Episode 15 - Part 7 of "Things I used to know - Debunking Christian Myths".

Tim 00:00:23 Hello and welcome to the unveiling with your hosts, Ajai, Mark, and Tim. Today, we are on episode 15 and the final one of our myth series for now. We may visit revisit this one in the future today, we're gonna be talking about the charge that's often used to people who believe in the, the full gospel of God, which we, which some people, mistakenly call the grace message. And that is that grace is a license to sin, and I wanna throw it to you guys right away. Why would somebody think that the grace of God covering our lives is a license for us to go out and go willy-nilly and do anything we want? Mark 00:01:03 Well, just to give a little context on this accusation, we'll call it. It's been around since the first church, the apostle Paul was constantly getting attacked that by preaching grace, you are making little of good works and also promoting sin. They were even saying that he was teaching for people to sin more on purpose so that grace would've bound more. Which is just ludicrous and he, he said the same thing. He's like, as Calvin said, last week as we talked, he said, this argument's too frivolous to even give us any concern. And I would say the same is true for me anyway, on this one. When I first heard this one, “grace is a licensed to sin”, the first thing that hit me in the head is “What, n no, it's not, are you crazy? <laugh> it's like, what, what do you mean? Where did that come from? And I, as, as I've looked into, I just think it's one of the most ill-conceived, poorly thought-out arguments that I've heard against the gospel and it reminds me of when you're a kid on the playground and one kid says to the other, “my dad is bigger than your dad”, and the other one says, “oh yeah, well, my dad can beat your dad up”. It's like, it's like this going back and forth. You know? It's like, well, you think this is the gospel, but if you do that, you're gonna sin. So, we're gonna get into what we believe they mean when they say it, why they say it and why it's incorrect. Are we, an agreement on that guys? Ajai 00:02:38 [Absolutely] Yeah. Mark, you know, like, you said it's a kind of a silly argument, you know. The analogy for this is saying, you know, medicine is a licensed to get more sick, right? <laugh> so you get sick and then you take medicine and then you get well, oh, wow, nice, you know I'll get sick more so that I can take more medicine. Yeah. So that is a kind of argument. But I think the core of this is, is coming from people not understanding what salvation is all about. Right? So for many, you know, salvation is nothing more than pardon, but there is no change to the essential state of the sinner. It's like, you know, the president, you know, has a right to pardon a criminal, right, so that he can make an appeal and the punishment is removed, but essentially the sin is still attached to the guy and he's still seen as a sinner. But the only thing that changed is the punishment is removed. So imagine, you know, if there are people who are sinners and they're taking pleasure in sinning, and then you tell them, Hey, you know, you can sin all you want. It's like, you can eat all you want, right, without paying anything. So you can sin all you want without getting punished. That's how people see salvation as. And some people see salvation as nothing more than forgiveness. There's a difference in forgiveness and pardoned in biblical terminology, but for this conversation, we can say, both are almost the same. Basically, they're seeing salvation as “a sinner being forgiven”. That's it. So, if that is the only thing that happened in salvation, of course, grace is a licensed to sin. But in salvation, you know, we have much more that happened to us. We can go much more into it, but simply speaking, the Bible says, you know, when we are saved, the Holy Spirit himself comes to live in us and the Holy Spirit takes us and puts us in Christ. Christ himself will come to live in us. And the Bible also says the Holy Spirit gives us a new spirit and a new heart, so, basically our nature has changed, right? Because of that change, you know, this argument is kind of falls apart, but the reason why people make this claim is they really don't understand what happens to a believer when they're saved. Mark 00:04:42 Just to touch on that analogy of the prisoner, say there's a murderer in jail and he gets a pardon from the governor at the last minute. Well, he hasn't changed. His heart has not changed. He's still a murderer and if you let him go, nothing has changed in him that he won't do that again, right? [Yeah, exactly.] Where that's, that's not who a Christian is so much happens at salvation, will get into that in another episode, more deeply. And to me like the core of this issue is they're they failed at correctly, dividing the word of truth. They have not interpreted scripture through the