All right, take your Bibles, if you will, tonight.
And let's turn to Galatians Chapter 3.
Galatians Chapter 3. I don't plan to be real long
tonight. Does anybody need a copy?
I do have a few copies of the of the lesson for tonight.
Raise your hand. Charlie's got them there.
Let's do the adults first, Charlie, for me.
All right. And if we have some leftover,
then we'll give them to the kids.
Got a couple up here. There you go With Matt.
Yeah. There we go.
All right. Is that it?
All right. Anybody need a pen?
Because Josh has some pens in the back.
All right, All right. I didn't expect that many people
to forget their notes. I think I made 6 or 7 copies.
But now this is, let me, let me just preface what we're going to
talk about tonight by saying that this is for people who know
they're saved. All right?
This is building on everything that we've talked about.
This goes right along with everything that we talked about
last week with eternal security, our position in Christ, and of
course, then practice. And I'm going to explain a
couple things about that, but maybe you haven't had a chance
to look at some of the other lessons.
I would highly recommend that you go back, especially to the
repentance and faith and all the things that are the foundational
elements of what it means to know Christ as your Savior.
Great news on Sunday. You know, we had Ryan and Gray,
and why am I not thinking Eddiana and Steve?
That's right. All got baptized and after the
service, Gray's wife Caitlin wanted to talk in the office
and, and was kind of dealing with the exact same thing that
Ryan and Gray both dealt with. I just don't know if I'm saved
and I'm tired of I'm tired of not knowing.
So I want to get it settled. And so we talked for a while in
the office and she prayed right there and accepted Christ as her
Savior on Sunday afternoon. So tremendous, tremendous thing.
It's, it's why it's important that we go through what the
Bible says, not what, not what you've heard your entire life,
not what somebody told you somewhere along the line to make
you feel good about yourself. It's what does the Bible say
about it? And repentance and faith are
absolutely necessary for salvation.
But once you know you're saved, you have that eternal security.
And then what we talked about last week, especially at the end
of last week, is what happens to a disobedient Christian, right?
If you're, if you're saved and you know you're saved, you can't
lose your salvation. But what does happen to somebody
who is a Christian that is not living for the Lord?
But we talked about those seven things.
The sending believers out of fellowship with the Lord and his
people, grieves. The Holy Spirit is is helped by
the Lord Jesus Christ. The sinning believers helped by
the Lord Jesus Christ, sending believers chastened by the
Father, a sinning believer that reaps corruption.
The sinning believer loses irreplace, irreplaceable
opportunities for service and fruit.
And we said #7 that a sinning believer will suffer loss of the
judgment seat of Christ. So what we're going to talk
about tonight with position and practice goes right along with
that. And if you want to do something
like this at the top, it's what I did so that you could kind of
see the difference. You put on one side, you put
position relationship standing, position relationship standing.
You can write those three things on one side and you can see
those. They're right there on page 37.
All of the terms that I just said, position, relationship,
standing, all of those three are the same thing.
And then on the other side, to help keep it straight, if you
want to, you can put practice fellowship and walk, practice
fellowship and walk. So one side is position,
relationship and standing. It's all the same thing.
We'll explain that and then practice fellowship and walk.
That's all the same thing. And we're going to explain that
they're just kind of they're opposites of each other.
All right. And, and, and we'll get to a few
verses, really just a couple passages.
And that's why I said I don't really plan to be real long
tonight because this is not a long lesson and it's not really
something that's very difficult to understand, but it's
important to understand. So another essential thing in
the Christian life is to understand the difference
between position and practice or relationship and fellowship.
And if you're just reading this, you might think that they're the
same thing. They're not the same thing.
Position and practice are two different things.
Relationship and fellowship are two different things.
And then as we'll see, standing and walk are two different
things. What we mean by this is that the
believer has a new position and relationship before God that is
eternal and perfect and unchanging, and that depends
entirely upon Christ. But the believer also has to
practice in this present world that is less than perfect, and
that depends on his obedience. So the salvation side of it is
100% on God. Once I accept Christ as my
Savior, I have a position in Christ.
