The Good News Of Grace | Jud Wilhite

Thank you so much for worshiping with us for today. - Yes, guys, it was just so, so amazing. I wanna give a big shout out to all the men and women watching with our partnership with God Behind Bars. Can we clap it up for them? We love you guys, and we are just so grateful that you get to be at church with us. Well, if you wanna follow along with the teaching notes, you can find all of that in our Central Church app. Let's welcome out Pastor Judd as we kick off a new series. Thank God I'm free. - All right. All right, all right, welcome everybody. Wanna say a big shout out and a special welcome to our Central Summerland and Aleante Kingman and Sunrise Mountain locations. Let's give it up for them. Good to have you guys here with us today. So I am sure across our locations today, we have some collectors, at least collectors of something, right? Some of you collect shoes. You know what I'm talking about. Got a whole class of all issues. Some of you, maybe it's sports memorabilia. Maybe it's Pokemon cards, I don't know. But for me, the one thing I have a lot of, vinyl records. And I guess you could say I'm kind of a collector. Now, I'm a cassette kid. I was raised in the cassette era, right?

And then CDs. So vinyl was kind of a little bit before me, but my sister had vinyl records. And I remember messing around with it a little bit. But then later in life, maybe about 15 years ago, I really started getting into vinyl. There's something I love about, well, first of all, I love jazz music. And so I'm a total nerd like that. And you wanna like see all the musicians, right? Which you can't always get just on a streaming service. You wanna know who played the drums. You wanna know where it was recorded. What year was it recorded in? You wanna know the backstory. You wanna read the stuff. You know what I mean? On the album, you wanna get the whole dinks. And so to do that, you gotta get records. And so it's a whole experience. You sit down and you actually like intentionally listen. It's not just background music. You're like focused. You're listening. You listen to the songs in the order. They were originally laid out. Anyway, I love it. And you know, if you ask me, like my records are super valuable. Super valuable.

Now, I'm not actually valuable because I don't have any like special pressings or first editions or just normal records, but to me, they're valuable because I love them. And I always say to myself, I need to get more of them so that I can one day bless my kids when I die with all of these records. How exciting, how awesome would that be for them? They could deal with all of these records. My wife's always like, no more records. The kids do not care. Nobody wants to listen to your old man music, Judd. Like, no more records. You know, it's bad when like the male guy who drops off the mail says to me like, oh yeah, you're like the record house. I'm like, I get out of here, man, leave me alone. Anyway, the truth is like my records aren't valuable. They're only valuable to the extent that I love them. And because I love them, that gives them their value. They're really gonna be a hassle for my kids one day. And I think this is important to remember 'cause I think sometimes we kind of get it mixed up when it comes to ourselves and to other people. I think it's easy for us to sort of see things like this slide right here, that value equals love. Like if I'm valuable enough, if I'm smart enough, if I'm handsome enough, if I'm pretty enough, if I'm talented enough, then people will love me

and will respect me. If I'm successful enough, like if I bring enough value, then I will be loved. But the truth about God is this. He flips the script on us. And basically what God teaches us in our relationship with him is that he loves us and that's what makes us valuable. (congregation applauding) Look, some of us may feel like an old record. You know what I'm talking about? Little dinged up, got some scratches every now and then a little hiccup, you know, when it goes around. Little pops, you know, anybody feel that? But here's the good news, like God loves us anyway. He loves us in spite of ourselves. His love is what gives us value. And his love is unearned and unmerited. And when we place our faith and trust in Christ, we not only experience his love, we experience his forgiveness, his grace, the gifts that he has for us in our life. And we begin a spiritual journey. You have value because God loves you. And over the next several weeks, I wanna look with you at an amazing book in the New Testament called The Book of Galatians. It's really the Book of Freedom, Spiritual Freedom. And we're gonna go into a series called Thank God, I'm Free. We're gonna look at what it means to receive God's grace, to live in God's grace, to share God's grace with others

