody ever says, I spent too much time with my family. I read the Bible too much. I spent too much time reading the Bible. I gave too much money away to charity. Yeah. Nobody says that. I wish I would have spent more time at the office. I never heard anybody say that.

Right. Well, and here's the thing about legalistic people because legalism is this idea where you're earning something and you get conceit is, think about this, I heard someone say this recently, never judge someone who sins differently than you do. Never judge someone who sins differently. See, we have a problem. It's hard though, isn't it? Oh, it's very hard. We were talking about this with somebody earlier about speeding and stuff, right? We're like, why didn't you do that, right? Like, it's so easy to do that, we wanna compare. I look at my phone all day while driving, but I'm not speeding, so you think you're better. It's always a sin of comparison, you think about this. Dude, that's exactly what C.S. Lewis says. He says that pride, he says pride, if you take away comparison, you can't have conceit. Because it's not that we all, like if everybody made a million dollars, we could not say, I'm not, where's the pride in that? You could not go around and say, oh, we're all millionaires. I mean, it's about that I have to have some, I have to compare, oh, I'm taller, I'm richer, I'm better. He talks about that in chapter, I think it's eight or nine, when he's talking about pride. He says that comparison is the root of pride and conceit. I tell my boys this all the time. We literally went over this last week. I said, you gotta understand, and again, this is how I teach our boys, the only people you're gonna be able to rely on the rest of your life are in this house, I said.

This is what I told my boy. I said, I got some good friends, Adam, I even mentioned Jeremy. I said, these are like brothers to me. I said, but at the end of the day, and you may have good friends too, but at the end of the day, I said, the only people you really can rely on when you're in jail or prison or life falls apart or you're in the dumps is this group right here. I said, you gotta understand how friends are. Your friends want you to succeed as long as it's not more than they do. It's tough. I don't have friends like that. I said, well, you have good friends, but the reality is at the end of the day, your friends want you to succeed, it's not more than they do. And what I'm getting at is it's a pride thing. We all struggle with that as well. This guy baptizes more than we do. This guy has a bigger podcast than we do. This person has better curriculum than we do. This guy has a bigger church or more salvations or this guy makes more money. This guy has a nicer car. This person got more votes on The Voice. I mean, whatever it is, we think, you know, I'm gonna let that out.

By the way, I don't know if people know this. Can we say this now? I think we can say this, huh? I think we can say it. Do y'all know, I don't know if y'all know this, but Chris Clapp is married to Miss Emily Clapp from Deck of Hearts. She was on The Voice. Still on The Voice and we need your votes. We still need your votes. Where's she at right now, Chris? What is the? She's either here in Nashville or LA. She's on The Voice. They're here in Tennessee. They're here in Tennessee. But I mean, how many people's left? How many people's left? But when this airs, when this airs, they're gonna be down, hopefully down to the wire if they still make it, but they're gonna be down. Deck of Hearts, Deck of Hearts, just remember. That's right, Deck of Hearts. That's the name. We need your votes. So awesome. We need your votes. We need your voice. We need your votes, yes. We don't need your voice.

She's got the voice. She's got the voice. Yeah, yeah. Okay, what, Candy? You got something? Well, yeah, this verse is what came to my mind, which context you would have to help me out on, but this is what came to my mind when we were talking about this, because I memorized it years ago, but 2 Corinthians 10, 12, where it says, for we don't dare classify or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves, but in measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves to themselves, they lack understanding. We used to have that memorized, by the way. That's so good. We both of us had, that's one of our memory verses for the original F-260. It's a hard one. It may be in our- It's the original F-260. It's in the Old Testament portion of Scripture for Memory, because- 2 Timothy what? No, it's 1 Corinthians 10, 12. It's in the Old Testament portion as we're reading through. It's one of the options, I believe,

because if you think about Leah and Rachel and all the comparison that was going on back then, I think we had slated it in there to memorize during that time period. I love it. But it's so good, not to classify or compare ourselves. That's a hard thing to do, and we all fall into that, where we can cross the line of being judgmental of others, or I feel like even judging ourselves sometimes too harshly, because we're comparing ourselves and we don't feel like we measure up or whatever. And so I think we have to really balance that. That's good. I think the only way to live, so you guys can push back on this. So there are sins that we struggle with, right, based on our personality. We're slanted to struggle with certain things. I think the only way to live in victory from this, because you can't be completely free from it, but you can live in victory from it. And what I mean by that is consistent confession. So we see this, especially with men in our positions and things like that, there's going to be ego, there's going to be pride, there's going to be stuff come up. We're going to have those thoughts. Like, oh, if I may have a thought, oh, Robbie does this or Robbie does that. Well, how do I not allow that root, that thought, and you've seen this with people in your life before,

come be bitter in my heart. How do I make sure I'm not comparing myself to you? Well, those thoughts are, they're going to come. Somebody out here listening may have this about a friend, a brother, a cousin, whatever. But the way that we stay free from that is consistent confession and accountability. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that like. Like we can't necessarily, unless we just become a monk, like unless we, like if we want to live in the real world, we're going to face sin and those thoughts are going to come but we have to get down on our knees, consistently confess that and have a brother that says, hey, I thought this other day or I've been thinking through this. I wrote this in my journal. Can you make, can you ask me about this? Or can you make sure? I don't want that to be a part of my life. I don't want this to be in my friendship. That's the only way we can stay close to our brothers. Unless we're, I think any healthy relationship. If I'm not consistently confessing sin, Josie and I are going to be like cats and dogs. I mean, it's going to be, because it's, Henry Beaver used to say this. He said, living in a marriage relationship is you got two prickly people. You're both prickly. It's like, you got to make sure that you,

when you come, you have your gloves on and you treat each other. You know, hurt with the prickles. Yeah, because you got prickles. They got, I mean, we're broken people. The only way to do that is if you're consistently confessing sin, having accountability. Well, when the Bible says, confess your sins one to another, we always think that just means speak and move on. No, confession implies accountability because the only way, you will never be the person God's called you to be unless you're living in an accountable relationship with someone else. Here's what accountability is. Some people think accountability means, did you read your Bible today? Did you memorize your script? Like a negative overbearing principles out to get you. Here's what accountability really means from the Bible. It's very simple. Accountability is you hold me responsible for what I tell you I want to do. That's all it is. So if I tell you I want to be a better husband, which I have before, then you're asking me, are you in candy on regular date nights? Are you investing in your family? Are you, you know, investing in your rights?

If I tell you I want to be in the word till the word gets into me, then when I read you, you're asking, when I meet you, you're saying, hey, are you in the word? Are you memorizing? Accountability is just holding me responsible for what I said I'm going to do. And here's the thing about the law. So we're gonna try to tie this up with the loose end. I have one more thing about that. Okay. You want me to say it after you? Is it a sidetrack? What you just said was powerful though. It's hard to move on, but I'm ready. Because men need to hear that. I will say this. I think so many men are struggling because they don't have people holding them to the law. And they don't, like you said, confess. I think the confession is such a huge part of this. And I heard once someone say, instead of comparing yourself with someone or like feeling negative about yourself when you see that someone does something better than you or faster than you or whatever it might be, that instead of doing that, be inspired by that person instead. So instead of looking at that person,

which is, this is not necessarily a biblical principle. It might be more of a self-help thing. I don't know. Yours with confession is biblical. But this is like, hey, when you look at someone and you see that they are stronger in a certain area, they're doing something better than you, let it inspire you to become better or to try harder, whatever it might be, instead of, man, I don't like this person because they're better than me, or making it feel like it's a bad thing. Do you see what I'm saying? And making you feel worse, be inspired by it and then keep moving forward. Well, yeah, I'd say one more thing, because I wasn't gonna say this, but you said this, so I'll say this. But here's the thing. If you read further in 2 Corinthians 11, he tells you a secret here about how to do this. But the difference is, and this is what's helped me, because I'm still a work in progress, but I mentioned on the porch, this just brought to mind. Here's what helps me. The Lord reminded me, if a guy's pastoring a church, and I don't know his heart, you could say, well, he's not a real pastor. If he's pastoring a church and he's preaching the word,