He gives me that. Nothing that I can do can change
that. Nothing that I can do can get my
position in Christ. Nothing that I can do can take
away my position in Christ. The same thing with my
relationship. That's on Him.
He establishes that relationship.
I can't do anything to change the relationship.
What I can do is something to change, though.
Is the fellowship right? The standing?
I don't. I can't do anything about my
standing before God. Once I've accepted Christ as my
Savior, I am in Christ. That's on him.
That's his work. My standing before God relies on
the finished work of Jesus Christ.
I can't do anything to make it better.
I can't do anything to make it worse, but I can do something
about my walk, right? And that's what we're saying
that the first 3, the position, the relationship and the
standing are our our position before God, if you will.
I know it's using the same word, but that's what it is.
It's our position. It's how God looks at us, how
God sees us as his child, as those who have accepted Christ
as their savior. The other side of that coin has
everything to do with whether I'm going to be obedient to what
God told me to do or not. So hopefully this will help
multitudes of Christians have become discouraged or even
shipwrecked from failure to understand this truth.
And this is a great little story that he gives about Harry
Ironside. Many of you have at least heard
his name. He's a, he's been dead for, for
many years now, but he wrote books.
He, he, he made a huge impact for Christ through his preaching
ministry. But this, this is what that what
Harry Ironside had happened to him.
He was a famous Bible commentator as well, but he
began his Christian life as a zealous member of the Salvation
Army, believing their doctrine of a second blessing of sinless
perfection. Harry set out to obtain this
experience. Now the first blessing is
accepting Christ as your savior. The second blessing is that you
can become sinless. You can live in this life
perfect before God, meaning you. You can get to the point where
you never sin. And it's a blessing that God
basically bestows on people, right?
You think about before we even read the rest of it.
You can think about how difficult that would be for
trying to be a good Christian. OK, the Bible makes it very
clear that we cannot be perfect. We'll never be perfect until we
get to heaven. So could you imagine trying to
be perfect? Could you imagine trying to
never sin? How difficult it would be to
never think a wrong thought, never lose your temper, never
fill in the blank right? It's in, it's, it's, we ought to
be trying to get to that point, but we never will because we're
we're, we're humans and we still deal with the flesh.
And I mean, boy, look at, look at any book in the New
Testament. It'll tell you that, right?
So but the Salvation Army has this doctrine of a second
blessing of sinless perfection. So naturally, if you want to be
a good Christian, why wouldn't you try to get that?
That's what he did. So Harry Ironside set out to
obtain that experience. He fasted and prayed and sought
God as earnestly as he knew how. Finally he went out into the
woods, determining to stay as long as necessary, and he
experienced what he thought was the second blessing.
He returned to a Salvation Army meeting and stood up to testify
that he had found it. Soon, though, he realized that
the old man was still present in his life, and he became so
discouraged that he had a breakdown and ended up in a
hospital. He determined to forget about
the Christian life since it didn't work.
But God sent some proper, some properly educated, educated
believers to instruct him properly in biblical
sanctification. It was then able to establish
his Christian life on a proper foundation and to go on to be a
very fruitful servant of Jesus Christ, which means this, we'll
never be perfect, right? But we can, we can get to that
level of sanctification where we are trying to do everything
that's pleasing to the Lord, where everything in our in our
hearts is trying to be lined up in obedience to God's word.
But we'll never be perfect. We're never going to get to that
point because we are flesh and it still fights against the
Spirit and the Bible is very clear about that.
But here's the difference. Then we've already kind of
talked about our position and practice.
So your position is who you are in Christ.
When God looks at you, does he see someone whose sins are
covered under the blood of Jesus Christ?
If you're saved, that's you. If you, if you've repented and
and turned to Christ in faith, then that is you.
That is your position in Christ, and nothing you can do can earn
you that position besides accepting Christ, and nothing
you can do can lose that position.
That is who you are when when God looks at you, that's your
position. But your practice is what you do
with the obedience that you have in your life, what you do with
what you're supposed to be doing and following God's Word.
Relationship and fellowship is the same thing then.
