Frustrate The Grace

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Have you ever been frustrated? Have you ever been really really frustrated? I mean, come on, I mean really frustrated. No, no, no, not you're little pretend frustrated. I mean real frustration, like an overwhelming sense of frustration. You can be honest, hey, hey, hey, look, no one is looking. You can be oh, okay, I see that hand. Oh I see that hand. Okay, see when nobody you don't think anyone's looking. Everyone's like, Yeah, I've been frustrated a lot. In fact, I'm very frustrated at this very moment. Hey, I feel you. I hear you. I hear you.

0:49 Okay, but we'll talk about frustration. But before we do that, I'll get extremely frustrated if I don't give a proper introduction, and I don't want any I don't want to add any frustration to my frustration. So let's do this. Good afternoon, everyone. It is Saturday, July the sixth, twenty twenty four. It is currently three forty two pm Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, if you have a notebook, If you have a notebook, I want you to open that notebook. I don't really care what you write with today. Typically I would say it has to be a pencil. I don't care. You can use crayon, you can use a marker, sharpie, I don't care what you use. You can use whatever you want. Just write in the notebook. I want you to write down. I want you to write down the number, not just the number one. I want you to write down a number of things that frustrate you and your Christian life. I want you to write down maybe the top four, top five things. I want you to write down a number of things that bring great frustration into your Christian life, that as a Christian, that these are frustrations that are specifically they frustrate your Christian life. They frustrate you as a Christian, that they're very much related to your Christian life, your

2:21 spiritual walk. What are the things that bring great frustration to your spiritual walk? What are some of those things what frustrates you the most? Come on, be honest, Look, some of you may not even want to write this one down, but I think if we're honest. Sometimes you know what frustrates me about the Christian life. God himself can be frustrating, Kenny. Not, Here's God, all powerful, omni present, all knowing. Well, I think you would want God to use that power and that knowledge and that, I don't know, to fix a whole lot of things. I mean, do you ever feel that way? I mean, if God is all powerful, he can remove our sinful nature. Therefore we could all just be perfect and holy. I mean, here's the thing, an all powerful, all knowing, all present God. I don't know. How about you just fix the church where we could all I don't agree on something? I mean, could there just be like one thing Christianity could agree on? I mean, sometimes I get a little frustrated with God. Oh come on, don't act all spiritual. You have to have frustrations with God sometimes, right?

3:36 Never? Okay? Well, okay, I guess you're more spiritual than me. If I'm going to be honest with I've been frustrated with God many times in my Christian life. I get very frustrated about Christianity itself, especially when it comes to this. So I'll try to make it more specific, because just saying Christianity itself. That's kind of vague. I get very frustrated that Christians can't agree on anything two thousand years of church history. Do we agree on baptism? No? Do we agree on the Lord's Supper? No? Do we agree even on the definition of the word repentance. No? Do we agree on salvation? No? Some people say yes we do. No, we don't. We got everything from Pelagianism semi Pelagian Pleagianism, to Arminianism, to Calvinism to Augustinianism. I mean, just on and on.

4:25 No, no agreement on No agreement on eschatology, no agreement on ecclesiology. Literally, no agreement on anything. Take any verse of the Bible and go to fifteen Christians. You'll get forty seven different interpretations. We don't even agree on which hermeneutical system is correct. We don't agree on how to interpret the Bible. We don't even agree on the system we should use to bring about an interpretation. We don't agree on anything. Does that not frustrate you as a Christian? Oh? It frustrates me to it. You know what else frustrates me in the Christian life? Me? Are you not frustrated at yourself?

