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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s Word on Bibleline, everywhere, every time. Here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for a Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage.

We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, and that today’s concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family. Now, here in the book of Galatians, he says, you have, see there in verse 5, he therefore that ministered to you the spirit and work of miracles and so forth among you. Do it he it by the works of the law or by the here in the faith? So God wants you to hear what the word of God says, let the Holy Spirit lead and guide you.

That’s why you’ll find in Galatians in chapter 5 and verse 16, walk in the spirit. You don’t see too much here about, you know, live by grace, live by grace, live by grace. It’s all about the Holy Spirit because, you see, living by grace is the power of the Holy Spirit dominating your life. You do what you say and do because of the Spirit of God because, and that’s why I’ll show you this in just a moment, we’ll get to it.

But turn over there in chapter 5 of the book of Galatians and look in verse 1. So we’re talking to the believers, Not talking about lost people, talking to the believers. And verse one says, stand fast therefore in the liberty where with Christ hath made us free. You have been made free from the law of sin and death because you’ve been given a new birth. And the law itself, the law, you’ve been set free from the law. You see, the law condemns the flesh.

And that’s why since all have sinned, all were condemned. So Christ made of a woman made under the law, that’s in the book of Galatians chapter four, to redeem us from the curse of the law so that you can’t be condemned again. So that you and I, we don’t have to try to live by the law. There’s another word. It says, all the law is fulfilled in one word. Anybody have a clue what that one word is? Love. Love, according to Romans, is the fulfillment of the law.

If you love, well, then you don’t try try to murder people. And if you love, you don’t try to steal from people. And if you love, you don’t try to cover what other people have, if you love. So the love is the key of fulfilling the law. So that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us, but not by us. And that’s in the book of Romans and chapter eight. So whenever you are born again, and God gives you the Holy Spirit, that is the grace of God to do what God wants to have done in your life.

I’ll show you that in just a second. Go back here to verse one. Christ has made us free, be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. That means God does not want you to serve Him in the flesh, in the energy of the flesh, after the flesh. God wants you to think differently. You see, you’re gonna be battling back and forth between the Spirit of God and the Spirit of the flesh. and their enemies against each other. And so the Christian has to weigh these things in his mind and learn to discern his thoughts.

That’s why in the book of Corinthians, it talks about bringing every thought into the captivity of Christ, so that he captures your mind. Now, sometimes we hold back from the Lord and we don’t yield certain areas of our lives to the Lord. But God wants us to yield our bodies, this body to the Lord, for his honor and for his glory. So that whatever I say or do should bring honor to the Lord, wives who suppose to honor their husbands, we are supposed to honor our head, which is the Lord.

So we are to honor that which is over us, and bring honor and glory to him. so that he is pleased with what we say and what we do. So there has to be something more than just trying to obey a bunch of rules and regulations. You can come to church. Out of duty, but never to enjoy the Word of God or to learn from the Word of God and never to mature or to use what you learn. So you will not mature and grow.

That’s why he says, are you now made perfect by the law? As he says in the book of Galatians in chapter 3, are you now made perfect by the… No. It couldn’t make you perfect to get saved and it’s not going to give you that perfect life. There’s got to be something better. So what God did is he said I saved you by grace Now I did that because I love you. I loved you You not because of what you did is because I loved you Now that love that I had for you.

I want you to live for me because I loved you and we love him because he First love does. So if you love the Lord, serving God is not going to be a problem. Your problem is if you try to do it and you don’t love in, then life becomes misery. Even the Christian life. And you’re not going to enjoy anything. And you’ll become critical, embittered, and pick apart. So you have got to decide, do I love the Lord?

There is where it’s at. Now hearing Galatians and makes a statement here in verse two and three. If you’re talking about salvation, salvation, then if you’re trying to save yourself by being circumcised in Christ’s prophets you nothing, trying to keep the law to save yourself it profits you nothing but as a Christian is it possible for a Christian to not maintain his liberty where would he have been set free from the law and become enslaved again to the law how do you become enslaved to the law and lose your freedom when you walk in the flesh you see the flesh is under the law the condemnation of the law.

It’s like going back into a prison. The Lord said, I’ve set you free. And you want to serve the Lord and go right back into this prison. This hellhole. This cursed place that He brought you out of. You see, that’s the flesh, this whole sinful nature that we have. And so He says, you’ll lose your freedom. And whenever you live in the flesh, he says, then you have fallen from the grace principle, the principle of living for the Lord because you love him.