So the believer has been adopted into God's family as a son
because of Christ's blood. Let's look at Galatians 326 For
ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
OK, so it's a gift that was purchased at a great price.
It's a new relationship that we have.
It's never going to change. God will never kick the believer
out of his family. At the same time, in this
present world, fellowship with God depends on whether or not I
walk in the light. So there's two things we're
talking about here, relationship and fellowship.
Now, when we say relationship, a lot of times we use that word
for fellowship. I have a great relationship with
him. That's that's not what we're
talking about here. Relationship is how are you
related, right? That's what we mean by
relationship here. Fellowship is do you get along?
What is your relationship like with him, right?
The way that we use relationship a lot of times.
So relationship is how are you related and it's this way.
All right. I've used this illustration many
times when I'm sharing the gospel with somebody.
If Jackson, all right, Jackson's my son and nothing can change
that right now. I can, I can fall out of
fellowship. He can do all kinds of things to
me that just stabs me in the back and and makes me so
disappointed in him or vice versa.
I could do many things that that that he doesn't want to be
associated with me. He doesn't want, you know, he
might try to change his last name.
He might try to do everything he could to disassociate himself
with me or me with him, but nothing can change the fact that
he's my son. That is a fact.
That, that, that that's just, it's a biological fact.
Nothing can change that, right? I can say I don't even know who
you are. You're not my son.
Don't ever call me dad again. That's a terrible fellowship.
But the relationship will never change.
No matter how hard I try. He can never not be my son
because he's my son, right? I can never not be his dad
because I'm his dad, right? That's relationship.
We have the same thing before God.
When we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, we become the
children of God. We become the sons of God.
So we might be in terrible fellowship.
Our fellowship may be very, very bad because of my sin, because
of the way that I'm living my life.
But if I'm genuinely saved, then nothing can change that
relationship. God is still my father.
I am still his child, but that doesn't have anything to do with
me, right? That has everything to do with
what Christ did for me. That has everything to do with
what God has promised me in his word.
Because I'm, I've accepted Christ as my Savior.
I've repented and I've accepted Christ.
Now I should be in fellowship with him.
If he is my father, I should want to have the relationship
with him that he wants to have with me.
But you understand that what we're talking about here with
relationship and fellowship is how are we, how are we related?
But what is our relationship like?
Relationship fellowship. So let's go over to 1st John
chapter one. First John chapter one, Walking
in fellowship with God is the main subject of first John.
And we've already talked about this and that's why I'm saying
we're going to, we're going to cover this pretty quickly.
We spent a good amount of time on this just last week.
But First John chapter 1 and verse #5 This then is the
message which we have heard of him, and declaring to you that
God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in
darkness, we lie and do not the truth.
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have
fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His
Son cleanseth us from all sin. So if I walk in darkness, I'm
out of fellowship, but that does not change my relationship.
I may not have a good, I may be out of fellowship with him, but
that doesn't change the fact that he's still my father,
doesn't change the fact that I'm still his son.
Relationship, fellowship, relationship cannot change.
Fellowship can based on my obedience to God's Word.
God doesn't throw away his children.
He chastens them to bring them back into fellowship.
And we looked at that passage in Hebrews chapter 12 last week
about God chastening His children.
But that's taught also very clearly in first John chapter 2.
My little children verse #1 these things write I unto you
that ye sin not. Now listen, can you reach
sinless perfection? Well, He's talking to us as
children. Hey, kids, my children, don't
sin. Don't sin means if He's telling
us not to, that means that we can, right?
He's got to tell us that. And if any man sin, we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
So don't do it. But if you do, Jesus Christ goes
to the Father on our behalf. If we're willing to get those
things right with him. He is the propitiation.
He's the he is the go between for our sins and not for ours
only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
So if a believer sins, Jesus Christ is his advocate with the
Father. The sinning believer is still
the child of God, though, and he still uses that term, right?
We have an advocate with the Father.
You sin, your fellowship is broken, but your relationship is
not, because we still have an advocate who's going to go to
the Father on our behalf. Right now, relationship and
fellowship can be illustrated by human relationships, and that's
exactly what I just did. I illustrated that with that, I
can be out of fellowship with my dad.
