Grace Orientation Review
Transcript of FLOT Line Episode 538 aired on December 20, 2015
Good morning and welcome to the FLOT Line. I’m your host Rick Hughes and for the next few
minutes I would like to ask you to stay with me. As usual we’re going to have about 30 minutes
of some motivation, inspiration, education, and absolutely no manipulation. No solicitations, no
asking you to join up, fess up, give up, nothing like this. This show is simply about giving you
accurate information from the canon of Scripture, the Bible, the Word of God. Hopefully this
will help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life. If you can do this, you have the
freedom and the privacy to orient and adjust to the plan. You know the name of our show is The
FLOT Line, F.L.O.T., and we’ve been airing this show well over 500 Sundays across the United
States. FLOT stands for the forward line of troops. That’s a term my pastor used many years ago
due to his military background and what we’re doing is using a military metaphor to describe
how the Word of God can act like a main line of resistance and stop the outside sources of
adversity before they ever become the inside sources of stress. Remember that adversity is
always inevitable but stress is always optional. Adversity is what circumstances can do to you
and stress, well that’s what you do to yourself. The Christian life is such a unique life, such an
unparalleled life. You can actually live a life without stress meaning you never have to worry,
you never have to be afraid, you never have to have guilt, you never have to have bitterness, you
never have to be implacable. These are all traits of the world and the Christian does not have to
live like this. There’s a different way for him to live and it has to do with the filling of the Holy
Spirit. It has to do with the metabolization of God’s Word in his soul. When you and I are filled
with the Spirit as per Ephesians 5:18, the mandate,
“Be filled with the Spirit,”
when this happens
and when we take in the Word of God, learn the Word of God, then we develop a Biblical
inventory of ideas. We develop divine viewpoint and we can weigh divine viewpoint as opposed
to human viewpoint or what the world would say. Of course for the Christian, divine viewpoint
would always take precedence. So talking precedence, you have to understand something.
There’s only one type of person that is going to enter into the presence of God. There is no
diversity here in the plan of God. It’s simply faith alone in Christ alone and it’s only one way.
“I
am the way, the truth, and the life and no man comes to the Father but by Me,”
and these are the
words of Jesus Christ. We’re not going to be letting people into heaven based on race, equality,
good works, good deeds, health, wealth, power, this has nothing to do with it. The only reason
you and I would ever walk into the gates of heaven is simply this, we have received Jesus Christ
as our Savior and our name is in the Lamb’s Book of Life. It has not been blotted out. When you
die without accepting Christ as your Savior, your name is blotted out of the Lamb’s Book of Life
and you have died the first death. The second death is being cast into the Lake of Fire,
Revelation 20. So we always say either you’re going to be born twice or you’re going to die
twice. The first birth is a physical birth and the second birth is a spiritual birth and so when
you’re born twice, you are made spiritually alive. You are born as a dichotomy, you have a body
538-Grace-Orientation-Review-transcript.pdf
and you have a soul. But when you believe in Jesus Christ you become a trichotomy, you have a
body, a soul, and a spirit. And even though the body will return to the ground, dust to dust and
ashes to ashes, the soul and the spirit will inhabit a new body, a resurrection body, a body much
like the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the body that will endure forever and forever. It’s a
body that will not get sick. It’s a body that will suffer no sorrow, no pain,
“All the old things will
be passed away and all things will become new.”
It is amazing, it is simply amazing. So with this
in mind as we learn about our FLOT line, the invisible problem-solving devices found in the
Word of God, we are reviewing this for your advantage. I hope it’s for your advantage. If I were
to ask you to sit down and write the 10 problem-solving devices, could you do it? Have you
taken advantage of the workbook that we put out free of charge? We’ll be glad to send you a
workbook on
Christian Problem-Solving
and it does in fact have all 10 problem-solving devices
listed. Of course, you may remember the first problem-solving device is rebound and this solves
the problem of sin. The second problem-solving device is the filling of the Holy Spirit, this
solves the problem of the genetically formed sin nature that we have related to Adam. We don’t
have to let it control us anymore. The third problem-solving device is the faith-rest drill. This is
where we can stand on the promises of God in spite of the adversity, in spite of the difficulty, and
maintain complete happiness and a complete relaxed mental attitude. Then we have Biblical
orientation and grace orientation. I think last week I probably went over doctrinal orientation
with you and today I want to go over grace orientation. It is essential that we understand and
know this. It’s a wonderful problem-solving device given by God in the Bible. Grace orientation
helps us to orient to how God works. You see, grace is often used in the Bible to describe how in
fact we actually get saved.