5:05 For being a Christian, because I mean, sometimes self can be so frustrating, because on one hand, don't you want to serve God and glorify him and live for him and please him. On the other side, don't you want to sometimes glorify you and live for you and please you? Is that not frustrating? There are so many things, but I want you to identify. I don't know how many will actually participate, but identify those things that greatly frustrate you in your Christian life. Be very honest about it. Now you may be asking, well, why why are you talking about what is frustrating? Why are you talking about frustration? Why do you sound so frustrated? Well, many of you know that. A couple of weeks ago, for our Sermon's two point oh apps sermon challenge, remember I told everyone, starting at the beginning of the year, really the end of last year, download the sermons two point oh app Every single day, choose a random sermon, listen to the sermon, right down the name of the broadcaster, and then write down a summary of the sermon. The goals. By the end of the year, you have one sermon for every day of the year, and in some weeks I'm giving you specific themes to look up, or or sermons on specific topics, et cetera, et cetera. Well, a couple of weeks ago, because I'm participating in the same challenge, I was going to have to be driving around. So what did I do. I grabbed my iPad and I downloaded some sermons and I ended up choosing a random sermon called the Coming Middle East War. Now, I thought that was great,

6:36 right, the Coming Middle East War where we've been doing a series on eschatology. This may fit in. I can add this to supplement our series on eschatology. This should be interesting. And then I clicked on the sermon and saw the full title Psalm eighty three The Coming Middle East War, And I'm like, wait, what in the world how do you get Psalmity three to our Coming Middle East War? And then it just started getting more and more frustrating. Right listening to that series, I think there's now twenty five parts to that original series that sparked all of this, and about twenty four of them I don't think has anything to do with Saal eighty three. It's maddening, beyond all comprehension. It was crazy. Then it got really frustrating because we had we listened to some sermons that said, no, saw Maty three's that's second Chronicles twenty and I think they said, a king Jehosaphat calls in Acef, the author of PSALMTI three, to write this lament, and then we come to find out that's impossible. Aceph was dead way before the reign of that king. What are you talking about? More frustration, and then it was just like all the different things people do with Saw eighty three was maddening, and then more maddening, and then more maddening. So what I thought would be like an easy Hey, this will be an easy series, it has turned into now hour after hour after hour after hour of work on Psalm eighty three. Well, I'm here in the studio working on Saw eighty three for tomorrow at Victory Baptist Church. Now find out there's going to

8:09 be visitors and there's going to be a lot of things going on. More people are going to be there than normal, and a lot of these people haven't been there for any of the Saw eighty three thing. And I'm like, okay, so now what do I do? How much do I review? What do I do. Okay, what do I do? I'm gonna have to use the first hour and the second hour for Saw Maty three. All right, So what do I cover in the first hour? What do I cover in the second hour? How much do I review? How much do I review in the first and second hour when the people in the second hour won't be the same people there in the first hour? Oh? What do I do? And I and it's part of me is like I just want to just give up and say, you know what, We're done. We finished Saw Mayty three. I know you didn't realize it, but we finished it. But I know I can't and it's just like frustration, frustration, frustration, What do I do? So I was just sitting here and I kind of was like, you know, just like, okay, I think I've done. I don't know what else I can do if I add any more things to my notes. This is We're going to finish Saw maybe three when I'm one hundred and fifty two years old. We've got to finish this thing at some point. Stop adding things to your notes. I'm just like slapping myself in the face. Stop stop, just stop, just give up. You're finished, You're done. This is a train wreck. You've messed it all up. Okay. So I'm sitting and then I look down and sitting to my left, you know what that is, Ladies and gentlemen, Come on, some of you who never listened to the broadcast. Really it's paper, okay now, but some of you know exactly what newspaper I have in my hands. I have an issue of the Sword of the Lord

9:39 newspaper. And we've been you know, I told you last year every once you get a subscription to the Sort of the Lord newspaper. Even though I don't always agree with everything in it, I always find some kind of spiritual food in it. So I was sitting here now. This issue is the June seventh, twenty twenty four issue of the Sort of the Lord newspaper, which we've been utilizing as we've talked about Revival, as we've been we've started in a series on Revival, which that's getting a little frustrated. But to be honest, the last the last episode went much better than I thought. But I just had it sitting here, and so I'm just like I kind of got my you know, my hands down on my you know, my face in my hands, just kind of sitting here in a Woe is Me. Saw many three is gonna be trash. Saw many three is garbage.