I cannot be talking to him. I could hate him, but it doesn't
change the fact that he's my dad and then I'm his son.
Relationship can't change, fellowship can, and that depends
on me. Now, position and practice we
already talked about, but standing and walk, same thing.
Another way to describe this position and practice is
standing and walk. Let's go to Ephesians and we'll,
we'll pretty much stay here for the rest of the time.
Ephesians, let's just go to chapter 1 because another way to
describe that is our practice. Sorry, our standing and our
walk. My standing is who I am before
God. When I stand before God, does he
see me as a guilty Sinner or does he see me as a redeemed St.
If I'm if I've repented and come to Christ in faith, as we've
talked about many times, I've accepted Jesus Christ as my
Savior, then my standing before him is that he doesn't see me as
a guilty Sinner that's condemned to hell.
He sees me as a redeemed St. who has the blessing of heaven.
But the the the book of Ephesians, the first 3 chapters
describe our position or our standing in Christ.
The last three chapters of Ephesians talk about our
practice or our walk in this world.
So we'll end with this. The key phrase in chapters one
through 3 is in Christ. Look at Ephesians one.
We're going to look at a bunch of verses real quick.
Ephesians 11, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of
God to the Saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in
Christ Jesus. What is that in Christ Jesus?
What is that position relationship standing right?
It's in Christ Jesus. All right, verse 3 Blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us
with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
What is that position? Relationship standing right?
Verse #10 That in the dispensation of the fullness of
times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ,
both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in Him.
Verse 12. That we should be to the praise
of His glory, who first trusted in Christ.
Verse 20. Which we wrought, which He
wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and
set him at his own right hand in heavenly places.
What are all those position, relationship standing?
It's it's my position before God, right.
Let's go over to chapter 2, and look at verse #6 And hath raised
us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus. Verse #10 For we are his
workmanship created. Say it in Christ Jesus unto good
works, which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in
them. Verse #13 But now in Christ
Jesus ye who sometimes were far off, or made nigh by the blood
of Christ. Chapter 3.
Verse #6 That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of
the same body and partakers of His promise in Christ by the
Gospel, verse 11, according to the eternal purpose which He
purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
What is that? What is in Christ?
It is our position, relationship, standing, right?
All of those, it's our position, our relationship, our standing.
They all, they all mean the same thing.
It's who we are before God. We're in Christ Jesus, and that
is something that we cannot do anything about.
Being in Christ is something that only He can do, right?
So in God's eyes, the believer is in Christ.
He's forgiven. He's justified, which means
declared righteous. I've said this many times.
Justified means when I stand before God, it's just as if I'd
never sinned. That's how God sees me.
That's an easy way to remember what justified means, right?
But redeemed, adopted, given eternal life, the believer is
blessed verse chapter one, verse 3 blessed with all spiritual
blessing in heavenly places in Christ.
But that new position is not based on on on anything that
I've done. It's not based on a believer's
works. It's God's free gift in Christ.
Ephesians 289 for by grace are you saved not of works.
The price was Christ's own blood.
Therefore the new position is sure and unchanging.
I mean, this is a, this is a just a tremendous book for, for
giving us this thing all kind of in one nut in, in a nutshell,
but in one place, Chapter one through 3 is all about our
position, our relationship and our standing.
It's who I am because of Jesus Christ.
But then chapter 4 through 6, the subject changes to the other
side of it. And what are the what is the
other side? It is the practice, the
fellowship and the walk, right? We said position and practice.
Relationship and fellowship, standing and walk.
So practice, fellowship and walk all has something to do with me.
The keyword here is walk. Ephesians chapter 4 and verse #1
I therefore the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk
worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.
What is that? That's walk.
But that's the last one. Practice, fellowship, walk,
practice, fellowship, walk. Verse number 17.
This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you
henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of
their mind. Chapter 5 and verse #2 And walk
in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself
for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet
smelling savour. Verse 8 For you are sometimes
darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord walk as children of
light. Verse 15 See then that she walk
circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise.
So what is that? It is our practice, fellowship,
and our walk. Right?