The Bible says in Ephesians 2:8-9,
“For by grace are you saved
through faith and that not of yourselves, it’s a gift of God not of works lest any man should
brag about it.”
Not only is there saving grace but there is living grace.
The Bible mandates in
2 Peter 3:18,
“Grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
Growing in grace simply means we stay filled with God the Holy Spirit by using rebound
when we sin and we learn God’s Word on a consistent and daily basis.
They’re not simple by
the way, they are miraculous I promise you because
“The Word of God is alive and powerful and
sharper than a two-edged sword.”
We’re not talking about something simple, the filling of the
Holy Spirit is not simple. Jesus said in John 16:13,
“When He comes, He will lead you into
truth.”
He is the author of truth. So when we meet this requirement, when we are filled with the
Spirit, when we do take in God’s Word and learn it and use it, then we can begin to understand in
fact how God treats us and this hopefully will motivate us to treat other people the same way.
Remember the simple verse,
“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
What motivated God to
give up His only Son, the anointed Savior Jesus Christ? It was His love. He died for us because
He loved us and the Bible in 1 John talks about reciprocal love. He loved us, thus we love Him.
We reciprocate this love. So the Lord Jesus Christ gave His life as a ransom for us.
He was
judged in our place and He can supply our daily needs, whatever needs we have, this is
538-Grace-Orientation-Review-transcript.pdf
logistical grace.
He will give us the logistics in our life every day to survive. This is taught in
Matthew 6, you can read it. You don’t even have to worry about logistics if you advance in the
plan of God as a mature believer.
I hope you learn to use grace when you deal with other
people. You can treat them in grace much the same way God treated you in grace.
This
takes some doing because the Bible says,
“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted and forgiving
one another, even as God for Christ’s sake forgave you,”
Ephesians 4:30-31.
There is an enemy
of grace and this enemy is a simple word called legalism. Legalism or spirituality by works,
is trying to be a spiritual person by something that you do and this is the enemy of grace.
This is someone who thinks that God is impressed with their good deeds. They often become
very self-righteous as a result of this lifestyle that they live, this legalistic lifestyle where they
think God is impressed. Let’s listen to the Bible in Luke 18 beginning at verse 9, this is the
legalistic lifestyle.
“Also, Jesus spoke a parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were
righteous and they despise others.”
And then the Lord gives the parable.
“Two men went up to
the temple to pray, one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. And the Pharisee stood
and prayed with himself and he said, ‘God, I thank you I’m not like other men, extortioners,
unjust, adulterers like this tax collector standing over here.’”
You can hear him say this can’t
you?
“Like this tax collector,”
and then he goes on to try to convince the Lord how righteous he
really is. He says,
“‘I fast twice a week. I give a tithe of all that I possess.’ But the tax collector
who stood afar off would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but simply beat upon his
breast, and he said, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’ I tell you, this man went down to his house
justified rather than the other for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who
humbles himself will be exalted.”
These are the words of our Savior and this is so true.
We can’t
ever allow ourselves to think that we are righteous before God because of the way we live.
Let’s take you for example. Maybe you think that God is impressed that you don’t smoke. Maybe
you think God is impressed that you don’t partake of alcohol. Maybe you think God is impressed
that you don’t say a dirty word every now and then and you never drive over 55 miles an hour
and you would never go around with your shirt unbuttoned. These are ridiculous things aren’t
they? What really impresses God? Not your good works. The Bible clearly says in Titus 3:5,
“Not by works of righteousness which we have done,”
that’s not how He saved us.
Our salvation
comes through the grace gift of God by the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, His anointed
Son. And then the spiritual life, once we become a Christian, we must learn to live the
spiritual life by grace.
This means we have two grace assets. We have the filling of the Holy
Spirit and we have the canon of Scripture, the Bible.
I might also add, there is another
grace asset for you, it’s called a pastor-teacher.
God equips certain men with the gift of pastor-
teacher and their job is always to study and teach the canon of Scripture to you, to explain the
Word of God to you so that you can grow in grace. This means you can use grace in dealing with
other people. The Lord Jesus had enemies during His time on this earth and they were in fact, the
worst enemies. They were the legalistic, self-righteous Pharisees. Oh my gosh, they thought they
were something else because they observed the laws of Moses, the rituals of Moses that were
538-Grace-Orientation-Review-transcript.pdf
passed down. They hated Jesus and they were eventually responsible for His crucifixion. In John
11:47 and 51 the Bible shows how they plotted to have Him killed. They had a contract on Him
and they hired people to lie about certain things. Legalism is always the enemy of grace, and you
cannot afford to get trapped into a vicious lifestyle like this
.
