Is Grace the Antidote for Sin?

In this episode, Rick Manis explores religion’s focus on sin consciousness and encourages us to look beyond this trap. Does legalism prevent sin from ever occurring in a believer’s life? Does Grace promise to eradicate sin in a believer’s life? Here he addresses the profound impact of grace, love, and Christ consciousness on our understanding of sin, behavior, and our worth. He explains how the Cross speaks to the conscience that was never made clear by Old Testament sacrifices. He emphasizes that God's love is unconditional and that true transformation comes from experiencing this love. 

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All right. It is one of the most wonderful days of the year. It is Father's Day. And uh I want to say to all the fathers, God bless you all. I this is your day. Don't be ashamed of it. You can have a day. Today, tell all the dad jokes that you want. You get to do that. You know, let me say something about that. I so you wouldn't know this unless you think about yourself when you were younger. So I I when I was much younger, I was very witty. I was clever. I had cerebral humor. I mean, I had, I mean, I can I could make people laugh. And then I had children. And I'll tell you, it's and and and there's this thing about dad jokes. People, you know, people make fun of dads because they tell dumb jokes. Our kids started it. They started it. They would bring home these little joke books from school. Dad, can I read you a joke? You know, and when does a monkey eat potato chips? I don't know, sweetheart. When does a monkey eat potato chips? When he's a chipmunk, Dad, when he's a chipmunk. Ha ha ha ha. And so you laugh, you know. So you think, okay, this is the kind of humor that we connect with. So you start telling jokes like that too. And then and they they laugh too, and they're they they think it's really cute and funny, and then they get to an age when they groan when you tell a joke, and then they get an eye roll. But they trained us to tell dad jokes. So it's okay. I still do it. I don't have to, but it happens, comes out naturally. It's it's my brain has been changed, and and and I like them because you get groans and you get eye rolls. And if a real dad joke, that's just as good as a laugh, if not better. You kind of we're actually we're going for the for the for the eye roll. So tell all the dad jokes that you want. And if you do play golf, make sure you bring an extra pair of socks in case you get a hole in one. And if you sing in the shower, uh, please don't get any soap in your mouth. You don't want a soap opera. Thank you for the groom. And if you those of you that that exercise, if you do lunges, that's a big step forward. Somebody stop me. Just one more bit of advice. Try not to use the stairs. They're always up to something. Okay, done with that. I told about one too many. Okay, so I got a funny topic here. And let's see if I can even explain it. Is grace the antidote for sin? Here's here's this this is the best way I could word it, and here's why I worded it that way. It's because it seems like in places I go, conversations that I have, that a lot of people are looking for the guarantee that people will not sin. And there are some that trust more in a legalistic side, uh, and they will tell me, because I talk so much about love and the love of God, the goodness, grace of God, that it's a little bit too much, you know, and you've run into this. They think it might be a little too much because you need some harshness, you need a little bit of fear, or you need some kind of, you know, you need to keep setting a standard and tell people what we should should do and what we shouldn't do. And they trust in that to sort of curb sin. And hopefully the idea is to annihilate any sinful actions. Like nobody would ever make a mistake again. As if Jesus came to stop you from ever committing a what would be called a sinful act. And that means you're breaking, that means you're breaking one of the 613 rules in the Old Testament and more, because a lot more have been added in New Testament days in some churches. And so, and so there are people that are afraid of that. They're afraid that you talk too much about grace and love, and that they're almost afraid of that people are going to sin because of it. So they kind of like want to trust in something as an antidote for sin or as a preventative. And so then on the other side of it, people get a hold of a truth about grace that they love, and then we want to kind of pretend like that's that's that's the preventative. Like if you get a hold of grace, then you'll never sin over here, too. And I like that idea. And while, you know, we'll get into this, and there is, I can lean more to that, but in all of my experience, I haven't seen it yet. I haven't seen it, seen somebody that that believes in the grace and love of God just be completely free from committing some kind of a what would be called a sinful act. And I said all that to say