Let’s Talk Life, ep. 13 - What’s So Great About Grace?

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Wow. [00:00:02] Speaker B: We're here again. Let's talk life. Welcome to our podcast. Carl and I are talking life. Life in Christ. And we've officially passed the dozen episodes. Today we record number 13. All right, and today. Today we're going to ponder this question. What's so great about grace? What do you think, Carl? What's so great about grace? [00:00:27] Speaker A: Overwhelming. I would say two words that. Just the first thing that comes to my mind, it's relational and it's personal. So that's the first thing comes to my mind. Relational and personal. [00:00:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:00:40] Speaker A: How about you, man? [00:00:42] Speaker B: No, that's. That's 100. I. I would agree with those statements, those. Those words. But I would also say it's a revelation. I remember preaching, not this last year, but the year before at. Right before New Year's. It was a Sunday before New Year's Eve, and I preached a message called we need a revelation, not a resolution. And that's. That's generally what we need. And so when I meet with people, when I connect with people, when I talk with people, disciple people, whatever the context, my desire is for them to hear from. Father. [00:01:17] Speaker A: Yes. [00:01:18] Speaker B: And I'm just a person. And, you know, trying to. To facilitate that relationship, for sure. [00:01:25] Speaker A: Giving space. [00:01:27] Speaker B: Yeah, man. [00:01:28] Speaker A: That's just a new way to look at things. You know, when you think about grace, divine, divine fingerprints everywhere, right. Just divine influence, just God's everywhere. Grace upon grace. And. And it's like, man, grace is more than just a theology. It's more than just a. A word. You know, it's not just like, well, let's just give grace for that, or, oh, that's just too much grace. Grace is so much bigger than. And I think we've already talked about this on a podcast earlier, where grace is a person. It's Jesus. [00:02:00] Speaker B: Right. [00:02:01] Speaker A: You know, I think that's one of the first things you said right now. [00:02:04] Speaker B: I think we can, you know, we can't say it too much. I mean, I think that it's. It's got to be recognized and known to understand that, because grace isn't something that God has. It's Him. He gives himself. [00:02:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:18] Speaker B: And that's so amazing to think about. And that's from another podcast and friend and pastor that I met. And when I was in Dallas, Frank Friedman and his partner John, they do the. Our Resolute Hope podcast. And that's one of the phrases he uses all the time, is grace is a person. In fact, when I first emailed him his. He still has an AOL email. [00:02:43] Speaker A: And. [00:02:43] Speaker B: And I And I emailed him. And when I typed in his email, it's grace is a person is his email. And I thought, that's so, so amazing. But that's, that's Titus 2:11 and 12. This is what blows my mind is that all along my. One of my favorite verses of the Bible was Titus 2:11 and 12. And it says in, in verse 11, for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared. So that is a very indication that it's not some model, right? It's not some doctrine or theology. It's Jesus. It's a person. Grace is a person. So it's, it's valuable. [00:03:25] Speaker A: Even that word fullness, right? That, that, that grace personified is Jesus. Like, like the fullness is grace. And, and, and the, the layers of grace, right? Just, just I think about the layers of grace. Meaning for most of my life, I believe that grace. And, and when you say believed, I wouldn't teach it, but it was something subtle inside me that said grace is doing really good stuff for God and that he's really lucky to have me on his team. You know, when you preach great sermons and you teach good lessons and a lot of people are coming, and that's grace. That's not grace. Grace, you learn grace. Man experiencing brokenness and failure. [00:04:11] Speaker B: Right? [00:04:12] Speaker A: And as our. As. As one good friend of ours said to me, he said, brokenness has led me to the deep things of God. And that's, that's the humility that we talk about all the time. The. The humility that activates grace. [00:04:27] Speaker B: Right? Wow. Yeah. Well, because we've, We've preached, you know, desperately resurrection of Jesus Christ. And, and that's been the. On the forefront of what we want to get across. And of course, those are all the true things, but this is the reality. I love how he puts it in his commentary. This is a commentary on Galatians. I like just the title of it is Galatians, the Fight to Stay Free. Like, we already have this freedom, right? Let's