10:20 I'm going to delete the entire series. I'm gonna delete my entire podcast. I'm going to become an alcoholic. Okay, all right, maybe it's a little bit of hyperbole, but I just like, ah. So then I look down and then the very first word I see, the very first word I see in the sort of the Lord newspaper is the word frustrate. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. Come on, now, who's messing with me? I'm frustrated? And the first word I see when I look at the Sword of the Lord newspaper is the word frustrate. Come on, now, who's messing with me? I'm looking around? Come on, I'm being pranked, right, come on? So who's punking me? Here? Come on? Who's doing this? So then I thought, you know what says I don't know what to do with so many three. Let's take this concept of frustrate. Let's take this concept of frustration. Let's see what we can do with it. So let's start with some basic definitions. Frustrate to balk or defeat in an endeavor, frustrated her opponents by her ball handling.

11:24 So you can frustrate other people by basically stopping their endeavor, by you know, balking at it. You're doing something to frustrate their attempts to do something. You frustrate it. Sometimes in the Christian life, you know what, you can be the most frustrating thing in your Christian life or other Christians. They can frustrate your endeavor. They can frustrate your attempts. They can in a sense, they can walk around with a bucket of ice water to pour out on anything you're anything you want to do, they will, they can. Just sometimes Christians are the most frustrating part of the Christian life. Another definition. So there's to balk or defeat in an endeavor, right, an endeavor Next to induce feelings of discouragement. Oh, all you have to do is be a pastor or be a Christian broadcaster and let the Christians do their work, their best work, their very best work is frustrate, to frustrate, to discourage, to beat you down right, I mean, rarely are Christians a source of encouragement. They frustrate. Sometimes what you just want to do is like I just want to respond to some emails. Well, you need to step up your game a little bit. I know you're you're going for frustration, but you're not quite there yet. Put you, you go back to the you go back to the drawing table, you come back.

12:50 You can do you can do much better. I got three emails before years that is so much better and frustrating and frustrating and discouragement. You're kind of you're kind of just playing at the game, all right. Sometimes I wanted to help the church members. Okay, I know you're trying. I know it's Monday. Maybe you should just start calling me a Sunday night at midnight to frustrate because you're really not putting forth and night. I'm really disappointed in your game. You should be able to step it up, but be a little bit more frustrating, be a little bit more discouraging. So to frustrate is to induce feelings of discouragement. So in a sense, what is it in the Christian life that leads to feelings of discouragement? Next is to make an ineffectual. To make ineffectual bring to nothing illness. Frustrated his plans for college, that's the idea of frustrate or frustrated or frustrating. Now the idea is sometimes you're trying to do something and you are frustrated. So and for me, for the saw mayty three, I'm just frustrated. I'm frustrated at all the nonsense of all the different interpretations of Psalm Madi three that literally make no sense. I'm frustrated that now I'm so far into this there's no way out. I gotta bring this to some kind of conclusion. And I don't even know, you know, am I even accomplishing anything. So there's that frustration. But what was the sort of the Lord talking about when they talked about frustrate or frustration. Well, I picked up the paper after I saw

14:24 the word frustrate, and I read this, Are you ready? Quote? I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain Galatians two twenty one. I do not frustrate the grace of God. I do not frustrate the grace of God. Now this is Paul affirming that he does not frustrate the grace of God. So then immediately I stopped. Didn't even read anything else. I folded the paper over so I would not see anymore, and I set it down.

15:07 And then I said to myself self, how do you frustrate the grace of God? Do you frustrate the grace of God? And I said to self, or myself said back to me myself did not answer myself. Myself basically said, that's an interesting question and would probably make for a great podcast episode. So what you should probably do is take all of your frustration, go live on the air, ask everyone what frustrates them in the Christian life, and then ask everyone this very profound question. Do you I'm not speaking to me now, I'm speaking to you. Do you frustrate the grace of God? Do you frustrate the grace of God? What does it mean to frustrate the grace of God? Well, obviously we know the New Testament.

