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Matthew: Nothing lasts forever. Well, one thing. Let's talk about it on Key Life. This is Key Life. We're here to let you know that because of what Jesus has done, God will never be angry at you again. Jerry Perry has been teaching us all week. Jerry serves as pastor at Christian Family Worship Center House of Grace, and he's the author of *The Making of a Blended Family*.

Jerry Perry: Thank you, Matthew.

Steve Brown: Jerry Perry, this has been a great week. I'm thinking, as you know, and that's how we started being friends, we both do not always agree politically, although I'm getting more like you.

Jerry Perry: I told my wife last night when I see Steve, I'm going to tell him is he ready to join me yet.

Steve Brown: But not so much. I just want you to know. But the reason we became friends, and there was only one reason, is because of God's grace. We saw how radical it was, and we learned to love each other because of that message.

But you this week have put a new spin on it. I get the grace thing; I teach it all the time. That's what Key Life's about. But the fact that this didn't start with Jesus, it was not Peter and Paul, it was Abraham from the very beginning, hundreds and thousands of years before we were ever born. This was God's plan. It wasn't that he was going to create nice, good, obedient people that he would bless because they were nice, good, and obedient. It was from the beginning. It was our faith that we'd be declared as righteousness.

Let me read some scripture to you, and then we're going to talk about the eschaton or eschatology or the future. You know what worries me? It's God has been faithful all my life. But God, what about tomorrow? Are you going to finally say, "I've given you a thousand chances, and I've had it with you"? Are you still going to be there? Well, let me read some scripture and then you can teach us.

This is from Romans, the fourth chapter, and I'll start at the 13th verse. Paul writes, "Clearly, God's promise to give the whole earth to Abraham and his descendants was based not on his obedience to God's law, but on a right relation with God that comes by faith. If God's promise is only for those who obey the law, then faith is not necessary and the promise is pointless. For the law always brings punishment on those who try to obey it. The only way to avoid breaking the law is to have no law to break.

So the promise is received by faith. It is given as a free gift, and we are all certain to receive it, whether or not we live according to the law of Moses, if we have faith like Abraham's. For Abraham is the father of all who believe. That is what the scriptures mean when God told him, 'I have made you a father of many generations.'"

Jerry Perry: That is a good scripture, isn't it? That dog will hunt. It shows you that Abraham and grace are tied together. He says when you look at Abraham's faith in God, it's an example of our faith in God and we get the same promises of Abraham.

When believers read this, Steve, they say, "That can't be true." If God's promise is only for those who obey the law, then faith is not necessary and the promise is pointless. So it's your faith in Jesus, the finished work of the cross, that saves you.

Steve Brown: Martin Luther, and he's quoted often as saying, "If you sin, sin boldly." Now, they don't give you the rest of the quote because the rest of the quote says, "Trust boldly in the sufficiency of the blood of Christ." And it really is.

Jerry Perry: You mentioned yesterday that people are going to say, "If you teach this in its purity, you give people license to sin. You give people license to do all kind of crazy things." And of course, that's not true. As I was saying yesterday before our time ran out, if you take a computer and you put in the wrong chip, that computer is going to crash. That's why we as believers crash in our everyday life and get burnt out because we have been taught the wrong chip.

But when you put in the right chip, the computer works perfectly without crashing. Grace is the real chip. When that teaching is given to believers in the right way, they don't sin more; they sin less because they begin to love God more, and the more you love him, the less you sin.

And as you continue to believe in the finished work and all that he's done for you, then the sin that you normally could not stop, you'll begin to stop it because you have seen the love of Jesus has taken over your life and he's given you the power to not sin as much because we all sin. But you won't be going out to sin more; you will sin less. And that's what the grace of God does.

Steve Brown: The right chip. That is the best illustration I've heard in a long time on this concept. There's a joke about a man who jumped off a 20-story building, and as he passed the 10th story, he was heard to say, "I'm okay so far."

I know that God's been faithful in the past and that I'm forgiven, but what about tomorrow? What if I fall tomorrow? Is this like a warranty? I had a car, a Honda, and it had a warranty on it. I bought it new, and it was warranted for three years. And at the end of the three years, on the first day when the warranty was no longer in effect, the car fell apart. Do we have a warranty like that with God?

Jerry Perry: We really do. I'm going to give you a scripture because I had a pastor tell me one time when I was teaching this or preaching this. He says, "Doesn't God get tired of you sinning at some point in time? Won't if you keep doing the same thing, won't he eventually say enough is enough?"

And I said Peter asked Jesus that question. Most people miss it. Peter asked Jesus, "How often should I forgive my brother who sinned against me? Seven times?" Jesus said, "No, you should forgive him seven times seventy in a day."

Listen to this, Steve. That is 490 times in one day you should forgive your brother who sins against you. Now, let me finish this. If Jesus asked Peter to forgive his brother 490 times a day, we're at least thinking that Jesus would do twice as much. So 490 times two is 980 times a day. That means that you have to sin every minute of a day and God says, "I'll still forgive you in one day." Here is my quote: You will run out of sin before God runs out of grace.

Steve Brown: Oh, I've quoted that more than you could possibly know. It's kind of nice to know that we have a warranty that'll never run out. "Amazing Grace" is a great concept. "When we've been there 10,000 years, bright and shining like the sun, we have no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun."

So this is for the past, it's for the present, and it has no end. And what you've been teaching us is that it started, well, it started in the mind of God, but the first place where it was revealed was not in Jesus, not in Paul, but in Abraham.

Jerry Perry: Abraham, the father of our faith. Listen, you can take the land; that's your land where you reside. Your descendants are blessed, and God has given you a promise. And your promise that your children's children are blessed. So speak that into their lives. Let them know that you are God's favorite and that you got two people following you every single day. They're called goodness and mercy. Take advantage of them.

Steve Brown: Goodness and mercy and grace. That's a trinity, and that'll work. This has been good this week. It's been good for me. When you teach grace, and I do and I have for so many years, sometimes it gets so focused that I miss how big this is and how many people it covers and where it started and God's sovereignty over all of it.

God's not mad at you. And he's not mad at you because that's the way God is and he promises. Somebody said the cross of Christ did not secure the love of God. The love of God secured the cross of Christ. Think about that. Amen.

Matthew: Thank you, Steve Brown and Jerry Perry. Man, this week was a meal. To listen to the series again or to share it with a friend, be sure to swing by our digital treehouse at KeyLife.org and join us tomorrow for Friday Q&A. That's when Steve and Pete will answer the challenging questions you've sent in. Questions like, "If Joseph wasn't Jesus' father, then how was Jesus in the line of David?" Hmm, that's a good one. Tune in tomorrow for that answer.

Say, have you claimed your free copy of Key Life print magazine yet? This latest edition features an article from Steve about what to do when we feel lonely. There's also pieces from Matt Heard, Barry Smith, and an article from Justin about that voice that changes everything. Plus, info on a whole bunch of new and exciting features and products.

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