righteousness – Page 4

How to be content

September 18, 2019 by Paul Ellis

Are you a contented Christian? Or do you have a quiet unease that God is displeased with you and unhappy with your performance? Are you resting in his righteousness? Or are you striving to make yourself acceptable to God?

Many churchgoers are zealous for God with a zeal based on ignorance and unbelief. They are working like slaves but in God’s eyes their deeds are incomplete. Like the church in Sardis they have soiled their clothes through works of filthy self-righteousness.

What is the remedy?

Like the Sardisians, they need to remember what they heard (the gospel), heed it, and start making different choices. They need to stop banking on their own futile attempts at right living and submit to God’s righteousness.

I don’t think anyone gets out of bed planning to be self-righteous, but self-righteous is what you are if you are trying to impress the Lord with your offerings and sacrifices.

When we talk about self-righteousness we tend to think of the Judaizers stalking Paul around the Mediterranean with their circumcision knives. But Martha was self-righteous and she was literally serving the Lord. She was a one-woman ministry baking cakes for Jesus.

Martha’s problem was not that she was cooking; it’s that she wasn’t eating. The Chef of Heaven had come to visit and all she wanted to do was make sandwiches.

That’s not how it works. That’s back to front. We’re not saved or made righteous because we bless him but because he has blessed us. The lesser is blessed by the greater.

Jesus never condemns Martha; that’s not his way. But he does say her sister Mary made the better choice.

Do you see the significance of this? The one who made an impression was not the one who came with food but the one who came with an appetite.

We can get so caught up serving the Lord that we forget the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve (Matt. 20:28). And the main dish on his menu is a hefty helping of righteousness. Hear the words of the Heavenly Chef:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. (Matthew 5:6)

The word for filled means gorged, indicating that the Chef of Heaven serves hearty dishes. He is not stingy with grace. When you partake of his righteousness you are filled to the point of satisfaction. When you eat the Bread of Life you get a meal that sustains and nourishes you for eternity. You will never hunger again.

He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. (John 6:35)

When you have had a hearty meal, the last thing you feel like doing is cooking. You just want to sit and digest and heap praises on the chef. This is a very appropriate response to Jesus!

How can you tell when a Christian has submitted to God’s righteousness? They have a look of well-fed contentment. They are not sweating in the kitchen making sandwiches for Jesus. Neither are they singing discontented songs of hunger and thirst (“Oh feed me, Jesus”).

Instead, they are pointing hungry people to the Bread of Life by proclaiming the gospel of his satisfying righteousness.

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Extracted and adapted from Paul Ellis’s book, The Gospel in Ten Words

Get a sneak peek at Paul’s next book, The Chocolate Gospel, on Patreon now.

715. Grace Is Never Dangerous

August 11, 2019 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

The bad news police who are established in a legalistic mindset will caution believers in Christ that too much teaching about God’s grace will lead to an unhealthy and perilous plight. Their tangled view of the testaments wrongly assumes grace needs to be balanced with law.

We’ve been supplied with an abundance of grace for a reason and it has no connection to law or a rules-based religion.

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714. Sin Increased Under Law – Grace Abounded More Through Jesus

August 4, 2019 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

Hollow religion says a written code of commandments is needed in order to reduce sin and increase morality. There is just one problem with this approach … it’s the precise opposite of what Scripture reveals to us.

The law came for a purpose - to increase the trespass … not to reduce it. It’s only by grace and the gift of righteousness found in Jesus Christ that will allow for us to reign in life.

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708. Born Identity: We Have Peace With God

June 23, 2019 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

Jesus came to bring peace to those who would receive it. It’s not like the fleeting peace the world tries to give.

How do we begin to truly experience this personally? Is it by how we begin to live our lives or by following a multitude of religious rules? Quite the opposite.

The good news: You can’t make peace with God - but He has made peace with you.

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703. Born Identity: You Are Sanctified

May 19, 2019 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

Hollow religious teaching will declare you’re saved by grace (justified), but being sanctified is a gradual, progressive, life-long process which must work at in order to become more set apart before they reach the finish line . It’s time to change our thinking. Consider that through the cross God has already gifted you with sanctification and this is the starting line. Whew! It’s the ultimate head-start, and now you can run from here.