and really be transformed by the grace of God. And let me just kind of set it up here. Paul is writing to a group of churches in the area of Galatia. It's like modern day, this would be modern day like central Turkey. And this group of churches, they were followers of Jesus. Many of them were not Jewish individuals. They would be seen as Gentiles, but they had become followers of Jesus. But a group of people had come into their faith community that were known as Judaizers. And these people were saying to these non-Jewish people, hey, it's great that you believe in Jesus. Jesus saves you, but now you need to complete your salvation. You need to follow all of the Jewish holidays. You need to follow all of the principles and practices of the Old Testament law. You need to be circumcised as an adult. Hello. Like, you need to go back and you need to follow the calendar, the Sabbath on Saturday, all the dietary laws, all the purity laws. You need to follow all of these things to complete your salvation. And so here's what Paul says in Galatians chapter one, we're getting in verse six. Help me out when we get to the red words here. Say them real loud here with me. Paul says, I am shocked that you are what?

- Turning. - Turning, oh, now these are people that believe in Jesus. But he's like, I'm shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ. That word shocked literally means bewildered. Paul's like, it doesn't make sense to me. Why are you trading the mercy of God for personal merit? Why are you working so hard to earn and maintain a salvation that has been given to you freely by the work of Jesus Christ on your behalf? You can live in the freedom God gives you responsibly and celebrate it every day, or you can keep trying to earn and maintain what you already have. And he says that these people are literally, it's extreme language, turning away from God. The word that was used to refer to military desertion, like you're deserting what all of this was about. You're trusting yourself, your own obedience, how good you are, how well you follow the rules, whether you do everything right, right? You're trusting yourself rather than trusting Jesus. And so he calls them out on it and he's gonna challenge them to get back to being free in Christ and living in his grace. And so the first principle we see in Galatians is simply this, if you wanna stay free in your spiritual life, keep the good news good. Keep the good news good.

Now, I've got up here with me a glass of water, just a railroad glass of water. Now, if this was filled with your favorite water, whatever that might be, you would have no problem drinking it, right, you'd grab it, we'd drink it, no problem all good. But if I told you that this water, though it looks normal, is actually from Ecuador. Beautiful country, I've been to a couple times on different mission tips, beautiful people, but you know what they tell you in Ecuador? Don't drink the water. 'Cause if you drink the water, bro, it's gonna be ugly, you're gonna get sick, it's gonna be nasty, it can even be explosive, like it's gonna be bad. Don't drink the water, why? Because the beautiful people of Ecuador can drink the water, they're accustomed to the water, the water doesn't affect them, but if you go down there and drink the water and you're not like a custom, it's gonna mess you up. It looks the same, it might even taste the same, it might refresh you in the moment, but it's gonna be bad for you later on in the day. And Paul basically says, when it comes to the good news of Jesus, what we're gonna talk about right now is so foundational, it's like the most foundational thing. What is the good news of Jesus? And what the Judaizers were doing in Galatians, they were coming in and they were basically saying,

it looks like the gospel, it tastes like the gospel, it seems like the gospel of Jesus, but Paul's like, no, that's not the gospel, that's gonna mess you up. Look at what he says, Galatians chapter one, beginning in verse six, help me out when we get to the red word here. Paul says, you are following a different way. That, look at this, pretends to be the good news, but is not the good news at all. You are being what, fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ. And then strong words, Paul says, let God's curse fall on anyone, including us, he's like, even me, or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of good news than the one we preach to you. So what we're gonna be talking about today is some of the most foundational aspects of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. There are still people today that twist the good news. There are still people that make the good news but like the early Judaizers in Galatia, it's not the good news. And Paul calls them out then, and we've got to step back and call them out in our lives today. So what is the good news that Paul talks about? Well, you just go up to verses Galatians chapter one, beginning in verse four.