So the word describes Christian living, practice, fellowship,
walk. It is our Christian living.
It's our practice. What are we doing?
How do we live our lives? Our fellowship?
What? What am I doing in my life
that's either building that fellowship or destroying that
fellowship? And how am I walking?
I'm walking circumspectly. Walk as, as, as wise, not as
fools. I mean, those are all things
that describe my Christian life. If the believer doesn't walk in
obedience, he doesn't have the right fellowship with the Lord.
If he walks in sin, he's displeasing the Lord, grieving
the indwelling Spirit. Ephesians chapter 4 and verse
#30 Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed
unto the day of redemption. We talked about that.
Obviously, if we sin, then we can do all those things.
We can't lose our position in Christ, but definitely our
fellowship can be tainted. That's our position in Christ,
as it says here is settled and sure it's eternal, but the two
aspects of the Christian life are seen together and we we
bring it all together in verse #8 for ye, chapter 5 and verse
#8 for you. Or sometimes darkness.
But now are ye light in the Lord.
That is our position, our fellowship.
No, you missed it. Sorry, it's not.
It's not, it's not fellowship. It's our position, our
relationship. I trusted you.
Our position, our relationship, our standing.
That's the first half of that verse, right?
You see that for you were sometimes darkness, but now are
you light in the Lord? That's our say it again
position. All right, now the second-half
of that verse walk as children of light.
That is our practice, fellowship, walk very good.
All right, you're getting it. You're getting it.
So we can't lose our salvation. We can't lose our position in
Christ, but we can lose the other things.
And so the believer is a child of light.
Now that is our position in Christ.
It's a present possession and a position that was purchased by
Christ and received as a free gift through faith.
But since we are children of light, we should walk as
children of light. In other words, since we're
saved and have eternal life and our children of God, we should
live like it. That's that's what this entire
thing is about. And that's what I'm saying.
There's not not much to it. It's pretty simple, but this is
what the Christian life is all about because you're in Christ,
your position, walk like you're in Christ, act like you're in
Christ, be in fellowship with him like you're in Christ,
right? That's that's that's what this
whole thing is about. If there's any theme that I
preach on more than anything, and I don't, I may not even use
these words, but I have two themes that I that I focus on.
You'll see. You'll hear it in almost every
message if you're listening for it, Holiness and witnessing.
Those are the two things that that really everything in our
life focuses around. If you are trying to live holy,
which is your walk, your fellowship, your you're not
position. I was going to say that your
practice right, But if if you're trying to do those things, then
you're going to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord.
You're going to be righteous, you're going to be godly.
And if you want to be holy and if you are holy, then you will
tell others about Christ. If you genuinely have a desire
to tell others about Christ, then you're going to be holy at
the same some time. Those two things go hand in
hand. They cannot be separated from
each other. But what, what else did Christ
command us to do other than those two things?
I mean, there's a lot of commands in the Bible, but you
really think when it comes down to it, pretty much all of them
hinge on those two things, holiness and witnessing.
And that's exactly what this is about, right?
Because I'm in Christ, I should live holy.
I should live like a Christian. I shouldn't be ashamed of the
gospel of Jesus Christ. I shouldn't be ashamed to tell
other people that I'm his. I shouldn't be.
I shouldn't be ashamed for other people to find out that I'm a
Christian. It should be something that they
find out first because I'm telling everybody about it, not
because I'm trying to hide from that fact, right?
That's, that's exactly what God tells us to do.
So conclusion here then two things.
If the believer doesn't understand these things, he will
be very discouraged and confused when he sins.
Those who believe that a born again child of God can lose his
salvation do not understand this clear teaching of the
Scriptures. There's two things in there.
Number one, if you don't understand that you'll never be
perfect, then you're going to get very discouraged very
quickly and you're going to quit.
You, you cannot, you can try. It says be holy, for I am holy,
right? God's holiness is absolute
perfection. It's absolute holiness.
And he tells us to be like him. But then all the way throughout
the rest of the New Testament, he tells us don't sin.
But when you do get it right, so you can't lose your salvation
and you, you're not going to be perfect.
