Episode 14 - Part 6 of "Things I used to know - Debunking Christian Myths".

Tim 00:00:07 Welcome to the unveiling with your usual hosts. I'm Tim Mark 00:00:28 I'm Mark. Ajai 00:00.29 I’m Ajai. Tim 00:00:30 And we're here for what I believe is gonna be episode number six of our things I used to know or debunking Christian myths series episode 14. And today we are only gonna be covering one topic we've usually covered, uh, more than one in these, but this one has a little bit that we wanna talk about, so we're gonna only have the one topic today, and that is faith without works is dead. Oh, here's another reason why it's different. We actually agree with this, but it's us. It's not gonna be for the reasons you think. So why don't we start with this though, with a definition and that is we wanna try and define when we talk about law or works and we kind of use those terms interchangeably. I want to see if I can get a handle on what we mean and Mark or Ajai. I'll give you guys a chance to respond as soon as I do this and if there's any clarifications. So I think we use this as a, as, uh, the definition is a sus system or mentality of earning deserving or meriting from God. And this includes a whole bunch of things in this loosely grouped term. It includes the formal Judaic law, works, works of the law, dead works, righteous acts, rules, and regulations, performance theology, behavior modification. A lot of do this, don't do that kind of rule system. Did I, did I about cover that? Mark 00:02:00 Yeah, I think you did a great job, Tim. It's really a mindset and it really is what's become, unfortunately through the centuries, what I call the Christian religion. Christianity is not meant to be religion. Christianity is Christ. It's the good news of His grace of God's great love for us. So much so that even in the midst of our failure, sin and transgression, he sent Christ for us. So, it's just a shame when people turn it into that religion and start adding things to it, you know, and, and, and to me that's more dangerous than just out and out cults or other world religions or even atheism because it makes people think this is the gospel. This is it. I got it. And yet I'm walking around with guilt and condemnation trying to do this, don't do that, you know. And, and that's, that's unfortunately, one of the ways James telling us that faith without works is dead, has been MI misinterpreted, misused, mistaught many times to control people and manipulate them. Ajai 00:03:10 Yeah. Back to the definition of the laws. My simplified definition is if you put anything as a condition of receiving anything from God, it is basically law, no matter how it comes or which form it takes. Tim 00:03:24 So if you have to do X to receive Y [yeah], right? So if you have to verb to get noun from God, that's that's works and or law. Ajai 00:03:36 Yep. Mark 00:03:36 Yep, exactly. And the PR the problem with it is it's very insidious. And, and the apostle Paul says that even if you add one of those things, you've thrown a wrench into the entire thing, because now you're obligated to do everything underneath whatever category you want to use the Judaic law, right and wrong, do this and don't do that. If you're gonna add one thing, you've corrupted, everything. The grace is no longer grace. Tim 00:04:07 So you're saying if I'm under the law and I'm trying to follow the law to have my righteousness, if I break one law, I've lost my righteousness. And then the reverse is true. If I'm under grace and I start trying to apply the law, I've kind of lost my grace. Mark 00:04:25 Absolutely. Ajai 00:04:26 I would not say, you know, we lose grace, but grace becomes in effectual in our lives because to begin with, we did not obtain grace by doing something, so we cannot lose it by not doing something Tim 00:04:38 Well, that's good now. No, it's a good clarification. And, uh, really much closer to what I was trying to say. So, all right. So this all comes from James. I already heard mark mention, mention it. So why don't we quickly? Why don't you I'll run over into James two, starting at verse 14, go through 17 and then add, uh, one more James, 2:14 “What good is it? My brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith, but has no deeds can such a faith, save them suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, go in peace, keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about their physical needs? What good is it in the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action is dead. And then, like I said, a little bit further down, it says, you see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone”. Hmm, that's pretty strong. Ajai 00:05:38 Yeah. Tim and Mark, this passage has been a difficult passage for everybody, right? Through ages, everyone debated why it is there. Why James is writing this passage. And in fact, Martin Luther went to the extent of saying, you know, this does not belong to the new covenant and other great men of God said that in it is talking about justification before men, not God, but regardless, one thing we