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702. Born Identity: You Are Righteous

May 12, 2019 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

Sadly, most believers in Jesus Christ have been taught they are identified as sinners and have failed to realize the gift of God’s righteousness that has been inherited by faith, apart from works. The Jewish people pursued righteousness under the law by trying to keep the Ten Commandments, plus 603 other commands and rules from the law which came through Moses. Yet they never attained a state of righteousness through that law. Nobody was righteous under that system… not one. On the other hand, Gentiles who weren’t even chasing after right standing with God attained righteousness by faith. We have been gifted with His righteousness. In Him, we are in a state or condition that is acceptable to God because of what Jesus did for us (and not what we do for Him). It is not progressive, nor does it increase or decrease based upon our performance or behavior. Growing in our understanding of this grace that has been poured out upon us - and abides in us - now empowers us to outwardly reflect the light of Jesus Christ.

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700. Podcast 700 – Growing in Grace Highlights

April 28, 2019 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

Just a couple of months ago we celebrated 14 years of the Growing in Grace podcast. This week we hit another milestone - our 700th Growing in Grace podcast! To create a special edition of the podcast, both Mike and Joel have dug into the archives to share some "highlights" from past Growing in Grace podcasts. We truly enjoy sharing our hearts every week regarding this wonderful gospel of grace, and we hope you enjoy hearing these gospel nuggets.

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694. Delivered from Bondage (The Law of Commandments)

March 17, 2019 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

Continuing with our short series on “The Law is Not of Faith.” In the book of Galatians, Paul uses the women of Abraham (Sarah and Hagar) as illustrations while comparing the two covenants - the Old and the New. One gave birth to a child of promise (Sarah) and the other came from Mt. Sinai and gave birth to bondage. We know this is where the Mosaic law was given birth - including the Ten Commandments. It was something the Jewish people were freed from because of the child of promise. Religious doctrines which encourage us to live by the old commandments from that covenant have missed the point… we can’t live by something that is unable to bring life or righteousness to us. There is no passage that states we should abide by certain laws while others have expired. There is no exhortation in Scripture that trying to keep the commandments from the previous covenant will improve morals, reduce sin, and bring sanctification. In fact, we find the opposite within new covenant writings. We have something better in Christ: It’s called faith (and the law is not based upon faith).

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693. Children of Inheritance – Not Slaves Under the Law

March 10, 2019 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

Continuing on our current thread that "the law is not of faith." The Apostle Paul continues to explain and reveal the significant differences between law and faith in Galatians Chapter 4. Those who had formerly been under the law of Moses were described as slaves held in bondage. Jesus was born of a woman under that same system of law in order to redeem those who were under the law. This would result in the slaves becoming children... heirs of the promise. Paul would continue to show that most people who want to live by the law have no idea what the law says and requires (they had the impossible task of doing all of it). The child of slavery came through Hagar, symbolizing the Old Covenant at Mt. Sinai where the law was given - it gave birth to spiritual bondage. But the child of promise came through Sarah, symbolizing the freedom of grace and faith found in the New Covenant. Both Jew and Gentile believers are now children of the free woman.

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692. A Life of Faith Apart from the Law

March 3, 2019 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

Faith. Grace. Righteousness. Forgiveness. Life. Salvation. These are gifts we’ve been delivered into since God established a New Covenant where both Jew and Gentile have been invited into the covenant - Christ Jesus is that covenant that has been given and established after the cross. These things were not attainable for those Jews living under the religious system of the Mosaic law from the Old Covenant. Their efforts at trying to abide by the many commandments fell far short of the requirement. The new way came by an oath or a promise. The premise of most Christian church doctrines tragically resembles a train-wreck where law and faith have crashed head-on, leaving people in a state of anxiety, pain, fear and bondage. Our program this week covers many of the differences between the law of works compared to the ministry of faith and grace… and why we should avoid the mixture.