And you’re setting that aside and choosing to live another way. Majority of Christians never figure this out and they can live their whole lives and not really understand it. Nobody makes me serve God. Nobody has to try to convince me to serve the Lord. For 50 years, nobody has tried to challenge and motivate me to serve. Look, I’ve done it because I wanted to. There’s something on the inside of me that says, look what he did for me. And I made up my mind.

I’m going to serve the Lord. And it doesn’t But no matter what anybody else says or does, no matter what anybody else thinks, he should be more real to you than the clothes that you have on your back. And nobody can make him real to you. You can, yes, accept that free gift of eternal life and go to heaven when you die and never darken the doors of a church, never change your life, never do anything. And you’re still saved by the grace of God.

And I notice it. He says, you did run well, but who hindered you? So verse 16 says, this I say, then walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. You see, you have been set free from the lust of the flesh by the new birth. But the flesh desires are always there trying to pull you back into that jail cell. And you’ve been made free.

Why do you wanna go back to the flesh? you know when you wandered back into that jail cell without even knowing it. Look there in verse 19 and 20 and 21. This is the results of it. So when you walk in the flesh after the lust of the flesh and this is permeating your life or your mind, you know where you live and you don’t like none of those things. Then walk in the Spirit. You see, the answer is not trying to fight the flesh.

It’s just live for the Lord. And the Holy Spirit says, if you will walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. There’s a greater power there. But if you walk in the flesh, you will not have the fruit of the Spirit. You see, when it says this, I say then walk in the Spirit. That means live by grace. His power, His desire. Let Him direct your life. Let Him teach you. There is a way that seems right unto a man, but the ends there are destruction.

It will destroy your life. So He makes this statement down in verse 22. These are the products of grace. That if you let the Holy Spirit control your life, this is what you will have and this is what you will like. You see, walking in the spirit or living by grace, don’t you love what you see there in verse 22 and 23? Love and joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, maintenance, and temperance? Or if you walk in the flesh under the law, this is what you’re gonna bring forth in verse 18, 19.

Is that what you want? Evidently, that’s not what you want, it’s not what I want. But that’s what we’re supposed to do is to serve the Lord because God is given to us the power that we need. Now once you’re looking at this verse, look in the book of Ephesians, the book of Ephesians chapter 4. And look there in verse 7. Verse 7 says, but unto every one of us, that’s to those that believe that trust the Christ is Savior, is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.

You see, you have the Holy Spirit living within you to do the work that you’re supposed to do. And when he talks about here, giving grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ, now jump all the way down to verse 12 for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry. You see, the Holy Spirit that lives within you is going to give to you the desire and the power to do the work God has called you to do.

Now all those other things are in between and how it happens. That God may use other people to help you and to teach you, to guide you, to rebuke you, or whatever it is, under every one of us. So every one of us have the indwelling Holy Spirit. And so we have what we need. Now I want to show you something else. Take your Bible and look there in the 1 Corinthians in chapter 15. 1 Corinthians and chapter 15.

In verse 1, verse 2, verse 2, verse 15, I want you to look there in verse 9, the apostle Paul in writing to the church at Corinth, he says, for I am the least of the apostles that am not meat or fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. I was a bad boy. I did a lot of things I should have done. But in verse 10, he said, but by the grace of God I am what I am.

Now, I believe there’s more here than just I am saved. I think he’s talking beyond salvation. I am now what I am as an apostle. Because when you read over there in Timothy, he says, God putting me into the ministry because I was faithful. And because I was faithful, God put me into the ministry, and therefore I am an example of what God can do would somebody that will serve the Lord. So he says, by the grace of God, I am what I am and his grace get this, which was bestowed upon me the privilege that you and I have to live this side of eternity, this side of the grave to be able to serve the Lord and for God to give to you and I the Holy Spirit to teach us how to do the work of the ministry for his honor and for

His glory, that’s grace. We didn’t earn that. We didn’t deserve that. But the opportunity was all free. But when you begin to apply that and to learn to listen, to grow, mature, you’ll be surprised at the doors of opportunity that God will open up for you. I’ll just say this very briefly, not because you’re trying to honor anybody in particular, but I believe James’s faithfulness has opened up opportunities for him. I believe Peter, because of his faithfulness, opened up opportunities for them, because the faithful, people that will be faithful, God will open up doors.

