Sugar Land Bible Church

Host: Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. There we go. Can you hear me? Can you hear me now? Still can't hear me? How's that? Okay, good enough.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Sugar Land Bible Church this first Sunday of August. With Pastor Andy on sabbatical, we've had some wonderful teachers come and teach us each Sunday morning. And I'm sure today is no exception. Dr. Tom Stegall is with us, and his wife Debbie, they're right here on the front row. Let me tell you a little bit about about Dr. Stegall.

He came to trust in the sufficiency of Christ's saving work alone and received eternal life by God's grace in 1987. Soon afterwards, he attended Duluth Bible Church, where he began to grow spiritually and become equipped for the ministry, especially through the faithful expository teaching of God's Word and the shepherding ministry of the church's leadership. From 1999 to 2011, he served as pastor teacher of Word of Grace Bible Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And he has three children, but he's now I believe at Duluth Bible Church. He's the senior pastor there. And anyway, he has degrees from Moody Bible Institute, Grace Institute of Biblical Studies, University of Minnesota at Duluth, and Grace Biblical Seminary where he has the doctorate. So Dr. Stegall, will you come up please and teach for us? Thank you.

Guest (Male): Well, what an honor and a privilege to be here with you and have this opportunity to teach the Word of God among dear and precious saints who we pray for every week at Duluth Bible Church. And this is my first time here, so it's great to meet you and see you in person and face to face.

And this morning, for this Sunday school hour, I would like to teach on a subject that I know you hold near and dear here at Sugar Land Bible Church, just as we do at Duluth Bible Church, and that is the subject of God's amazing grace. And hence our opening slide here.

Centuries ago, the slave trader turned preacher John Newton wrote the classic hymn, "Amazing Grace." And virtually all Christians around the world know this hymn. It's a beautiful melody, but also very biblically sound lyrics. And it conveys to us the truth that God's grace is truly amazing because of what it is. Namely, His undeserved favor and kindness toward us who've been unkind towards God and who deserve the very opposite from God. And there's nothing quite like it in all the world as you look at all the other religions of the world. It's completely unique to biblical Christianity.

And though we deserve God's judgment in hell, God saves us by His grace and guarantees us heaven because we've come to rely solely upon Jesus Christ, God's Son, and His sufficient and satisfactory work on our behalf. So His grace is amazing, it's infinitely valuable, which is why we should treasure it.

But we also should be aware of distortions to it as we treasure it. And that is why in this hour, what I'd like to do is teach on a modern aberration of grace that has been making inroads into evangelical churches in America today under the banner or guise of grace. I'm referring to what's called "Hyper Grace."

Are you able to discern this counterfeit from the true biblical version of grace? Maybe you've heard this term Hyper Grace before. Do you know what it means? And how does it measure up to what the Bible actually teaches regarding the true grace of God? So what I'd like to do in this hour is take 12 key points or teaching of Hyper Grace, compare it with the scriptures so that you see the contrast and be able to discern the difference. But also so that you would come to appreciate the true grace of God in which you stand in an even greater way and have a whole new appreciation for it.

You see, when it comes to the grace of God historically, there's been a tendency to fall into one of two ditches on either side of true grace. Because inside of us as even believers in Christ, we still have a sinful nature. And that sin nature has a bent towards either prideful legalism that wants to perform, to be accepted and merit the grace of God, versus license, which is kind of that let it rip mentality that says, still prideful, but I'm going to do what I want to do, and you can't tell me otherwise. Still not submissive to God.

And both really are a form of leaven according to the scriptures. In two places in Paul's epistles, he says a little leaven leavens the whole lump. Can you think of where those are in his epistles? One we find in Galatians 5:9, which addresses legalism. The other is found in First Corinthians 5:6, which addresses license.

But legalism is notorious for dressing itself up in the garb of a religious appearance to make it acceptable and thus deceiving to the masses of those who profess to be Christians. We know this. We often talk about legalism. But do we often talk about license that way? Sometimes we think license is overt, but legalism is covert. But I'm here to tell you that there is this form of grace today, Hyper Grace, that is covert and it's making its way into churches dressed in the garb of God's grace.

And so I want you to be aware of this modern movement known as Hyper Grace. But perhaps it's helpful at this point before we go further to just again, define our terms. Legalism, we use this term quite frequently, refers to an internal belief or attitude that seeks to merit the favor of God through our obedience. Whether it's for meeting true biblical requirements as far as the will of God, for either justification or sanctification, or maybe it's an extra-biblical requirement. That's often a characteristic of legalism. But in either case, it is seeking to merit favor from God through our obedience or compliance. And we know that we fall short of the glory of God. And it has to be the grace of God that saves us and sanctifies us. And so it's not based on our performance.

Now, one form of legalism that's very popular today has been dubbed "Lordship Salvation." And I know you've heard this phrase before here at Sugar Land Bible Church. Those who hold to this form of legalism would say things such as, yes, you're saved through faith, but true faith must have good works, or you won't make it into heaven. So if you're not a dedicated, committed, obedient Christian, then you don't have real faith, brother, and you've never really been born again. And so it leaves you with doubt.

And here's an example of this teaching from a former pastor from Minneapolis, up where I'm from, in Minnesota. His name is John Piper, and he wrote in the original version of his book called "Desiring God," he said this: "Saving faith is no simple thing, it has many dimensions. Believe on the Lord Jesus," referring to Acts 16:31, "is a massive command." Now let me pause there. I always thought that was not a massive command, that it was quite simple. One step. You just believe on Christ, put your trust in Him alone, and you're saved for eternity. God makes it that simple, but he says otherwise. He says it contains a hundred other things. "Unless we see this, the array of conditions, plural, for salvation in the New Testament will be utterly perplexing."

Well, that's Lordship Salvation and it represents one ditch on the other side of grace, namely legalism. In the middle, we have true grace. Some people have called this "Free Grace," which is a phrase that has been used for centuries among Protestant Christians, distinguishing our views from Roman Catholicism and even from some other works-based gospels within Protestantism. And the phrase Free Grace itself, I think is biblical. It really comes from Romans 3:24, which says, "being justified freely by His grace." So God's grace is free, and that's how we're declared righteous before God when we put our faith in Christ.

But now in our day, there's a new kid on the block, and its name is Hyper Grace, or sometimes called "Radical Grace" or "Pure Grace" by its proponents. And this falls on the license end of the spectrum. But what is license? Well, we could define it this way: it's the unbiblical perspective, again, a way of thinking primarily, that reasons that our freedom from the law as believers gives us a license to sin or to fulfill our own will rather than God's. This is the prevailing mindset of Hyper Grace.

But I want you to remember a simple biblical principle that God saved us from sin, not to sin. As Romans 6:1-2 says, "Shall we continue in the grace of God that shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?" You see, Christ came to set us free from sin, not to sin or do as we please, but rather to do what He pleases. What's His will? That's where true freedom is found from our self and our own ambitions and our sinful nature.

Now regarding license, this is a biblical concept because Jude says in his epistle, in verses 3 and 4, "Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unannounced, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ." Now that's a translation from that's the New King James Version that I just quoted from, where the word is translated "lewdness." But notice how the New American Standard, the NIV, the NET Bible, translate it with this concept of license or licentiousness. And so that was a problem in Jude's day. It's a problem 20 centuries later.

And I'm going to give you one example of this from a leading proponent of Hyper Grace and a best-selling book that he wrote called "The Hyper Grace Gospel." He said, "If we are to judge men by the company they keep, then surely we must condemn Jesus for he was a friend of sinners." Can anyone object to that? Absolutely not. He goes on to say, "It's possible that Jesus was even a friend of gays and lesbians." And by the way, does Jesus love gays and lesbians? Absolutely. He loved them, He died for them, He wants a relationship with them, He wants them to be eternally saved. Just like us non-gays and lesbians, who Christ died for as well.

But he uses sarcasm and he says, "Somebody pass the smelling salts. I am not a homosexual, and I don't condone homosexuality, but I will just as happily break bread with the gay pastor as with the religious man who frowns upon him." Now, breaking bread is an expression of fellowship in First Corinthians 11, and I see that you're having the Lord's Supper here today. An expression of fellowship and to be in fellowship with the Lord, we can't be committing sexual sin at the same time. And so this represents definite license.

Now, let me read another quote from this same book, same author, and see if you can spot the Hyper Grace teaching. "Actions speak louder than words. Jesus did not come to preach grace, but to be grace. And he did this by loving unconditionally and forgiving indiscriminately. Jesus hung out with crooks and con men and hookers and tax collectors. He ate with sinners and Pharisees and reached out to filthy foreigners. He told stories of radical grace, defended the guilty, and forgave the unrepentant." Is that true? You see the error? Did he forgive the unrepentant? That is not biblical.

Jesus said in Luke 5:32, "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to what? Repentance." So there is a condition to be forgiven with God. You have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and as part of that belief, you have a change in your thinking, which is biblical repentance. You see your need as a sinner? You see the sufficiency of Christ? And those who know they don't measure up, the tax collectors and harlots of Jesus' day, they came to Christ because they realized under the approach of the Pharisees and the religion they were teaching, they had no chance of a relationship with God. So they received grace.

But here is the Apostle Peter in Acts chapter 8. Now did he get the memo from Jesus that he came to forgive the unrepentant? Evidently not. Because this is what Peter said to Simon the sorcerer, in Acts 8:22, "Repent therefore of this wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you." Does that sound like conditional forgiveness to you? Sure does to me. So that's an example we have in our day of this imbalance towards license.

And I want you to see that when it comes to, let me go back to that, again, you can fall into one of two ditches. And that's why the scripture repeatedly says to not turn to the right hand or to the left, but follow the Word of God, follow true grace, not aberrations of grace.

Now, when it comes to Hyper Grace, before I give you these 12 examples we're going to cover, let me just give you a little bit of background information. Starting with the terms that they like to call themselves. Most in the movement don't prefer the label Hyper Grace, as it speaks of something above and beyond. But as Paul Ellis, the author of this book, admits, they're coming to embrace this phrase more and more. They like the expression "Pure Grace," or just "Grace," or "Radical Grace."

But here are some terms that you might hear that I I've heard used by Hyper Grace proponents in their literature and teaching. They often speak about radical grace, wild grace, crazy grace or crazy love, drastic grace, scandalous grace. And I remember almost falling off my chair when I read one book by Tullian Tchividjian, a proponent of this view, in his book "One Way Love," where he called it "Promiscuous Grace." Now, all these terms and adjectives used to modify God's grace are intended to have some shock value for you. To kind of shock you out of your legalism, they say. But really what these terms are doing is they are profaning a wonderful biblical concept. As you read the New Testament, do you find any of this kind of language used to describe the precious grace of our God? No.

And so we need to be aware that this is the thinking going on in Hyper Grace. Now a little bit about the growth and popularity of the movement. When did it begin and how popular is it? Well, we know that it goes right back to the nature of man. That's why the apostles dealt with it in the first century in their epistles as we saw from Jude. But in its modern form, this has grown out of largely the charismatic wing of Christendom and the prosperity, health and wealth gospel in particular. Now I'm not saying that Joel Osteen from Lakewood Church here in Houston is necessarily Hyper Grace, but he is very good friends with Joseph Prince, standing next to him from Singapore, who is definitely Hyper Grace.

And how popular is this movement? Well, it's hard to say because it's not like there's a whole denomination that this is their official doctrine that they subscribe to. But one former proponent of this view, who's now out of the movement, his name is Blaise Foret. He estimated that there probably were over a million Christians in the United States who hold to this view, having written a book and been part of the movement from the inside out. But it's really worldwide. It's not just here in the United States.

What is the reasoning or what are the motives behind those who hold to this view? Well, I'm going to say ultimately, in my opinion, I think it's narcissism. This is the selfie generation, right? That loves to kiss itself in the mirror. And what does it say in Second Timothy 3:1-2? It said, "Know this that in the last days perilous times will come, for men will be what?" First thing he mentions, "lovers of self." Yeah. And so I think this is a very humanistic, self-oriented philosophy, and narcissism is really the seedbed for this license form of spirituality.

Now admittedly as well, that the reason this has become popular is because there is so much legalism within Christendom. And when they preach against it, they have a very easy target. And a lot of people have been burned by legalism. And so unfortunately, what they do is they fall into the opposite ditch of license or Hyper Grace.

Now, I know it's not polite in many circles to name names, but you know what? The New Testament does that. And so I'm going to name a whole bunch of names here for you today to just rip the mask off of this false form of grace. Who are some prominent teachers of this view? Well, we already saw one, Joseph Prince from Singapore, and he has a worldwide TV ministry, thousands who attend his local church in Singapore. But also Andrew Wommack is a very popular proponent of this view. He began a Bible college here in the United States, I believe it's in Colorado, called Charis Bible College. He was the founder of that. He's one of the most popular teachers of this movement. Paul Ellis, whose book we've already heard from. Steve McVey is another proponent of this. Tullian Tchividjian, who I believe is the grandson of Billy Graham. He took over as the pastor for D. James Kennedy in Coral Ridge, Florida after he passed away. But they have since let him go, and he's gone Hyper Grace. Paul and David Zahl, I believe are a father and son team, kind of founders of the modern form of of Hyper Grace. And then Andrew Farley is all over YouTube and the internet promoting this view.

Also, William Paul Young, does that name sound familiar to any of you? Any of you read the book "The Shack"? He's the author of that. "The Shack" is to the Hyper Grace movement what "The Left Behind" series is to those of us who believe in the pre-trib rapture. It popularized the view on a massive scale. In fact, it's been said that not only was "The Shack" at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for many weeks, but it is one of the 40 best-selling books in all of human history. That's how popular it was. So it really got out the message as far as Hyper Grace is concerned.

Now, one thing that you should know is that often times they use similar language to what we use, kind of like the cults do. May have the same terminology, but sometimes they have a different definition. So you will often hear them speak of the finished work of Christ. And I believe many who hold this view probably are saved. But when it comes to the finished work of Christ, they often distort Jesus' death for our sins and their view of what that was for and what it accomplished, as we'll see in a moment.

They often speak of the unconditional love of God for believers, which is a biblical concept. And the eternal security of the believer in Christ, which again, is a biblical, wonderful concept. And our position and blessings in Christ as believers, again, very encouraging, wonderful biblical truth. And they stand in strong opposition to legalism. So when you hear them teach, you might think as you're listening to them, oh, we we're in the same camp. But listen long enough, and you'll discover, oh no, they have a different version of grace that is laced with poison. "A little leaven leavens the whole lump," Paul would say.

So now let's shift and go over 12 characteristics of this Hyper Grace view. And I'm going to give you quotes, and we're going to compare it with scripture to familiarize you with this view. Now, Hyper Grace teaching overemphasizes God's love because it is supposedly His primary attribute. While at the same time, they de-emphasize God's holiness and wrath towards sin. Now, is God a God of infinite love? Absolutely. And hallelujah, praise the Lord that He is. In fact, in First John 4:8, it very plainly says, "God is love." And so I am very thankful for that.

But you know, in the average church today, if people had a choice as to whether they would rather hear a message about the love of God or the holiness of God, which do you think it would be? In large percentage, they would cast their vote for the love of God. Now we don't want to hear about the holiness of God. In fact, I don't think it's even close. And you have this "love kick" that a lot of these writers have been on recently. Tullian Tchividjian, I mentioned his book already, "One Way Love." By the way, note the subtitle. It's called "Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World." Now, does that sound fitting and inviting? Sure does. I wish I could have stolen that and came up with that and used it as a subtitle. Unfortunately, that hook gets you into the book where you're going to hear about Hyper Grace, and it's not biblical grace.

Also, you've heard about Rob Bell and his book "Love Wins," that's become a popular motto and bumper sticker all over our country. And he has denied hell and that unbelievers go to hell. There's also the co-author to "The Shack," his name is Wayne Jacobsen, and he wrote a book called "He Loves Me," "Learning to Live in the Father's Affection." And we'll have a quote from that book this morning as well. Steve McVey wrote a book called "Beyond an Angry God," "You Can't Imagine How Much He Loves You." And this is filled with Hyper Grace teaching. Here's an example from McVey's book on love versus other attributes of God.

He says, "I didn't realize at the time that love isn't just one aspect of His character, but is His fundamental essence. Love isn't one facet of God that stands on par with other divine attributes. Every feature of who He is must run through the sieve of divine agape, or it will be a misrepresentation of His character. If God is part love and part something else, whether it be wrath or justice or anything else that we might imagine would stand in contrast to love, then we cannot legitimately say that He is love." Again, First John 4:8. What are the fallacies behind this thinking is that in the same epistle that he's referring to, First John 4:8, John goes on in the very next chapter, in chapter 5:6, to say the Spirit is truth. Now is the Holy Spirit God? Absolutely. Can we say that God is truth based on First John 5:6? Yes. So just because you have a God is love, put an equal sign between God and love in your thinking, doesn't mean that's His primary attribute or His exclusive attribute and everything has to run through that. See, that's the deception behind this way of thinking.

And as we think of the attributes of God, He has many. And this is a simplified way of illustrating this. You see that one of His attributes is righteous, righteousness, and justice, but also love. And He is infinite in all His attributes. It's not like one is infinite and the other's not. And one plus infinity still equals infinity, right? So when you look at all of God's attributes here, you see that His righteousness and His justice refer to what we would typically call His moral holiness, that He's sinless and always does what is right. But there is this thing that theologians come up with, I think based on the Bible too, called His majestic holiness. Where all of His attributes put together comprehensively lead to the conclusion that God is set apart because there's none like Him. And that's what holiness ultimately means is being set apart. God is unique, He's in a category all by Himself. Because there is none as righteous as He is, none as just as He is, none as loving as He is, none infinite like He is, none who has knowledge like Him, or power like Him, or who's truthful like Him, etcetera. Or as sovereign and and has authority like Him. All these things contribute to Him being set apart in His majestic holiness.

And I believe that's what Exodus 15:11 refers to when the Israelites rejoiced after the redemption out of Egypt, crossing through the Red Sea. They sang praises to God and said, "Who is like You among the gods? Who is like You, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonder?" Glorious in holiness. Set apart. That's why I really appreciate what your own pastor here has taught you at Sugar Land Bible Church. I found this quote from Andy in his teaching through the Gospel of John. And he addresses this imbalance between love and holiness. He says, "What is happening today is God's attributes are being suppressed. When you study God or the doctrine of theology, you learn that God has many, many attributes. One of His attributes is love, another is grace, another one is mercy. But there is also one called holiness. In fact, I would argue that that's His dominant attribute. When the seraphim, Isaiah 6, stand in the presence of the Lord day and night, they do not say, 'Love, love, love is the Lord God Almighty.' They do not say, 'Mercy, mercy, mercy is the Lord God Almighty.' They do not say, 'Grace, grace, grace is the Lord God Almighty.' They say, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.' God's dominant attribute is His holiness." And you know what I say to that? Amen, Andy.

That's spot on. And it's not just Isaiah 6 that says it in the Old Testament because some might look at this and say, well, that's an Old Testament way of thinking. Do you realize that in Revelation chapter 4, it repeats the same truth? Holy, holy, holy. This is an infinitely true, trans-dispensational truth. And so they are coming up with this imbalance towards love versus holiness. When actually His love contributes to His comprehensive, unique set-apartness that we call holiness or majestic holiness.

Here's a second point of difference between what the Bible teaches and Hyper Grace teaches. Many Hyper Grace teachers are claiming that Christ's death provided only expiation in carrying away our sins, not propitiation or penal substitutionary atonement that satisfies the justice of God as judge. I know that's a mouthful. How often do you use either of these terms in your everyday language, propitiation or expiation? And so they both need some defining. Expiation is the carrying away. Propitiation again is satisfying God as a holy, righteous judge. And you know the Bible speaks of both. So we should appreciate both. But I would say this, that apart from Jesus Christ dying to pay the price for our sin and satisfy the just demands of a holy God through propitiation, there would be no expiation or putting away of sin. The reason sin can be removed is because God has been satisfied. And so both are biblical. But don't be fooled when they speak of the finished work of Christ, but then only have in their mind this idea of expiation. Because again, they don't want to think of God in terms of being holy and having wrath towards sin. They want to come up with a kinder, gentler version of God, I suppose.

But really, it was at Calvary that the attributes of God became manifest in a wonderful way. Some have said the wrath of God and the love of God kissed at the cross. I think that's an apt way to describe it. Because it was there that Christ died in our place, motivated by the love of God and satisfied the justice of God. And that's how we should think of the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, it says in First John 2:2 and 4:10 that Christ is our propitiation. So when you think of Christ, think of propitiation. And that's why when we diminish this this concept of the propitiatory work of Jesus Christ, you know who gets diminished? Our Savior Himself. So, even though they'll talk about Christ and His finished work, they're actually bringing Christ down. And we should lift Christ up and glorify and magnify Him with the language the New Testament itself uses.

Here's a third example of an imbalance that we're seeing today with Hyper Grace. Some Hyper Grace proponents hold to universalism or a second chance for salvation after death, or the annihilation of unbelievers after death, rather than conscious eternal torment in hell. Now, this is a hard concept to accept, right? Who likes to think about these things? But the Bible's very clear in teaching these things. And Andy again had an excellent series here, I believe in the last year or so, on this whole subject of conscious eternal torment because it's being denied today with the popularization of annihilation. So I'm not going to go over a lot of scriptural support for the biblical view. But I do want to warn you that when you read books like "The Shack," they point you in the direction of universalism. In fact, when "The Shack" first came out about 20 years ago or so, those who read it, who were biblical in their theology, were very shocked and concerned because they said it's clearly promoting universalism. Then when the author was interviewed, William Paul Young, he denied that. He said, "No, no, I'm not saying that." And he tried in a very slippery way to get around that. But do you know that a decade later, when that book became a movie in 2017, I believe, the same week that the movie was released, he was ready to go with another book being published the same week called "Lies We Believe About God." And do you know what he said in that book? He came right out and finally admitted what everybody knew all along, that he's promoting universalism.

Page 118: "Are you suggesting that everyone is saved? That you believe in universal salvation?" He says, "That is exactly what I am saying." Now, these authors are not honest, but here he finally had to admit what he was trying to steer people towards in "The Shack" all along. He goes on to say in the same book, "Every human being you meet is a child of God." And that's a lie because Ephesians 2 says we're all born children of wrath, who need to be born again, and we're not children of God.

Now, a fourth characteristic of Hyper Grace teaching is that they claim today believers are always pleasing to God and that God is never disappointed with us. Here's an example from Joseph Prince. He says, "My friend, God wants you to live each day knowing that you are His beloved child. Amen. Amen. In whom He is well pleased." Is that part true? Might or it might not be true. Depends on your walk, right? He says, "That is your daily nourishment from Him to know, believe, and confess that you are as beloved and that and that you are well pleasing to Him all the time." Not true. In fact, the only one who that statement could be said of is the Lord Jesus Christ who never sinned. And that's why the New Testament makes it very clear, saying in Matthew 3:17, the Father speaking of His own Son at the baptism of Jesus Christ, that this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And he doesn't say that about all other believers all the time, only Christ. And so what they're doing is they're taking something true of Christ and putting it onto us. That makes an idol out of us, and the Bible obviously is against that.

Here's another statement to this effect by an author called John Crowder in his book "Mystical Union." "When you think of the cross, do you think of fun? If the answer is no, then you have been not been taught the cross aright. There is a delicious feast prepared for the believer. Nothing is more satisfying than the revelation of what Christ has conclusively accomplished for you. This book," referring to his own book, "threatens to turn your Christianity upside down. No longer a struggle to please God, the truth plunges you into a celebration of what He has done for you. It is high time the church gets delivered from God pleasing." Do you need to be delivered from pleasing God? I hope that I never get delivered from that. Because Hebrews 11:6 says, "Without faith it's impossible to please God." "For he that comes to God must believe that He is and He's the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." Sounds to me like if we don't walk by faith as believers, we're not pleasing to God. That's why the Apostle Paul said in Second Corinthians 5:9, that he made it his aim, his goal, his objective in the Christian life to be well pleasing to the Lord, not delivered from it. Wow, what a difference in thinking.

You know, if we were pleasing to the Lord all the time, that would mean the Holy Spirit would never be grieved. And yet we are told in Ephesians 4:30, Paul says, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption." Now, why would he write this unless it were possible, as believers, to grieve the Holy Spirit? And if the Holy Spirit can be grieved, then obviously, He's not pleased. And this is why the Lord Jesus even said to the church at Laodicea in Revelation 3, "So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth." Does that sound like Jesus was pleased with them all the time? No. Now, this is not the wrath of God. He wasn't threatening to condemn the Laodicean Christians and put them in hell. But He was saying, look, you think you're spiritual and you're having fellowship with me? You're not. Let's call it what it is. You're out of fellowship, and you're not pleasing. In fact, I want to gag at your form of Christianity.

Here's a fifth characteristic of Hyper Grace teaching. They do not differentiate between believers being accepted in Christ, which is based on our spiritual position, versus being approved by God, which is a matter of our spiritual condition. Before we are saved, we are outside of Christ. In fact, the Bible says we're in Adam. As God looks at descendants of Adam, and those who are in Christ as two federal heads. Now, in order to get from one team to the next, from Adam's family, I don't have a song for being in Christ, so I'll spare you. But in order for that transfer to happen, we simply need to believe the gospel. Put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that He died for all our sins. It's not our works that save us, but Christ alone. And believe that He rose from the dead, and and He is He is sufficient in His work. And when we believe, at that very moment, the Holy Spirit of God takes us and He transfers us and puts us into the Lord Jesus Christ. And so all of humanity is either in Adam or in Christ in this in this age. I hope that you're in Christ. But in Christ, there's grace, there's life, there's many blessings. And we are accepted in the beloved one according to Ephesians 1:6. That doesn't mean we're on probation. We're forever in the beloved one, forever accepted by God.

Now think of your own kids. If you have children, you love them. Do they always obey? Are they always pleasing to you? Of course not, just like when you were a kid, you weren't either to your parents. But you, as a Christian parent, accept your kids no matter what they do. They're always going to be accepted, but what they're not going to have is approval from you. I don't always approve of what my children do, but I will always love them and accept them. Do you see the difference? But that's not what Hyper Grace teaches. Tullian Tchividjian, in one of his messages called "Already Pleased," says this: "So let me tell you why Jesus came, because there's a lot of confusion about who Jesus is and specifically why He came. He didn't come to make you good, okay? If Jesus came to make you good, if Jesus came to make me good, He's not doing a great job, okay? So He didn't come to make you good. He didn't come to make you nice. This is why He came. He came to free you from the slavery of trying to get God's approval by pleasing Him. That's why He came. He came to set you free, and there's nothing more enslaving than living a life trying to get God's approval." Do you see what he's doing? He's mixing approval and acceptance.

If what he is teaching is true, then we should just cancel the whole Awana ministry, which many of you probably are familiar with. A ministry towards children based on Second Timothy 2:15. "Be diligent to show yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." Now, is it possible for a child of God, young or adult, to be accepted in Christ, but obviously not approved by Jesus Christ? Yes, that's what this verse is all about. Approved workmen are not ashamed is the acronym Awana. And if what Tchividjian just said is true, that it's slavery and bondage to think this way biblically, then really we should cancel the Awana program because it's a children's enslavement camp or program. That's what that amounts to. Think about that. So that is really appalling.

Here's a sixth characteristic of Hyper Grace. Hyper Grace teachers deny the distinction between judicial and parental forgiveness, which the Bible makes very clear. There's two types. John 13 is clear on that, verses 8 through 11. For believers, claiming that First John 1:9 does not require confession or repentance for parental forgiveness in the Christian life. When John writes in First John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Did you know that according to Hyper Grace, they say the "we" there is referring to the unsaved, not you as a Christian? Even though the Apostle John said, "If we," and he included himself, "confess our sins." You see, the Bible's very clear that to get in the family of God, you need to put your trust in Jesus Christ and His finished work for you, the baptism of the Spirit puts you in that family of God, you become a child of God. But just because you're in the family of God, the yellow zone there, doesn't mean you're in fellowship with God. We can step out of fellowship with God when we sin. And what does First John 1:9 say we need to do to get back in fellowship? We need to admit or confess where we've been at, or have a yielded posture of heart, is really what that entails. But that's not what Hyper Grace teaches.

Some people object, "But Ben, doesn't the Bible say we have to confess, or we're not forgiven? And doesn't it say we have to repent to be forgiven? No. If we put any requirement of what we have to do in order to be forgiven, it's law, not grace." These people look at the first chapter of John's first letter, and they're sure confession is the prerequisite to forgiveness. Confession isn't the necessary trigger to get forgiven. Christ has already paid that price. You see how he's denying the need for the believer to still experience forgiveness in some sense from God in the parental sense? Here's another quote going back to Paul Ellis. "We don't repent and confess to get God to forgive us. We repent and confess because God has forgiven us. Your repentance and confession won't change God, but it will surely change you. It will help you receive God's life-changing grace," as another Hyper Grace author, Clark Wittington, says, "Confession is for my healing, not for God's forgiveness."

So what they're doing is they're failing to to recognize the Bible speaks of forgiveness in two different senses, just like there's three tenses to salvation, which you've been well taught on here. When it comes to forgiveness, there's that once-for-all judicial aspect, the moment we come to Christ. God will never condemn us for our sins ever again if we've put our trust in Christ. That's a judicial act of God at justification. Where God is acting as judge and declaring you not only not guilty, but gives you the righteousness of Christ. So how therefore can you ever be condemned? And you're forgiven.

But imagine for a moment if God the judge takes on is your father. During the day, that's his job. He takes off his robes, he leaves them at the office, at the courthouse. And he comes home and he sits on the couch with you. And as his son, you've been out of fellowship with the father. And he says, "Look, we're not having communion here. We're not in fellowship until you admit what you did wrong." And you say to your father, "Oh yeah, but when I was in the court wearing that orange jumpsuit, you declared me forgiven. So therefore it's I don't have to admit anything thereafter." That is the thinking of Hyper Grace and a failure to distinguish judicial versus parental forgiveness. Two types.

And this is what these authors do. For time's sake, I'll skip over this one. Go on to the next. Quote. This is from Ken Ashworth, another Hyper Grace proponent. He says, "I must say it emphatically here that while it is not wrong to confess your sin if you want to, we must not make it a doctrine and a compulsion for any believer. But you must also know that continuous confession of sin makes a believer sin-conscious, instead of righteousness-conscious. John wouldn't have been making an isolated statement in First John 1:9. It's evident that he wasn't talking to a Christian to keep short accounts by regularly confessing sin."

Now, this phrase "regularly confessing sin" or "keeping short accounts," it's often disparaged by those in the Hyper Grace movement. But don't get the opposite impression here today. I'm not saying if you've got a a phone with a timer on it, you know, an Apple Watch or something, or you know, you've got your phone and you've got a timer on that. You need to set it every hour. And on the hour, check your sins and then confess to God. I'm not saying that. That would be rigid and that would be legalism. But it is true, whenever we do sin, we need to be willing to be honest before God and have a soft heart, not harden our hearts, so that when the Holy Spirit of God convicts us of sin, we yield and we're willing to admit it.

Now, I actually know a case of a couple cases actually, one in particular I'm thinking of, a woman in I won't say where, but I heard this firsthand, where she said, "I've been delivered from having to confess my sin. I feel liberated. In fact, I haven't confessed my sin in two to three years." And she was boasting of it. And I thought, "Did you go home and tell your husband that? Can you imagine saying to your spouse, 'Honey, I've been liberated from having to admit I'm wrong. So the next two to three years, I'm not going to ever tell you I did anything wrong because that's grace.' What kind of relationship would you have?" Within the family of God, that wouldn't work. And it doesn't work with God.

Now, as far as being sin-focused versus Christ-focused, this is something they like to throw at you and say, "Well, you can go on confessing your sins, but then you're going to always look at your heart and be sin-focused. We'll just look at Christ." Seems like a greater level of piety in in what they're presenting. So one day, I sat down for a few hours and I read through Romans 1 through 8. And Romans 1 through 5 is all about our justification before God by grace. And Romans 6 through 8 is all about sanctification by grace as a believer. So these are key chapters. And it struck me as I did a tabulation of how many times the words love and grace are mentioned. And how many times the Lord Jesus was referred to, whether it was the term Lord, Jesus, Christ, Son, He, Him, His, pronouns. And then I compared the number of times that sin is mentioned, not even just the word sin itself, but things like transgression or various types of sin. And guess what the results showed? Do you think that Paul was Christ-focused versus sin-focused? I was shocked by the tabulation results. Here's what I came up with. You can recount it yourself if you want to. 28 times he refers to love and grace, 66 times the Lord Jesus Christ, 156 times he mentioned sin. Wow. So what is our standard for being Christ-focused versus sin-focused if it's not the Bible itself? That's why I say that this doctrine is really just humanism, humanistic.

Let's go on to a seventh point of contrast between Hyper Grace and true grace. Hyper Grace teachers also say that since all believers today are sons of God positionally in Christ, it's legalistic to view ourselves as servants of God positionally. Again, this is a half-truth. Can you be viewed by God as both a son and a servant? Yes. In fact, some of the best employees in companies, you know, Tom's Cement Construction Company and Sons. Some of the best, most faithful employees are the sons because they work with Dad. But they're also going to inherit the estate when Dad dies. So they can be servants and sons.

And positionally in Christ, do you know it is true, biblically, as a believer, the New Testament's very clear that you are no longer a servant of the sin nature, positionally. Though practically you can still serve it and go back to it if you choose to. But it no longer has that legal standing before you as being master over you. You're free from that sin nature. Same is true with the law, the same is true with former false gods. We are said in the New Testament, no longer to be servants of these things. But that doesn't mean we're freed from serving Jesus Christ, as Hyper Grace claims. Wayne Jacobsen says, "God feels the same about you. He's not interested in your service and sacrifice. He only wants you to know how much you are loved, hoping that you will choose to love Him in return." Again, a false antithesis.

Now, the New Testament's very clear, Romans 6, as we'll see more in the second hour. God wants us to know who we are in Christ, that we're under new management, we've died with Christ, and He's our new Lord. He wants us to reckon that to be true, and then present or yield ourselves to Him as His servants on that basis. And the result will be obedience. Those are the four key terms in Romans 6. And this is how we should think as believers and view ourselves as identified with Jesus Christ. He is our new Lord, and we serve Him. We don't serve the law, we don't serve our sin natures, and we don't serve our former gods. At least practically we could, but in our position before God, He hasn't set us up that way to serve those things. He's set us up to serve the Lord Jesus Christ from a yielded heart where we're filled with the Holy Spirit. And the result is, according to Romans 6:18, "Having been set free from sin," i.e., the sin nature, "you became slaves of righteousness." Now, does that sound like God is telling all believers you're no longer a servant of Jesus Christ positionally, as God sees it? Oh, this is just the opposite. In fact, the Lord Jesus was called a servant in Isaiah 52, and throughout His life, He practically submitted Himself to the will of God all the time, to His parents, Joseph and Mary, to the Mosaic law, the dispensation He was under, and to civil government. That's why He paid taxes with Peter.

Let me give you two final points in closing, and I'll be more brief about these. 11th point is that Hyper Grace teachers tend to despise and reject God-ordained authority, rather than submit to it. It's interesting in Second Peter and in Jude, they both make mention of how the tendency of those who fall into license is to despise authority or reject it. And what I have seen in my studies on the Hyper Grace movement is a lot of them are just independent. They don't really come and serve at a local church, they don't submit to the leadership. They tend to kind of skirt the edges, pluck people off, go to coffee fellowships, have home Bible studies and things. They're very big into home church, but never having to submit to anyone else, as Hebrews 13:17 says to do. Why? That's a characteristic of Hyper Grace.

Here's the last point I want you to see, and that is that Hyper Grace teachers are non-dispensational, and they often talk or teach that there will be no degrees of reward for believers, and that the judgment seat of Christ is the same as the Great White Throne Judgment for unbelievers. Now, when you listen to them, they often contrast the Old Covenant and the New. They talk about the sharp antithesis between law and grace. So when you hear this again, you might be prone as a dispensationalist to say, "Hey, we're talking the same language here." But they have a different concept of eschatology and what the future holds.

Here's one quote from Andrew Farley. "Christians will not receive differing amounts of rewards. Popular teaching suggests there are two final judgments, one for unbelievers and one for believers. However, scripture presents only one final judgment for the entire world." And notice in that parenthesis, he has a passage, Second Corinthians 5, dealing with the judgment seat of Christ. Revelation 20, dealing with the Great White Throne, and Matthew 25, dealing with the sheep and goat judgment. And you've been well taught here about prophecy and what's coming in the future. After the rapture of the church, we will face the judgment seat of Christ where our earthly life will be evaluated to see what reward we will get. And the degree of faithfulness we showed towards Christ in our walk with the Lord will determine the degree of reward we get in eternity to serve Him with. But then there's another judgment, Matthew 25, of the sheep and goats. And then there's another judgment, the Great White Throne Judgment. But what Hyper dispensational Hyper Hyper Grace people do is they conflate these different judgments, mix them into one, so that they can avoid having to think in terms of, well, I'm going to be accountable for my life and how I walked and lived. And so that's the danger there. And yet we are to live in light of the Lord's return and recognize we will stand before Christ. And it's not going to be a judgment to cast us into hell or punitive. It will be to determine our reward, though, and that is something to look forward to and be prepared for. So, bottom line, is Hyper Grace biblical? I think you've seen 12 points here today that make it very clear, absolutely not. Instead, what we should do is continue in the true grace of God and stand firm in it, as First Peter 5:12 says to do. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for your word today. I pray that these truths would grip our hearts and you would use them to change our lives for the glory of Jesus Christ. We pray and ask this in his name, for his sake. Amen.