know for sure is that we are justified by faith alone without works of the law. In fact, we talked about a couple of, uh, scriptures already and Mark, you mentioned this. In Romans chapter 1, Paul, after going through a, through a systematic argument and saying that, you know, after establishing that “there is nobody who is righteous. No, not one. And we all have fallen short of the glory of God”. After that, he goes on to say in Romans chapter 3:28, “therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law”. And in Roman chapter 4 and 5, he says chapter 4: 4-5 he says “now to him that works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. But to him that does not work, but believes on Him who justifies ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness”. You know, one thing to note here is it's very important; he says, you know, the faith, it's not the faith that works and believes that is counted as righteousness, but it is a faith that does not work. You know, if you add faith to works, the leash common denominator is always the works. You believe all you want, but if you did not fulfill the condition of the work, you lose it all. And we know clearly in the Bible, like this is my favorite verse Mark, again you mentioned that “if it is by grace, it cannot be by works: otherwise, grace is no longer grace. And if it is by works, it is no longer of grace because work is no longer work”. So work and grace, they negate each other. It's like light and darkness, only one can exist. If you turn on the light, darkness is not there and if you take away the light, you have darkness. Similarly, if you turn on works, grace is no longer there and if you turn on grace, work have no place. So it's very important to understand sometimes without thinking through, we just accept anything that comes our way, but adding no matter what James is saying, no matter what the interpretation is, one thing we know for sure from the scriptures is that we cannot add works to grace, or we cannot add works to saving faith. Tim 00:08:20 No. Otherwise the thief on the cross wouldn't have made it into heaven. Yep. He, he only had one thing. Faith. Ajai 00:08:27 Yep, Yep Mark 00:08:27 Yeah. To me, just the overall writing wonderful umbrella is all Jesus all the time. Anything else is just foreign. It doesn't belong in there. It's just polluting the gospel. It's all about Christ and what He did. It's His works, not ours. Tim 00:08:46 Well, you know, another thing that comes to mind out of this is a, a lot of people seem to be teaching faith alone through Christ alone is all great. At the point of salvation IJ, your sister was telling you a story or not telling you a story, but answering a question, I Ajai 00:09:02 Guess. Yeah. Yeah. So I was in India. I think we talked about it before as well. So I was kind of, uh, my parents, they play gospel channels all the time. So I was sitting there and watching several channels and the theme is the same, it's always about what we have to do. It's always about looking inwardly and then, you know, trying to get it off our sins. Right. Trying harder. So I asked my sister, why is it, you know, everybody's talking about what we have to do instead of talking about what Christ already did for us? And her answer was very profound, she said, they think that grace is only for salvation, but after we are saved, you know, it is up to us. Right? So, but again, I think James is also used misuse for this rather. Right? So they said, see, you know, faith without works is dead. You know? Yeah. It is well and good, you're save by faith, but now, you know, you have to earn your, uh, by your own strength, right, you need to make sure that you have enough works to justify your salvation. But Paul is clear on this, right? In Galatians 3, this is one of our, um, favorite passages; he says, “You foolish Galatians! who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the spirit are you now trying to finish by means of flesh? Have you experienced so much in vain if it was really in vain? So again, I ask you, does God give you a Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law or by believing what you heard? So also, Abraham believed God and it was created credited to him for righteousness”. So, I think here, it's interesting that he quoted the scripture we use for justification in the context of sanctification. So what he is saying is, you know, the same faith that made you righteous is the same faith that supplies you, the Spirit and works miracle among you. So walking in the Spirit and living this victorious Christian life is also by faith, not by the works of the law. Mark 00:11:21 Absolutely. You know, Ajai and Tim, uh, this, this faith without works dead issue has never scared me in the least. In fact, because it's a moot point, this same, the same way that it's being used incorrectly now to try to get people to work harder, to give more, to add things to the gospel, their own sufficiency in doing good works, this has been brought against Christians for centuries. In fact, it was at the heart of the issue in