09-27-2020

Justification, Regeneration, and the Calling of the Believer

We're glad school got off to a good start this year and boy it's a lot of such a big undertaking and Brother Paul is so wonderful at what he does though and all of our teachers but what a great leader he is, isn't he wonderful?

Who could do it? Who could do that sort of thing? He said he told me one time when we've not long after we first met that he felt called to do Christian education from early teenage years and that calling is so obvious.

Well let's do a little bit of review today, what do you say? We're in Romans chapter 8 verses 28 through 30. I need to make that little thing go away Ben, how do I do that, let's see, boom, alright, I got it?

Alright, so we're talking a little bit about justification and remember here's our verse, finally came up there, moreover whom he did predestinate than he also called and who he called he also justified and so the two things that happen in time are the calling and the justification.

Now there's a lot more that happens to us in time on our spiritual birthday, a lot more than just the calling and the justification but it all starts with the calling and at that moment the Holy Spirit regenerates the believer and brings about 33 things that are gifts from God that he gives us instantly including the ability to see and hear spiritually, the ability to believe with the belief of Jesus Christ, we'll see that maybe today again, we've seen it many times but it happens to be in some of the passages we'll study.

All these things he does to us, while we were yet sinners hath he quickened us, he brought us to life. So our regeneration is a work of God and God only through the Holy Spirit and by Jesus Christ and because of the blood of Jesus.

One of the 33 things the Holy Spirit does is he applies the blood of Jesus to us individually at that moment and it's an amazing thing and so that happens in time. Now when it says those he called he also justified, that word justified really there's a broader word salvation which includes many things past, present and future as far as our salvation but the justified part is something that happens to us at the moment we're regenerated, we're also justified and we studied the definition of it.

It means to be rendered righteous, so someone bigger than you has to do that to you, it's not something you can do for God, it's something God does to you and to me and so we've been talking about that.

Now when we went into a study, we had this little passage of scripture here and what's interesting is in that little passage in Romans chapter 3 verses 23 through 28, we see seven things that we must understand if we're even going to understand justification because most people don't understand it and many church groups teach it incorrectly, don't have a good understanding of it.

In fact, Matt and I were just having a discussion yesterday while we were together and about some teacher out on the internet that's teaching was trying to teach something from Hebrews chapter 10. He totally got it wrong, just totally, totally missed it but he's teaching it as with authority and people believe what he's teaching, I'm sure, and it's totally not what it teaches.

Out of context, didn't use any of the 10 rules of Bible interpretation, just sort of guessed at it and said this is my opinion of what it means. Well, we don't have a right to do that. The Bible forbids private interpretations, you can't do that but people are doing it, especially on the internet out there.

The job of the local church is to protect and be the pillar of the truth so we aim to do that today but if you really get this right, you won't mess Hebrews chapter 10 up because it cannot contradict this and so an understanding of grace is so important.

Now remember, in this passage, there are seven things we have to understand if we're going to understand justification but what does justification mean again? It means God counts you as if you're righteous.

It's something he renders you, it's not something you can do, it's something he makes you to be. He counts you righteous and even the root word for justification and righteousness is the same root word so he justifies you and makes you righteous.

That's not something you did or had anything to do with so remember this, no matter what passage some dude tries to teach you and gets a little bit off, usually they get off into legalism and works, oh but if you do that, you'll fall away, that sort of thing.

Listen, you didn't do this to yourself so you can't undo it. You did not save yourself, God saved you from the foundation of the world. Before he created anything, he knew you as his own, he predestinated you to be saved, in time he called you, you can't uncall someone and he justified you.

Listen, if he rendered you righteous, you cannot un-render yourself righteous, you did not do that to yourself, you can't undo it. You cannot undo that any more than a child can be unborn and that's why Jesus said salvation is like being born again.

You can't get unborn, you can't not be part of the parent's family anymore. You can be disobedient and get a whipping, right, amen. Yeah, some parents in this church right here carry spatulas with them, but you know what, you get that whipping, the dad doesn't throw you out the door across the track and say, you don't belong to me anymore, does he, because that's not how it works with parenting and being a child born into a family.

You can't get unborn and you can't get unborn spiritually, does that make sense? That's why Jesus taught that to Nicodemus and you want to know what? That's why Nicodemus had a problem with it because he was under a religion that said you had to do stuff to get saved and stay saved and he did not understand the born again thing.

Oh, you mean I got to crawl back in my mother's womb, how does that happen? He literally asked Jesus that. Jesus looked at him and said, how can you be a master teacher of Israel and not know these things?

He rebuked him in a little more gentle way than the other Pharisees though and I think that's because Nicodemus was a sheep. He was probably a lost sheep at that moment, but he was going to be saved, I think.

That's my opinion, but Jesus handled him pretty gently, but he did correct him, didn't he? So we have to correct people. When they start teaching false doctrine, usually it's works oriented, it's legalistic and things you have to do either to get saved or stay saved, you got to correct folks that are doing that.

That is your job. That's my job to teach you to do it and then it's your job to do it, does that make sense? So type in a little, you see somebody on the internet teach something wrong, say, you know what?

You might want to check out like these 50 ,000 verses you just contradicted and do it in a nice way though. Shoot it to them and get a dialogue going with them. Help them out a little bit. Now look at this right here.

First thing is you got, if you're going to understand what it means to be justified by God where he makes you righteous, you have got to understand the depravity of man because you know what that first point teaches you is that if you could fall away, everyone in this room would do it because you're depraved, your flesh is depraved.

It does not go with God. So if you could lose your salvation, you would lose it guaranteed. Point number one, you got to understand that or you'll never understand what it means to be justified because if you think being justified means something that you did and you helped God and then you got saved, now I'm going to undo that, then you don't understand the depravity of man because that doctrine teaches you don't have within you the ability to help God save you, nor would you want to, nor did you want to.

That's why you didn't get saved three seconds before you got saved because you didn't want to. Heard me say it a million times, but I like it. I like how that sounds. You didn't do it a week before. You didn't do it a month before.

You didn't want to. The Holy Spirit had to change your want to. Now let me ask you this about the Holy Spirit being all knowing, all love, totally omniscient, omnipotent, why would the Holy Spirit change your want to and regenerate you and open your eyes and your ears and save you if he had foreknowledge that you could do something to lose that later?

And besides that, if Jesus is the shepherd and you did get lost, he is responsible and will answer to God for that. You think that's going to happen? So none of that fits this junk that it's everywhere.

It's in this town. There are churches right today that say, well, yeah, Jesus saved you, but if you do this and such, you'll lose it. Well, that means they don't understand point number one and they don't understand point number two, which we're still in the middle of that.

That's a big topic. Grace. If you don't understand grace, you'll never understand justification because it's by grace. What does grace mean? Free. You didn't earn it. You can't earn it. If you can't earn it and you didn't earn it, you can't lose it.

So you got to understand point number two. And then there's others. You got to understand what propitiation means. You got to understand what imputation means. You got to understand what positional righteousness is because you have it.

So you need to understand what it is. And number six, you need to understand why it's just for Jesus to save us in the first place. And then you need to understand that justification is without the deeds of the law.

Boy, if you understood that last one, I can't wait to get to point number seven. There's no way you can lose it if point number seven is correct. Because point number seven says that you're saved without anything to do with keeping the law or doing stuff that's right.

And if that's true, in fact, it says there's a great gulf between faith and works and salvation is over here with the faith away from this stuff. You understand that? How would anyone ever convince you you could lose it?

And yet the entire church at Galatia had this problem, and Paul had to come in and rebuke them. And we're going to be looking at a lot of that today. So we talked about the depravity of man part here.

We then talked about the grace. The first thing we learned about grace is the definition of it is it's free. It's undeserved favor, undeserved favor of God. It's free, completely free. And it's tied in with the concept of redemption.

And redemption means that the ransom has been paid in full to release you from captivity of the devil. Right. And Jesus paid that. You had nothing to do with it. You were taken captive. You were a captive and he freed you.

Now, what does that have to do with you doing stuff to get that? You didn't do it. You didn't have the money to free yourself. You couldn't pay what it took to free yourself because it took the blood of Jesus.

Perfect, pure blood is what it took. And he gave that blood and it totally and perfectly saves everyone that it saves. So understanding redemption would make a big difference. So what does grace mean?

It is free. It is tied to redemption, which means to set free by paying a price and only Jesus can pay that price. The father actually paid it by giving the blood of his own son. So we've studied that.

Now, we learned this a couple of weekends ago. So by definition in Romans chapter 11, verse 5 and following, it is impossible to add works of man to grace. It can't be grace plus works. And the very definition of the word grace makes it impossible to add works to it with regard to either salvation or even eternal security, or in other words, staying safe.

You can't add works to it. It's impossible. That passage, Romans 11, 5 through 7 proves it. We've already studied that. And then the next thing is, when you move away from grace and you start getting back into law, all of a sudden you're removed from Jesus.

Think about that a minute. Let's just read this one. I mean, I know this is a review, but wasn't it good enough just to preach it once? I marvel that you are so soon removed from what? Everybody say the word.

From him. So whatever is about to happen in this verse is removing you from Jesus. Now look what it says. He's saying this to some converts of his who a false teacher had come in and convinced them, yeah, you need Jesus, but you also need to get circumcised and you need to follow Moses and you need to worship on Saturday, not just Sunday.

And he had convinced them to start being legal. And Paul comes in and calls them fools, foolish Galatians, but look what he says. I marvel that I led you to Christ, I showed you the true gospel, I taught you the word of God and good doctrine, and then I went on a trip and come back and find you this way.

I marvel at this, he said. I marvel that you're so soon removed from him, that's Jesus, the one who called you. You're so quickly removed from him that called you unto the grace of Christ to another gospel that includes works, helping you stay saved or get saved.

That's another gospel, he calls it. And then he goes on down through there and says, no, there isn't another gospel. It's a lie is what it is. And he said, let the person who teaches that be twice cursed.

Look down at the end, verse eight, verse nine at the end, let him be accursed. Let a person who teaches that kind of gospel be cursed to hell, Paul said. Wow, I would rather just shoot them a note through the internet and help them a little bit and hope that they turn around.

There are two kinds of false prophets, by the way, we talked about that. One kind is sent by Satan and they're ordained to hell, but they're sent by Satan to disrupt the liberty in church, take away the freedom that's in church in Christ.

And the other kind, though, is a preacher that's young and just makes a mistake. And he will probably 20 years later look back on having said that and say, I wish I had never said that. See, there's that too.

So, you know, Jesus can rebuke them. We need to sort of try to help them. And then if they just won't be helped, you need to start to usher them on out the door. Don't let them stay here. And we'll see that in a minute.

But anyway, you see the point here. When you move away from pure grace where you don't add works to it, then you're moving away from Jesus because salvation is in Jesus. It's in a person. It's not in stuff you do or the church tells you to do.

It's in a person. And so to move into these works oriented things, you're moving away from Christ. And Paul said, if you get circumcised thinking you've got to add that to Jesus, then Jesus Christ will avail you how much?

Nothing. So then when do you go? Where do you go when you die? Without Christ, you would go to hell, right? So you got to be really careful with these doctrines and the people that are your friends that believe them.

You've got to ask the Holy Spirit to give you an open time when you can discuss these false things with them and hope that they'll see the truth. I don't know how far I'm going to get into this. There's some beautiful information in this lesson on how to do that, by the way.

In fact, my wife shared it with me about a year and a half or two years ago, and I hadn't forgotten it since, on how to share with people that are getting it wrong. But number two, there is no other gospel that's real.

There's only one gospel and it's free grace without works for salvation. That's all. That's the only true gospel. Number three, the destiny of those who preach works salvation is found in the end of verse eight and the end of verse nine, which means it's emphasized by the Holy Spirit.

They are going to hell unless they get saved or unless they're just mistaken and they don't know how to study and you help them study and they get it right. But there are some, according to the book of Jude, who were foreordained for the blackness of darkness forever, and Satan uses them to mess up churches.

You got to preach them right out. You can't let them stay in the church or in your life, all right? Now, how should we deal with false teachers? That we're done with the review. Let's see if we can learn something new.

How does the Bible tell us? The same Bible that tells us they exist, would have been interesting to put in the passage in Jude, but I think we already had it, but I don't have it for today. I don't think, who knows I might, I don't think I do though.

But the same Bible that teaches us that they exist, shows us how we as a church have to deal with them. God does not give us an option here. He commands us, here's how you deal with them, so let's look at it.

How False Teachers Enter the Church and Spy Out Liberty

Number one, how do they work when they sneak into the church? How do these false prophets do their work? Well now we're in Galatians chapter two, verse four, and that because of false brothers, now what does that tell you?

What do they look like when they come and sit among us? Brothers and sisters. They look safe, they act safe, they're sweet. You know, how many of you ever been taken by a swindler? All right, me, a few times, one time too many.

All right, what are they like? What's their personality like, these people? Oh, they're wonderful people. I mean, one of the ones that got us the most, he came, slept in our home, stayed with us a day or two, on the ranch, loved him.

Charlotte said no. One night, okay, stayed one night. And what are they like? They're just wonderful, sweet people that are just charismatic, right? That's what they're like. So look at it, these are, first of all, they appear to be your brothers, so you naturally love them, right?

And then it says, they're brought in unaware. That means you're not aware that they were brought in. Now, what does the phrase brought in indicate? Did they just come in of their own free will? Or did someone more powerful than we are bring them with a purpose?

And his name is Lucifer. So see, they were brought in. It's like, that's pretty freaky when you think about it. Satan, on purpose, brought them to your church when it happens. It's harder in a little bitty church like this.

The big churches, it is pretty easy to slip them in and have them just be out there among the brothers and sisters. So they're brought in unawares. What do they do is the second point. Well, the first point, how do they work?

They work through secret, privilege, secretly, acting like they're a Christian, acting like they love you and they're going to help you be smarter. It's always smarter. It's always an intellectual thing.

They're going to help you be way smarter and understand the Bible way better. And many times, the really bad ones will actually indicate in the books they write that without their book, you will never understand the Bible properly.

If you see that, just skip the rest of the book. The guy that invented Lagos, which I love, I think I've got this right. I hope I do. It's either blue letter Bible, but I think it's Lagos, wrote such a book.

And we had some friends that were reading the book and had to show them this stuff is wrong. And in the book, he indicated early on in the book that, like, without my book, you can't properly understand the Bible.

Well, how many people have said that who started cult groups? You ever heard of Mormonism? Joseph Smith said, without my new Bible, you know, the Book of Mormon, without this, you cannot understand the Bible.

So, young people, anybody ever tells you that without this, you can't understand the Bible, run from them. They're a false leader, but they're brought in unawares. What do they do? Well, they come in secretly, privily means secretly, to spy out your liberty.

Now, stop a minute and think. Don't just read the Bible, read it slow. What does it mean that they're spying out? What is liberty? Liberty is the freedom that you have because you have been set free by a price that someone greater than you paid.

You've been ransomed. You've been set free. You've been saved by Jesus Christ, and they want to take that freedom away and tell you you need to help him a little bit. Listen to me, young people. You need to help Jesus by doing a bunch of good stuff or else you'll lose your salvation.

That's they're taking your liberty. What is liberty? Liberty is the freedom to know I'm free. It's not the freedom to go sin a bunch. That's not what it means. I mean, we need to try to live right. Right.

We're going to do the best we can to live right every day with the equipment God's given us. And guess what happens when we don't? Jesus has a spatula. He does, doesn't he? And he carries it with him all the time because we never grow up much, do we?

So he can spank us and he will. But this doesn't mean you lose your salvation. You can't be unborn. You're in God's family now. You're in his family. So they want to take that liberty away, that freedom to be saved by something, by the finished work of Jesus rather than stuff you do.

They want to take that away. Does that make sense? That's their job. And guess what? They were brought in. Satan brings them into your life to mess you up and get you thinking wrong about what Jesus did for you, plus nothing.

It's all Jesus. And they want your eyes and your mind off of Jesus on the church stuff and works and being a good person and not doing this and doing this. And boy, you get into that. You just like you have no liberty at that point.

