IN LOVE REJECTED, BY GRACE REDEEMED

Good Morning!  God is so good!  I wanted to share something wonderful with you.  It's taken from Genesis 3:22-23:

22   And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23  So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.  (NIV)

Have you ever thought deeply about these verses?  I noticed that God did not tell Adam and Eve why He was banishing them from the Garden of Eden. Yes, He did tell Adam that he would have to work the ground by the sweat of his brow (Gensis 3:18-19) but in verse 22, God was speaking to Himself and amongst the Heavenly Host, not to Adam.  So when He drove Adam and Eve from the Garden, it must have looked like rejection to them, like God no longer wanted them around.  However, in God's eyes, it was out of love and compassion for them because He did not want them to eat from the Tree of Life which would have enabled them to live forever in their newly sinful state.  Could you imagine living forever in a decaying body with an evil heart and unregenerate mind?  Before Jesus came to redeem us, God told us in Jeremiah 17:9 that man's heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked!  The wonderful news is that Jesus gave us a new heart and a new spirit (Ezekiel 36: 26-27).

Rejection was born into man when they were banished from God's presence.  God really had never turned His back on them.  It was Adam and Eve that hid and separated themselves first from God when they sinned (Genesis 3:8).  God will never turn from us (Romans 8:31-39), but their perception was that He did because they did not know the truth of why they were forced to leave His presence.  They reasoned in their own minds that God rejected them.  This evil idea that God rejected them spawned anger and rebellion toward God resulting in more disobedience to where man not only blamed God for His seemingly rejection, but jealousy entered in and they blamed others believing it was their fault too why God rejected them.  We see that in Cain's response to God and how he killed his brother, Abel, out of jealousy.  Cain didn't offer a good sacrifice to God for the atonement of his sins (Genesis 4:3-5) and God wasn't rejecting Cain, but He couldn't accept the offering because without the shedding of blood their is no remission of sins (Hebrews 9:22).  God has standards set that are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9).  Out of His love for Cain, He even tried to reason with Cain and let him know that He was not rejecting him, but Cain would not listen (Genesis 4:6-8).  God gave him the freedom to choose and he chose to let his wrong feelings of rejection turn into jealousy.

Jealousy does not have anything to do with what another person has or doesn't have.  Simply put, jealousy is not believing that God can and will do the same for us that He did for someone else.  We feel rejected by Him and thus, we reject.  An example of this is that a person may think if someone gets a great promotion they wanted, then they can't have something as good. They may think it's because God loves that person more because that person pleases Him more.  Some even believe that God will have to rob the other person in order to give them the same thing because they believe God is lacking.  The root cause of this line of thought came from initially believing that God had rejected us.  This is also why so many people are angry with God.  Many people are claiming that God doesn't accept them for who they are - more rejection and they reject Him without finding the truth.  This belief came to the point where the Bible tells us that we WERE enemies of God (Romans 5:10).  The ultimate seed of believing we were and are rejected is to completely discount God and say there is no God.

But here is the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His Grace!  Jesus came to put an end to that lie once and for all!  He took our rejection for us when He cried out as we once did in the Garden of Eden, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me!?" (Mark 15:34)  Child of God, you will NEVER be forsaken by God.  He has made it abundantly clear through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that He has not rejected you.  Like in the parable of the prodigal son, God our Father will always be waiting to run toward us with open arms when we draw near to Him (Luke 15:11-32).  He will run!

God bless you always,
Sandy

Law or Grace - How Would You Rather Live?

1 Corinthians 15:56, "For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power." The Greek word for "power" in this verse is dynamis, which literally means strength, power and ability. It is where we get our word dynamite from, so you can see that it is very explosive power and not a wimpy power.

Why did Paul write this? Paul was not against the Law. No he respected the Law for the reason it was given, and he completely understood why it was given. He answers that question of why was the law given in Galatians 3:19, "Why, then, was the law given? It was given alongside the promise to show people their sins. But the law was designed to last only until the coming of the child who was promised. God gave his law through angels to Moses, who was the mediator between God and the people." (NLT)

Galatians 3:24, "So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith." (NIV).

Paul also wrote in Romans 5:20, "The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more." (NASB) Do you see and understand this? The Law was given to actually increase sin, which confirms 1 Corinthians 15:56 where Paul wrote the law gives sin its power or strength, and again it isn't a wimpy power, but a dynamite power. Sin brings great bondage, but in Romans 5:20, Paul said that Grace is stronger. Grace swallows up sin!

According to the Bible, the Law was given to us to show us our sins and to lead us to Christ, which is what we said last night. I know this is contrary to what most people believe and have been taught. For years many people have been taught that the Law was given to abide by, but we have to stick with what the Bible says and not our opinions of it and the Bible clearly says that the Law was given to show us our sins.

When the Law shows you your sin, it brings condemnation and punishment with it because there is a penalty for breaking the Law, which is sin. The Bible tells us that the penalty for sin is death.

Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (NIV)

Because there is death in the Law, Paul wrote the following about the Law. Remember, this is the Bible.

