Leaving a Legacy that Lasts Forever - Teach Them to Live Grace Filled Lives, Part 1

Have you ever messed up big time mean the kind of sin that years later you still cringe when you think about it. Perhaps worst of your dreams, your hopes and your motivations died at that big mistake if that's where you are today. I want you to know you can begin again. You can be restored. The joy you want can be your God wants to give it to stay with. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with the mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians, the Bible, as we wind down the series, leaving a legacy that lasts forever to spend these last couple of programs showing what message here all year be surprising that all is perfect. When we blow it. Oftentimes the most. Your judgment comes from our own conscience. This program ship explains how we can break free of our past because failure is never fun, so let's listen now to his message. Teach them to live in grace filled lives. Sometimes stories have a tremendous power. I mean people give us stories and movies, and if your child sometimes a parent will, at nighttime, read a story and rather than me tell you what a story says I like to do something little different. I like to tell an accurate historical story of a fellow who is the most powerful man in the world. He had very very humble beginnings. He was of a tribe that was sort of of the lower class and he was the youngest and he went from being a shepherd boy to being the most powerful king in the world. He had everything any man's heart could ever desire.

He had wealth he had fame. He was an artist.

He was a warrior. He had beautiful women. Everything that God could ever give a person in terms of hearts desire, probably more than one beautiful woman as part of his downfall that will talk about later, but I want to tell you a story of how a very good man who is passionate and love God and who never planned to make a mistake in a weak moment destroyed major portions of his life. It says in second Samuel chapter 11 it happened in the spring of the year. At the time when kings go out to battle the David sent Joab the servant in all of Israel and they destroyed the people of Ammon and the besiege Ray Bob but David remained in Jerusalem every other year went out the battle lot a success.

Things are going great. I probably don't need to go this year and then it happened, notices not planned, and then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed walked out on the roof.

The king's house and from the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful to behold and so David sent, and inquired about the woman and someone said is this not the sheep of the daughter of Eli am the wife of Uriah the Hittite and the David sent messengers and he took her and she came to him and he lay with her, for she was cleansed for her impurity and she returned to her house and the woman conceived so she sent and told David and said I am with child God's man in weak moment. Then David sent a job saying send me Uriah the Hittite and jobsite Uriah to David from the battlefield, and when you ride come to him. David asked him how it was going and how were the people doing and how's the war prospered and David said to your arrival.

Go down to your house and you wash your feet and so Uriah departed from the king's house and got a gift of food from the king that followed him. But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his Lord and he did not go down to his house so they told David saying Uriah didn't go down to his house. David said Uriah, did you not come home from a journey and why didn't you get out your house and he confronts a man with great integrity and loyalty and Uriah said to David, the ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents in my Lord Joab, and the servants of my Lord, are encamped in the open fields. Shall I go down to my house and eat and drink and lie with my wife as you live in as your soul is, I will not do this thing. The contrast, commitment, loyalty, integrity, what's fair what's right.

As I read this passage I noticed the phrases. Then it happened he saw. He inquired he sent. He lay she conceived, and then begins the cover-up and Uriah said to David can't do so. David tries Plan B in verse 12 he gets them drunk sends them down. Even in a drunken stupor's loyalties intact and then cover-up Plan B emerges in verse 14 in the morning it happened. The David wrote a letter to Joab was the head of his army any Senate by the hand of Uriah.

What irony any wrote in the letter saying Uriah put them in the forefront of the hottest battle and retreat from him that he meet be struck down and die and so was the Joab besiege the city and he assigned Uriah to a place where new value men were in the middle the city came out and they thought some of the servants of David fell in Uriah the Hittite died also cover-up complete skip down to the very bottom.

Verse 26 when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead. She mourned for her husband and when her morning was over, David sent, and brought her to his house and she became his wife and bore him a son commentary but the thing that David had done displeased the Lord a great portion of this book that I hold in my hands is called the Psalms of the Psalter. It was the hymnal of the Jewish people and the great majority of these words from God to believers then and now were written by this man is a man that's passionate for God love God humble God exalted him.

