How To Live From The No-Condemnation-Zone

Transcription

1 How To Live From The No-Condemnation-Zone 1

2 How to live from the no-condemnation-zone 1. Get clear on the definition of (dis)obedience. 2. Be mindful of Christ s obedience, not yours. 2

3 When you ask the average Christian what disobedience is, they usually say it's either doing what God told us not to do (you shall not steal, lie, envy, etc.) or not doing what God told us to do (love your neighbor, renew your mind, take care of widows, etc.). However, this thinking is based on an Old Covenant mindset (religious). 3

4 The logic goes, if you do the You shall not s, you're disobedient. You re also labelled disobedient if you don t do the You shall s. And this simply is not true because the New Covenant believer does not relate (or is not suppose to relate) to God based on their obedience or lack thereof but based on Jesus perfect obedience, which is imputed unto us as a free gift. 4

5 What then is the Biblical definition of disobedience? And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience (Eph. 2:1-2) Here Paul makes a clear contrast between believers and unbelievers. 5

6 Who are the sons of disobedience? Unbelievers. 6

7 Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient [unbelievers], The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone, and A stone of stumbling And a rock of offense. They [unbelievers] stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed (1 Pet. 2:7-8) Peter also shows that a person is either a believer or an unbeliever. 7

8 Who are the people described here as disobedient? That are unbelievers who do not put their trust in Jesus. 8

9 To sum up, it is clear that the Biblical definition of disobedience is not: doing what God told us not to do (you shall not) or not doing what God told us to do (you shall). This is OC (religious) thinking. The truth is that being disobedient means not to believe in Jesus. Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight (Rom. 4:7, NLT) 9

10 The moment you were born again, Jesus obedience was imputed unto to you as a free gift; making you a 100% obedient son to God. Consequently, God sees you as though you were always perfectly obedient to Him! Sure, on the outside we may mess up once in a while, but God doesn t call us disobedient. 10

11 To be saved means to be obedient. You are a son of perfect obedience before the Father because of Christ's obedience. In other words, your heavenly Father does not see you as disobedient, ever! 11

12 How to live from the no-condemnation-zone 1. Get clear on the definition of (dis)obedience. 2. Be mindful of Christ s obedience, not yours. 12

13 To the degree I believe it s about my level of obedience, I m selffocussed. Result: if I do good, I m prideful. If I do bad, I feel condemned. Any preaching or practice on obedience that causes you to think, I wonder if I am obedient enough. is a message without Christ, therefore religious. Religion has you looking at you and your obedience ( you need to be obedient, or else... ). Christianity has you looking at Christ and what He has done (Christ is your obedience). 13

14 Disobedience is neither partial or delayed obedience. Disobedience means to be unsaved. God divorces our actions from our new birth. So should we. Religion says, you must be obedient. Grace says, you are obedient. 14

15 Jesus as God demands perfect obedience. Jesus as Man supplies perfect obedience. For as by one man s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man s obedience many will be made righteous (Romans 5:19) We are the obedience of God in Christ Jesus! We don t rely on our obedience of lack thereof, but on the Gift of obedience, Christ. Are you righteous because you obeyed? Or are you righteous because Jesus obeyed? 15

16 To be saved = to be obedient. 16

17 I do obey the truth, not by trying to do good and avoid evil, but by believing in Christ and allowing Him to live His live through me. 17

18 Rule-keeping is a recipe for disaster. No one can keep all the rules except God himself. Life isn t about rules, it s about relationship. Bas, are you saying God is not interested in my obedience? Are you saying God is not judging me according to my obedience? He isn t if you are in Christ, then you have already been judged righteous, holy, and good, on account of His obedience. 18

19 Are you saying we don t need to keep the commands of the New Testament? Yes, the purpose of life is: believe in Jesus - dependence on a good God who supplied His obedience. 19

20 An old covenant preacher will use carrots and sticks to motivate you to obey. 20

21 An old covenant preacher will use carrots and sticks to motivate you to obey. A new covenant preacher, on the other hand, will seek to reveal God s unconditional love to you and from this secure, rock-solid foundation, inspire you to walk confidently as a child of God. As you do this, you will find yourself obeying God effortlessly. 21