this that first of all, that's the that's the wrong question anyway. It shouldn't even be what we're talking about here, because the whole question or the whole idea, it comes from a sin consciousness, doesn't it? It means that it's it those things put the idea of sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, as central to our Christianity and it makes it all about that. When really it's been over 2,000 years, no, when we have when that Jesus has come to take that whole issue away and settle that whole thing once and for all, to set us free from that whole idea, that whole thing of sin and death. And so one thing we don't want to do is have a sin consciousness, but we want to have a Christ consciousness, a love consciousness, a God consciousness. Happy Father's Day. We're not orphans. We have a daddy, we have a source of life, we we do belong in the house. We deserve to be loved just because we are his. Amen. All right, yeah. That's better. Thank you. I should do that more than dad jokes. I got a better response from that. But I want to, I want to I want to read something from Hebrews 10, and and because it talks about sin consciousness and why that should not be a part of any of this. There is so much good, there's so much love, there is so much, so much grace for us that makes no demands upon us at all. You know, shortly after Judy and I were married, Judy said, if you tell your dumb jokes, don't tell them that those are my jokes, that I came up with those. And but she did share some of that stuff with me this morning. So I'm not going to do that. But but shortly after after we were married, she asked me a question that I bet you most of you would never dare to ask. She said, Rick, what can I do to be a better wife to you? How many of you think that that's a question I want to ask my husband? Yeah, that's what I thought. But she was brave enough to ask it. And honestly, my answer was what I said to her was just keep breathing. I'll be happy if you stay alive. I'll be happy if you just keep breathing. Because I like you the way you are. I'm not in love with the future version of you. I'm not in love with some idea of a perfect being as a wife. I like you. I like your humanness. I like your quirks. I like, I like all the things that make you particularly you. So just keep breathing. And and this is what the message of Christ brings to us is that it brings us a true rest that we're supposed to have where we can just keep breathing, and God's with us, and he's for us, and we can connect with God and understand that there's no disconnect at all, and there doesn't have to be, and just open up our hearts and let ourselves be loved because that's all that's all that's required of us from God. And that's Bible. I mean, that you know, they ask people, they're what's what's the demand on us? What is our part? What do we do? And Jesus said, just believe it. Just believe in the one, just just trust it. Just let it be real, just let it be true to you. Let that be a reality, and you'll experience soteria, salvation, wholeness happening in your heart. So let's read this. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 1. It says, For the law, Old Testament rules and regulations, law of sin and death, for the law, having a shadow of good things to come, which is Jesus and life and resurrection and all that we heard in worship today, and not the very image of the things, can never, with those same sacrifices that they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. Condense that verse, for the law, as it says, and at the end it says, can never make those who approach perfect. So we know that's not it. Verse 2, because then would they not have ceased to be offered if it could do that? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sin. So if that law and with its sacrifices, but the law, if it could have made people perfect, and and let me briefly say this. I've said it around here before, but perfection, God's idea of perfection is not the absence of flaws. Human idea of perfection is to be read of all flaws. God's idea of perfection is not the absence of flaws, God's idea of perfection is perfect love in the midst of what we would call flaws, humanity. That's perfection. That's the perfect love that casts out fear, because there's rest in that. So the law could never make anybody, quote, perfect. For then they would have ceased to been been offered, because for the worshippers, once purified, they would have had no more consciousness of sin. Because in those sacrifices, there's a reminder of sin every year. So I want to say this. Why? How did sin become this thing? How did Christianity become so much, especially Christianity become so much about sin? What is it about sin? I mean, I've been in churches in the past where it was like, you know, what Jesus is going to ask when you get to heaven is, did you get the sin out of your life? And I'm like, what? Is that anyway. But it but that so much is made about that and and and this thing that's