Feb 8 2024
Crossing the Line in Grace Introduction Episode 1 Season 7 Pastor John Harris 132
"Crossing the Line in Grace" - I’ve never heard a cohesive discussion or study on this subject in my 35-plus years of teaching. I'm tackling it now. We are going to hit it head-on over the next couple or bunch of weeks. I’ve entitled it “Crossing the Line in Grace.” It is true that in this Dispensation of the Grace of God, believers stand in grace and in His peace and love, and God is for us and works all things together for good. However, when a believer is attacking another believer in the Body, God, like a parent must step in and choose, and the Word of God says it is something that should shake us to our core. A clear example is I Thessalonians 4:6-8, in the context of God's grace commandments to the Body of Christ: "That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit."
If a brother despises another brother and tries to defraud that brother of what God has given him....read it, God is the avenger of all such. AVENGER!....God actively brings judgment in some fashion to the offending brother. You don't want to find yourself in this position. Such a brother has crossed a line with God, just like a child in your family attacking one of your other children, in love you step in, but the offending child receives condemnation. Yes, condemnation....Rom 5:1 is speaking of no condemnation from God if you are walking after the Spirit...this child is totally in his flesh. We will look at examples of the types of condemnation that the Lord brings. In reality it is FOR the wayward child, to try to snap them back to being obedient....because we all will stand before the judgment seat of Christ, the bema seat, and receive for what we have done in this body, whether it be good or bad (Rom 14:10, 2 Cor 5:10)
We live in a time, either in 2 Timothy 3 or fast approaching, when such things must be understood. Men shall be lovers of their own selves, traitors, false accusers, despisers of those who are good, and such like. If you are looking at another brother or sister and feeling such things, pray that God changes your heart before you cross the line. I have seen it happen more times than I wish to share. God calls us to love one another, to think on these things ( Phil 4:8), not evil surmisings and the like.
As we go through this study we will look at cases throughout the ages and in grace that scripture reveals when man or individuals have crossed the line that God has drawn. It never is experientially good for the one that crosses the line...even in grace.
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Blessings.
Pastor John
