52. The Gift of God's Righteousness

This time I'm doing a teaching that's a bit longer than normal for the Grace Roots podcast, although it's a very simple teaching. The Apostle Paul reveals to us that the righteousness of God is something that we can never earn or maintain through keeping God's law or through our good works. The good news is that while we were sinners, and had never done anything good, and had never done anything right, God made us right by giving us His very own righteousness. This could never be accomplished through the law. It's something that can only come from God. He gives it to us freely, by His grace, through faith, not our works.


Download

Get the book

50. If You Think You Can Keep God's Law, You've Watered It Down

There are many people who say that as believers in Christ we are to keep God's law, including the Ten Commandments and many other Old Testament laws and commandments. In this podcast, I make a bold statement: God's law is not doable, and anybody who thinks they can actually keep God's law has watered it down to a point that may seem doable to them.  They have effectively changed God's law, making it into something that is not!

You see, the standard of God's law is not just that you "do your best" or "try hard" to keep it or parts of it, but rather than you keep it perfectly - and not just some laws, but all of it, in its entirety. You must keep it perfectly. So if you think you can actually keep the law, or even "do your best" to keep it, you've watered it down into something that it's not.

I encourage you to accept God's free gift of righteousness, that comes by grace, through faith, apart from His law, and give yourself over to His life in you, rather than making it about your own efforts.


Download
Get the book

43. Jesus Is the Guarantee That We're Saved to the Uttermost

A few podcasts ago I talked about how our promises are no guarantee, but God's promise is. The oath that God made to Himself, written about in Hebrews 6, is where our hope lies. It's a hope we can cling to with certainty! Hebrews 7 brings up the oath again, after showing how the Law was "weak" and "unprofitable," and it could make nothing perfect, so therefore it was "annulled." Something better came along, based upon God's oath rather than being based upon the repeated sacrifices of the law or our works. This oath makes "Jesus guarantor of a better covenant." (Heb 7:22). There had formerly been a ministry of mortal priests, offering sacrifices day after day, which could never make anyone perfect. But through the one offering of Jesus, who lives forever, all our sins have been taken away and we have been perfected forever.


Download

24. Life Has Always Been By Grace

From the very beginning, God has always intended that people live by His grace. Adam believed the original lie that led him away from trusting in God's life and grace, and even though today we've been redeemed through Christ, many of us still believe the lie that life can be found in anything other than God's own life and grace!


Download

23. Giving Up the Law to Gain Christ

As a followup to the last podcast, I talk about a specific example that Paul used to show that he had to die to the law in order to have Christ. Under the law, sin increased, and Paul used the example of one of the Ten Commandments, "You shall not covet," to show how the law did absolutely nothing to help him stop coveting, but really only produced in him "every kind of covetous desire!" (Romans 7:8)

Law causes a sin revival. Grace causes a revival of life and righteousness!


Download

22. What Paul Counted as Rubbish

In Philippians 3, the Apostle Paul talked about things that had formerly been "gain" to him, but that he now counted as "rubbish" or "dung" so that he could have Christ. Many read or quote only part of the passage, and act as if Paul was talking about the the bad or sinful things of his past. But in reality, Paul was talking about the "good" things about his flesh that he formerly boasted in, including his zealous and "blameless" keeping of God's law. That's what he counted as dung and rubbish! That's what he had to give up... so that he could have Christ!


Download