16:00 If we're going to try to understand that word frustrate, let's probably need to look it up and see how it's using an antilinear and what is the Greek word? Right? Don't you think that's probably a good idea? So well, I think it's a great idea. Okay, even if you think it's a bad idea. I think it's a great idea. So we're going to go to the blue letter Bible. App. I'm going to go to the antilinear. Okay, I'm going to pull up the text Galatians two twenty one. I do not frustrate the grace of God. Paul doesn't frustrate, but do you? And do I frustrate the grace of God? So I clicked on the verse or tapped on the verse. There's the antilinear, a tap on intilinear, and then here it is. It's the Greek word basically is translated. The one Greek word is translated I do. It's interesting, I do frustrate is how I would all put together. But then you have to put the other Greek word and then you get not. Okay, So yeah, we could break it all down and how it would look. But here is the Greek word. Are you ready? Here is the Greek word.

16:56 Here we go, stronge geen authi taio authi tail authoritaio authititaio? Do you authoritaio the grace of God? Do you authoritaio the grace of God? I need you to really contemplate that today, right on this afternoon a day of Maybe maybe you're not frustrated. Maybe you are frustrated. Maybe you get frustrated by many things in your Christian life. But do you forget about those things that frustrate you? Do you authoritail the grace of God? Do you frustrate the grace of God? Forget? I know it's easy for us to to think of all the things that frustrate me. And my list is long, all right, it is long. But do i authoritaio? Do I frustrate the grace of God? Well? The word is you sixteen times? Eight times? It is translated spies. That's interesting. Do you despise the grace of God? Oh? Now this may ge a little bit more uncomfortable, right for reject? Do you reject the grace of God? Do you despise?

18:18 Do you reject? Bring to nothing? Now that's kind of a Now that kind of goes back to the English definition. Remember the English definition, if I could find it, the English definition to make ineffectual, bring to nothing? Do you make the grace of God ineffectual? Or do you bring the grace of God to to basically be nothing? Oh? That's that would be that would be a bad thing. All right, So let's go back to the to the uh Anti linear. Do we off the tail the grace of God? Do we despise it? Do we reject it? Do we bring it to nothing? Do we frustrate? Desinal cast off? Strong's definition?

19:07 Okay, and there's a whole lot of interesting here to set aside, to disesteem, to neutralize, to violate, cast off, despise, frustrate, bring to not to reject. Do you do these things to the grace of God? Now I know where you're gonna say, no, no, no, no, no, I never do this to the grace of God. I love the grace of God. I rejoice in the grace of God. But is there parts of us that despise, reject, bring to nothing, frustrate, disinal, cast off, reject the outline of biblical usage, to do away with, to set aside, to disregard, And what ways in your Christian life are you doing away with? You're setting aside, you're disregarding the grace of God. Now, as soon as you start talking about the grace of God, the grace of God, the grace of God, the grace of God, sooner or later, someone's gonna say, well, I understand God's grace, and I understand God's unmerited favor. I know God doing that that you know, we do not earn or we do not deserve.

20:15 But almost inevitably you're gonna hear some preacher or some Christians but but, but there may be grace, but and then they'll start saying, there's got to be these other things. Now the minute they say but, they've just completely rejected, completely, just thrown out everything that comes before, which is the grace of God, to do away with, to set aside, to disregard, to thwart the efficacy, to nullify, to make void, to frustrate. Do we thwart the efficiency, the efficacy, uh the efficiency the effects of God's grace? Let me put it that way. Do we reject?

21:00 Yet? Do we refuse to slight? Those are all some of the outlines of biblical usage. What do we do with the grace of God? Now Paul's are obviously writing to the church Galicia, and again he says, I. Now Paul's telling him, I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. Now, clearly he's seemingly to imply, I don't frustrate the grace of God, but I think there may be an implication that they do, are in danger of, or are doing it currently. Now the article says this frustrate means to put aside. So Paul said, I do not put aside the grace of God to teach salvation by keeping the law by human righteousness.