renew our minds. And that's. The fight is really just renewing our minds. But I love this. He says, while our Lord's death, burial, and resurrection were historical events, his life is our present possession. And that. That's what we need to understand. That's what we need to know. [00:05:14] Speaker A: That's right. [00:05:15] Speaker B: It comes by revelation. And so this is what I always tell people is I have something valuable to share with you. I have something valuable to give you, but it's really you that needs to ask God for it. [00:05:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:26] Speaker B: And I Can help you, you know, maybe answer some questions and talk through and understand certain principles or ideas where I can share my story. And my story might, you know, as we already have done on this podcast, our story can, can impact people, but God is going to impact you differently. When you say, okay, God, I'm asking you. [00:05:49] Speaker A: Right. [00:05:50] Speaker B: Just ask God. I'm asking you, God, I want to know you. I don't, I don't need to know how to better do anything like work at my job or in ministry to preach better or as a musician, to be a better musician. I'm not asking for any of those things. I'm asking you, God, to know you. And that's an intimate relationship. [00:06:10] Speaker A: Yeah. It's exciting. Here's a question for you, Zach. Who's the greatest teacher of all time? [00:06:16] Speaker B: Yeah. The Holy Spirit. [00:06:17] Speaker A: Okay. In history. [00:06:21] Speaker B: The greatest teacher. [00:06:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:24] Speaker B: Like, like in a man form, thinking. [00:06:27] Speaker A: Like Matthew through John. [00:06:31] Speaker B: The Gospels. [00:06:32] Speaker A: Yes. Jesus. Right? [00:06:34] Speaker B: Yes, yes. [00:06:35] Speaker A: And yet Jesus says Matthew 11:25, he says, thank you, Father, because you revealed these things to little children. Like, like you've hidden them from the religious people. [00:06:45] Speaker B: Right. [00:06:45] Speaker A: And you've given it. So it's a revelation. Right. And then in Matthew, I think it's later on where, where Peter, he says, hey, who, who do you say I am? And Peter's like, you're the Christ. And Jesus says, you've the, the Father in heaven's revealed this to you. So even the greatest teacher of all time, it was still revelation. [00:07:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:05] Speaker A: That allowed them to understand what he was saying. So I love, I'm just, I'm just supporting what you're saying, man. The revelation, our eyes open. [00:07:14] Speaker B: It's an amazing, amazing point for sure. And Jesus was hated and was crucified for preaching this message. And that's what's so mind boggling. So to think that it's not going to be easy or that it is going to be easy, to think that it's just going to be simple and easy to process through this and get it across to people is just not a reality. It's tough. [00:07:39] Speaker A: Right, Right. So that's encourage. Go ahead. [00:07:42] Speaker B: No, well, I was just going to get into our questions, but go ahead with what you got. [00:07:45] Speaker A: No, just, just a food for thought because God just keeps bringing this word to my mind for 2025, even though I hate those things. Clarity that. God, that you would give me clarity that I could see that lens. [00:07:58] Speaker B: Right? [00:07:58] Speaker A: The lens. [00:07:59] Speaker B: Yeah, that's, that's it right here. Yeah. [00:08:03] Speaker A: God, you would give me clarity. Several, several things. Number One, it's not up to me for other people to understand the Father. That's not up. It's not up to me to get other, other people to validate who I am or what I do. It's not up to me. It's so freeing. It's such a freeing life of just saying Father. It's just, you know, I'm trusting you. And so the clarity to see it. Right. So, so the reality is already there. I just want the clarity to see it. [00:08:31] Speaker B: Right. [00:08:31] Speaker A: That makes sense. [00:08:32] Speaker B: Yeah. No, I mean, Jesus said it on the cross. It is finished. And, and that's true just as much today as it's ever been since the day that he spoke it. So we have the finished work of Christ. And as a born again believer, I, you know, at nine years old, when I accepted Christ, at that point in my life, I had everything that I have, even right now. [00:08:56] Speaker A: Right. [00:08:57] Speaker B: I haven't gained anything more of God. [00:08:59] Speaker A: Right. [00:09:00] Speaker B: I've just grown in my maturity, for sure, and I've grown in my knowing and my understanding. So the renewing of the mind, Romans 12, that's, that's the thing that certainly has changed, so to speak. But what I've had in, in