Paul basically gives the good news in a sentence here. He says this, he says, Jesus gave his life for our sins. Just as God, our Father, planned in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live. I mean, in one sentence, Galatians one, four, like this is the gospel, all right? So let's break it down. First of all, he says what Jesus gave his life for our sins. You want to know what the good news, the gospel is all about? It's all about Jesus. It's not about you. It's all about what Jesus did for you. It's about his goodness and his glory and his power and his work in our lives. It's about him living a perfect life and dying a sacrificial death to pay the price for our sins. He gave his life for our sins so that we could live in the freedom God has for us. It's not about how well we keep the Mosaic law in our lives. It's about how perfectly Jesus kept it and then died on our behalf to pay the price for it. It starts with Jesus, right? Gave his life for our sins. Now look at this, just as God, our Father, what? Planned, God planned this from long ago that in the Old Testament, the people lived under a certain covenant. As you get into the New Testament,

Jesus has I give you a new covenant, a new agreement now between God and people. And this has been planned by God that Jesus would give his life as a sacrifice for us and for our sins, what? In order to, what? Rescue. We needed a rescue. We didn't just need good advice. We didn't just need somebody to come along and tell us everything's gonna be okay. We didn't need great coaching. We didn't need good counsel. We needed more than that. We actually needed to be rescued from our sin. And when you're rescued, that implies you can't do it yourself. Somebody else has to do it for you. So Jesus planned from the beginning, rescued us from this evil world in which we live. This is the gospel of Jesus and it's all about him. There's a couple ways that we can twist the gospel. And one way we can twist the gospel is through what we might call legalism. Paul says that they're twisting the gospel. The idea is that it's polluted. Like you could pollute water or something, right? They're twisting it. Legalism can do this. Legalism comes along and says,

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're saved by grace." But all the focus and attention is on what you do to earn and keep God's favor in your life. Like, do you jump through all the right religious hoops? Do you keep the Ten Commandments perfectly? Do you show up at church every weekend? Do you tithe? Do you bring your Bible? Do you serve in a group? Do you get in a small group? Do you pray every day? Come on, man. Do you do all the things? Because if you do all the things, that will maintain and complete the salvation that Jesus started. He didn't finish it. He just started it. Now you gotta finish it. You know the problem is with legalism? It creates followers of Jesus that get really judgy towards other people. Because they're not living up to the level that you think they should be living up to. But the challenge is when you look in the mirror, if you're honest, you can't live up to the level that you think other people should be living up to. Hello. Come on. Somebody was doing real good.

Do they pulled into the church parking lot and had a meltdown when somebody cut them off? And well, we just forget that part. So one extreme is legalism that makes it more about me than it is about what God has done for me. Another extreme would be lawlessness on the other extreme. Some people say, well, you know, I'm saved by grace, the unmerited, undeserved favor of God, then it doesn't matter what I do. I can do anything. I'm a party, I can live La Vida Loca. I can stay out all night. I can be sexually immoral. I can, you know, I can do all kinds of things. I live in a lawless world now 'cause God just loves me and I'm forgiven. You know, I'm not perfect, I'm forgiven. And I think there's a danger in lawlessness because we go too far the other way. And we forget that there are, we are saved by the free grace of God. But the outflowing of that free grace is we want to please God in our lives. And the way we please Him is about our obedience and how we live, not to earn our salvation, but as a picture that we have our salvation in our lives. So if you think about the law, which Paul talks about a lot in Galatians, let's do a little theology, okay?

You ready, you can do a little theology with me? Come on, you ready to go deep? We're gonna go deep for a minute, okay? So what does he mean when the Bible talks about the law? What's it talking about? Well, traditionally like broadly, when you see the law, it's often referring to the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers. It's called the Torah or the law, right? The law of God. In the law are what we would call three categories. The moral law, that would be like the 10 commandments, okay? You know, that shall not murder, that shall not covet The moral law of God. You also have the civil laws, which is how the nation of Israel was supposed to live back then, as it navigated things civilly. In other words, how do they deal with justice issues? How do they deal with restitution when things happen? Like how do they handle the problems that happen in a civil society? And then there were ceremonial laws, which refer to the religious laws of the tabernacle, and then later the temple, how they engage in temple worship, sacrifice, feast days, purity practices, all of these things are the ceremonial laws, right. So you have the moral laws, the civil laws, the ceremonial laws, you're still with me? Now Jesus affirmed, for the most part,