he's on the same team. Now, he may have a different pass play scheme as you. He may have a different offense as you. He may throw the ball to you. That's okay, but he's on the team, meaning he's wearing the same uniform, okay? So if he's on the team and it's Jesus' team, not my team, then I have two options when he wins, or when he succeeds, or when he's effective. We can either celebrate or negate. You can either negate it and say, oh man, why is he doing this? He's got the wrong heart. Or you can celebrate it and say, go God. Not him, go God. Because the reality is, everything we have, every good and every perfect gift comes from the Father above. So the fact that you can speak in public and everybody can't, I say go God. Like with our kids. Rig, you're good at speaking. Ryder's good at something, you know, athletics. But you know, both are good at different things. Rig, you're good at musical instruments. Ryder's good at drawing. I don't say, well, you can't draw, Rig, you're not. No, I celebrate what you do, because we're on team galady. Just like you.

Okay, now here's what the verse says. It says, verse 14, 2 Corinthians 11, 14. For we are not overextending ourselves as if we have reached you since we have come to you with the gospel of Christ. Meaning, I'm not trying to make more of myself. Look at me, because I brought the gospel to you. Verse 15, we are not boasting, here it is, beyond measure about other people's labor. On the contrary, here's the line, we have the heart of God. Hope that as your faith increases, our area of ministry will be greatly enlarged. Here's what he's saying. Preached the whole sermon on this, called, I think to our staff or the church, a priest called the Grace Race. Did I preach that? That was at the Replicate Conference. Yeah, I didn't speak this to the staff. I remember that, that was true, yeah. I don't know if it's online. Preached the Grace Race, and here's what it is. When you understand everything you have is from grace to grace. It begins with grace, it ends with grace, and you don't have anything to do with it. Then you realize that the reason you're pastoring a church of 200, or the reason you're leading a ministry of 2,000,

or the reason you have a sales force of two, or you have a sales force of 200, is not because the guy down the road is better than you, it's because God has given you the grace for the assignment he's called you to. And here's the thing, as a pastor, ministry leader, listen to me. At the end of your life, aren't you glad God is not gonna judge the effectiveness and the success of your ministry based on the size of the buildings, the depth of the finances, or the scope of the ministry? He's going to judge your effectiveness based on your faithfulness to the task at hand. Amen. Period. That's powerful. He's not gonna go to me and say, oh, I gave you all these people, you were better than brother so-and-so, a pastor at a smaller church. No, he's not gonna say that at all. In fact, the larger the ministry, the more responsibility, the more dependence you need on God, because you have more people to navigate. So, I just wanna encourage somebody out there who's been in the comparison game. You're thinking, man, why don't I pastor a quote, big church, or why don't I have a nationwide ministry? Listen, maybe God's seeing if he can trust you right now

when no one's looking, before he can entrust you with more when everybody's looking. That's good. Or maybe the measure of grace that's given to you has nothing to do with that in his plan. Totally. One of the prayers that I've been praying, I just heard this from a lady one time, she was speaking, or about a month ago, and she said, I pray this every morning. She had 42 years sober. She said, I pray this prayer every morning. And I was listening to her when she said she had 42 years. She said, I pray, Lord, help me to accept your will for me today. Accept your will. She said, that's how I start my day every morning, is I wanna accept what you have for me. That's a good way to frame the day, huh? Wow, that's good. I've been praying that lately a lot, because it's like, hey, God says, so if we believe what scripture says, that we are co-laborers, right? He's called us to a work. He deploys his troops. It's heaven's game plan on earth. We just get to join him at work. If we believe that, right? Then it's all him.