You know why? Because you can't keep the rules. You can play like it for a while, but, you know, anybody watching you, you can't keep the rules if you're making a bunch of rules to try to keep. Right.

All right. So they spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ, that they might bring us into what? Bondage. That's what a legalist always does. Here's my rules. I'm already keeping them really well.

It's going to take you 20 or 30 years to catch up to me. You probably never will. I'm so righteous. So start trying to keep them. They just put you under bondage. You got to worship on Saturday, not Sunday.

You got to make sure that you never, ever, ever watch television. Right. If you ever go to a movie, you're unsanctified, right? I mean, they come up with rules like this. Women, if you ever wear pants, you're just like you need to work on your salvation a little bit.

I've been in churches like that. This one used to be that way. Maybe it's why we're so far enough that way now. Right. And actually, Brother Paul, your hair is touching your ears a little bit right now.

You need to get a haircut because you're not quite as sanctified as I am because I just got mine cut this week. You think I'm making jokes? This is real. All right. This is real. All right. So they put you under bondage.

That's what they do to whom we know. Now, how should we treat them? Isn't that the question? How should we deal with these false teachers? Look at verse five here. Oh, you know what, guys? You got to remind me, I'm supposed to make the fonts bigger and I forgot I can do it so easy.

I just forgot to do it. I'm going to make these where you can see them better from the back. But anyway, verse five, to whom we gave place by subjection. No, not for one hour. Do you see what Paul says?

He says, look, we didn't give place to them in our congregation for even an hour. We asked them to leave before they talked for even one hour. They spoke enough in one hour for us to know they were one of those.

And we asked them to leave because we didn't come under their subjection even for one hour. Now, think about that. That's pretty quick getting rid of them, isn't it? As friendly and loving as they are, you'd be tempted to feel like you're mean if you get rid of them.

That's how friendly and loving they are. You're like you're the mean person getting rid of them. But what does it say to do? You don't let them stay for an hour. Why? So that the truth of the gospel can continue with our group and we don't get it perverted.

That's how important it is. And you think, oh, they can never do that to us. Yeah, one person could do that to us. One person could come in and join and just start a little Bible study in their home and pull a few people over there and start teaching this and putting people under subjection.

And for some reason, the flesh loves it. The flesh loves to have rules we can keep to be better than other people. And so we attach to it. And before you know it, Paul's saying you fools. I am so amazed that you started out believing in free grace and now you're adding that stuff.

I'm so amazed, Paul would say. So how we are not made righteous is now taught. So this now is going to show us how you don't get saved. Look at this. Chapter two, verse 16, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law.

Now, remember, we're talking about justification and how grace fits into this, right? You are not justified. You're not made to be righteous by the works of the law. But how many times can God say that throughout the entire New Testament and even in the Psalms and we don't get it?

One false teacher can come in and confuse you, believe it or not, on that issue. Now, if we just kept rereading the Bible every year, though, they couldn't confuse us as much, could they? Like, I've just been in this passage.

Like, let's say they walk in this afternoon. How effective are they going to be? Probably wouldn't last an hour, would they? Because we just got realizing today that you don't get made righteous by doing good stuff.

It doesn't happen by the works of the law. So that's how you don't get made righteous. How are we made righteous is the next verse or next part of this verse, not by works of law, but by the faith. And notice it says of Jesus.

Now, check your Bible right now, especially you guys, if you're new with us, new members out there. I don't know what version you read, but every version you will have in English other than the King James will say faith in Jesus right there, halfway down Galatians 2 .16.

The Greek says of. So the King James is true to the Greek here, all the new versions are incorrect, and there's a huge difference between the faith of Jesus and faith in Jesus. Both exist and both are important to understand their place in the scripture.

But right here where it's talking about getting saved, you're justified by the faith of Christ. So it's Jesus's faith in the Greek. It's very clear. It's Christ's faith, Jesus faith. It's his faith that saves you, not yours.

Isn't that amazing? So you had to be given that as a gift by the Holy Spirit at the moment of your calling. At the moment of your regeneration, you had to be given his faith as a gift or you would not have saving faith.

It's not something you worked up inside your brain by going, I believe, I believe. That doesn't work anyway. When's the last time you tried to make yourself believe something and didn't happen and you get disappointed in God?

Well, but God doesn't act by your belief. He acts by Jesus's belief in you. That's why Jesus said, whatsoever you ask, if you ask it in my name and you know within your heart of hearts, it's something I would be asking for.

It will be answered. Yes. Anyway, another lesson, right? You're justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh ever be justified. That should make it clear, shouldn't it?

All right. How should we live then? Verse 20 says, here's how you live. Knowing this knowledge, here's how you live. I am crucified with Christ. In other words, when he died, I died with him because the father took my old man and my sins, every sin I'll ever do and put him in Christ.

And he died with my sins. I am crucified with Christ. But then Jesus rose from the grave. And when he did, I rose in him and with him. And so nevertheless, I live. Yet not I. It's not my old man. It's not the old David Mitchell that lives.

It's the new man. Christ living in me, connected to my new man that he gave birth to when I got born again, the new nature connected to Jesus Christ. So I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I'm risen.

I'm alive. But it's not my old man, but it's Christ living in me and the life which I now live in the flesh, in this body. In other words, I live by the faith. Notice the next word of, not in. I live by the faith of Jesus Christ.

It's his faith in me is how I live my life, who loved me and gave himself for me. That's called ransom. He ransomed me, set me free, and he put his faith in my heart. And he said, live by that faith. You won't be perfect because I put this treasure in earthen vessels, which means you're going to mess up.

But that's the life you're living and it's my will. And that's how I wanted it to be. And that's how it is. You're not going to be perfect. But in the Father's eyes, I have made you perfect. I have justified you.

I've made you have the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Doesn't get more perfect than that. And it's positional. And we'll get to that. But that's what it is. It's not something you can do. It's positional.

It's a gift God gave you. It's a position he put you in. That's why you can't lose it. Any passage anywhere in the Bible that would tend to make you think it would contradict this, then you got to take a look at that other passage because you might find six of those in the whole Bible.

There are hundreds of these. So you're going to change hundreds to fit the six or are you going to work on the six and realize you're misinterpreting those? That's the problem is you're getting them wrong.

You're not keeping the 10 rules of Bible interpretation with those six rules, I mean verses or else they would fit this. God does not contradict himself. So that's how we live. And then number seven, legalism attempts to make Christ's life and death vanity.

Look at verse 21, I do not frustrate the grace of God. You see, if you start trying to add works. To what God's done for your salvation. Then you frustrate the grace of God, because what does that mean?

You are actually doing damage to the very definition of the word. If there's a fly flying around my head, please tell me, because I've been seeing him in my peripheral vision. I don't want to be up here and he's doing this and y 'all are going, Amen, Brother David.

Bring some spray up here, Ben, if we need it. All right. So I can't tell if that's wind blowing my hair or the fly. But anyway, you do know Satan is known as the Lord of flies, right? So that may tell you why there's a fly messing with me, because this is good doctrine and they don't like it.

I do not frustrate the grace of God for if righteousness comes by the law or by doing good stuff, then Christ died in vain. Whoa, think about that. So look at point number seven, legalism attempts to make Christ's death vanity.

Well, that's blasphemy actually. And we don't think of it that way when it's our friend that goes to one of these denominations that adds works, do we? We think, Oh, well, they're sweet people. They're probably saved.

Yeah. And they might not be either. Because when you make Christ's death vain, are you the friend of God? When, when they stand before him at the great white throne judgment, he said, what'd you do with Jesus?

Said, well, I added a bunch of good works with him and it helped me get saved. What's going to happen? He said, well, actually Christ availed you nothing. So did you mess up at all? And you say, yes. And he said, depart from me.

I never knew you. That's the reality of it. So when we have friends that are in churches that teach that we need to cross, we need to bring it up in conversation. That is your job. It's not my job, my job to teach you how to do it.

And that's what you can get this. You can get this from brother Ben Mitchell. It's online. You can get the outline, memorize it and go use it. Because as we sit in our little comfortable homes and we just let our friends keep believing this stuff, time is ticking away and we have a job to do.