In other words, if someone tells you,
“Do you want to be a good Christian?” and you say, “Well yeah, sure.” “Okay, to be a good
Christian you can’t go down there and eat at that certain restaurant because you know that
restaurant serves the wrong kind of people,” or “You can’t go to that movie, that’s not a G rated
movie,” or you can’t whatever. They’re going to put so many stipulations on your life that the
only way most of these legalists are impressed is if you sit in a corner and contemplate infinity
all day long. Come on, “You can’t be a good Christian and do this.” “You can’t be a good
Christian and do that.” Listen, the Bible doesn’t comment on certain things and this is the way
legalism tries to manipulate you. They try to put you in chains. They try to put you in binders.
The legalist would like to control you by demanding that you follow a set of traditions or rules in
order to acquire favor from God. The first one is tithing. You know tithing is not New Testament
giving.
Tithing was an Old Testament way of giving.
It was taxation. Everyone in the Jewish
nation tithed to support the temple, everyone did 10%.
In the New Testament we are mandated
to give as God has blessed us because God loves well motivated believers.
If you think for
one minute that God is going to show favor to you in your business because you tithe 10% of
your income, who are you kidding? Are you trying to manipulate God? Are you trying to
manipulate God to let you get more business and win the lottery so to say, because you tithe?
There’s no doubt in many churches the first thing that happens when you join is they put a tithing
package in your hand. They expect you to tithe and if you don’t some will even come knocking
on the door wanting to know what’s wrong with you, “We’ve got to have some money.” That’s
not the way the church is suppose to operate. Simply put, if God’s in it, God will pay for it. So if
any ministry or any man has to hustle up the money, go out and ask people for money, request
money, or sell items to raise money, that’s not the grace way of doing things. If God’s in it, God
will pay for it. Simply do your job as unto the Lord and the financial end of things, He’ll supply
the daily needs. On the other hand, a Christian who is grace oriented, he’s not going to judge
another person nor is he going to criticize another person when he fails.
This grace oriented
Christian will always mind his own business and always take care of his own spiritual life.
He doesn’t have a long nose. As a matter of fact he’s warned in Matthew 7, keep your nose out of
other people’s business. Grace oriented believers don’t judge people.
“Do not judge because with
what measure you measure, it will be measured back to you again,”
Matthew 7:1-2.
The legalist
will judge you, he will think you’re not a very good Christian. “I saw you in the liquor store, I
saw you buy beer, you must not be a spiritual Christian.” “I saw you do this…” and they can’t
wait to tell somebody. “Guess what I saw so-and-so doing?” Now we’re gossiping and maligning
and judging and more than a few people have been run out of local churches where the legalist in
the church can’t keep their nose out of other people’s business.
The grace oriented pastor, he’s
not going to make an issue out of money. He’s not going to ask people for money because he
538-Grace-Orientation-Review-transcript.pdf
knows that God promised to supply all of his needs and if the money is not there then it’s
obviously an indication that God is not pleased.
So why would you ask the man for something
that God has already promised to give you? This doesn’t make sense. Why ask man for
something that God has already promised to give you? I’m not trying to toot my own horn but
you’ve never heard me ask you for money. You’ve never heard me solicit money and yet God
provides the money to pay for the broadcast of this show. That’s grace and when He doesn’t pay
for it, then it’s time for me to get off the air and quit broadcasting. If there’s something going on
in the church and we are having to ask people for money or solicit money or go around and
knock on doors to get money, God’s not in it people, I’m telling you. That’s not grace.
Grace is
teach God’s Word, stay out of God’s way, and He’ll pay for it if He’s in it.
We have to
remember this. We have to live by this. We have to know this. The Lord Jesus Christ gave us
saving grace. Yes, there is saving grace. There is living grace. There is logistical grace. There is
dying grace. There is eternal grace, surpassing grace. That’s when we surpass the plan of God
forever in eternity and in eternity the grace of God provides all of our needs, every one of those
needs. It’s always amazing when we talk about grace how many people really don’t understand
grace orientation.
Grace orientation, what an amazing thing. It simply means you begin to
live and experience God’s grace every day in your life by learning His Word, staying filled
with the Spirit, and this gives you the ability not to judge other people and even to treat
other people in grace.
What if someone does something to you? What if someone wrongs you?
What if someone doesn’t repay the money they borrowed from you? How do you handle it? Do
you seek revenge or do you grace them out? Do you forgive them even as God forgave you?