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Top Picks of 2018

December 30, 2018 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

Happy New Year from the Growing in Grace podcast! We'll return in 2019 with brand new weekly Growing in Grace episodes, but this week's topic is the Top Picks of 2018. Mike and Joel have both independently selected two of their favorite episodes from this past year.

We'll start with this pick from Mike: Dead to Sin, Alive to Righteousness. (Podcast 655).

"This is one of my personal favorite Growing in Grace podcasts in 2018. It quickly and simply covers a handful of topics that are commonly misunderstood within the vocabulary of legalistic religious circles:

Under grace, can we just go out and do whatever we want?
Sin, repentance, and struggles.
Understanding who you are: The righteousness identity of a believer.
Already forgiven and sins taken away."

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Joel's first pick comes from a 17 part series that we did called "Summarizing the Scripture." As we were nearing the end of the series, we did an episode called Contradictions or Different Covenants? (Podcast 645).

"I like this episode because it's a great summary of the differences between the Old and New Covenants, and we talk about why did Jesus often taught works-based teachings that seem to contradict the essence of the New Covenant. Under the Old Covenant, it was up to the people to keep the covenant, but all they ever did was fail. Everything in the New Covenant is based on the finished work of Jesus and God's oath that He made to Himself, and not the works of the people. It always confused me why Paul seemed to teach righteousness as a free gift that we receive apart from works, and yet Jesus seemed to teach that it was all works-based.

What I eventually came to understand is that Jesus was teaching the Old Covenant to those who were under it (Israel), for the purpose of showing them that they were not keeping it (and could not keep it), and they instead needed to turn, by faith, to this other covenant that was based upon God's oath to Himself and not their ability to keep a covenant with God."

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Next, from Mike, The Golden Rule: A Spiritual Death Sentence (Podcast 658).

"Here is one of my top 5 favorite Growing in Grace podcasts of 2018. It takes a traditional mindset 'head-on' with the subject of The Golden Rule as stated by Jesus:

'So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets' (Matthew 7:12).

Traditional Christianity has mistakenly mixed this law from the Old Covenant into church tenets and creeds. With one sentence He summarized the entire law which nobody could keep and it brought a sentence of guilt, bondage and death … not life. There is a better way."

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Another of Joel's favorites from 2018: The Gospel Is the Gift of God's Righteousness. (Podcast 665).

"Back to the basics with this one. We talk about questions such as What is the gospel? and How does it differ from the 'bad news?' The 'bad news' is that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but yet the 'good news' - the gospel - is that God justifies ungodly people by gifting them with His very own righteousness. The gospel reveals the righteousness of God that is given as a gift to those who do nothing but believe. Those trying to attain righteousness by their own works don't find it, and yet it's given freely to those who aren't even trying. This episode is one of my favorites because it's a great reminder to me that I have nothing to boast about before God, and I can stop trying to perform for God in order to attain or maintain right standing with Him. I've already received it, solely as His gift to me."

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We hope you enjoy our year end picks! Do you have any favorites? If you'd like to hear more, check out the "Most Popular Posts" in the column to the right, which lists the most viewed posts on this website in the last year.

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680. 1 John 1:9 (Part 4) No Longer Asking for What Has Already Been Given (Forgiveness)

December 2, 2018 by Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke

This week we reflect on a relatively small number of scriptural passages which confirm our forgiveness in Jesus Christ. It’s “forever forgiveness” that occurred through one righteous act at the cross of Jesus Christ. His blood not only brought a permanent forgiveness of all sins (past, present and future), but cleansed us from all unrighteousness. The work of Jesus has already brought us the gift of justification, righteousness and sanctification. In him we are new, alive, clean, holy, perfected and so much more. In addition to our previous programs in this series, part of our goal is to help believers understand that the context of 1 John 1:9 was not meant for us to keep trying to remember all of our sins, mistakes and shortcomings in order to try confessing all of them be forgiven again. The church has failed to realize this keeps people in a sin consciousness which Jesus came to free people from. It only brings a temporary emotional release from guilt, leaving people with a false identity by thinking they are just sinners who can’t seem to overcome. A better way to living in victory is placing faith in what Jesus did, and that it was more than enough.