cross or through what's old covenant and what's new covenant. And the key to this and we're gonna go into more depth that this will be our episode next week. We've spent about 15 episodes now, fighting myths and debunking myths about, and, and really hoping we get to what the gospel is not. Well to me, the core of the issue is our next episode is gonna be what is the gospel and really clearly define that and so I'm gonna give you some scriptures here that clearly tell us what the gospel is. Now, the gospel is grace. It's all grace. It's no works at all. One work is hyper work, right? So let me just give you a couple things here that just prove what the gospel is in Galatians 1:6, this whole book deals with people trying to add works and not trusting that grace is enough, the apostle Paul says, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the One who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all”. So, the definition of the gospel, it's called bibliographical, when it's defined within what you're reading, he's saying that they're leaving, they're turning from the gospel of living in the grace of Christ to a different gospel, which is no gospel at all. So right there, it's telling you that living in the grace of Christ is the gospel. Acts 20:24 says, this is Paul speaking, “however, I consider my life worth nothing to me. My only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace”. Paul was the number one preacher in history of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and right he's here, he's saying his one task is the good news of God's grace. Here's another great bibliographical, evidence in acts 14, 3 and 7. It says, “so Paul and Barnabus spent considerable time there speaking boldly for the Lord who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders”. And then a little bit further on it says “after he left that city, that he, he, he went to the surrounding country where he continued to preach the gospel”. So, within that same sentence, his continuation of preaching the gospel is off of the message of grace that they were preaching, it's the same thing. The gospel is the message of grace. Obviously this famous one Ephesians 2:8 says “for it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast”. So, there's no balance there, it's by grace, you have been saved and not by works. And then finally, I'm gonna give you this one where the apostle Paul in Romans 3:21 said, “but now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the law and the prophets testify. The righteousness, this righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe there is no difference between Jew and Gentile for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus”. And I'm just gonna add something here and I know Ajai is gonna touch on it, but if anybody out there right now has a doubt after those very clear scriptures and there's, I could have brought 200 more. Just go ahead and read Roman 6 and 7, it is com one of the best definitions of what the gospel is and what it isn't right there. Read that. And you won't need to hear us talk anymore. Tim 00:09:32 I'd like to add a humanistic reason for this charge of grace is a license to sin. Many people come from a background where they didn't know God, then they didn't really, they weren't really interested in following the laws, they're much more about following what they want, what their feelings are, what we often refer to as the lusts of the flesh and when they feel like they're losing something> “Oh, you know, I used to have such good times doing this, that or the other and I won't be able to do those anymore. Well, if I can't do 'em, no one else should do 'em and they might see somebody who has slipped or fallen, or, you know, ended up in a position where they're doing something that they wanted to do themselves, that they don't feel they can do, so they wanna make you stop. It's a, it's a kind of a behavior modification kind of thing, to be honest. You can't have the fun that I thought I was having if I can't, but the, they don't really understand the new nature or they haven't really received that new nature yet, which really doesn't want those things anymore. Ajai 00:10:41 Yeah. That is a great point, Tim. You know, it's like, basically, you know, if I'm not having fun in their words, <laugh> no one should be having fun. Right. So, yeah. Yeah. I think that is, again, shows a very, poor understanding of, you know, what salvation is all about. But again, going to the reasons, I think one more reason for this kind of, you know, grace is a license to sin, is some people, you know, well-intentioned people they get too scared. You know, if you tell people now that after becoming born again, now that after, being saved by grace alone, and if you tell people that there's no condemnation, they will go and sin like crazy. Because all our lives, the only reason for our good behavior, whatever it is, is fear