the great reformation and one of the most famous discourses back in that time was when a Cardinal Sadoleto attacked the great reformers by putting this full page article in the Geneva, Switzerland newspaper. Now I'm gonna try to keep this concise, but here's, what's Sadoleto said to attack the great reformers, the second wave of them among who was John Calvin, he said, whoever says that men are justified by the free gift of Christ's righteousness or by the free gift of forgiveness of sins are also that the grace by which we are justified is only the favor of God, let him be cursed. So, he's calling down a curse on anybody who believes in the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the good news of His grace. That was his charge. Now Calvin didn't freak out, Calvin was one of the most brilliant men that ever lived, he had PhDs as long as his arm <laugh> and, and this, this response, which is a complete, you could almost print a book book on if I'm just gonna get to the core to his answer though. He said, Calvin said, “I want the reader to understand that whenever we mention salvation by faith alone, we are not talking about a dead faith, devoid of love, but we are proclaiming faith to be the only cause of justification”. So now we're referring to this attack by Sadoleto, he said, “this lie meant to smear our reputation, which our opponents always have in their mouths, is that we are taking away the desire for doing good from the Christian life by teaching that righteousness is a free gift”. And here's what he says and resonates with me. He says, “this claim is too frivolous to give us much concern”. So he said, am I gonna worry about this? This is such a weak argument. He said, if we truly understood how inseparable faith and works are, look to Christ who has been given to us for justification and for sanctification. As Ajai mentioned before, and as Calvin mentions a little further on which I won't read, he says, “You know what? Anytime someone puts their faith in Christ, they receive Christ. They are given the Holy Spirit as a deposit and as a seal of ownership, and it's a Spirit of sanctification. So, a true faith in Christ will always have works. You don't even have to worry about that. Your focus is Christ alone. And that's what the, the most dangerous misuse of the scripture is, is that it takes our eyes off of Christ and makes us look at ourself and say, “oh, I hope I have enough works so that I can prove that my faith isn’t dead”. You don't have to do that, that's not the kind of freedom that Christ calls us to whom the Son sets free has set you free, indeed. The apostle Paul said in Galatians 5:1, “that it is for freedom, that Christ has set us free. Stand firm again, and do not let yourself be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Which he goes on to say is the law it's works. So that's not the life that Christ means for us is to constantly be looking over our shoulder, wondering if we've sinned one too many times, or if we have one too few works to qualify for sanctification and salvation. Ajai 00:15:30 Yeah. Calvin and you Mark, made an awesome point that, you know, most of us miss. You know, I think some of, most of them, you know, this kind of, uh, interpretation comes from the fact that not understanding what actually salvation is, right? Salvation is Christ himself! When we are saved, when we put our faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ, right, we receive Christ himself. And Bible is clear on this, right of God he's made unto, unto his righteousness, redemption righteousness, sanctification, and wisdom, right? I'm not saying it in the same order, but the same one who is my righteousness is also my sanctification. So, for someone to say that, you know, faith is only for, uh, salvation and it does not produce works, he's basically saying that Christ is only for salvation, He does not produce any good works in your life, but that is far from truth, right? So, for us, you know, really we do not, like you said, it's too frivolous we don't even have to, um, worry about it because in salvation we are receiving Christ Himself, right, and we can rest in Him. The, the One that saved me, He's also able to keep me and He's also able to produce good works in me. I mean, it kind of reminds me, not kind of, it actually reminds me of John chapter 15, right? “He's the vine and we are the branches. If the vine is good, the branches, no choice, but to wear bear fruit”. And those who are saying that the branches will not bear fruit are saying that the divine is bad. In other words, saying that Christ is bad. He has not the power to produce good works in us. Tim 00:17:20 This reminds me sitting inside of a Russian cathedral, looking at the back wall at a big painting of the, you know, God holding a set of scales and I asked, uh, my tour guide was a cantor in the Russian church and I told, asked him, I said, “please explain to me what this is”. He goes, “well, that's the judgment. When you get to heaven, you're gonna be weighed; your good works and your bad works. And you know, if, if you got enough, good works, you'll get into heaven. And if you have too many bad works or don't have enough good work, you'll go, you know, to hell. And I'm like, well, how do you know where you stand on that at any given moment? He goes, you don't, that's why you have to strive so hard”. And all I could think of my head was that's exhausting. You know, Jesus said, “my, my yolk is easy. My burden is light”. That doesn't sound light or, or un-burdensome to me, you know? And the other thing go ahead. And the other thing I was gonna say is, you know, after having been in the church, and I know I've kind of said this before, I think we all have, church was a lot about behavior modification as well, because they've given us seven points to a better prayer life, to, you know, three weeks to a better marriage. The, and every week we'd apply ourselves and the next week there'd be something different. And you never seem to ever catch up with the ones you thought you already had a handle on. And you couldn't, you were constantly being piled with things to do again. No, no light burden there and, and guilt all the time because of how you felt about where you stood on things and I said, at the beginning, we actually agreed with faith without works is dead. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna say, Mark, we agree with that because of what? Mark 00:19:02 Well, it's, Jesus works. It's not our own works. Is that where you were going for there? Okay. [Yep.] Yeah, absolutely. And you know, Tim, as you're just talking about trying to still catch up from the, the works from the week before in church, and it reminds me when I was a kid, I had a pet gerbil with a gerbil wheel and the harder and faster he ran, the more tired he got, but he still never went anywhere, my poor little gerbil. <laugh> And that's, that's what, that's what the law, that's what works is. And you know, the apostle Paul, he doesn't have enough bad things to say about the law. You know, he calls it, he calls it “the law of sin and death”, he calls it a “yoke of slavery”, he calls it “trying to live by works”, living by the elemental and miserable forces of this world. Someday we'll have to have a podcast on just every bad thing <laugh> that, that, that, that I don't believe he ever called it gerbil wheel, but he should've. So the thing, the problem with this whole misuse is that it not just hurts believers and not only puts believers on this gerbil wheel puts guilt and condemnation on their shoulders, keeps 'em from seeing God clearly; the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 3 said that “works are a veil between you and God, that makes your mind dull and your vision of God weak”. It's, it's putting a literal veil between us (and God) and our contemplation and right view of Jesus is what transforms us so that we do have good works. So, the very thing you're trying to do when you try to do good works is actually short, short circuiting the only way you're ever gonna get good works and that's by relying on Christ alone to do that in you and through you, so, it's really backwards. And just, just to follow up, but it's not just hurting believers, it's also hurting the lost unbelieving people in this world because throughout the ages they all think they know what the gospel is, and they don't want any part of that who wants more rules and regulations, I'm already part of a belief system and religion that has me do this, don't do that; Uh, trying hard to merit this, you know, who wants a part of that? I wouldn't! Tim 00:21:27 That must be where we got the unveiling from. Mark 00:21:30 I think so. I think that's probably exactly where we got it from Ajai 00:21:34 <laugh>. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, on that point, Mark, you know, I have known churches where people flock to the churches, right, Tim, you talked about, um, teaching people how to be a good husband, how to be a good, this, how to be a good steward of, uh, the finances that God gave you. Right? So, I have been very surprised that, uh, you know, people flock to that, like thousands and thousands of people are members of the church, but every week they're being taught how to be a good husband, right, how to do this, how to do that and on the surface, you know, it looks good, but I think, uh, many of them, you know, they don't realize that they can't do it. And again, I think the underlying cause for that is, you know, they're still hunkering onto the law. You know, their life is based on the law and doing, because they think, you know, by the deeds of the law, you know, I can become something. They are attracted to this, uh, kind of teaching. But I'm very, very surprised, you know, until we understand that there is nothing in us. Paul says that, you know, “in me, that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells”. So many people have not come to that realization, they still think they is still some merit to the flesh and God will still bless them based on the good works, being a good husband or being a good steward of the finances. You know, they