22:00 So Paul is saying, hey, guys, I do not set aside the law of God when teaching I do not. I'm sorry, I do not set aside the grace of God when teaching salvation. I therefore, because I would be setting aside the grace of God if I taught salvation had anything to do with what you do and keeping the law. Remember, we cannot keep the law. We cannot keep the law before we're saved. We do not keep the law after we save. We're in violation of the law perpetually and perpetually in some way, shape or form, because the law demands a perfection internally externally. If you violate one point of the law, you're guilty of all of it. We're always guilty of the law. So if you if you set aside the grace of God to teach salvation and connect it to anything related to the law. Well, nobody's going to be saved. It's only going to bring condemnation. But you're setting aside the grace of God. He's like, Paul's like, I do not do that. So let me read again how the sord of the Lord paper puts it here. Frustrate here means to put aside all said, I do not put aside the grace of God to teach salvation by keeping the law by human righteousness. The paper adds a little bit more. The Galatian Christians fell into into the sin, and so do many other Christian people and preachers. Now what sin The sin of frustrating the grace of God, the sin of rejecting the grace of God, the sin of bringing the grace of God tonight, the sin of setting it aside.

23:32 How do you do that with the grace of God in your life? Or how do you do that when it comes to other people? Now, this is the sort of the Lord newspaper I quote. They frustrate the grace of God or put aside the grace of God and pervert the plan of salvation by having people either number one, work to get saved. Number two, work to keep saved. Or number three, work to prove they are saved.

24:12 Uh oh, that just got serious and that just w will offend all kinds of people. Let me read that to you again. The article says that many people, many Christians and many pastors and many churches, they frustrate the grace of God or put aside the grace of God and pervert the plan of salvation by doing one of three things. Are you ready? Number one, they tell people they have to work to get saved. Number two they say you have to work just keep saved. Or number three, you have to work to prove you are saved. Now, some people can say, but works prove you're saved. Works proved you're saved, The works of Christ prove I'm saved. Whatever you say, well, you have to do this or you have to do this. You have to do this in order to prove that you're saved. And I'm saying Christ did it for me, because if I look to my life, I'm never going to do those things perfectly or even come close. So then you get upgraded on a curve, it all falls apart. You will ultimately frustrate the grace of God. You're setting it aside. You're taking the grace of God, casting it aside, to turn to some kind of law based works based system. The Galician the Christians at Galicia had been led astray by those who taught them that they must keep the ceremonial law or they would not be saved. Thus they frustrated the grace of God. Paul said to them who were depending on salvation by works, you are fallen from grace. That is, they have fallen from the biblical doctrine and the biblical truth of salvation by grace by grace, and going away

25:47 to that ancient carnal heresy of getting saved by good works. We like to find. We like to put ourselves in it somehow to get some kind of credit something that we do now we now typically we're very good at not saying we do it in order to be saved, but we do it because we say, therefore, I prove that I'm saved by what I do. So it still becomes about you. And then if you don't do it, but then you're not saved, meaning you have to do it in order to be safe. You're just playing a game of semantics. You're still making works essential to salvation. Work is essential to salvation, the work of Christ, which then is imputed to me. How do you set aside and frustrate the grace of God in your own life? And how do you do that when it comes to other people? So then I set aside all of my other frustration.

26:38 I'm like, well, let me do a little work here, let me do a little work here on this subject. So I started trying to put some things together from some different sources. Here's one source, Paul's statement in Galatians two twenty one, and then they quote it this way, I do not nullify the grace of God is a powerful declaration of his understanding of the central role of grace and salvation. I think it is a powerful statement, and I do believe that it is Paul emphasizing the central role of grace and salvation. Paul emphasizes that salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, not by the works of the law. He asserts that if righteousness could be gained through the law, then Christ died for nothing. His death is in vain. This verse Galatious to twenty one underscores the foundational importance of God's grace and the life of a believer. Let's do a little bit more on Galatians two twenty one. Paul is contrasting Ungalatians to twenty one the concept of grace with the idea of trying to earn salvation through the adherence to the Mosaic law or any form of self righteous works. He firmly believes that salvation is a gift of God's grace, freely given, and not something that can be earned by human effort. And because we are saved by God's grace, we