of punishment. We are grown in the system, right, legalistic system and since we were kids, okay, if I do this, you know, dad will punish me or dad, you know, I'll get spanked. And then, okay. If I steal this, the government will, you know, I'll go to jail. Right. So that's why, you know, in the world, devoid of grace, you know, the only thing that keeps them on track is the law, the fear of punishment. So they take the same mentality to our Christian life and say that, you know, okay, if I tell people there's no more condemnation, they'll go and sin like crazy. And that's also one of the reasons, but interestingly, you know, in Roman 7, it's very, very interesting, right, you know, in fact, Paul says, not only that you are not under the law anymore, but unless you are delivered from the law, you really cannot bear fruit to God. I just want to quickly read that, you know, Romans 7, I'll probably read the first five verses “know yet not brethren for, I speak to them that know the law, how that the law has dominion over a man, as long as he lives? For the woman, which has a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as she lives, but if the husband is dead, she is loose from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband lives, she's married, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she's free from the law; so that she's no adulteress, though she be married to another man”. So after this, he says “wherefore my bretheren, he also become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that you should be married to, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God”. And in verse 5 it says “for when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto God (meant death). But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead where, and we were held; that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter”. So two times he says, right, the very reason that we were delivered from the law is so that we can bear fruit unto God, if we were not delivered from the law, the implication is that in verse 5, when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law. So if you were under the law, we were actually bearing fruit unto death, and we were sinning more. And the reason that we were delivered from the law is so that we can bear fruit unto God. So again, what we are saying is that, you know, it's the total exact opposite. Like Mark, you always say, you know, people think that being under the law will keep people from sinning, but actually, you know, it is opposite. Mark 00:14:30 If that were true, the criminal code would be a lot more effective. <laugh> [yeah]. You know, I'm reminded of when we have children, we give them rules that they have to live by, and those rules are to protect them and they have to follow 'em so they don't get hurt. So, they're living by rules and that's a good thing for them. But a certain time comes as they grow that they are transformed into adults and they no longer live by our rules. To me, the apostle Paul used that exact analogy many times. He says, when we're under the law, it's a guardian, a school master and we are underage children. But when this grace came, we're no longer under the law. And one thing I wanna bring, and that, to me, that's like a perfect thing. We graduate from the law. It was a school master. It was a school master, a guardian over us. When we came to Christ now that is supposed to transition away just like it. It's not healthy for a, a, a boy when he becomes a 30-year-old man to still live with his mom and dad and follow every rule they lay down. “Now you're in my house, you'll live by my rules.” That's not healthy! It it's a very similar type of thing. So, grace is a license to sin is not only wrong, but as, as, as, Ajai just pointed out, grace is actually a license to do good. And the reason for that is because 2 Corinthians 3 tells us that the old covenant, which is works, which is the law, that's a ministry of death and condemnation. It's a transitory ministry only to take us to Christ. But then it says of the new covenant, the gospel of grace, that that's the ministry of the Spirit and righteousness. So, grace, isn't a licensed to sin. It's a license to the fruits of the spirit. It's a license that doesn't lead to sin; but leads to love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That's what grace leads to. And as Ajai alluded to, I've got this theory I call the 180-degree factor and that's when people false teach, it's usually not just a little wrong, it's 180-degrees wrong because they have misunderstood the relationship with between law and grace. They are opposite because those things are opposite and because most fall te false teaching has to do with misunderstanding law and grace, their teaching tends to be opposite. And this license to sin is a perfect example, cuz it's not. If someone says to you, grace is a license to sin, say, no, this is a license to the fruits of the Spirit. Ajai 00:17:27 Yeah. Romans 6:14 says “for sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace” and verse 15, “What then? shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.” Paul is clearly saying, right, you know, that's not how it is. God forbid. Right? So people have, you know, raised this objection or, you know, made this kind of argument several times and Paul has to address it. But you know, one thing, you know, I want to draw our attention to is verse 14. “Sin shall not have dominion over you because you are not under the law, but under grace”, to our point, mark, you know, people exactly read the opposite. You know, people who say that grace is a license to sin, they are not reading it this verse. In fact, you know, they're reading this verse, as the verse says for sin shall not have do over you because you are not under the law, but under grace, but they're making it exactly opposite, right, they're saying that sin will have dominion over you because you are under grace and not under the law. So, there is the exact opposite of this. But I think we know, right, right here itself, it says, if you're under grace, sin will not have dominion over you. And if you're under the law, sin will have dominion over you, but they're flipping it over and then saying that, you know, if you are under grace, sin will have dominion over you and if you're under the law it will not the total opposite again. Mark 00:18:58 Yeah, that, that's what I was gonna just reiterate. It's just the opposite. The law is the dominion of sin. Grace isn't the dominion of sin. And it says that over and over in there, it says that, the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law right there. That's telling you, it's not grace. That's the power of the sin, it's the law that's the power of sin. And then Paul goes on to say, “but thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”. And here it says, “therefore there, this is Romans 8, therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death”. It's another scripture just telling you that the law is where sin and death come from, not grace. The law leads to sin and death and you already read, so that's good, you read Romans 6:14, which says “sin shall no longer be your master because you're not under the law, but under grace”. Tim 00:20:06 But more than that, salvation itself Mark 00:20:09 More than that. Is there anything more? Tim 00:20:12 But wait, there's more, uh <laugh> so the thing is though, at salvation, we are forgiven for all our sins and then so that we don't sin anymore, or so our, our nature is not to sin anymore even. God puts the Holy Spirit in us, so we've lost the des desire, you know, we lose the desire to sin. Now, sometimes that's not immediate in, in your outward activities and what people can see, but it, if you are, are really coming truly to the Lord and you accept the Spirit and you take your focus off yourself, your works, your sin, and you put it on Jesus, the nature will just come off of you to do something that, you know, isn't right or that might hurt somebody or might even hurt yourself. It, it is replaced with the Holy Spirit and the nature of the Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth, the spirit of love, the spirit of, I mean, all those fruits that the Holy Spirit brings. So we are a new creature. That's, that's what the reference is when it says we are, we be, we are become a new creature. Mark 00:21:19 All right. And, and the thing that's a great point, Tim is, as you mentioned, we're given the Spirit and once we have the Spirit on our lives, He starts to transform us into the image of Christ. He He's Christ is formed in us, so that the only thing you can do to, to make it so that you aren't transformed into Christ so that your desire doesn't lessen for sin is to short circuit, that process by keeping yourself under the law. It's once it's once again, 180 degree factor and, and we always try to have a disclaimer, many of the people that make this accusation of grace as a license to sin, they have good intentions, they wanna see people be transformed into the image of Christ and have less sin in their lives, but it's just a lack of knowledge of what the true gospel is and what the fruits of grace are and what the fruits of the law is. The minute you people put people under the law, your short circuiting, the Spirit’s work in their life because the new covenant of grace is the ministry of the Spirit. The Spirit is not in the law, and the only hope you have of not having a desire for sin and being transformed into Christ is the Spirit himself. Am I right? Ajai 00:22:46 So since we're debunking this topic today, you know, we had to emphasize that when we are believers, when we become believers, you know, our nature changes. But at the same time, I want to clarify that, you know, we are not going to overnight stop all sinning and, you know, act totally opposite. So, I want to make sure that, you know, in this, life, we are still in a body, you know, we, we have not received the new bodies. So, the Bible clearly says the sin dwells in this body, right, so there's always a potential for sinning and believers, you know, until we go onto the other side, you know, we still have, we will fall and we will continue to commit sin. So I just want to make sure that, you know, our listeners don't misunderstand and think that, you know, as soon as you become a believer, you know, your life will be perfect. And we address this, right, you know, we also don't want to go in the mode of introspection. Have I stopped all sinning? All my thoughts are holy and is my behavior holy? We don't want to go in that mode. Mark, like you said, the only way to actually live a victorious life is to get out from under the law. So the first thing we need to embrace is that as a believer, I'm not under the law and there's no condemnation for me, even when I sin and fall, there's no condemnation because the Lord Jesus cleanses all my sins once and for all. And in fact, the victory comes from claiming our righteousness. There are numerous testimonies, you know, from one of the ministries, I follow many people who had many, many addictions. They were delivered by simply claiming that I am the righteousness of God in Christ, even when they're falling, even in the midst of their sin and addiction, they held onto this truth (that) I am the righteousness of God in Christ. So, I highly encourage, you know, don't go into the mode of, okay, am I a believer? Am I walking a holy life? Did I stop sinning? Did my nature change? You know, end of the day, we just go by the word of God. And our part is to simply believe and rest in the word of God. And the word of God calls me everyone who trusts in the Lord, Jesus Christ is righteous and everyone who believes that they're the righteousness of God will reign in life. So our part is to simply believe that because of the finished work of Lord Jesus Christ, I am made the righteousness of God in Christ and who knew no sin became sin for me and therefore, now I am the righteousness of God in Christ. And even when we fall, even when we sin, we hold onto this truth and it is God's work, it's the holy Spirit's work to deliver us from the bondage of sin. Mark 00:25:39 On, on that note, Ajai, at salvation, we're given a new name and one of those names is you are now named the righteousness of God and we're gonna grow into that name. That's the Spirit's job is to transform us into the righteousness of Christ. So, I may not be as righteous as Christ in this world at that moment on a, on a horizontal level, but I'm gonna grow into the name that He's called me, that He died to give me. That's a guarantee! Unless I put myself back under the law and, and take the spirit out of it. Cuz I can't do it! I can't earn that name of righteousness of God, cuz I've got none, no matter how hard I try. Ajai 00:26:24 Yep. Tim 00:26:25 And the wonderful, one of the wonderful things that this brings us is as we are growing into that new nature and as we are taking on the fruits of the spirit and the nature of Christ, when we do fall, when we do make mistakes, we don't have to sit there and self flagulate or, or, you know, bend and bow and beg God to forgive us. It's already done. We can tell ourselves, “yep, shouldn't have done that. Didn't want to do that. Hopefully I won't do it again”, but I don't have to sit here and beat myself up over it. I don't have to worry about, well, there's another tick in the book of judgment against me or whatnot. So taking that fear outta the equation it's like when Adam a, you know, ate of the fruit in the garden and he didn't wanna see God, cause he knew he'd done something wrong. We don't have to face that fear and intimidation. We can go before him and say, you know what? I know I messed up, but I know that you don't see it cuz you only see Christ in me and my righteousness. Ajai 00:27:29 Yeah. Mark 00:27:30 And not, not being under the law has gotta be one of the, <laugh> almost awesome parts of our inheritance in Christ. It's not just that we're not under the law, it's that Christ perfectly fulfilled the righteous requirement of that law on our behalf, which is even more astounding. He didn't do it in one way, He did it in two ways; first as he walked through his life, he perfectly upheld that law, the righteous requirement and all he did all, he said never sinned. But then as a double whammy, because he, that made him spotless and blameless, He gave his life to also fulfill the righteous requirement of the law because the law demanded blood and punishment for those who broke it. And so it says, God did it for us by sending His own son as a sin offering so that we are now, those righteous requirements are fully met. And that doesn't lead to sin, in fact, that takes you out. And what, what a blessing that when I do fail and stumble, even now that I belong to Christ, He no longer sees it that way. It's no longer considered a transgression. It's not charged to my account. It does not affect how much God loves me. Just the same way when my son does something wrong that I don't like, I don't love him less. It doesn't make him any less my son. Ajai 00:28:59 Yeah. So we can go more into it maybe in one of our other podcast. But I want to quickly touch on it. Romans chapter 7:5 “for when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring fruit unto death”. So here we see that, you know, when we were in the flesh, we were under the law. So, flesh and the law, they go hand in hand. In fact, you know, law is an appeal to our flesh and flesh is nothing, but you know what we were, all that we were before we were born again. Before we came to Christ and we received a new spirit and a new nature, you know, whatever we were in Adam is a flesh. And Paul in the same chapter says “there is nothing good, that is in me. That is in my flesh. Nothing good dwells. So, what happens is, you know, when you put somebody in under the law, basically it's an appeal to their flesh. You are telling something in which there is no good wealth to do good. So what flesh can do is like, if you tell somebody who cannot do any good, if you put them under the law, they will rebel and they'll end up acting more. So that's exactly what's happening. You know, when you put flesh under the law, the result is more sin. So, you know, that is a reason, you know, it seems good on the surface, but if we actually go back to the law, what we are doing is we are activating our flesh. That can do no good. So we might probably want to, maybe we will talk more about the flesh later, but I think the point here we are making is nothing good can come out of putting people back under the law because all we are doing is activating the flesh, which can do no good. Mark 00:30:50 The apostle Paul, when he gave his biography, you know, he said, I'm, I was born on the eighth day of the tribe of gen of, of, Benjamin. He just listed all the great things he did under the law. He was a Pharisee, as far as the law, perfect. And then when he got done, he said, you know what? That stuff is nothing but garbage compared to the surpassing knowledge of Christ, the surpassing glory of the knowledge of Christ. There's no comparison. And Ajai, just to set you up on, I know one of your topics is, I wanna, I think we need to be fair to these people that are using grace as a license to sin. It's not that black and white. I don't believe they're saying grace is of no value at all, I think what they're saying is too much grace is dangerous, you need to have the proper balance of grace in the law. Tim 00:31:54 Is that where the term “hyper grace” came from? Too much grace. Mark 00:32:00 And, and when you define it, grace is the deserved unmerrited UN undeserved favor of God, which really is His love. It's like saying that's too much love of God's love, it's too much of his favor. What too much is exactly the amount I want and need, you know? Ajai 00:32:09 Yeah. That is so true. Mark. You know, like, they're saying, you know, okay, we are not saying, you know, it's solved by law, but we are saying, you know, there needs to be balance of law in grace. But the problem is, you know, we saw that in Romans chapter 11:6, right, “If it is by grace, it cannot be by works. And if it is by works, it cannot be by grace”. So adding a little bit of works to grace, it makes it all works and then you're putting people right back under the law and works. And like you have just seen, right. You know, it doesn't produce any good if you put people back under the law. Mark 00:32:41 Well, it's the 180 degree factor again, in that they're saying grace, too much grace, hyper grace, there's no such thing because there's no too, too much of the love and favor of God. But the apostle Paul was clear that even one work, you are now obligated to follow the entire law and you've fallen away from grace and Christ is of no value of you. So even though hyper grace, there's no such thing, there is hyper law and that's one work. You add one work. Now we can accuse them. Hey, <laugh>, you know, it's hyper law, you know, and that is a license to sin. As scripture tells you, it will end up in sin. Tim 00:33:25 You guys are in Paul's letters as often as I am. Well, okay, let's be honest, you guys are in Paul's letters even more often than I am. So where in any of his letters does he say, now that you're saved, you can do whatever you wanna do. Mark 00:33:40 Just the opposite, Tim. In fact, they accused him of that and he would say, may it never be. And he would go off on them, you know, because they were accusing that of what you just said. It doesn't say that anywhere. In fact, when they accused him of that, the people that were trying to mix the law with the gospel, he would just go off on ‘em, like what? And would just spend the next two paragraphs showing how ludicrous and why that's such a ludicrous, accusation against him. Ajai 00:34:11 Yeah. In fact, I can read that for you, Mark. [Go for it.] Romans 6 says “what shall we say then, shall we continue to sin that Grace may abound? God for forbid! How shall we that our dead to sin live any longer in it. And don't, you know, that as many as of you are baptized into Christ are baptized into his death”. So he goes on to say that when we were born again, just as we talked about, there's a total change happened to us. The old man, the old Adam died with Christ and in his resurrection, we became a new creation. So that's why, you know, there's a surprise, right? What, how can you do that? Because it's like telling, you know, a lamb, you know, lamb, doesn't like going in the mud. So it's like telling a lamb, you know, can a lamb go and play in the mud and enjoy it? It's it is like that for us now, the new man in us, the spirit man, he's like the lamb that doesn't want to play in this dirty mud. We used to be pigs, but now we have become lambs, that is the difference. And we used to be caterpillars, now we are butterfly. If you tell a butterfly, you know, go and just wallow in the mud, you know, it's not its nature. Similarly, you know, our new man he's created after Christ Jesus, that's how the Bible says, so our spirits really, truly don't want to enjoy sin anymore. In fact, you know, the very reason we ran to Christ is we thought sin was a problem. We were troubled by the pro problem of sin and guilt and shame and all the things that come with sin, that's why we ran to Christ. Now that we are delivered from sin, you know, why would we think, you know, going back to sin will be a pleasurable thing. Pleasing, no, not at all. Mark 00:35:40 And one point you mentioned earlier, even though in God's eyes, we've been transformed in the blinking of an eye here on earth that sometimes takes time to work out. Ajai 00:35:50 Exactly. Yeah. Mark 00:35:51 You know, because a lot of our sin comes from broken things inside, from our past and they need to be healed. Ajai 00:35:57 Yeah. I also want to say, you know, perfection is not possible on this side of earth, so until we die, until we get the new bodies until we see Christ face to face, we shall not be like him. So, we are growing in grace. We are having more and more progressive, greater measures of victory, but at the same time, you know, we should not think that, you know, we'll be perfect like Jesus on this earth. It's very important to set that expectation, otherwise, especially new believers, you know, they might have wrong expectations about what being a believer is. Mark 00:36:26 And just to kind of summarize our position, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, grace is not a license to sin. <laugh> Can I just encourage our listeners if you have any more questions, feel free to reach out to us through our email address or, the many different ways you can do that. But I, I just encourage you to go into Roman 6 and 7, ‘cuz Paul does a much better job of laying out what grace, what the effects of grace are in your life. Tim 00:36:56 You guys know me, I'm the caveat, man, so I want to add a couple more statements, give you a chance to respond if you've got anything to add and then we'll close out. And the first one is God does not condone, let alone encourage sin in any way, shape or form in any reason, for any reason at any time, when we do make mistakes and sin, we're not judged, found guilty or condemned by God. We are still held blameless and pure before him. We can still face human consequences when and where applicable, but sin does not break our relationship with God anymore. Anything else you guys want to add before we sign off? Mark 00:37:44 No, that was perfect, man. Ajai 00:37:46 Yeah. I would say, you know, in terms of God condoning sin or God not condoning sin; you know, sin is the very thing that sent His dear Son to the cross. You know, it would be crazy to say that, you know, God condones sin in any way, form or shape and the very reason He sent His Son to save us from sin, that's why He's called Savior and so that, you know, we can become like Jesus and spend an eternity with Him. And sin has no place in heaven. So there's no way God condones sin! There's no way grace condones sin, but at the same time, you know, God is so gracious in spite of our sins, He is continually forgiving us, continually reminding us, you know, who we are in Christ so that we can learn to walk in who we truly are in Christ Jesus. Tim 00:38:32 Amen. And I will add, Mark has already told you if you have any questions or anything, please give us, a communication of some sort message, email, whatever. We thank you for coming and listening. And we hope that you've enjoyed this enough to subscribe and or share. And we look forward to talking to you again, the next time.