supposed to be far removed from us, as the east is to the west, huh? Tossed into the sea of forgetfulness, how did that get to be a central thing that we're talking about in Christianity? And we just don't rightly divide things. But we see the cross, and one thing about the cross, there's many things about it, but one thing is that it does speak to that language of sin that we just read about. Because we do see the language of sacrifice in it. We see the shedding of blood for the remission of sins. We see what's all that? It's speaking to those in that mindset of that sin consciousness with the sacrifices, with that religion and that culture and all that, and all of this thing about the cross. It speaks to that to take care of that once and for all and settle all of that issue. So we in our Christianity, it's not for us to go back to that and take it and put it in the middle of the house and say, this is what it's about. He put sin away. Not just sinful actions and mistakes and flaws and things that people do, but that whole issue that became an issue really from way back in the beginning. Hebrews chapter 9 answers it in verse 14. And it says, So how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Every one of us here ought to have a perfectly clear conscience. I don't care if you yelled at the family on the way to church and kicked the dog this morning, you should still have a clear conscience as far as where you are with God, your uh your worthiness to be loved, your place to belong with God because God's with you, whether you know it or not. We're not orphans, we're not alone, we are cared for, we are loved. Now, I know life can be hard. We can go through some tough things. And thank God when you can see and realize that you're not alone, that you're actually safe and you're with God, and that what Jesus, you know what Christus victor is? You know that that concept. It started way back in the early church, but some a lot of our Christianity has lost it. It means that not only did he do a legal thing, which is what most people just make it about, but he actually liberated us. He actually had a victory, he actually defeated a power that was over humanity where we could not perceive God. We were this whole thing about being dead and trespasses and sins, dead, not being awakened. And Jesus came to be the awakener. I am the resurrection. And what he did, because of what he did, people like you and I, as dumb as you and I are, we can begin to see a resurrection in our life. You know, people say, well, it's because you made the decision and you prayed the sinner's prayer and you did this. Like, man, I did do that a long time ago, but you know what? Something was already happening before I ever did that. I started to believe something. I started to ponder something, I started to be awakened, or resurrection started happening in this weak and foolish vessel, and it got to where this Jesus that I once denied, that I told people was just a myth and a fairy tale, I started to wake up inside and I couldn't get away from it. I started to think about it and I started to believe it before I st before I made it to the altar at the church. A resurrection had already started in me because I really didn't have to do anything for it. Jesus did something for it. So he says, What Jesus does is cleanses our conscience so that we can serve the living God without fear or condemnation. Now, notice it, see, uh there's a big issue about cleansing the conscience because the conscience got corrupted way back at the beginning with the whole Adam and Eve thing. Shame, fear, right? And our loving Father doesn't want us living in shame and fear all the time. So Jesus comes to do this thing and cleanse our conscience. See, a lot of people they have the idea that if you can get the behavior correct, then your conscience will feel better and you'll be clear. You'll have a clear conscience. I thought that for many years. You know, the the woman with the issue of blood, Jesus did not say, now go, and if you sin no more, then I do not condemn thee. He didn't say that, did he? But what he said first was, I do not condemn you. Now go and sin no more or be free. And so what that does is it puts the clear conscience first before behavior changes. It it gives you, he wants you to have a clear conscience. He wants you to know, even though you mess it up, even though you blow it, even though you're weak and foolish, and you might even do stupid things, or what you're you're so human. And he says, I want you to have a clear conscience. I want you to know that you belong, that I love you just exactly the way you are, if you never got any better, for my love and my mercy endures forever. There is a love that doesn't stop, it doesn't fail, it is not contingent upon our behavior. And sin consciousness makes it all about that. Now, the question always comes, and I want to address that in just a moment. I hope I address it very well. But what about behavior? Doesn't it matter? Yes, ultimately, yes, but it doesn't matter in order to get us right with God. Doesn't matter in order to get you to heaven, or doesn't matter to get you whatever, because this whole thing is a gracious, loving father that makes no demands on us at all. Man, if that click starts to click with you, it opens up a freedom and life to where it's like I can breathe and still be weak and foolish, still be very human with frailty, with what people would call flaws. I don't even like using that word anymore. It means something very different to me now. But biblically, Jesus comes and just washes the conscience. And then there is a behavioral activity. Now, does it guarantee you'll never make a mistake? I don't, not that I've seen. I've not seen anybody like that. I think we're living with weak flesh, but it does have a powerful effect. It certainly cleanses our consciousness, but it does affect behavior too. But not in the way that people think it does. See, sin consciousness, Adam and Eve, they were ashamed, right? Well, what does the Bible say about God? Was God ashamed of Adam and Eve? No, I mean, Hebrews 2 tells us Jesus says, He's not ashamed of us. But we do all this and we do that, but he's not ashamed of us. He's not ashamed to call us his brethren. Hebrews 2, 11. Romans chapter 10, verse 11 says, Whoever believes on it, believe this gospel. That it's that big, it's that good, it's that free, it's that effortless, it's that restful. Who believes on him will not be ashamed. It's the it's the believing on him, it's the trusting in him. It's it's opening your heart to the idea that God likes me the way I am. Now, does he like everything I do? No. But they're not the they're not it, but but that's got nothing to do with how he likes me. Just like you can have a child. You may not like everything they do, but you're still gonna love the child. Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. So I want to get to Titus 2 now and get into the positive stuff now, the good stuff. So here's where here's where the the language comes in about grace affecting our lifestyle, our behavior. And I love it. It's very beautiful and powerful. Titus 2.11 says, God's marvelous grace has manifested in person, Jesus, bringing salvation for everyone. Boy, that's restful to some of us. Some people it bothers us, but it changes. Verse 12. The same grace teaches us how to live each day as we turn our backs on ungodliness and indulgent lifestyles, and it equips us to live self-controlled, upright, godly lives in this present world, present age. Now, someone says, Well, see there, it does. Yeah, I I agree. But how does it do it? See, because we're talking about godliness or Christ-likeness, right? And Christ-likeness is a good thing that we we see ourselves being conformed to that image that we're made in as we change, as we grow, as we're we open up to it. But legalism defines Christ-likeness differently than grace would define Christ-likeness. Because legalism tends to define it more again by our outer behavior. Living Christ-like is you don't do a whole lot of things. You don't smoke, you don't drink, you don't crush, you don't cuss, you don't look a certain way, you don't go to certain things, you don't watch certain movies, you don't eat certain things, you don't. There's so many, so many things you don't attend certain things. You do attend certain. It's more about that, right? The outer behavior. That's more Christ-likeness. Grace defines Christ-likeness by the fruit of the spirit. Love. Joy. Maybe you're using your tobacco, but you got love, joy, and peace. Maybe you like a little some alcohol once in a while, but you got love, joy, and peace. Maybe you, maybe there's certain movies that they told you you shouldn't be watching, but you got love, joy, and peace. And can't you see that those would be the more important thing? That from God's perspective, that's what he really would want for his children that he loves, that he's more concerned that you have love and joy and peace and the fruit of the Spirit's working in you, patience, faithfulness, and perseverance and self-control is operating in your life, that he cares more because he loves you. Those are things that make you, your life, your experience, so much better to have love, joy, peace, and etc. The outward things don't necessarily have any effect on that. So, so it's defined different ways. Now, let me tell you what this thing is working. When he says grace is teaching us, I like that, don't you? Grace is teaching us. And that word for teaching is the word paiduo. We have a definition here. And it literally means you'll find this if you look it up. It means shaping a person's mind and character by passing on knowledge and values. It's teaching and it's instructing. But I like the way that it's said, that it shapes our mind and character by the teacher passing on knowledge and values to us. And I love this. I see it, it seems like daily in these things, these adjustments and thing. Maybe I'm thinking of somebody a certain way. Maybe somebody did something that's upsetting to me or offensive to me in some way, and it's having all this ill effect inside me feeling these unchrist-like feelings. And I'll I'll get a sense of uh maybe a voice, uh, it's hard to describe sometimes, but you just God shows you another way of looking at it or looking at the people. And then I feel differently about it, and I feel differently about them. And I've like, Father, I like this a whole lot better. Thank you for the correction. Thank you for giving me those values. Thank you for showing me the knowledge that you have about the that person or this situation. That's Paiduo happening. That's grace teaching us, or Christ in you being your teacher, or Holy Spirit, or God in you, or the kingdom in you. It's whatever it is, it's all in you. It's it's like I've had so many examples like this. I've I've I've I tell people in the last number of years, last so many years, I'm really becoming an empath, and that was something I was very much void of for a while. I didn't even connect with it. But I I see people, I feel people, I have more understanding. I I was walking to Walgreens one time, and and somebody was in the parking lot, and it was a black man with very dirty clothes on, was trying to get my attention, so obviously he wanted money. Now, there have been times when it's been more convenient for me to give him something. I might have something in my pocket. And so I, in my defense, I have done that sometimes. But this time it wasn't convenient for me. This time I just like, I'm I'm headed to the store, I gotta get back home. I don't need this kind of trouble right now. And he tries to get my attention, and I'm just walking towards the door, and then I hear him say, Hey, do you see me? And it's Stop me in my tracks. Because that's a language that means something to me. Because I know what it's like to feel like nobody sees you or wants to wants to see you. And it's like, you know, God knows your language. And he said, Do you see me? And it just stopped me. And then he said it again. He said, Do you see me? Nobody sees me. So I turn, you know, now Pai Duo is happening. Something is happening in me by Christ in me. And I turned and I said, Yes, I see you. And I said, I see you and you're valuable and you're important. Tell me something. So he tells me that he he needs money. And here's what happened inside me. He's talking to me. And I don't see somebody that's inconveniencing me. I don't see somebody that's that's that's trouble right now. I don't even know how to. I saw this beautiful, valuable man worthy of all the love in the universe. I don't even know how it just I saw it. I could, I just I could tell. I just knew it. And it did something to me inside. And I went in and I get, you know, I didn't I did my thing and I got some cash and I came out and gave him a little bit, and I and I probably gave him enough maybe for a meal. But I walked away feeling like he gave me more than I gave him. I walked away feeling like, thank you, Father. Because in that moment, I felt a change. I felt a graduation. I felt that I see more like Daddy sees. I felt more what Daddy felt. And every little instance like that, I celebrate it. I'm like, I'm getting it, Daddy. I'm seeing this. I this is who we are. This is our way. This is the way of love. No wonder creation is waiting for the sons of God to come into their own because this is what changes the world. And it's never been more relevant than such a world of hate and division that's going on now that's fueled by media. Because grace draws you toward truth. He is truth. And the truth is absolute love. And God, there is love that's there, coming from somewhere, whatever you call it. I call it my father, my source of life. It draws us toward love. Grace draws us toward love. It heals our inner wounds. It does. Just by having a lover inside you doing his paid duo, showing you his ways, his sharing his thoughts with you, sharing his values. It heals our inner wounds and it enlightens our thoughts. It's like Philippians 2.13 says, For it is God working in you, causing you to will and do his good pleasure. Pieduo is happening. That's how grace teaches us Christ's likeness. So how does it heal? How does grace actually, how does it heal our inner wounds? I just had just three thoughts I jotted down for this. But number one, that I know what it does is it removes the shame of our humanity that we've been dealing with ever since the Garden of Eden. It dismantles the lie that these inner wounds are our own fault. It reveals a preciousness about us, a value of us that God knows and understands and is touched by the feelings of our weaknesses. When that shame is removed and you know you can breathe. When the shame is removed and you, yeah, you can be guilty of doing things and you can be sorry and you can apologize, and that's that's fine, yes. But you don't have to be ashamed of who you are. Sometimes when religion's not dispensed correctly, it's dispensed