It's him, it's his plan, his field, his work, his grace, his energy, his strength. That's good. So why would we, we shouldn't be thinking about each other's, we should be saying, oh God, Kenny, God lets you speak loud. That's what he told you to do. Robbie, oh, you got, that's what God, well, this is what God's doing for me. God's got recovery. Hey, like it doesn't even matter, because it's God's game plan. We're just saying that's where we get to be a part of it. It's kinda like, it's got me thinking of military, like if you're in a battle, the cadet never goes to the commander and says, no, I don't wanna go on the front line. I wanna go, I don't wanna take the supplies to the guy. No, you just do the job, because you know we're all on the same team, and everybody has a job. As significant or insignificant in your mind, because we're all fighting a common enemy toward a common goal with one commander in chief. All right, here's what Jesus is saying, and I'll sum it up, and we'll be done, because we're over, maybe over time. But therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same,

will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. So what happens is, there is this principle. I think it's called, the rabbis called it, I think it was Valcomer, I don't know for sure. Don't hold me on that. I didn't look it up before. But basically, there was this principle that the rabbis taught, they called it light to heavy commandments. Meaning, I'll give you an example. The rabbis looked at the Old Testament, at the 613 Old Testament commandments, and they divided them up into positive and negative. Pop quiz, Vivian, I know you like these. How many positive commandments are in the Old Testament, versus how many negative commandments? You've never heard this before, by the way, Ben. So let's divide it up. How many positive versus how many negative? And it's easy to remember. Give me an example of positive versus negative. Like, what's considered positive? A negative would be, yes, do not, honor your mother and father positive. Do not carry off the mother bird together with her young, would be negative. Well, I'm gonna make a stab at it. I'm gonna say there's way more negative than there are positive. Really?

There's more do not, you think? You think there's more do not, okay. Who's going more negative than positive? Candy's going more negative, that's interesting. Vivian, more negative than positive. Robert, you going more positive than negative? Positive than negative, Chris? We only see the negative, the positive. Chris is, that's good. Chris thinks it's less than you think. Adam, positive or negative? Hey, I'm a grace guy. I'm going positive. Going positive or negative? Jeremy? Positive. Okay. Candy and Vivian? being a right. Wow, damn, let's go. All right, now okay, there are 200, this is how I remember it, it's pretty easy to remember this. There are 365 days of the year, 365 negative commands and 248 positive for a total of 613. Okay, that's an interesting insight right there. Now watch this, the leaders of Israel, the rabbis, carried on debates about which commandments were, so they're always doing this. Okay, so we got positive and negative, which ones are heavy and light commandments?

Interesting, which ones are heavier and which ones are lighter? Like for example, do not worship idols, pretty heavy. Yeah, right. Do not murder, pretty heavy. Do not boil a goat in its mother's milk, pretty light, right, that was one too. You shall not carry off the mother bird with its baby together, that's pretty light. Okay, so Jesus clarifies in the Bible for a lawyer when he says, what is the greatest, remember this, the greatest command of the Bible? He's not asking great like we think, great. He's asking, what is the heaviest command in the Bible? And what does Jesus say? The heaviest one of all of them, meaning it has a lot of weight to it. And it loved the Lord your God with all your heart. All your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. And Jesus says, you wanna go with the second command, which is love your what? Neighbor as yourself. Now let me just clarify here, that doesn't mean the other commandments, some people have said, well Jesus just said, there's only two. That doesn't mean the rest of them are nonexistent or nullified. That's not what he's saying. What he's saying is, this is what he's saying.

If you keep these two, you won't break any of the other 611 commandments. Yeah. Wow. That's what he's saying. It's like the layer picture you're saying. That's what he's saying. These two things touch the whole picture. Yes, these two things touch the whole picture. So Jesus is saying right away, if Jesus was against the law, some people say anti-gnomianism. This is a technical word. Anti is against, gnomianism, gnomos is law. So against the law. If Jesus, there's a big movement out there like this. These are guys that say, we're free in Christ, under grace, we don't have the law, that old nasty dirty law. I'm free in Jesus, I can drink a mixed drink, a Budweiser beer for the glory of God. Well, I mean, yes, you're free to do that, but Jesus doesn't negate drunkenness. Jesus doesn't negate sin. Or I'm free, I don't have to do anything in the Old Testament because I'm free. No, no, that's not biblical. In fact, Paul supports Jesus's elevation of the law over and over. I'll give you a bunch of scriptures.

