Being appointed by God is within the policy of grace; John 15:16.

Class Outline:

Title: Being appointed by God is within the policy of grace; John 15:16.

 

How does God protect the perfect integrity of His plan from the imperfections of His creatures? Grace!

 

The believer enters the plan of God on the merits of Christ and after salvation remains dependent on divine resources only. This is grace.

 

This is why you are either filled with the Spirit or not. You are either 100% spiritual or 0% spiritual. You either know the truth behind a matter or you do not. There are no gray areas of the filling of the Spirit or the truth.

 

Any introduction of human viewpoint, human power, human merit, human innovation, human abilities, human dynamics, personality, intelligence or works into the plan of God destroys the integrity of the whole and only non-meritorious confession can reestablish the believer’s condition.

 

The exactness of God’s plan for spiritual royalty expresses His own perfection: He decreed one way of doing something and that way is the right way.

 

The right thing must be done in a right way. The right thing is the plan of God for your life and the right way is through doctrine, the power of the FHS and motivated by divine love.

 

You may know a right thing to do but do it in a wrong way and that makes it wrong and outside of the plan of God. Serving in the local assembly is a right thing, but if your motivation is approbation lust or you think you're earning points with God then it's a wrong way.

 

1. Grace is the policy of the Church-age. It is all that God is free to do based on the work of Christ on the cross, ROM 8:32.

 

ROM 8:32

 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

 

2. Grace is not a license to sin. It is God’s policy that enables an imperfect creature to execute a perfect plan, ROM 6:1-2, 12; Jude 4.

 

ROM 6:1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?

 

ROM 6:2 May it never be!

 

ROM 6:12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts,

 

ROM 6:13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

 

ROM 6:14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

 

Jude 3 Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

 

Jude 4 For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

 

3. Grace is not policy to encourage laziness. It is God’s power of BD and the FHS enabling to serve, 1Cor 15:4.

 

1 Cor 15:4 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.

 

4. Grace is not free pass from the destructiveness of the cosmic system. It is the freedom to walk by means of the Spirit, EPH 3:8 cf. 4:1; GAL 5:4 cf. GAL 5:16.

 

EPH 3:8 To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ,

The riches are explained…

 

EPH 4:1 I, therefore [as a result of what has been freely given], the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,

 

GAL 5:4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.

 

GAL 5:5 For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness.

 

GAL 5:13 For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

 

GAL 5:14 For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, " You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

 

GAL 5:15 But if you bite and devour one another, take care lest you be consumed by one another.

 

GAL 5:16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

 

5. Grace is not against the Law, but the result of the fulfillment of the Law, enabling the believer to deal with his sin and recover from failure without guilt or condemnation.

 

ROM 5:20 And the Law came in that the transgression might increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,

 

ROM 5:21 that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

6. Grace is not let go and let God [i.e. do nothing]. It excludes human power and enables the believer to make good decisions under divine power, 1Pet 4:10.

 

1 Peter 4:7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer.

 

1 Peter 4:8 Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.

 

1 Peter 4:9 Be hospitable to one another without complaint.

 

1 Peter 4:10 As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.