2 Corinthians 3:7-10"7 Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone (Paul is talking about the 10 Commandments - they were engraved on stone), came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? 9 If the ministry that brought condemnation (the Law) was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness (Jesus' Grace)! 10 For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. 11 And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!" (NIV)

God knew from day one when He gave Moses the 10 Commandments that no man would never ever ever be able to follow them. In fact, even if they disobeyed just one and obeyed all the others, they would still be guilty of all the others. This is what James wrote about that:

James 2:10, "For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God's laws." (NLT)

Does this seem fair? No, unless you understand why God gave the Law in the first place, and that was to show us our sin and lead us to Christ (Galatians 3:19, 24).

The Bible also says this about the Old Covenant of the Law and how God viewed it:

Hebrews 8:7, "For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant (the Law), no place would have been sought for another." (NIV)

Hebrews 8:13, "By calling this covenant “new,” he (God) has made the first one (the Law) obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear." (NIV) (**The Greek word here for "obsolete" is palaioo, which means to make ancient or old; of things worn out by time and use; the worse for wear.")

Now, what does all this mean for us today? Does it mean that we now can just go out and sin now that we are under Grace? No! If you are saved, why would you want to sin? Paul said in Romans 6:1-2, "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" (NIV)

If you are born again and the Holy Spirit now dwells inside of you, the old you which was in bondage to sin died with Christ and now you are a new creation in Him. You have a new heart (read 2 Corinthians 5 for further explanation of this). Paul is saying in Romans 6:2 that we should be losing our passion for sin. And he goes on to say in Romans 6:14 that sin no longer has dominion over us. Sin is no longer our master, and why is that? He says because we are no longer under the Law, but under Grace.

Romans 6:14, "For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace." (NIV) (This implies that when you are under Law, sin will be your master.)

We are dead to sin because Jesus conquered the power of sin on the Cross. All our sins were laid on Him and He dealt with it. The fact that He was raised from the dead, which remember death is the wages of sin, is confirmation to us that He conquered it because He didn't stay dead. We are in Him and He is in us and therefore, sin no longer reigns in us either. I know what you are thinking, YES, we still do sin, but it is our choice when we do. The devil didn't make us do it. He has no strength. Jesus stripped him of all his authority (Colossians 2:15). All satan has is his words to try and confuse us with if we take those words to heart. No, sin is no longer our master or stronger than us because of Jesus Christ in us, and here is the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and what He did for us on that Cross - even when we do sin, God no longer holds it to our account. We will not be punished for it. We are blessed by God's Grace. He no longer sees us condemned and paying for our sin. That is why King David said first and Paul quoted later:

Romans 4:8, "Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him." (NIV)

Under the Law, we must pay for our sins, but under Grace, Christ paid for our sins. There must be restitution and payment made for sinning because God is a righteous God. Sin must be dealt with. That is why He sent Jesus Christ, His only Son to die for us, because in doing so, Jesus suffered and paid the restitution for all sin, past, present and future. The Bible tells us in John 3:16-17, that Jesus died for the world's sins and to save us as a gift to us, not just yours and mine, BUT the whole world, BUT we individually have to receive this gift as Romans 10:9 says, we must confess that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead. It is free because it is a gift. If you have to pay for it or earn it, then it is not a gift.

And because God is righteous, He will NEVER judge us for the same sin twice. All our sins past, present and future were laid on the body of Jesus Christ before you and I were even born.

Isaiah 53:6, " We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him (Jesus Christ) the iniquity (sin) of us all." (NIV)

Hebrews 10:10, "And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." (NIV)

Hebrews 10:14, "For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified." (NASB)

Romans 8:1, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (NIV) (The KJV has tacked onto the end of this verse "if we walk according to the spirit and not the flesh" but that was not in the original epistle that Paul wrote. It was tacked on later because during that time period the translators couldn't believe that we could be free from condemnation without doing something in our own efforts to obtain it.)

According to the Word of God in the scriptures I have quoted above, we are free, innocent, not guilty of our sins forever. That is the Gospel or Good News that Jesus came to bring. We were dead in our sins before He came, but now we are alive. He does not condemn us because He took our condemnation no matter how big or small. We can hold our head high even when we miss the mark and say, I thank you God for the cleansing Blood of Jesus for because of Him, I am innocent!

This is so powerful when we get a revelation of it because it is so freeing. The one thing that holds us back in life and going forward is not fear. There is a deeper root than fear and that is feeling condemned, ashamed and guilty. Fear is spawned from condemnation. We see that in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve sinned (Genesis 3). They immediately felt guilt and were ashamed and hid themselves from God (condemnation separates us from God). Then fear came when God was looking for them. They tried to cover themselves with fig leaves, which represents their own efforts or self-righteousness if you will. God knew that only blood could overt His eyes from seeing their sin and so He made them skins of animals for clothing, which initiated the first shedding of blood. Those animals had to die for their clothes to be used to cover Adam and Eve. Now we have something so much better than the blood of animals and their skins covering us. We have the Blood of Jesus and His robe of righteousness covering us. The animal blood (skins) wore out, but the Blood of Jesus and His robe of righteousness will never wear out.

If you have any questions, I invite you to contact me. I would love to hear from you.

Pastor Sandy
Lifting Up Jesus Church
4147 Northgate Blvd., Ste 2-3, Sacramento, CA  95834
connect@rsrm.net