Christ has not been any different than since I was 9 years old. And that's pretty, pretty amazing. [00:09:21] Speaker A: That's so awesome. And then even, you know, piggybacking off that, you know, so when I'm, when I'm in kindergarten or first grade and understanding that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, there was that foundation there, you know, so, so I wasn't an imposter. I was just living out of the flesh. I was living out of the hurts and pains of life. I was living out of the wounds. I wasn't living out of identity of who I am in Christ. But it doesn't take away what my reality was. The whole time that I was trying to earn or I was trying to receive or prove that I was worthy of being a son of the King. And I already was. Already was his beloved. [00:09:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:59] Speaker A: Yeah. I appreciate you saying that. [00:10:01] Speaker B: It's a beautiful thing when, when you can see it and you can't, you can't unsee it. And that's what's amazing about God's revelation. So I don't know, do we want to dig into all of these questions I have? [00:10:15] Speaker A: I think it helps because what happens when, when people don't see it the same? What happens when people resist grace? What happens when people are resisting? You know, when people want to make grace a Doctrine and not life. When people want to not understand or they're incapable of understanding, it's not that clarity. [00:10:33] Speaker B: It all does fit. And why is it that we enjoy striving so much? That's kind of our fallback plan is always just all. And we just talked about that before we even got on video. It's tough, you stepping into this faith walk of being support raised and, and what am I doing? What should I do in order to, to make money? Because I'm, I'm afraid and am I just trusting in God? So all of it is like, it turns into striving really easy. Even when you're in the midst of an understanding and have the revelation, you can still fall back into that Right. [00:11:10] Speaker A: Fear. So we want to control. [00:11:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:13] Speaker A: And we don't. And we're not. And then in those moments, we're not trusting. [00:11:17] Speaker B: Yeah. So I mean, if I go back all the way we started, you pulled me into, I don't know how long you were a part of it already, but you pulled me into this zoom group doing a book study more than a year ago now. And I remember at the very beginning of going through that book, the rest of the gospel, very early, like in the first couple of chapters, I threw out a question like why have we missed this? [00:11:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:44] Speaker B: And that's one of, that's really one of our questions. Why does God's grace often get missed? Because we're, we're being trained in Bible colleges and seminaries and even growing up in the church. But, but I never really heard this. And I, I heard you say it. I've heard other pastors say it. I've, I, and I, then I had to even recognize it about my own self, that all I was doing really was preaching law all along. And that's a pretty earth shaking thing to say when you say that you're actually preaching grace. But then to come to the realization that no, I was actually just preaching the law. And so that's what we need to dissect. Why do we miss it? And the other question is what's the difference about the message that we have now compared to what we had before and what we were preaching and presenting before? Any thoughts on those things, Carl? [00:12:42] Speaker A: Oh, so many thoughts. I don't know if they're worth anything. Of course, I think, I think that, I think that we, we're so the, the emphasis is on the wrong syllable. [00:12:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:54] Speaker A: And, and to learn what grace is, here's an example. So I sat down with this young guy at Liberty University. He's pretty, pretty important there on, on their staff and spiritual development. And we're having this great conversation and he's looking at me, he's like, so you're telling me that I can't understand grace until I have a complete failure? And I just smiled at him because even in that question, it's kind of like I'm working so hard to climb this ladder of, of this spiritual establishment and you're telling me that. And it's just the wrong, it's the wrong pursuit, it's the wrong highs. And I think like you said, it's a, it's a revelation. It's. It's an understanding. And I was where you were three or four years ago, maybe five years ago, of just being angry, of saying why, how did I miss this? And, and, and it started with a curiosity of, well, did I miss it? Like, is this is identity in Christ and the real grace? Like, is this all being taught and I just