still see those as means of God's blessings. But when they realize that, you know, these amount to nothing, only then, you know, they'll turn towards, uh, grace fully. Mark 00:23:07 Yeah. What they don't understand is that the moment they put their faith in Christ, there was nothing left for God to give them scripture says Romans 8, I believe, “He who did not spare His own son, but gave Him up for us all - how will he not also, along with Him, graciously, give us all things”. You don't need to work for some extra things, they're already yours. I heard, uh, one of our old pastors say that most Christians are working really hard to get into a room that they're already in. <laugh>, you know, I always, I always love that illustration. So, so that the, the damage it's doing to un-believers beside believers is it's, they don't understand the love of God, how great His love is and so they're rejecting what they don't even know, they're, you know, they, I would reject what they're rejecting, and we don't need another religion, we need Jesus. Tim 00:24:05 So I, I would say that, uh, some of these messages these pastors are preaching on how to, you know, be a better person and how to behave properly; on the surface, I have, I haven't got a problem with them, you know? I mean, I, I have, uh, there's a whole set of books in, in, in the government about things I can and can't do called laws and I still have to do those, so we're not saying that I can go out and rob a bank and God will, you know, not God won't hold that against me in his books, but I still have to go through what's going on in the world. So sometimes a little behavior modification on your part just to live in the world better is one thing, but don't think that any of that is gonna buy you anything with God, it comes back to the fact that, like you said, Ajai, your sister said, people believe in grace for salvation, but if I couldn't get to salvation without grace, because I couldn't keep any, I couldn't keep enough of the law, how do I think just accepting Jesus is gonna change that I'm still human. I still make mistakes. I still have problems. So, I need that grace to continue following me the rest of my life. I'm not going out to do these things, but I don't, you know, God's not gonna hold them against me, if, if I, if I slip and fall and do something, God's not gonna hold that against me and say, “well, you know, you're outta heaven, kid. See you later hit the bricks”. Mark 00:25:28 Ajai, referring back to something you just said, well, you'll see these giant churches and people just flocking to hear people preach works in law. There's a scripture I'm reminded of that I've usually heard, taken outta context, but it's, “there's a way that seems right to a man, but only leads to death”. It seems right to human beings that we would have to follow these rules and don't do this, do that. That's very intuitive we see it everywhere in life, but there's nowhere we see the kind of unconditional sacrificed love of Jesus Christ, so we have nothing to compare it to. It's counterintuitive. It's a paradox, as some would say. There aren't any conditions; God loves you so much that He's done it all for you and given you all. And so, Ajai 00:26:23 Yeah, I'm also reminded of another scripture, Mark. This is also usually misinterpreted, I think, is “for as the heavens are higher than the earth. So are my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”. So usually again, I think we interpret more in the context of sin and you know, obedience to God, but if you un, if you understand this in context, right, verse 1 is saying “everyone who thirst come to the waters and he, that has no money come and buy and eat, come buy wine and milk without money and without price”. So, if you interpret in the context, right, his thoughts, you know, the way that is higher than our way is the way of grace. Many people don't understand that. And the lower way, right? Our way is the way of the law. Sorry, Tim. I think you were going to say something, go ahead. Mark 00:27:19 Can I cut in here? Um, what I was going to say is that for all you listening out there, especially pastors, it is a vital importance to the church and to the world that you come in to the revelation of the one true gospel of grace. This world needs preachers and pastors to preach the gospel. I can't think of one greater need in this world right now, or ever <laugh> is, is that and when you, I, I, if you're a Stu student of scripture, which I'm sure you are, if you're a pastor or even if you're not a pastor, Paul spent the biggest chunk of all his energy and thoughts and life on preaching this gospel. He said, “my one aim was finishing the task the Lord Jesus Christ had given him the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace”. Okay. And then the thing that he spent, the second amount of most amount of time and thought and passion for was protecting that gospel of grace from anyone trying to add even one work, read the book of Galatians. That's what that whole book is about. Is Paul getting very angry at people, trying to put, to put burdens and add things to the gospel. He calls it, perverting the gospel. We need, uh, Christians out there to get into the word word, and pray for a revelation to the one true gospel, and then start preaching that. We all need it; Christians need it, and unbelievers need it. And, and, and just look at the life of Paul, what his priorities were; those were his two main priorities. And just to finish up that thought not to, not to hog the time here though, is that there's so much in scripture to teach pastors, small group leaders, whoever what and how to preach. So, it's, it's just a shame that we've veered so far off track, In Titus 3:4, one of my favorite scriptures, is in a letter from the apostle Paul to a young pastor who he put in charge of one of his churches; it's one of what's called the pastoral letters. So Paul writes to him, well, first of all, I wanna say this, this we're not trying to be hard on pastors and preachers, that's one of the hardest jobs out there. I mean, you know, and they throw so much on 'em now, you don't have to just be able to preach the gospel, you need to be able to counsel people, visit people in hospitals, you need to have financial, you know, it's just, it's a tough job and we're thankful for you, but we also need you to get into the pure gospel. And this is how Paul is telling you how to do it; he's telling Titus as an example, this is Titus 3:4 he says, “when the kindness and love of God, our savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we'd done, but because of his mercy. He saved us by the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us, generously through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that having been just justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life”. And now the apostle Paul, one of the most trustworthy men to ever walk the planet takes the time to say, this is a trustworthy saying and I want you to stress these things. Now, many well intentioned preachers out there what they want for their congregation is good works and holy lives, see them being generous people with strong marriages and raising their kids. You know, they want good things and their well-intentioned, but the problem is it's the how they've got the, how wrong they think it's that it's by our strength by following the law by works. Now listen to what Paul says after he says, this is a trustworthy saying, and I want you to stress these things “this is so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. This is excellent and praiseworthy and profitable for everyone”. So, it's the “how” that a lot of pastors have wrong. Now, I don't doubt that there are some ill-intentioned, pastors that are purposely trying to control and manipulate and guilt their congregations into doing what they want. We know that during the reformation times, that's what was happening, they had developed very evil practices to get money, to send soldiers to war promising them salvation, you could buy your loved ones out of purgatory, you know, uh, but there are very many well intentioned ones. They just don't understand that the how of reaching those good things, and one thing we try to always put (on) are disclaimers. We're not saying doing good works is bad, reading your Bibles not bad giving to the poor, those are obviously all good things, but when you are doing it to earn or merit to deserve, instead of trusting in Christ alone, it becomes an evil thing. It becomes perversion of the gospel. It's not a neutral thing. Oh, you know what? I'll have a little insurance policy, yeah. I know that my salvation by, by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, but I'll just add some good works just in case, you know, just in case I got it wrong. But what they don't realize, what they're doing is they're corrupting the gospel. It's not a neutral thing. They're hurting theirselves and other people. Ajai 00:32:58 Yeah. Just in case, you know, someone is wondering why these guys are always harping on grace and harping on not being under the law. Galatians 5:4 says “Christ is of no effect unto you. Whosoever, whosoever of you are justified by the law; you have fallen from grace”. So, our, our desire and I, I would think everybody's desire, is that Christ be of effect to us, right? The only way Christ can be of effect to us is if you are not under the law, if you don't try to be justified by the law. And for me personally, I don't know about others, but for me personally, I want Christ to be a hundred percent of effect to me. And that is a reason we, and as humans, right, we are so ingrained in the law from the beginning, you know, the whole world is based on performance mindset, right? If you go to the employer and say, “Hey, Hey, can you pay me by grace?” You know, he's going to show you the door, right? So the whole world is based on the system of the law and it is very easy for us to just get succumbed into this law mindset, but unfortunately, if it is by the law, you know, Christ of no effect to us. So that's one of the reasons, you know, we are so adamant