28:11 are saved by an imputed righteousness which you cannot do anything to demonstrate or prove you have it. Because it's imputed. It doesn't do anything into it to you practically, but it does everything for you positionally. By Paul stating that he does not frustrate the grace of God, Paul affirms the sufficiency of Christ's sacrificial death on the Cross for the forgiveness of sins. He recognizes that if the righteousness could be attained through the law, then Christ's death would have been in vain. So, in a sense, if you're frustrating the grace of God, you're denying the sufficiency of Christ. At the same time, when Paul says, I do not frustrate the grace of God. I do not set it aside, I do not nullify it, Paul basically is declaring by that he does not frustrate the grace of God. He's expressing his reliance on God's unmerited favor and love. He encourages believers to trust in God's grace for salvation and to not add unnecessary burdens of legalistic requirements. He's embracing that salvation is by the unmerited favor of God. Paul's statement also serves as a warning against falling into legalistic tendencies, where individuals might think that they can achieve salvation by following a set of rules or rituals. The legalistic mindset frustrates the free gift of grace that God offers through Jesus Christ. Now, the way many churches do so is they don't say you do it to get it, but

29:42 you got to do this, this, this, this, this, and if you don't do this, and if you don't do this, and if you don't do this, and if you don't do this, then you were never saved. Making then it all about you and what you do. Now, everything you tell me I must do to be saved, Christ did for me by faith, His righteousness is imputed to So I do all of those things. So back off. But how do we frustrate the grace of God and our own life? How might we frustrate the grace of God? Well, I think one could be legalism. Right by adopting a legalistic mindset that seeks to earn salvation through adherence to rules, rituals, or self righteous acts, we can frustrate the grace of God. I think we can become legalistic and say why I got to do this or do this, or I do this, or I do this or I do this, Therefore I proving I'm saved. When you start looking the list of rules and things you do to prove anything, people say, well, I'm not saying you have to do it to be saved. I'm saying you have to do it to prove that you're saved. I've said this a million times and I'll continue to say it.

30:48 That's just saying the same thing, because if I don't do it, then I'm not saved. So not only do I have to do it to prove that I'm saved. I have to do it in order to be saved, because I have to do it to prove that I'm saved. Therefore, it's a requirement. Now, whatever requirement you give me. If I'm frustrating the grace of God, if I'm looking to myself as the one who's doing it, I look to Christ that He's already done it on my behalf. So any legalism frustrates the grace of God. How about self reliance? When you rely on your own efforts, your own achievements, your own merits for salvation instead of acknowledging our complete dependence on God's grace, you're frustrating his grace.

31:32 You are you frustrating the grace of God today? How do we frustrate the grace of God when we lack humility? You see, pride and self sufficiency can hinder us from fully embracing and experiencing the grace of God, as they prevent us from recognizing our need for His mercy. When you can't just acknowledge how messed up you are, When you can't just acknowledge how totally sinful we still are. So much of Christianity, everybody wants to pretend to be godly and to be better than everyone else, and we always refer to that those people them, they all those bad people, But we are so good.

32:13 You're out of your mind. You're frustrating the grace of God because you're looking to yourself and pretending to be better than you are. Humility will acknowledge your own failure, your own weakness, your own sin, and you'll be like man, I can't frustrate the grace of God. I am desperate in need of the grace of God. Now do we frustrate the grace of God if we fail to forgive? I'm gonna put that as hypothetical. If we hold on to grudges and resentments and unforgiveness towards others, does that not hinder us from fully receiving and extending the grace of God in our lives. Now, I don't think it stops. I don't think it hinders us, because I receive God's grace by faith alone, and God is the one who gives me the faith, so I receive it. I think what I'm doing is I'm frustrating God's grace. I am because I'm not extending it to someone else.

33:10 I'm frustrating God's grace from being extended to someone else. I think in that sense, right, and if I'm so forgiven, should I not be that forgiving? So then I am I does that frustrate God's grace in my life? To some level? There's there's something frustrating going on when those who've been forgiven of so much will not forgive others. And what we tend to we tend to be very vengeful. We want revenge, we want to destroy, we want to shame, we want to humiliate because I didn't get it my way, it didn't go my way, So now I take down that's that. Yeah, there's something now, I know there's some ways I think that's frustrating. Now, what happens if as a believer we neglect, say, prayer, reading the Bible, we're not really pursuing a relationship with God?

34:13 Is that Is that frustrating the grace of God? So I don't know, I don't I don't know if that is really frustrating the grace of God. I think that's demonstrating a lack of maybe gratefulness. You know, if we're grateful for what God did for us, and we would pursue everything to bring draw that would draw us closer to God. Right, how about if we refuse to acknowledge and change our mind about sin, and we refuse to try to pursue godliness versus sin? If we if we don't, if we don't struggle with sin, are we are we frustrating the grace of God?

34:54 Are we nullifying the grace of God? Are we setting aside? I think the issues is not so much if we turn against if we turn from sin. I think I think the issue is if we don't admit our sin. See, I'm frustrating the grace of God because if I don't acknowledge it's a sin, then I'm basically saying I don't need God's grace here and I'm holding on to the fact that it's not as sinful or that I'm better than I am. What in reality, if I will just acknowledge how sinful it is, I think it's it's not I don't think we frustrate the grace of God if we don't necessarily stop the sin, because we frustrate God's grace when we don't acknowledge that it is a sin and we are not and we're and we don't come to God with it. I think that is, in a sense, how we frustrate the grace of God. So Galatians two twenty one, Paul writes these words, I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. Now I'm gonna throw out an idea here. Now. Remember, whenever I do these messages, I love to give you. I like to leave it a lot in your hands to see what you can do with it. Right.

36:16 That's why, That's why maybe perpetually my podcast leads to frustration, because I really leave every episode with not a closed circle, because you're the one who's supposed to come along and say, Okay, I worked on this and this was my conclusion. I leave it. I leave you a major part of it. I'm hoping you're doing that part of it. I just never know about it, so I never know then, okay, what it accomplished. But I'm just gonna throw this out there. Just read that verse again, I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. I will argue that modern day evangelical fundamentalism is in a perpetual state of frustrating God's grace because it typically seeks or it promotes a system of obtaining righteousness through lawkeeping. They connect righteousness with doing right. They connect righteousness with obeying the law. But we cannot obtain righteousness through the keeping of the law. Why because we never will keep it enough to ever be righteous. Remember, just think the way this. You can take all the laws of God and say, while I'm keeping this and keeping this, it doesn't matter if you break one, You're guilty of all

37:49 of them. You're in a perpetual state of unrighteousness. I know this goes against every Christian think, well every modern day Christian thinking. If you go back to the inf this is really the heart of the Reformation, right, remember the argument versus imputed versus infused righteousness. Modern evangelicalism has created a system that righteousness is obtained by law keeping. Keep the law, be righteous, be righteous by obeying the law. Everything about be holy, be righteous. It's all about do this, do this, don't do this, do this, don't do this. And then everyone thinks, well I don't do this, and I do this, so I'm righteous. I thank you Lord that I'm not like all these other people who are extortioners, adulterers, fornicators.

38:32 I Lord, I tithe. I do this, I go to church. I don't watch porn, I don't watch rad at our movies. I don't wear immodest clothing. I do this, and I do this, and I do this and I that's evangelicalism and fundamentalism and a nutshell. It's about righteousness obtained by the law that frustrates the grace of God. Because you can that is obtaining a self righteousness, a righteousness before God. You can keep and keep and keep and keep and keep and keep and keep and keep, and you're still unrighteous. I know nobody wants to acknowledge that. I know nobody wants to admit that. But look at the standard. Love God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, with all of your body. You're not even gonna come close to that, right because you have a sinful nature, So not all of you is ever going to love God. You're in a perpetual status, and love your neighbor as yourself. Give me a break, Okay, you love yourself so much, that's all you think about. That's what motivates almost everything you do.

