Over the last few days we have been holding a discussion on holiness here at Lillie-Put. If you have missed any part of that discussion you can find it

HERE

OR HERE

Now let’s continue with today’s discussion.

We brought up the idea yesterday that there will be a group of people who are ejected from Heaven on judgment day because they are not known by God and because they broke God’s laws and refused to do His will…

Some of you are probably saying, “Pastor J that smacks of legalism. It sounds like you are saying that we are saved by our works and if we don’t do works we can’t get into Heaven.”

I am not saying that at all. In fact the people who Jesus is talking about in Matthew 7 have lots of good works. In fact it is those very works they fall back on when Jesus tells them to depart. Look at it,

Matthew 7:21-23New Living Translation (NLT)

²¹ “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. ²² On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ ²³ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’

The Bible is very clear, your good works in or out of church will not save you. It is the grace of God which comes into your lives through faith which saves you.

Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. …But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, ⁵ that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!… God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. ⁹ Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. Eph. 2:1,4,5,8,9

Salvation, eternal life, forgiveness come to us only because of grace. That said, I am convinced that many people even in the church will miss salvation, eternal life, and forgiveness by inches because they have bought into a faulty definition of grace.

You see we have come to define grace as forgiveness of sins, and it is that. When we ask for God’s grace we get forgiven of all the wrong we have ever done. The Bible tells us that God actually overlooks our transgressions, but Grace doesn’t just forgive us. It’s more than just  super soap to wash away super sins. Grace is a power that once we receive it begins to change us. It actually turns us from one thing into another.

Paul says it this way in 2 Cor. 5:17

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

I went to see a worship team in Manchester NH the other night called Rend Collective. In his opening remarks the lead guitarist of the band said, “If our Christianity doesn’t change us. If it doesn’t make us better. If it doesn’t make us love the world like Jesus did then maybe we didn’t really get Christianity the first time around.”

What do you think is there any such thing as Christianity without change?