to say that, you know, we are not under the law, and we are under grace and the only way to live the Christian life is by grace and not by the works of the law Mark 00:34:28 We're not just adamant about it, we're excited about it. <laugh> [yeah]. The word gospel literally comes from the Greek word Evangelion, which means good tidings and good news. That's not strong enough. This is the greatest news that's ever come into existence in the history of this planet, anytime and anywhere. There's nothing more valuable, more powerful, more exciting, more delightful than the gospel, the message of God's grace. And you know what, uh, there's a Paul says that “if you ma you, you mix a little bit of yeast in with the batch. It makes the whole batch bad”. So when you add even one work, you're taking this pure, wonderful thing and just polluting and perverting it. We're excited about getting this message out and we hope you are too and we know the apostle Paul was, Tim 00:35:24 And Ajai, if it requires, I buy a harp and learn how to play it, this just to get the message across, I'm willing, Mark 00:35:29 As long as it's a blue harp, man. Tim 00:35:32 <laugh> so no, that's good. And Paul does teach every, I, I mean, in many different places about against works, uh, mixed gospel. I, I think there's even one in Galatians, one that's, uh, where he calls it, no gospel at all when it's mixed. Mark 00:35:49 Yep. Yeah. He says that living in the grace of Christ, they've turned to a different gospel, which is no gospel at all, right there within that sentence it's telling you that living in the grace of Christ is the gospel. [Yeah.] Turned to anything different, it's no gospel. [Yeah.] Uh, Ajai, would you like to wrap us up with Ephesians 2? Do you have that one? Ajai 00:36:12 Yeah. Definite. I think what we are saying today is not that, you know, good works are not important, but you know how those good works are produced, it's not by the effort of our flesh, but it is by the Lord, Jesus Christ, who has actually prepared these good works for us. And this is beautifully summarized in, uh, Ephesians 2:10 right, “for we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”. We are not again saying that good works are bad, and we should not be doing that, but it is important to understand how those good works are produced and thank God, the One who saved us, He also prepared these good works for us. So, our part is to simply rest in the Lord, Jesus Christ and our part is to simply behold Him behold his love for us and behold, his love on the cross. So we have the cross always in front of our eyes and (the) rest of it will be taken care for us. Mark 00:37:11 I'd like to read that scripture one more time, putting an emphasis on what I would consider to be the most important words it says “for we are God's handy work created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”. We're not our own handy work. We don't work on ourselves, which so many churches you go and sit down and that's what you get. You need to start doing this. I'm going to guilt you. I'm going to encourage you. Cheerlead you. Teach you, help you to try to do this, do that, and don't do this, don't do that. That's a gerbil wheel, people. Jump off it, get in the race. <laugh> Tim 00:37:52 So like an apple tree, doesn't try to grow apples an apple tree just produces apples because that's what it is. Yep. We, with the spirit of God in us, our right, we are righteous, we are holy, we are going to produce fruit as a natural result. The harder we try, the less we’ll produce. And the fruit that does get produced, through the Spirit, is gonna be the fruit that truly feeds others, and I, I, I think this is a, I think this is a really good place for us to almost wrap up. Last words, guys? Mark 00:38:27 I just wanted to finish that analogy about the apple tree. I think it's such a, it's a great analogy and apple tree doesn't try to produce good fruit. It doesn't get in a small group with other apple trees to try to learn how to produce fruit butter, uh, better. It doesn't go to a big building with thousands of other apple trees to hear an expert apple tree on stage pounding on 'em telling them, guilting them, teaching them, encouraging them, how to grow fruit. What does an apple tree do? Sinks its roots deep in the good soil, it drinks in the living water turns its leaves up to the sun and produces, effortlessly, beautiful fruit. In fact, the fruit that God prepared in advance for it to produce. Ajai 00:39:14 Yeah, I've, I'm also going to use the same analogy, but uh, use the scriptures in John 15 Lord said, you know, “I am the vine, you are the branches and if you abide in me and if you are abide in my love, you will produce fruit”. So he also goes on to say, “he has chosen us. Lord himself has chosen us to bear fruit”. So, we don't really have to work at it and stress about it. Simply abide in the Lord Jesus Christ and abide in His love and simply resting in the fact that we are in the Lord Jesus Christ and resting in His love, we will produce fruit. Mark 00:39:52 Amen. Well said.