You
see, when you have grace, you don’t worry about your needs. God promises to supply them.
You treat people in grace, you live by grace, and you don’t expect them to do the same thing
in return.
They’re not going to do it, they don’t have grace orientation. Many people are not
going to understand an attitude like this and the reason is that they never come to understand
truth. Saving grace, it’s what you experience when you believe in Christ. Living grace, it’s what
God supplies for you each and every day. The military term is logistics, God gives you your
logistics. He supplies all of your needs.
Then dying grace as taught in Job 5:19-27 simply
means that God will not call you home too early. He’s not going to call you until you are
ready and then when you are ready, the transfer from time to eternity will be marvelous.
It
will not be painful, it will not be horrific. It will be wonderful, it’s like taking a trip when you’re
young and you’re, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?” When this time
comes, you will cross over and you will see the Lord Jesus Christ. You will be face-to-face and
there will be no more tears and no more sorrow. This is the promise for Christians, those who
know Jesus Christ as their Savior. And if you are a mature believer, if you have learned God’s
Word, God promises to protect you from death, so that you will not die until you are brought to
full age before He brings you to heaven. Now you can short-circuit your life, you can die the sin
unto death, we’ve mentioned that before and John 5 talks about it and 1 Corinthians 5 talks about
it. The Bible says,
“We respected our earthly fathers that disciplined us, how much more shall
538-Grace-Orientation-Review-transcript.pdf
we not respect God and live?”
Proverbs 15. The believer can go out early by being rebellious,
getting into sin, not rebounding his sin, ignoring the discipline of God, and eventually moving
under the sin unto death. Yes, he goes to heaven. Yes, he has eternal life, but he does not live a
full life. Do you want to live a full life? It starts when you’re young by learning orientation to the
authority of your parents. In Ephesians chapter 6,
“Honor your father and mother.” “Obey your
parents,”
the Bible says.
“This is the first mandate with a promise,”
the Bible says,
“That you
may live a long time.”
Authority orientation is how you live a long time.
If you are a mature
believer and advancing in the plan of God, what do I mean? I mean you’re staying filled with
God the Holy Spirit and you’re listening to a qualified pastor teach you the Bible on a consistent
basis, not you teaching yourself by reading some daily devotional, that’s not what I’m talking
about. If this is you and you’re growing, you’re advancing, then you will not be plucked by God
until you are ready to go. That’s the promise of Job 5:19. If you learn this truth about grace
orientation and if you apply this truth in your life, then you can have some phenomenal joy as a
Christian because you’re never going to be disappointed. You’re never going to be bitter. You’re
never going to have to seek revenge. You’re never going to have to be implacable about people
because your sin nature will be subdued by the filling of the Holy Spirit and Satan will not be
able to infect your thinking and get you into revenge motivation because you have grace. You
see, you will have great living. If you find the Christian life to be miserable, something’s wrong
with you, you’re out of fellowship. You will allow Satan to have an advantage over you if you
stay out of fellowship and he will always exploit the advantage until he discourages you, until
you get disillusioned with your Christian life, and eventually you won’t rebound. Eventually
you’ll wind up failing the grace of God, Hebrews 12:15. This doesn’t mean you’re not going to
heaven but this means you’ve been out of fellowship so long that you don’t see the plan of God
working any more in your life and you think maybe God forgot about you. He has not forgotten
about you. He knows where you are right now this moment as you listen to me. I have no idea
who you are. I have no idea where you are, but I know this, that God knows you. He knows your
name. He knows where you live. He knows your needs and He knows if you are trusting Him. If
you are growing, He knows. Are you? Are you advancing in the plan of God? Have you made an
effort to get under a well-qualified pastor and begin to learn God’s Word on a daily basis? Even if
there’s not one in your community or your neighborhood, you can take advantage of tapes. You
can take advantage of DVDs, MP3s, these are available free of charge from men that I know to
be well qualified pastors. You can sit in the privacy of your own home around your own desk and
turn on the tape player, turn on the DVD player, get out your Bible, get out a notebook and listen
to the Bible being taught. My pastor’s currently in
The Life of Christ
, over 700 hours in The Life
of Christ. We took a little break and did 100+ hours in the book of Jude. Men are out there
teaching if you want to be fed. If you don’t want to be fed, if you love living on snacks, then
you’ll keep enjoying your little daily devotions. I hope someday you’re going to get hungry,
hungry to learn God’s Word and hungry to find somebody that will teach it to you. Until next
week, this is your host Rick Hughes saying thank you for listening to the FLOT Line.