22 It's all about motivation: fear or love? There are many who are trying to obey God out of fear instead of love. Why fear? Because they ve been told that they have to prove their repentance with good deeds, they have to hold fast, endure to the end, avoid sin, and do everything else the Bible says. And what if they don t? God will reject them. They will be cast aside with the weeds, told to depart with the goats, and burned with the unfruitful branches. It s terrifying stuff! 22

23 Bas, are you saying that my obedience doesn t matter? Of course it matters! 23

24 Bas, are you saying that my obedience doesn t matter? Of course it matters! We don t obey to earn his love (we already have it) or his forgiveness (in Christ, it s already ours). Rather, we obey our heavenly Father because we love and trust him and we know that he wants the very best for us. Obedience is not keeping a set of rules, but a trust-relationship. When you know the love of God you will trust and obey Him naturally. 24

25 There are many rules and exhortations in the New Testament, but Jesus summarizes all of them in just eight words: My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. (John 15:12) Again, we don t keep the command in order to merit God s love that s back to front. Look again at the words of Jesus: Love others as I have loved you. In the old, we did to get. In the new, we do because we have already received. We love because he first loved us. 25

26 Jesus pointed out in the gospel of John when he said, If you love me, keep my commands. The emphasis is on love first, the actions of keeping and obeying follows the love. Jesus did not say: Obey me to show me you love me. Prove your commitment through your obedience. Keep the rules, you ll get the reward. Jesus was not focused on our behavior, he was focused on our hearts. 26

27 Someone said that God s commands are not conditions for a relationship, but a confirmation of a relationship. Tim Keller echoes a similar thought when he says, Religion is I obey and therefore I am accepted. Relationship says I am accepted and therefore I obey. 27

28 Obedience is like the fruit of a good plant. Grace is like the water, soil, and light we give it. When you teach grace, you will see good fruits grow. However, sometimes people have it backwards. They think, "Unless the plant produces fruit, we will not give it water! God will not bless you unless you seek and love Him." They focus their teachings on how much God "demands" of us. Knowing what God desires is good and healthy, but these people not only focus on good works, they deny or neglect grace in the process. 28

29 God's grace is like nourishment (water, soil, light) to a plant. How does a plant grow and blossom? By focussing on growth or nourishment? 29

30 Nourishment + just grow (be obedient) = no growth. Nourishment + nothing = growth. 30

31 New Covenant obedience is obedience of faith. Our obedience today is to believe. For the LORD God is a sun and shield; The LORD gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly (Ps. 84:11) To walk uprightly is not keeping the law. The Good News is that under the NC to walk uprightly means to believe. Once you're born again you effortlessly walk uprightly for it's Jesus who does the walking in and through you. 31

32 Established the new covenant (Hebr. 8:7 8) in His Son s blood, His You shall s became I will s. Isn t there something for me to do? you may ask. The only thing for you to do is to believe God s I will s. So the best thing you can do under the new covenant is to not focus on what you must do for God, but what God says He will do for you! 32

33 Compliance or Obedience? Christianity is not a call to live by principles or to live for Jesus. To build our lives around biblical principles sounds admirable, but it is a subtle form of legalism. Of course there is instruction in the New Testament about how we are to live. But these instructions are not religious laws for us to follow. They are descriptions of the many ways that Christ can live His life through us as we depend on Him. New Testament Christianity is not grounded in what we do, but in what He has already done. The Bible teaches the One who has begun the work in us will be the One to complete it. Paul said, "Faithful is He who calls you, AND HE WILL BRING IT TO PASS" (1 Thess. 5:24). The Bible is clear: Jesus will do it, not us... 33

34 ...there is indeed a blessing to be enjoyed as we obey the Lord, but blessings are not experienced by simply doing what God says. Simply doing what God says has never brought joy to anybody's life. The source of joy is Jesus, not mere compliance to the Bible's commands. Many people struggle with the question, "Why am I not fulfilled when I'm doing all the things that I believe God wants me to do?" It's because God's purpose is not that we should focus on doing the right things. Rather, he wants us to focus on Him. Obedience occurs as we trust Jesus within us to fulfill the desires of His Father through us. As Jesus does that, we will fulfill the commands of the Scripture. On the other hand, when we simply do what the Bible instructs, that is not godly obedience. It is nothing more than compliance - Steve McVey 34