missed it or is this not really the emphasis? And that's a question I gave to a lot of people. And I know that you've been on this journey and maybe I would ask you, like, what, what is it that you see? [00:14:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's, it's tough to, I don't know, just put a stake in and I don't know, to totally. I get it, it is earth shakingly different, but how do I actually get that across to people and explain it? And, and that's the part of the revelation I think that you can't explain it. So if I dig back into where did I see this? I had it written down somewhere there, this right here. There are no words to completely describe God. And in the same way there's no words to completely describe God's grace. And so I think what we've done is that we've tried to put it into a context, into a box that we can understand. [00:14:57] Speaker A: Sure, yeah. [00:14:58] Speaker B: And so we're trying to explain it in such a way that's a good, to get people to understand it. And so as a result, we're building our ministries and our Bible studies and our sermons and everything around a challenge. And it's, it can be a good challenge. There's, you know, there's nothing necessarily completely wrong with that. But like you're saying, the emphasis is wrong if we're not driving people to the point of them being dependent on God. Because that's the biggest issue. [00:15:29] Speaker A: Right. [00:15:29] Speaker B: When we were in Adam, we just were living independently, doing whatever we felt like we were doing as we stepped into knowing Christ as life and being born again. Now we're living not in. And this is a tough transition. Stepping out of my independence and just depending on God, that's, that's a hard step. [00:15:51] Speaker A: And what's so crazy is that's where God wants us. We walk by faith, not by sight. And yet everything I do is I want to control and I want to see, I mean, even, even the, even the tangibles that we were talking about earlier, like, okay, support raising or finances or you know, fear, right? That I still want to control. I still want to, I still want to control, you know, about being a parent. I want to control what the kids are doing. I want to control this, I want to control that. When we want to control our spouse to get what we want. Like so much of life. And so even coming out of pastoring or coming out of church work, the phrase you always use, it's like you look back and say, wow, so much of decisions are fear based. So much decisions are based out of control. So much. [00:16:37] Speaker B: Right. [00:16:37] Speaker A: That we're actually not trusting God, that he's actually at work, that we think that we, what we want is we want them to be dependent on us and the system. And the crazy thing is that this religion, this striving for acceptance through performance, it's a cheap substitute. Wayne Jacobson writes, it's a cheap substitute and it offers an illusion of earning acceptance. I use that word all the time. That, that God needed to shatter the illusions. I needed to shatter the illusions of who I was, who Jennifer thought I was, of all these things. And, and the substitute for what? The reality of life in him. I don't know if that makes sense to you. [00:17:19] Speaker B: It does, big time. And I'll even back it up to the, it's on the same page. I, I had that same page open to your. Why do so many enjoy striving for God's acceptance? And he digs in and just gives a few different things. Perhaps, you know, he's, he's throwing out these, these options. You feel more secure. You feel secure because you're, you're doing something. You know, it feels like, well, because I'm doing something, I feel like that. [00:17:45] Speaker A: You know, because I'm busy. Then I'm godly. [00:17:48] Speaker B: Right? Right. So. And then he says, perhaps they're afraid. So it's just fear. And that's what we even talked about just with support raising. Right. I mean, there's like a fear. So there's a mentality and idea that we need to do something in order to supply what we feel like might be missing instead of just walking out of trust. Then he says, control, you know, we feel. This is why we feel more secure is because we can control relationships. We can even control our relationship with God. But that's the premise of the whole book. He loves me is he's taking that. That daisy petal and he's saying, he loves me. He loves me not he loves me. And it's getting out of that mold to recognize just flat out the truth is God loves me. [00:18:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:39] Speaker B: And we've turned the message into so much different. [00:18:44] Speaker A: Right? And, oh, that's so good. It's like, man, we could do a book study every podcast, just another good section of this book. And