He was the deliverer of the people from the Philistines and later in greater and greater and greater battles and the trajectory of his entire life changes because one night he can't sleep.

He's not where he supposed to be, but is not planned, it's not malicious. He just can't sleep and he's made to do something, but is not doing what is called to do in this window as he can't sleep and he walks out and he looks over and he's a man like any man on a business trip or away from home in a different environment and something catches his eye.

And there's something very normal and natural about the magnetic attraction to a very very beautiful woman and then he takes the next step.

He probably didn't plan on doing anything. He inquired I wonder who that is enough that I do anything that's wonder who it is that he gets the feedback and during that time, the seeds begin to grow in any calls for her and still maybe in many lives with her and then there's consequences and then instead of owning his stuff and realizing this is a greediest enemy. By the way, and we read this in our 21st century eyes the up the penalty for adultery was to be stoned is a serious and so he, you know, like a the many coverups we seen in the last 20 years.

Sweet alcohol covered up of the skip husband to come home and cosleep with his wife think the babies his but he chose the wrong guy because got too much integrity, and then in the way sin creeps in. Is that seed of sin. It was just seeing men inquiring then taking a step and there's an action there is a consequence, then there's a cover up, and all I want to do is get this under that you not just want to put this under the rug and it's a mistake.I'm really really sorry. I'll never do anything like that again and still think it's his baby and will be over, and it doesn't work and so he eased this is how sin works like a cancer that multiplies rapidly in the cells multiply, multiply, multiply, and he starts thinking things that he would never do and then pretty soon he comes up with a plan to kill her husband and he actually allows other people to go to the front where it's too dangerous and this man dies and they play the game and she mourns he marries her and thinks, and then that famous famous passage in the New Testament.

Do not be deceived. Your sin will find you out and I will make a couple observations on how you've heard this taught before my first observation is he is a good man, a very good man. Sometimes we hear about people make a big mistake and they commit adultery or embezzlement, or they do something really horrendous that is so counter to everything we know about them and were so quick disable everything they ever taught was wrong and you know must have a super dark heart of the fact the matter. David was a very, very good man in a weak moment and according to Scripture there's not a person in this room. Given the right circumstances, at a window of time when you are vulnerable that you couldn't do the same or worse. And by the way, until you come to that conviction that that could actually happen. You're even mortal second.

He's described as a mighty warrior, a righteous king and a man after God's own heart.

And by the way, that is after this event.

That's a New Testament quotation book of acts, the spirit of God describing King David King, righteous warrior man after God's own heart. We get that after this event. Third, the words murder and adulterer are added to the biography of this amazing godly man who was used by God in ways beyond anything. Probably we can imagine. And here's the point I like to make. We all make big mistakes some time in our life. Some of them get found out some of them don't. But we know the question is how do we recover.

We talked about a number of things in some of you when we talked about teaching them to suffer well were working to the Lord. Some of you when it's you know teaching to make wise decisions.

Some of you have extremely deep regrets of that picture of Connor water that's Conover.

The falls and this feeling that there are certain things I didn't do or there are certain things I did do that I so deeply regret when confronted with that truth and the temptation and the enemy's desire is to cover you with condemnation.

It's too late.

You blew it.

You've ruined their life. There is no hope in the transferable concept you want to teach those you disciple the transferable concept we must pass on to our kids into our grandkids into people that are in our local bodies of fellowship.

Is this teach them to live. Grace filled lives. I want to go over the theology of grace in its it's from the beginning to the end of Scripture.

So I want to give you the high marks very briefly and quickly and then explain may be grace that we really get our arms around what's it mean to receive grace what is grace grace is the unmerited and unconditional love of God toward us underline the word unmerited unconditional we don't understand either. And you never get it anywhere else from anyone else at all like this unmerited means you can earn it unconditional means you have it when you're bad you have it when you're good you have it when you're up you have it when you're down.