in a way that tries to actually make us ashamed of who we are and and tries to inspire us to try to become something different than what we are. And grace tells us I love you the way you are. Right? And I've been hurt, and many of you have been hurt, and some of us have traumas, and some of us have experienced things and pains, and it's horrible. It happens, and somehow in all that, with some of the things that none of it is even your fault. I'm talking things growing up, and somehow, somehow it gets twisted to where that shame belongs to us. Like it's like this is who we are. When you realize that God knows, he understands, and is not making the demand on you. He's just saying the reason he says, believe on me, says, Let me love you. I know the pain. I know the shame. Let me love it away. Number two, grace establishes that you are worthy of that love. Not a future version of you, not when you get it right, but you're worthy of that love right now, just because you're his child. I watched a daddy up here loving his, his, his, his girls up here. You know why he loves them? Because they're just his. They're just who they are. And that's enough for you to be loved. Because you're just who you are, and you're worthy of that love. And so that ends, number three, ends our search for validation. And we don't have to get it from artificial means, and we don't have to try to try to try to use religion to try to get validation in anything. We we we are validated, we are we are worthy of love right now, we are valuable, we are precious, we are cared about. And when that becomes more of a reality to you, it settles you, brings you into rest, and you don't have to look for it. Finally, I want to say this: that these things I'm talking about, this is not a theology to me or a bibliology. This is what a lot of our religion can be. It can be a bibliology where we're always trying to figure it out from the pages. This is so much more than that. This is a this is a true living Christology of Christ in you. It's an experience. It's a pai duo, it's an experience of being loved, it's an experience of finally realizing you're accepted. It's finally realizing that you have value, even though you might have felt like the lowest of the low, that you're every bit as valuable and precious as any other in any other being. And because you are a human being, God, the height of God's God's creation in earth, that you're at the very top of that whole chain. When it's as you experience more of that grace working in you, and none of us know it all or have it all together, none of us have cornered the market on understanding it, because the height and breadth and width and depth of this is too marvelous and deep for to understand, but it's beautiful. And you can taste it, and it's good. And as you do, the heart inside you falls more in love with God and people. And maybe the media doesn't like us doing that, but you can't help it because Christ in you is still talking. And we fall more in love with God and with people. Wait a minute. Loving God and loving people? Hmm, that sounds like the greatest of all the commandments. That sounds like the commandment that fulfills all commandments. Wow. We weren't even trying to fulfill the law, and we accidentally fulfill it. At least more and more. More in love with God, more in love with people. Everything's on that. Johan, you can come up and I want to wrap it up with this. Mark chapter 12, verse 30. This is the this is it. Said you'll love the Lord your God with you will, you shall, you will. He didn't say you better, or else, but you will, because of the this gospel there. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, with all your strength. That's the first commandment. And the second's like it, it's this you'll love, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There's no other commandment greater than these. They shouldn't be going to the cigar bars, that's what I think. I don't know. I was they I saw them drink some wine at dinner. I'm just done, I'm just I'm just against that. There's no commandment greater than these. But it's not an instant fix, is it? And that's not what we're looking for. I found that instant fixes don't often last that long. But it's a walk. It's a walk with love. It's a walk of learning to be loved. And in this walk of learning to be loved, we come to embrace our very authentic self because you and I, we are awesomely and wonderfully made. Yes? Think about it, that makes it even more awesome and wonderful. What has God wrought here? It's humans here. And here's a truth for the if you if you've never known it before. God likes humans. God loves humans. My Bible says he likes them all, loves them all. But Rick, he doesn't like what they do. So? That never gets old to me. You can embrace your authentic, unique, quirky, weird, fall on your face seven times a day. Beautiful, wonderful, valuable, precious, wonderful self. You can embrace that. That's what a grace walk does for you. Happy Father's Day.