the moral laws of God. He affirmed the moral framework of the Ten Commandments in his teaching. We still should follow the moral laws, but we're no longer bound by the civil laws or by the ceremonial laws, right. In fact, all of it is meant to guide us and instruct us more than to bind us. And so Paul, I think, would imply in his letters, if you're a Jewish person who becomes a follower of Jesus back then, I think you would say, if you want to keep all the laws, great. But it's not necessary for your salvation, right. That was the argument. But if you're a non-Jewish person, you don't necessarily have to keep all these laws and feast days and all these things. You just, you need to trust Jesus in your life and follow him and morally your life will be impacted. So what is the purpose of the law for a follower of Jesus today? All right, let's go to the next slide. What's the purpose of the law? What's the point of it that doesn't lead to salvation? What's the point? Well, the law is like a guardrail for our lives. It tells us like, hey, you know, this is sort of the framework for how we should live our lives. The law is good, God gave it. He gave it to the Israelite people.

We're to learn and be inspired from it. It can impact our lives. It's a guardrail. It's also a mirror for our lives. I mean, if you look at the law, the Ten Commandments, the Old Testament law, you realize that you've sinned, you've failed, you haven't perfectly lived up to all of those commandments. So it points to our native grace. And it's also like a guide for our lives. It tells us in many ways how to live to obey, to please God in our lives. So that's the purpose of the law. The law is good. Jesus came and fulfilled the law. But the law doesn't lead to salvation. Grace from God is what leads to salvation. Free grace from God. So what I think Paul's saying in the book of Galatians is this, the law can serve you, but it can never save you. And so, you know, we're not saved by our good works. We're saved unto good works. So when you hear a gospel that says the pure grace of Jesus isn't enough to save you, hey, don't drink the water. Right? When you hear you have to follow all the ancient Jewish customs for your salvation, don't drink the water. When you hear somebody say that the life of faith is primarily about your performance, your obedience. Don't drink the water.

When you hear somebody say God will never forgive you, definitely don't drink the water. When you hear somebody say salvation comes through faith in Jesus, but your obedience to the law completes it. Don't drink the water. If you hear the phrase God won't love you unless or until don't drink the water. People try to add to God's grace through all kinds of different ways. They try to put conditions on it. They try to limit it. But listen, Paul is saying God's grace in Jesus Christ is pure, it's beautiful, his heart is huge, his capacity to forgive is bigger than we can comprehend or understand in our lives. And so don't let anyone, not a YouTuber, not a parent, not a pastor, not a friend, get between you and the God who thought you were worth dying for. You're loved, right? You're loved and that implies you're valuable and Christ died for you. And when you place your faith and trust in him, you are forgiven and free, end of story. And then you walk that out the rest of your life. So keep the good news, good, right? Second principle is this, live in your second chance. Live in your second chance. So I love the story of this LA zookeeper. I read several years ago who had these red-tailed hawks that were in the zoo.

They were in this back kind of storage area and there were like six hawks. They were in cages. They were caged up because of a poaching case that had gotten tied up in all this legal rigamarole. And the zookeeper basically knew these hawks are never gonna be free. They're just gonna die back here in a cage because this case has already gone on for like years and it's gonna go on for more years, right? And so the zookeeper decides I'm gonna set them free. So accidentally cracks the window, right, in this back area where they were kept and then opens the cages and leaves. Purpose doing what they're what they're supposed to do But he comes back and and he said he was shocked when he walked back in and all the hawks were still in their cages Even though the cage doors were open He's like what? So he charges the cages, you know He tries to like raise his hands and he kind of scares them enough to fly out of the cage Just a little bit and then they're like looking longingly back at the cage And all they want to do is go back and finally after a while He said he just gave up he put him back in the cage and and locked the door They got so accustomed to life in the cage. They weren't willing to fly free in a more Can I tell you too many of us as followers of Jesus? We get stuck in the cage of our past in the cage of our shame in the cage of our failures in the cage of our Issues with ourselves and we don't step out and walk in the freedom and the second chance that God has given us in Jesus Christ I Mean so many followers of Jesus are still sort of wallowing in the fact that they're not qualified or they're not good enough Or God can't really use them or God is never going to be pleased with them