39:35 In fact, your love for self is what motivates your love for others. Because you love others because they love you, And when they stop loving you the way your then you want them destroyed and you want to humiliate and kill. All right, Okay, maybe not physically kill, but you get the idea. Because because it's all about you, be ye holy as he is holy, that means perfection. You're never going to do that, no matter how many things you do. If righteousness could be obtained by law keeping, then Christ's death is in vain. He didn't need to die. Why did he need to die? Because we can never be righteous in lawkeeping. The law was never designed to make us righteous. The law was designed to show us our unrighteousness. So what do we need? We need not to frustrate the grace of God. I come and realize only by grace faith Christ.

40:29 By grace and faith, I put my faith in Christ. And then his righteousness is imputed in my account, and nobody can see that. It cannot be perceived, it cannot be tested, it cannot be challenged, because it's obtained by faith alone. Let me read the verse again. I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. Righteousness does not come through lawkeeping. I guess so tired of Christ thinking, well, no, no, if you're a Christian, you will do this? And what am I proving? What? You prove that you've been saying? What? What? So? What am I proving that I've been made righteous? Oh? So you think salvation is about making me practically righteous? No, Salvation is about declaring me positionally righteous, perfectly practically. I cannot obtain righteousness through lawkeeping. You say, But the Bible tells us to do this, and this it does, and that's law and gets what it does. It shows me that I don't.

41:31 So then what's my hope? Christ? Who did it for me? Oh? I know that's going to be considered radical, but it's literally it comes straight from the Reformation. Do you frustrate the grace of God by thinking or be trying obtain righteousness through lawkeeping? Now I'm not saying we don't try to obey the law. Obviously, we try to pursue the law we are supposed to, But I don't become righteous by doing it. I'm righteous in Christ. I try, I should try to pursue the law out of gratitude for God's grace, out of a love for God's grace. I should. Now I don't do it. I don't do it enough. And so then I don't want to frustrate grace, the grace of God by pretending that I am better than I am. I am a mess, I'm a train wreck, I'm a sinner. I started by asking you what frustrates you about the Christian life, But we're ending about how you and I frustrate the grace of God, because that's the real question. Always always easy to think about all the things that frustrate me, frustrate me, frustrate Oh, this frustrates me.

42:52 And this frustrates me, and this frustrates me. And this and this and this and this and this and this and this. But wait a minute, how am I frustrating the grace of God? And I think modern day evangelicalism and fundamentalism is in a perpetual state of frustrating the grace of God, which leads to discouragement, disillusionment, and and I think leads to deconstruction. Because you're taught all of this stuff about what's going to happen? And then you realize I'm still a sinner and I sin, and I sin over and over and over again, and they you know what, so many Christian young people, they just think Christianity is about doing the right thing. They just always think it's about moralism, it's about rules, it's about doing. But you cannot obtain righteousness from lawkeeping. I'm going to read Galatians too. I'm going to read Glacious two twenty one from this translation, I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. I mean, I think that's two translations making it very clear. And I hope people will talk all around us and try to come up with a million ways to explain this away. But I think that I think it's really a fundamental question. Do you believe righteousness is obtained by lawkeeping?

44:15 Just walk around you. I know I say this every week and nobody ever does anything I ever asked. Walk around your church tomorrow and just say, hey, do you become righteous by doing right? Well? Absolutely? Amen. You gotta do the right thing, stop doing the wrong thing. No drinking, no drugs, no rock and roll, no dances, no long hair whatever. They're yelling about it any particular time, and I don't do those things. So I'm a good man. No, you're a sinner. You don't realize it. You can't obtain righteousness by doing good. Why because God's standard for doing good is perfection, and you're good is never good enough to be considered righteousness. That's why you need a foreign righteousness, an alien righteousness, which is not obtained by doing good. It's obtained by faith.

45:08 Are you frustrating the grace of God? You can email me news I f at yahoo dot com. That's the news. I f at yahoo dot com. That's the news I f at yahoo dot com. Thank you for allowing me to take my frustration because I was focused on my situation. I'm being frustrated by my situation, and thank you for letting me process that so that I flip it around. So now I'm more frustrated. And how I frustrate the grace of God? I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It's a bad thing that I do that, I guess it's a good thing that I know I do that. Do you do that?

45:54 I'd love to hear, Thanks for listening. Everyone, have a great Saturday. God bless