Grace is the disposition in the eternal God of wanting to give you what you do not deserve on the basis of his character alone, not on your performance or your activity. Second, grace is free to us, but it's costly to God.

It's absolutely free completely removed from our performance but it's very costly to God. Third, the cross is God's greatest act of grace will develop that. But the greatest act of grace is the cross where he allowed his son fully God fully man to die in your place and my place to pay for, to atone to be the substitute for all the things that you have ever done or ever thought or ever said that violated a holy God. You are responsible for every one of those. I'm responsible for every one of mine, and God said, since you could never live up to that I will allow my son who is absolutely perfect to hang between heaven and earth on a wooden cross and I will take my just wrath in my judgment for sin and I will pour it on my son who is an absolutely perfect sacrifice because he is God and he is able to die because he is man, and in this moment of time. I will cover or atone for the sins of all men of all times, and whoever would choose to with empty hands of faith, ask for this gift of substitution grace, I will give it to them on the basis of them believing God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever would believe might receive eternal life, for salvation is a free gift from God's not of works. Five. Grace must be received by faith.

You might jot Ephesians 289 for by grace we are saved through faith. And that's not of yourselves, the ideas, not of your religious or moral attempts of good works. It is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast. I would like if you would just to stop for a second because something that I think is at least I grew up this way, and I've rarely talk without people going. Oh, and it's so deeply embedded in your psyche. We kind of theologically get the point where we understand that we invite Christ to commit our life of his spirit enters us. We begin this new life. But what's so deeply embedded in our minds is a concept that goes something like this. God has a big chalkboard in the sky and there's a line down the middle and a one side it says good deeds and there's a line in other side it says bad deeds and for many of us, all of our lives implied or actually talk to us. If your good deeds all in every good deed to get old Mark and every bad did you get little Mark and the way I grew up thinking was, you know you get to the end of the game called life. If you're bad deeds are more than your good deeds go to that place, and if your good deeds are better than your bad deeds go good place. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you had 999,099 good deeds and one bad deed you would violate the holy perfect perfection of God who can live with absolutely no sin if you put it in a scorecard. It would be something like this in order to have a relationship with God the father you need your test score in every aspect of life to be a perfect hundred. You either have 100 or you fail now may be that the Billy Graham's of the world. Although I'm sure he wouldn't say this or that mother the traces or some famous missionaries. Maybe they could 92, 94, and maybe ask murderers get like threes and fours and serial killers are -5, and most of us see ourselves like maybe 75 or 80's unless your hundred can have a relationship with God. So being a good guy being moral intellectually believing in God is not what it means to be quote saved or have a relationship or be prepared or allowed to go to heaven. It's by grace you saved through faith. Grace number six produces gratitude toward God and love toward others.

When you experience grace. It activates something of Philippians chapter 2 says, for it is it's the grace of God.

It's God who is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Grace does something where when you turn in empty cans of faith and ask Christ to come in your life. The spirit of God enters your physical body you are literally taken out the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light your place into the supernatural community called the body of Christ or the church your deposited a spiritual gift to fulfill your Ephesians 210 purpose, your mind begins to be renewed. You are sealed with the spirit so that no one can take you out of his hands. You have a now power the penalty of sin is been broken the power of sin is been broken. The Spirit of God lives in you to manifest the presence and the power of the very life of Christ and the Christian life.

Far from trying to be a good person is about abiding in Christ, so that this new life can be lived out through your personality as you depend and walk by faith in him and he transforms you from grace to grace. It is tightest you might jot this down. Titus chapter 2, 11 and 12. When people think of grace. One of the fallacies is that they think the opposite of grace is effort. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Ephesians 42 says we are to make every effort to become the kind of followers. Christ wants us to become. It takes effort it takes energy. Paul say I beat my body. I focus I discipline myself it takes great effort to be a follower of Christ to allow the grace of God to manifest itself in every area of your thought, your speech in your relationships.