Or they'll never be enough for God or they have to work harder or they have to do more than everybody else Or they have to jump through the hoops even more so that God will look on them favorably and all of that is Missing the good news of Jesus, which says he did it all he paid it all You simply receive his forgiveness and grace as a free gift And then you're free to step into your purpose following God and serving him So live in your second chance look at Galatians chapter 2 verse 20 in Galatians in chapter 1 We have the intro where he talks about them turning away from the faith Kind of leaning into the law and all of this and then he gives this long Biographical kind of introduction and then he comes back around in chapter 2 and here's what he says in verse 20 He says my old self has been crucified with Christ It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me So I live in this earthly body by what trusting in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless For if now, this is the sentence if keeping the law Could make us right with God then there was no need for Christ to die right So here's what Paul's saying and I want you to notice this he says I do not treat the grace Of God as meaningless, you know when in the context what he's saying is It's not that when we fail we're treating the grace of God as meaningless It's when in our pride we assume that it's about our good works that earn our salvation that we treat the grace of God as meaningless Right? We just read it together He's saying like stop boasting about all the things you are and start boasting about all that Jesus is and what he has done And he has gifted you and moved and worked in your life in a powerful way trust him and follow him Live in your second chance and one of the ways we want to help our church family go deeper in their faith And do that beginning this week is something you've heard a lot if you've been around central Recently, it's our rooted groups that are starting on Wednesday night. I'm excited about this I've been looking for something that would help our church connect more go deeper in their faith journey literally for a long time and Rooted has been used in over 10,000 churches by Christians all around the world It's made a huge impact in those ministries and I think it can really help our church because I think it's central

We're pretty good gathering in rows right But we're not always so good to gather in circles It's good to gather in rows But it's powerful to gather in circles as well and Circles you learn from one another and circles the church starts to feel smaller and in circles You meet people who can pray for you and encourage you care about what's going on in your life And and so much of what I think God wants to do in our lives actually happens in Circles and so I want to encourage you to scan the QR code if you receive this card coming in across our different locations After service in any location you can go out and get more information get signed up for a rooted group It's going to be a great opportunity for a lot of people to connect and go deeper in their faith in the grace of God Any fans any music musical fans here of like lay miss any lay miss lay miss fans, okay? There's like seven people at central that are lay miss fans My wife is one of them. That's the only reason I've ever seen it so anyway, she she loves lay miss and you know story by Victor Hugo originally and it is powerful like there is a power of And Les Mis is all about this convict Jean Valjean who for 20 years is basically in prison because he stole a loaf of bread. When he gets out of prison, he finds himself in this situation where this bishop takes him in for the night and is good to him and feeds him. He doesn't have anything coming out of prison and instead he takes advantage of the moment. The bishop goes to sleep, he gets a bunch of silver and he steals it and he leaves, right? And then he gets caught by the police and he's like, "Well, the bishop gave it to me." And they're like, "Right, he gave it to you." And so they take him back and now here's the bishop and here's the former convict and he's sitting there and one word from the bishop and this guy goes back to prison for years and years and years. And instead, like the bishop looks at these police officers and he says, "Well, yeah." And he says, "I gave him that gift and he says, "You actually forgot the most important part." And then he basically gives him something that's even more valuable, the silver candlesticks.