There’ll be so much more that you can do than if you didn’t. God does not want to give you all these opportunities to live for Him. Because see, when you accepted His death as your death, that’s when you died. God could have just taken us all to heaven the very moment, the day we trusted the Lord. But He left us here and gave us time to live. That’s grace. What did we do to deserve the right to live?” And Paul says here, this grace was not bestowed upon me in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all.

You see, grace is not just somebody who sits around and says, I’m just going to let the Lord do it all, and they never do anything. Grace, love, makes the man work. of what he did for me. I want to do more for him. So therefore, God gives us opportunities and whatever time God’s given to you that use it for his honor and for his glory and so he says, but by the grace of God I am what I am and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all.

Not because Paul is saying I’m under the law, no it wasn’t in the law. He was under the law of Christ. The law of Christ is the law of love. You see, like if a man loves his wife, it demands so much. But when you don’t love your wife or you don’t love your husband or you don’t love your kids, it makes a difference in how you treat them. Do you love your husband? Do you love your wife? Do you love your kids?

Do you love your church? Do you love the preacher? It makes a difference in what you say and do. Love is a powerful motivating force in your life. So God hath blessed us, given us so much. Take your Bible and turn to the book of Hebrews in chapter 12. The book of Hebrews in chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12 is a chapter on discipline, the correction. When you choose not to serve the Lord, when you don’t do what God wants you to do, do.

Can you just get away with it? No, there’s a price to pay for disobedience. Now God can’t cast you out, can’t lose you, can’t send you to hell, but he can as a loving father, chasing discipline. And he says, faint not, when thou art, rebuke of the Lord. Sometimes that rebuke may come from a lot of different sources, a lot of different ways, but you may be rebuked. But here in the book of Hebrews in chapter 12, he says in verse 11, Now no chastening for the present seem to be joyous.

I’ve never enjoyed a woman in my life and you’re not going to enjoy that from the Lord. But afterwards it yielded forth that peaceable fruit of righteousness. In other words God uses chastening and discipline in our life to produce the right results. And that’s why He says there in verse 12, wherefore lift up the hands which hang down and the feeble knees make straight pass for your feet, lest that which is land be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed.

Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Looking verse 15, looking diligently, lest any man and you ought to underline those words, fail of the grace of God. You see, in the book of Galatians in chapter 5 it says, ye are fallen from grace. In other words, you have rejected grace as a principle of living the Christian life on how to live. You chose to live in the flesh after the desires of the old man that was under the law.

So when you place yourself back under the law, you’re splashing yourself back under the flesh. He said, or you can walk in the spirit and do what you do because you love the Lord. Once you found out that even with teenagers, you can strap them down with every rule and regulation you can think of. And what does it make them do? Rebell, have you found that out? And so whenever you try to place people under the law and lay down all the rules and regulations that you can, it causes more people to rebel against the very thing.

It’s a difficult thing. It’s hard to learn. Sometimes we as parents, which we could do it over again, we think we could do a little bit better job. And then maybe not. But now notice something else here. In verse 15, look indeligently at last. Any man fail of the grace of God. And if you fail to let the Holy Spirit control your life, look at the result last, last, get this. Any root of bitterness. Springing up trouble you. And thereby many be defiled.

Is it possible that a Christian not live like that holy saint as they ought to and can become mean and bitter and unkind. Now let me give you one last verse in closing. Look there in Hebrews chapter 4, Hebrews and chapter 4. Because God’s Word tells us the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword. He tells us this in verse 16. Verse 16 of Hebrews chapter 4, let us, that’s a reference to believer. believers. Believers, therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace.

The throne of grace is a throne of help. It’s where you go to get the power that you need. It means that when you go to the throne of grace, you’re always examining yourself to see why wouldn’t God help you here or there or here or there? you examine is there anything in my life that’s keeping God’s power from giving me the strength and the grace that I need? Because you need to always be examining yourself. Maybe I’ve been walking in the flesh.

Maybe I have allowed the things of the world to get at me. Maybe it’s because of trials and tribulations and temptations. God has a higher way to live. It’s not for the natural man. The natural man cannot attain unto this, only a child of God. So he says, therefore let us come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain something. I’m going to need something. I’ve done something that I shouldn’t have done and I don’t I want God to whoop the tar out of me because of it.