The opposite of grace is not effort the opposite of grace is merit. Merit has to do with earning something. Put it this way, a better way opposite of grace is a performance mentality. The opposite of grace is when I read my Bible and pray. God loves me when I don't read my Bible and pray he doesn't love me the opposite of grace is when I give financially off the top when I'm doing good and I don't have any moral slips. God really loves me. And boy, I blew it. I watch something last nighter I had a bad daughter. I lusted after that or my money semester.

Now I'm in debt.

I made God doesn't love me anymore and when you think that way then that I can't really talk to God right now I can't be close to God right now but I'm to get my finances in order and I'm going to come to try and work my way back to being a good boy or good girl and then God will accept me again and that's bad bad theology, but many of you and me think that way and don't live by faith through grace. Even the worst save that way and we live this performance orientation where we live with condemnation and guilt and are not tapping into the power of God.

The theme of the book of Galatians is very simple. However, you get in relationship with God or saved is exactly the same way you grow or are sanctified that make sense you're saved by faith through grace the way you grow is by faith through grace, so grace produces this gratitude toward God produces a love and a lifestyle and a set of good works. Verse 10 right, you're saved, not by works, but you are his workmanship, you are created and there's this new power life. This grace that gives you a want to and will to have good works of love and kindness and concern for other people. The Old Testament roots are all the way in the early part of the Bible Genesis 3 verse 21. After the sin of Adam and Eve.

We have who takes care who covers and introduces the concept of the shedding of blood for the remission of sins, and it says also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin any clothing that's a picture of what's going to come. Something had to die. Blood had to be spilled into people got covered. That's a good picture. What happens in salvation. The other passage there is Genesis 6, eight, and we have this horrendous violence in the world. Violence to the point. I mean it was like back in Noah's day. They had CSI did you realize how obsessed we are with violence. You walk into, and I don't recommend you do look walk into one of those video stores look at the top 15 games in our kids practice killing things and blowing up people the way we train our troops because it is so viscerally difficult to ever get to the point to take a human life and there are times in war were that happens we train our troops with video games to desensitize them to human life. So in the crisis of the moment. They will be able to shoot and protect those that there with me just challenge you to get a little thing put in extra TV and every program that has to do with killing or violence or white of the killer door it it is.

It got so bad that God said he was sorry that he made mankind, but in the midst of that but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord our biblical profiles are David the adulterer and the murderer and Peter the betrayer.

Some of us you know really put David in that boy man is a really really terrible. I don't know that you can do anything worse than what Peter did in anybody here been betrayed before anybody here have a mate walk out on you and sleep with someone else run off with someone else and would have a business partner that many were doing life together and your $300,000 you found out later that doesn't exist anymore and he left town anybody start a business to start up and get a little slow on getting all the IP and the patent agreements and have someone steal all your stuff that you thought was your friend and anyone ever have a close friend that you're in a Bible study with a lady or a guy in a men's group, only to find out that the most intimate things you've ever shared they gonna spread around other people I don't know that I've ever been as angry or is hurt is when I've been betrayed. Nellis put the shoe on the other foot anybody here in a moment of weakness ever betrayed anybody. Anybody ever talked about people and you realize who. And then it actually came back around and you got caught in under my first reaction is always a lie and say that so I just added a lie to my other sin right. Here's I'm trying to help you get emotionally to where you understand if you don't go with me to where you have done these things and some it's pretty quick and there and some it's hard you'll never grasp grace because David is probably used by God as much or more than anyone in the Old Testament, even after sin and Peter became the core foundation person for this thing called the church after he betrayed Christ and what what the big theme about grace is failure is never ever final. He's the God of the second chance. The seventh chance the 7×70th chance he out of his grace extends mercy.