And so the police are like, "Oh, okay." So they leave and then there's this moment, right, where the bishop says to Jean Valjean, "You must never forget this moment. Your soul and your life have been bought back. You are not your own. From now on, you belong to God." And it's a powerful picture of grace, the grace that God extends to us. It's unearned and unmerited. On that Friday, Jesus was crucified. God brought us with the price and on Sunday that we call Easter, he confirmed it by rising from the dead. We're not our own. We belong to God. But for us to experience the power of God's love, we have to accept it into our lives. We have to enter into it by faith. He extends his love and he extends it to everybody, to the rich and the famous and the down and out. He extends it to the beautiful and the not so beautiful to the haves and the haves nots. His love is wide enough to include everyone. It's wide enough to include you. You have value. Listen, guilt no longer owns you. Shame has no authority over you. You can consider yourself like Paul, dead to sin, dead to the past, dead to the old ways, dead to anger and rage and bitterness and hate, dead to you and your failures, dead to the old ego, the pride and the things that maybe propped up your self-esteem. You have been made alive in Christ, alive to love, alive to joy, alive to peace, alive to his purpose. You've been raised to a new life. You are alive and forgiveness and compassion and strength and calling.

You've been given a second chance. Thank God, I'm free. As the song says, you've been given a chance again and again and again and again. That's the grace of God. And we don't want to take advantage of the grace, but we also don't want to consider it meaningless as if it's up to us. We receive it, we give thanks to God for it and we live out of our calling, not because we deserve it, but because Jesus accomplished it, right? And so all of us as followers of Jesus, we got to keep the good news good. Don't let it get twisted. Don't start making it about all the things you do. Don't start making it about how well you live. Don't start judging everybody else who's not at your level. Just keep celebrating the grace of Jesus that was enough for you and guess what? It's enough for them. And keep praying that God will move and work in all of our lives. And then as I grow as a follower of Jesus, I look back at things that I did 20 or 30 years ago as a follower of Jesus and I realize how immature that was now. But I couldn't see it then. That's why we all need grace because most of the time we can't see the immature stop that we're doing right now. I think someday if I live long enough, I'm going to look back at myself today and be like, "God, come on, man," like really, it's grace. And it's not just grace at the beginning. It's grace in the middle. It's grace all the way to the end. It's grace that will see us home. So maybe you're here today. Maybe you've never crossed that line of faith. I want to give you that opportunity.

God loves you and therefore you have value and the free grace and forgiveness of Jesus is offered to you today. Simply by believing and placing your trust in Him, you receive that grace, you go on a spiritual journey. The Bible says God's spirit comes to dwell within you. You become a part of a spiritual family, a church family. You get a purpose and meaning for your life. You begin to go on a spiritual journey with God that you'll never regret. So with all of you bow your heads and close your eyes, if you'd like to become a follower of Jesus today, you can begin that journey by repeating a simple prayer after me. Just say, "Dear God, I thank you for loving me." Thank you for sending Jesus. Forgive me for my sins. Give me the gift of eternal life. Help me face the challenges that I'm up against. God, I surrender my life to you in Christ's name. And friends, with every head bowed and every eye closed, if that's your prayer today, if it's your commitment, I want to ask you to just slip your hand in the air. Whatever location you may be at right now, just slip your hand in the air. If you're watching online, just raise your hand and acknowledge you're going to trust God. You're going to trust Jesus. You trust him for your salvation. You trust him for meaning and hope and purpose in your life. And you're going to follow him first. You slip your hand in the air. God, we thank you for each person just reaching out to you today. I pray you move powerfully in their life as they follow you. Fill them with your goodness and your love and your meaning. We commit them to you. We thank you for them. We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Listen, if you made a spiritual commitment today, I want to tell you congratulations and want to encourage you to please just swing out to our next step area at any of our locations. Let them know you made a spiritual commitment. We'd love to put some resources in your hands or let us know online if you're watching there as well. Well, let's put our hands together for our location pastors. Would you please stand together with me?