really, conversation was born out of that sort of that question. It's like, okay, well, what happens when leaders reject grace? There's a devotional that I sent you to encourage you. And it's again, it's like sin management and behavior modification. I never even heard those words until the place that Jeremy and I found a lot of healing of at CornerStone and Wyckoff, New Jersey, with Pastor Fred talked about those things. I never heard any. [00:19:18] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:18] Speaker A: Look back and say, man, everything that we were doing, and this is why you said law based. Everything we're doing was based trying to get behavior change, trying to stop doing this and start doing this. And that's godliness. And as the cure points out, what have you eliminated? You've eliminated Christ's righteousness out of everything when it's all about behavior modification. And so. So what do we do? What do we do when people aren't understanding it or people aren't getting it or. It's a threat, right? It's a threat to. To, excuse me, a threat to everything. And he. And. And so I love this devotion because it says this. Love. Well, love the person who's not getting it. Love the person that you really just love them. Well, because it's going to be God revealing it anyway. Second thing. And you don't invite them to read a book alongside. Invite them, invite them for conversations. Then, you know, sense of openness and curiosity. And then just this phrase, you don't sell grace. [00:20:20] Speaker B: Amen. [00:20:21] Speaker A: You offer it when the time is right. [00:20:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:25] Speaker A: And for me, it was like when I failed. And that's the next statement. Sometimes the time is right after a leader has failed, whether it's financial, whether it's morally, domestically, vocationally, pastors fired. Right. So then often they'll be receptive to someone who's been embodying love, grace and trust all along, someone like you. So I don't know how that reaches you, man. [00:20:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that, that statement, I think, was the one I was trying to pull out and try to find. It's right there in that. You just read it, you don't sell grace. And that's, that's really the makeup of, I think even the modern church is we're trying to sell this gospel message and it just simply doesn't work that way. What we need to do is create an environment for people to really hear from God and develop and nurture that relationship with God so they can hear from him. And, and then grace will be just like a sounding board. It'll just be this, this bullhorn. It'll just be spoken in, in so many real and powerful ways. I think it really brings lasting life change into people's daily lives, real transformation. It's not, it's not just this in and out thing, and that's. That goes back to even the 20 years of being in church work. And I think a big frustration of all of us on staff, staff was, well, why is it that people that accept Christ in our ministry don't stay. Why is it that people. That there's always this revolving door of people coming in and people going out and people going like, what's the. What's going on? And the reality is. Well, I think part of it is that we're really not equipping them to really understand who they are in Christ, right? So we come alongside of them and we'll sit there and meet with them for an hour, talking, challenging them to stay focused and to just keep coming, keep showing up. You're doing well, you're doing it. And because you show up, because you come to Bible study, because you come to church, because you have this fellowship, you're going to make it. It's like that doesn't help them to know who they are in Christ when they can rest in and have a foundation in who they are in Christ. The overflow of that. I now want to go to Bible study. I want to go to church because I want to have that fellowship because now, now I'm coming to church not because I need something, but. But because I have something to give. And that's really the true makeup of the church, is that we're coming with the right perspective and we actually can minister and lead everybody in their own ways. We, we're all leading and able to bring about this, this life that the gospel really is. [00:22:59] Speaker A: Right? [00:23:00] Speaker B: So, and John over says this. [00:23:02] Speaker A: He said if, if the, if the world really knew about the restoration of the heart and the true good news of Jesus, people be banging on the doors to get in. [00:23:13] Speaker B: Yes. Right. [00:23:14] Speaker A: Hear it right. And it's like, man, totally. I love packaged Jesus to be a help or a condiment to make your life better. And yeah, we package grace to be whatever it is we think it