Romans 7, 12, the law is holy. We read some of these before. And the commandment is righteous and good. Romans 7, 14, for we know that the law is spiritual. I'm a flesh, so to understand. Romans 3, 31, do not overthrow the law by faith, by no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. So one of the things we have to realize is the way you view the law determines how you respond to the law. If you view the law as a restriction of your happiness, then you're gonna look at it as a bad thing. But if you look at the law as an expression of the love of God for humanity as a good thing, then you will respond accordingly. The story I love, and I've told this years ago, but not in the podcast, but in a sermon. F.B. Meyer and C.T. Studd. I've told the story of F.B. Meyer watching C.T. Studd preach about going to the nations with the gospel. But there was another story of the two of them together. F.B. Meyer is a theologian. C.T. Studd was a cricket player who went to be a missionary. It would be like LeBron James at the height of his career walking away from basketball and going to China to share the gospel in anonymity. Never hear from him again. Who's LeBron James? Exactly.

I'm just kidding. Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan, sorry. Thank you, thank you. Okay, so F.B. Meyer and C.T. Studd were rooming together. And one morning, Meyer woke up early in the morning. He couldn't sleep and he found a candle lit in the room and he looked over and Studd was reading his Bible under the flickering light. Under the flickering light. And he looks over and he says, Charles, how long have you been up? What are you doing? And Charles says, oh, I've been up since four o'clock. And he said, doing what? And Studd said, I have been going through the New Testament checking off the commandments that I have kept and noting the commandments I have broken. And my heart is ashamed. No wonder we still talk about the man, C.T. Studd to this day. Why? He didn't look at the commands as a restriction. He looked at it as an opportunity to respond in grace to the grace that God had given him. It reminds me of the old hymn back in the day, trust and obey for there's no other way. Vivian, you know this one, but to what? Be happy in Jesus, but to trust. and obey. Now, I will say we're going to get to a verse, I don't want to ruin it right now,

but we are going to get to a verse in the Sermon on the Mount. There's two verses that bother people in the Sermon on the Mount. Number one is this, be perfect. Matthew 5 to 48. We're going to tackle that one soon. And the second one is, unless your, 633, unless your righteousness surpasses what? That of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not what? That's the one we just read. Inherit the kingdom of God. That's not 633. I mean, that's 520, sorry. Yeah, I was going to say 633 is seek first. All right, I'm saying. Did you say 633? Yeah, you said 633. So, unless your righteousness surpasses, that's the one I meant. Yeah, 520. No, I said be perfect. What is be perfect? Be perfect is in six. As your heavenly, oh, that's 48. Be perfect is heavenly. I gave the wrong reference. The other one's 520. Matthew 520, we're getting to that one. That'll be next. That'll be next week. Be perfect. I mean, unless your righteousness surpasses the scribes and Pharisees, you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. Is that on the end of this? That's on 5, that's 520, right? That's 520, that's next. We read that today. We read that today. So, let me just tell you what he means quickly before. Should we hang? Let's say let's leave it as a cliffhanger. Let's say cliffhanger. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to study it yourself. And here's the thing you're going to find out. It is not what you've taught your whole life. It's very confusing. I will say this because we think scribes and Pharisees, because right away we think, and I heard guys say this, and I think I used to. Jesus doesn't mean that. He actually just says that because you can't do it so you can trust in him. I've heard this over and over. Or really, who's going to be better than the scribes and Pharisees? That's like saying you have to be better than Billy Graham and see, you know, Charles Spurgeon. Who can do that? So, why even try? The question is, what do you think it is? So, we ask you a question. What do you think it means? Next week, Adam, on the podcast. On the podcast. Listen, before we go, remember, December the 17th. Yes. You can drive in for a live. A couple of things I want to mention. It's a Wednesday night. It's a Wednesday night. So, there will be food trucks, Legacy Coffee. We've already said it's going to extend that night so you'll be able to get coffee. We have a park. We'll have child care, I think, because student ministry is still going or no? I don't think so. We don't know yet. So, we'll let you know coming forward. But just so you know, there will be

food trucks coming out. There will be a place to get coffee, December 17th. Please like, comment, subscribe, if you can, please, and share. Let's go. Thank you so much for joining us and learning about the forgotten Jesus.