What can I do? Go to the throne of mercy. Go to the throne of mercy. He says, go to the throne of grace that you can obtain mercy. Mercy means I don’t get what I deserve. You might deserve the chasing hand of God, but aren’t you glad that God hasn’t whooped the tar out of you every time you messed up? I always tell people when they were raising kids, always see with one eye, here with one ear. So I’ll kill those kids.

Grandkids is the reward for not killing your kids. You want it to, but you just didn’t do it. That we may obtain mercy and get this fine grace to help win in time of need. So there are going to be times in your life that God has designed in the process of time you’re going to need help. You’re going to need the Lord. God doesn’t want you to live every day without you needing Him. He’s going to do whatever it takes to force you to come to see Him.

So He’s going to allow problems and testing greater than you can bear and you can’t solve everything. You can’t solve all your marriage problems. This is not wonderful. You’re going to have to have the Lord help you. You can’t solve all your financial problems. Oh, isn’t that wonderful? But men, God can handle it. You can’t raise your kids. Perfect. You have to turn them over to the Lord. And you have to see what God will do. And that’s sometimes difficult to do when you have to commit, Lord, here’s my home.

I want you to help me. Finances, Lord, I need your help. Lord, my health, I need your help. I need your strength. Learn to walk independence upon the Lord and just let him help you any way he wants to. Any way he wants to. And God will bless you for it. Just a different principle to live by. Either independence upon God or dependence upon yourself. You already know you’re a failure. But you ought to already know that God is a success.

Look up here. This hand represents you and me. This wallet represents sin. You see, you and I were all sinners. And the reason is because we came from the first Adam. He was a sinner. He messed it up for us, didn’t he? And God says that he still loves us. He loved Adam and Eve. whenever he made man. God loved us. And he says that the sin has to be paid and the payment for sin is eternal separation from God in hell.

And so the whole world, everybody who’s born of Adam, a first physical flesh birth, God still loves you. He just don’t like your sin, but your sin comes from a sinful nature that you were born with. God’s not against you. It’s that God can’t let you go to heaven the way you are, because see, if you’ll sin here, you’ll sin there. So God won’t let you go. He says you have to be born again, because God doesn’t want any sin in heaven.

And when the only way you can get there without sin is to be born again. So God says you cannot earn eternal life, you can’t work your way to heaven. You can’t buy it. He says eternal life is the gift of God. See, this is what Christ did for us. We had no hope. This isn’t something you earn or work for. And if you try real hard, you’ll get to go to heaven someday. No, no, no. This hand represents Jesus Christ.

He’s the Lord God in the flesh. Came into the world because He loves us. Hates our sin because it separates us from Him. So Jesus Christ who had no sin didn’t have to die. He took all the sin of all the world. Paid for it came back from the dead. Said if we would believe He did it for us. You would put this payment to our account, we go to heaven on what Christ did. Have you been born again?

Have you trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior? Do you believe He made this payment for you? God said, if you’ll believe it, you’ll have a new birth today, right now. It’s free. It’s a gift. He loves you that much. There’s no tricks to it, no strings attached. You don’t have to give money to this church. You don’t have to change your life, stop anything, promise anything. Just as a sinner. Lord, I’m a sinner. It’s what I am. I sin.

It’s what sinners do. But God loves sinners. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. And He did something for us. No one else could do. He paid for our sins. Came back from the dead. Is that so hard to believe? Can you just believe that He did it for you? If you will trust Him as your Savior, He said He would give you as a free gift ever lasting life. cast you out, never lose you.

And, whosoever, born of God, does not commit sin, can’t die, lives forever. Best news in the world. Let’s pray, shall we? Our Father, we are thankful. You have been good to us. We’re thankful that we’re saved by grace because none of us deserve But if we could save ourselves by our works, then Christ died in vain. And Father, as your children, there’s so much that we need to know and do. But you’ve given to us the Holy Spirit every individual, the lead and the guide us to teach us according to your word.

And Father, we know that we’ve been set free from the law. We don’t have to live in the flesh anymore. Father, we can walk in the Spirit. Help us to look to you and to trust you. each person here, everyone struggles. Help us to be patient with each other, kind to one another. Bless each one. In Christ’s name we pray, amen. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold.

We pray that you are blessed by today’s message. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing tool free, 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again, or to obtain a free download of any of our Bibleline programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us.

The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound and we will be changed. Caught up to meet the Lord in the air.

So live today and every day. Believe in that the Lord is coming soon and just keep looking up.