35 Another typical religious statement I ve heard is: success is being obedient. 35

36 Being obedient in your Christian walk has nothing to do with external behavior like: Doing what God told you to do (e.g. loving your neighbor, fulfilling your calling, renewing your mind, giving money to the poor, witnessing to the lost, etc.). Nor is being disobedient: Not doing what God told you not to do (e.g. not stealing, lying, cheating, envying, boasting, etc.). 36

37 The New Covenant believer does not relate (or is not suppose to relate) to God based on their obedience or lack thereof but based on Jesus perfect obedience, which is imputed unto us as a free gift. In other words, to be (dis)obedient has nothing to do with how much or little you keep any of the Old or New Testament commandments. 37

38 How to live from the no-condemnation-zone 1. Get clear on the definition of (dis)obedience. 2. Be mindful of Christ s obedience, not yours. 38

39 Casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor. 10:5) 39

40 Casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor. 10:5) God wants us to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Now, whose obedience are we to focus on? Christ s obedience and not your own obedience! 40

41 The devil can only make inroads into our minds when he gets us to focus on our obedience instead of Christ s obedience. His strategy is to point us to our obedience or the lack of it to determine our standing before God. 41

42 The devil can only make inroads into our minds when he gets us to focus on our obedience instead of Christ s obedience. His strategy is to point us to our obedience or the lack of it to determine our standing before God. So the next time your thoughts seem to condemn you, say, I am righteous whether I have good or bad thoughts. My righteousness has nothing to do with my obedience. Jesus obedience at the cross made me righteous. 42

43 I do make choices to do what is right, like loving people, but godly actions do not make me obedient in Gods eyes because I am perfectly obedient before Him through Jesus. I am as obedient as Jesus is. Therefore, I am never considered to be disobedient by God. 43

44 If I do wrong, when I mess up, I walk by the flesh, but that does not mean I am disobedient. To be disobedient means to be unsaved. If do right, when I reflect Christ in my life, I walk by the Spirit, but that does not mean I am obedient. To be obedient means to be saved. To sin is not to be disobedient! 44

45 Through Christ we are made perfect. And since we are made perfect, we are never seen as disobedient by God but are seen as though we ve always perfectly obeyed Him. What a freedom! No standard to measure our level of obedience against. No more expectations or strict demands we need to try to live up to. 45

46 You leave the days of do s and don ts behind and live the normal Christian walk of peace, love and joy. 46

47 God does not want you to keep the commandments, because you are unable. God never gave us the law to keep. He gave us the law to break. Never has anybody succeeded in making himself acceptable to God by means of the law. The law requires much but offers no help in carrying out its requirements. Jesus requires just as much, even more (Matt. 5:21-48), but what He requires He Himself carries out in us. Christ makes demands but He Himself fulfills in us the very demands He makes. Commandments are not to be kept by us, but to be lived out by Christ through us. Grace means that God does something for me; law means that I do something for God. 47

48 Do we still need to keep the does and don t in the Bible? No! Jesus perfectly obeyed the does and don ts, absorbed our sin on the cross and put His nature in us. Jesus Christ is our life and we are like Him. Christ is your obedience. God sees you as if you have always perfectly obeyed Him. You have never been out of line because in Gods eyes you have never made a misstep due to the perfect nature of Christ in you. Now why don t you let that truth explode on the inside and shatter any religious thinking into pieces. 48

49 Trusting solely in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus and acknowledging His presence within us will never inspire us to sin. Instead, the more we consider Jesus and grow in our understanding of Him, the more responsive we will be to Him at every moment of every day. And Jesus will always lead us in the way that is right. 49

50 So, Jesus will always lead us in the way that is right and enable us to live in that way. Is it important to obey God? Absolutely. But we want to do it from a place of resting, not striving. Therefore, believe the Gospel! 50

51 You obey the truth by doing nothing but resting in Christ and allowing Him to work in and through you and not by you trying to be obedient to comply to a set of rules. Why? Because you don't become who you already are. And what are you? You are someone who is as obedient as Jesus is before the Father. 51

52 Now, that good news that you can go to bed to each night with a huge smile on your face and wake up with a huge smile, knowing that your heavenly Father declares over you: Here is My Beloved who's always perfectly obedient in My sight...one who never fails...one who never falls short, due to his perfect divine nature! 52

53 Question: How will your life look different when you'll start to live out of this reality of being perfectly obedient to God, 100%, all the time? Share your thoughts below this video... 53