And the sooner you understand that, the more you'll be able to
go on and do for Christ, right? Second thing is the fact that
the believer's position is not affected by his daily walk is no
excuse to sin. Meaning just because I can't
lose my salvation doesn't mean that I should go sin and do
whatever I feel like in my life. That's what a lot of Christians
have in their minds. Well, I'm saved, I know I'm
going to heaven, I've got my fire insurance, so I can just go
live however I want to. I can do whatever I want to with
my life and I don't have to worry about it because it's all
covered under the blood. That's what the grace.
That's what grace is all about, isn't it?
He said, what shall, what shall we?
Shall we sin that grace may abound.
We just are we going to sin just because there is grace?
No, he says, God forbid. How shall we that are dead to
sin live any longer therein? If you're dead to sin, why are
you living in it? If you have a position in
Christ, why don't you practice like you have a position in
Christ, right? If you, if you have a
relationship, if your, if your relationship is in Christ, then
you should have a fellowship that proves that you're in
Christ. If your standing is in Christ,
then your walk should prove that you're in Christ.
That's that's the whole point of what he's saying.
Meaning this what happens when a believer sins?
Well, number one, you're out of fellowship, right?
Your, your practice, you're out, you're out of practice, if you
will. And your walk is not becoming of
a Christian. That's all on us right now.
Can we ask the Lord for help? Absolutely.
We can ask him for help and he can help us with those things.
The others we can't. We can't lose our position in
Christ. We can't lose who we are in
Christ. But I can I can be out of
fellowship with him. And so we have already seen in
these studies the terrible price that believers must pay if we
don't walk in fellowship with the Lord.
But we've also seen that it's possible to be a professor of
salvation without being a possessor of salvation.
And there's many, many, many people.
And that's why the Bible says broad is the way that lead us to
destruction. And many there be which go in
that in there at narrow is the way which leadeth to life, and
few there be that find it. What do you think that means?
There's a lot of people out there who are professing to be
Christians who are not because they've never come to Christ in
repentance and faith. They've made some profession.
Somewhere along the line, they prayed some prayer, they got
baptized in a tank, and that was their salvation experience.
But nothing changed. We don't change in order to be
saved, but we should change because we are saved.
And that's exactly what this whole thing is about.
Because you're in Christ, you should walk differently.
Simple as it is, simple as that. Not a lot to it, but very, very,
very important. So to end here tonight, what is
your fellowship like #1 are you in Christ?
Do you know Christ as your Savior?
Are you 100% sure that your sins are forgiven, that they're
covered under the blood of Christ, and that you're on your
way to heaven? If the answer to that question
is yes, then what about your practice?
What about your fellowship? What about your walk?
Does it show people that you are in Christ?
You know, the problem with some people, with a lot of Christians
is that they're not in Christ and yet they're trying to have
that fellowship with him, trying to walk with him.
They're trying to, to practice the things that a, that a
Christian practices. And they're just spinning their
wheels. And that's what gets them so
discouraged too, because unless you're in Christ, that is
impossible. That is putting sanctification
in front of justification. And you can't do that.
Not at least according to the Bible, justification comes first
and then the sanctification that can follow.
But once you've been justified, you should live sanctified.
That's the that's the simple lesson for tonight.
I hope you get it. Let's pray.
Father, again, we thank you so much for your goodness to us.
Thank you for the fact that we can have salvation.
I thank you for the fact that we can know for sure that we're
saved God for those who do. And I suspect that that's the
majority of people in here tonight.
I, I, I'm sure that there are some who are still lying to
themselves. There are still some who are
deceiving themselves into thinking that they're saved God.
May they, may they come to themselves.
May they display the the humility that's necessary for us
to come to you in faith. But God, once we know Jesus
Christ as our Savior, may you help us.
Please help us to walk as Christians walk.
May you help us to live in holiness.
May you help us to live in righteousness and godliness.
And may our fellowship with you be exactly what you wanted to be
with us. May our relationship with you be
close. God, May we may that reflect in
our lives in the way that we share the gospel with others and
the way that we try to influence others for righteousness sake as
well. Thank you again for all you do
for us. Jesus name Amen.