is. [00:23:28] Speaker B: Right. [00:23:28] Speaker A: And we've lost the substance. The reality of Hebrew says the reality is Christ. He's the life. [00:23:37] Speaker B: Right. For sure. So I love, I love. I listened to a podcast this. I was sent this podcast a long time ago and I've since shared it with quite a few people. It's. It's Frank and John again. I resolute hope. But he goes, he goes into. They have a series, I don't know, there's like three or four, maybe even five talking about when this message really isn't being preached in your church. And how do you. How do. [00:24:05] Speaker A: Do you. [00:24:05] Speaker B: What do you do with that? And I love just three simple things that he, that he makes. In one one of the podcasts, he says stand in the truth. He says defiant, but that defiance is like on the inside. So you're standing in defiance against any lie. So if it's, if it's not the true gospel, if it's not the true goodness and grace of God, then it's not for you and just rest in that. And. But at the same time of being defiant, like inwardly, you stand also humbly and know that it's a lie. And it's only by revelation that the Holy Spirit reveals to another person that it's a lie. So you can't convince somebody, and that's what I love of that devotional you shared. You don't sell grace. You can't force people to understand this. You can't push this on them. You have to stand humbly and just let God do what he's going to do. And so the third thing he says is to live compassionately towards those who haven't received that revelation. We're not better because we have the revelation. No, but we're free and we want to offer that freedom, you know, and the reality is too, for, for many who are in the church, who are generally born again, they have everything that we have. It's just a matter of they don't know that they have it. Just like we live for most of our lives, we didn't know what we had. [00:25:35] Speaker A: That's right. So that prayer, God, Father, open our eyes. [00:25:39] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. How Many times have we sung that song. We sung that song so many times through the years. Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. But even that is the problem with worship is we're not coming. We're not coming to church really to worship God. We're coming because we have issues and we want those issues resolved. And we, we think that if I'm close enough to God that my issues are going to be resolved. And when you have this revelation, you understand who you are in Christ, you come to church with a different perspective, to actually scan the room and say, I can reach out and I can minister to somebody today. Like, I have something to give. And so the church has just become a draining machine. Everybody's coming because they want to suck and suck and suck. And no wonder the pastors are so worn out because there's so many people that are so needy. And the reality is a pastor can't solve all of those problems. It is only God, and it's only God that's going to break through. [00:26:31] Speaker A: Christ is the head. Let's, let's go to the head. Let's. Let's fix on Jesus. Right? [00:26:36] Speaker B: We're just all part of the body, and every part of the body has a different part. Some people are preaching and some people are just serving in these other ways. And that's, that's the joy. When the church can all do that, great things happen. That's when the gospel really flourishes. And that's what I recognize. Even in third world countries, the gospel flourishes under persecution. Why? Because it takes great faith just to stay. You're forced into dependence on God is exactly what you're saying is because of this terrible thing that's happening around us, this terrible circumstance that happened in your life drove you to this point. Well, when you're in persecution, when you're, when, when you're threatened with your life, you're at a point to say, okay, God, I'm trusting you. It's the biggest. That's right. Greatest step of faith ever. So that's pretty, pretty amazing. So, Carl, how do you want to close this out? [00:27:29] Speaker A: And this has been awesome. And I think just. God, that you would open our eyes, Father, that you would open our eyes to who you are, to who Christ is, to who we are in Christ. And that we would experience. It is relation to God that we would experience. Experience your grace. [00:27:44] Speaker B: Yes. [00:27:44] Speaker A: In a real way. [00:27:45] Speaker B: Yes. Right. Amen. And I'll just add to that quickly. John 1 says that we have received grace upon grace. [00:27:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:56] Speaker B: In Romans 5 talks about the abundance of grace, man. It's so amazing. Thank you, God, for your beyond amazing grace. [00:28:06] Speaker A: Amen.