That means he withholds the just judgment penalty that we deserve and he is willing and open wherever you're at whatever you've done to forgive and to cleanse to restore to renew the New Testament command is in John chapter 3 in week week so often quote or put in at the end of the end zone. Verse 16 unit for God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should perish but have everlasting life.

But I love verse 17 for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He who believes in him is not condemned but Hugh doesn't believe is condemned already, because he doesn't believe in the name of the only begotten son of God. People who reject God will be apart from him forever. Not because they have not been forgiven, but because they will refuse the gift of the forgiveness that's been purchased for them. It's stiff arming God.

Jesus message was not everyone's all messed up, get with the program. His message was. I didn't come to condemn you, I came to help you own and come to grips with the.

The failure in the sin and the using of people in the abuse and the lying and the deceit to let you know I will forgive you and cover you and I want you know you can have a relationship with my father. He loves this application been listening to the first part of his message.

Teach them to live. Grace filled life from his series, leaving a legacy that lasts forever your kids today are experiencing a real crisis of character. So many young adults don't know how to properly handle hardships or make wise choices are also lost when it comes to managing money or finding meaning in their work.

For those of you with teenagers or adult children. You understand the struggle I'm talking about but don't lose hope. The Bible has the answers. Stick with us for this entire series of strip unpacks five key biblical lessons that will equip you to pour into the kids you care about to find all the resources for leaving a legacy that lasts forever. Go to LivingontheEdge.org or call AAA 333-6003 Listeners simply tap special offers. I'll be back with some application to today's teaching, but if you're listening to this program and you or someone you know is being blessed to me.

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Here's chip as we close today's program. I am reminded that the gospel is good news. You know sometimes I don't know why but we, as Christians, we get so bent out of shape about stuff that all we do is think about how people need to know measure up and get with the program and they're not doing this and they're not doing that the gospel itself is God coming in saying I understand that you've messed up. I understand that you've done something you're sorry for that is blatantly wrong, often very evil and when you really mess up at that level there is such reproach I mean is this picture of Peter whose bitterly weeping. I mean he he understands he knew better.

He's betrayed his closest friend, the person who's never let him down and loved him perfectly. He denied that he even knew him and David. I me. Talk about a guy who knew better, but in a moment of weakness I learned from David that really good people can do really bad things under the right circumstances and the message for you today.

As God is a God of grace. He's a God of second and third and seventh and and 70×7 chances but that grace only becomes operational when you get honest when you're willing to admit what David admitted. I've send Lord against you and you only went when you get to where like Peter comes to the Lord and and he realizes Lord you know I love you, but I blew it and you come to him and you confess your sin that means to agree with God about it not rationalize not blame someone else not give all the circumstances, why you know this could happen to you, but you own your stuff 100% you come before God spiritually naked and say Lord, I'm sorry I blew it. I deserve to be judged but I believe that Christ took this judgment on the cross for me and I'm with empty hands coming asking you to forgive me. I'm drawing a line in the sand right now and saying I want you to put the past behind me. I want you to cleanse me based on what Jesus did on the cross and you know what you get honest and you do that you come before him today. He will cleanse you in that process of restoration will demand that you share this with a trusted confidant may be a pastor. It may be, in some circumstances, your mate or close friend, the secret has to get out of people don't know about it to the right people at the right time. You'll need accountability you have to get in the Bible, his enemies going to come and bombard you. You need to know the truth and then you can live the kind of life that demonstrates that your repentance is real.

Come clean.

Get real. Get connected. Let God forgive you.

He wants to today and by the way, when you do that email me and let me know how God's work in your life. I love to hear the stories of God's miraculous forgiveness and then what he does in people's lives as we close, would you pray for those were responding to chips encouragement today.

There's always a spiritual battle when we feel prompted to draw near and obey God, thanks for taking a minute to do that and for those wanting to connect with our ministry. Call AAA 333-6003 or email chip@livingontheedge.org love to hear from you join us next time. As Chip wraps up his series leaving a legacy that lasts forever. Debris. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge