The Alternative

Dr. Tony Evans: Without the relationship, you only have the rules. And if you're just trying to keep the rules, you're under an old system. Grace is a system whose rules are predicated on a relationship.

Guest (Male): This is The Alternative broadcast, featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. When you think how much it cost Jesus to set us free from sin, it's hard to imagine not living out that freedom. But today, Dr. Evans explains how easy it is to slip back into slavery as he talks about what it really means to be liberated by grace. Let's join him.

Dr. Tony Evans: It was for freedom that Christ set you free. It was not just to be a theology, "I'm free." It was to be an experience. Because He set you free to be free, not just to talk about freedom. When Paul wrote the book of Galatians, he was writing to Christians who were not experiencing the freedom that Jesus died to give.

They were being held hostage by a wrong understanding of the Ten Commandments and a wrong use of the Ten Commandments. Instead of the law, the Ten Commandments, freeing them up, it was putting more chains on them. Now, I know when you first hear that, that doesn't sound right, but stay with me.

He says in Galatians chapter one, for example, verse six, "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel." Over and over and over again, Paul says that when you come to Christ, you are no longer under the system of law. Now, here is the issue of legalism or the wrong understanding or use of the law, and that is why it was given.

The law was given, the Ten Commandments, to show you what's wrong with you. The law was not given to make you better. Unless you understand that, because most people go to the law to get better. As I've said before, the law is like a mirror. A mirror shows you what's wrong with you. But you then do not take the mirror and brush your hair. You do not take the mirror and wash your face. You do not take the mirror and clean your teeth because while the mirror is there to reveal your problem, it's not designed to fix it.

So when people go to the law to get better, they're asking it to do something it was never created to do. All the law is going to do is curse you. It cannot help you. It can't help a sinner get to heaven, and it can't help a saint get heaven back to them. And yet, many sinners try to go to heaven by telling you they try to keep the Ten Commandments. And many saints are trying to be better Christians by trying to keep the Ten Commandments. And all the law is doing for both of them is condemning them and cursing them. It is a ministry of condemnation.

Not only that, but he says in Galatians chapter five something that really is a killer. He says in verse three, "And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision." Circumcision means I place myself under the law. It was when a man was circumcised, meaning I now am under the old covenant. I officially place myself under the law. He says once you do that, then he is under obligation to keep the whole law. See, because folk like to pick and choose.

They take the Ten Commandments and they are good on six of them, but then they've got them other four they're not so hot on. They pick and choose. He says, "No, the law cannot be separated." It's like if you're hanging over a cliff and you're holding on to a chain and the chain has ten links in it, how many links have to break before you fall? You don't have to break all ten. You break one and it's like breaking all ten because you still fall because they're interlinking. So unless you can keep them all, all the time, he says you're under condemnation.

So that's why the law can't help you, because it does not allow for any wiggle room. And then what happens? What happens? He tells you, and none of it's good. In verse two, Christ will be of no benefit to you. Beginning of verse four, you have been severed from Christ. End of verse four, you have fallen from grace. It doesn't mean you lose your salvation. He says Christ won't benefit you anymore. The flow of Christ's power stops because grace has been misused, misunderstood, misapplied, mistaught.

People are being drawn into law and wonder why their Christianity is not working. Let me take you back to my two phones: my flip phone and my iPhone. This is the old covenant. And because my flip phone is the old covenant, it's very limited in what it can do. I can get a phone call, but I can't Google nobody. I don't get apps on it. I can't receive emails on it because it's old technology. And so it's a very limited benefit.

What's worse is I don't need it anymore because I've got an iPhone. This has stuff on it I haven't even discovered yet. I have apps, I don't even know what they mean. My daughter put some apps on here, I don't even know what they mean. They've got an app store where they constantly coming up with new stuff. I can Google any information on any subject. Why in the world would I carry a flip phone when I have an iPhone? Simple: I'm used to it.

The only reason I have this is I am so used to it and so comfortable with it that I don't want to take advantage of the benefits of this phone because I like this phone. And the more I use this phone, the more I'm wasting this phone. Because once this phone came out, this phone could be thrown away. But because I like it and because I'm used to it, I won't throw it away. So you know what I'm doing? I'm trying to live in two covenants at the same time. I'll be jumping covenants.

What he says is when you jump covenants, Christ is of no benefit to you. You're not getting the benefit of Jesus Christ. You come to church, but nothing's changing because you're under the wrong system. You're functioning under the wrong system. When you fall from grace, you fall back into condemnation. Grace does not mean there are no rules. That's a misunderstanding and misuse of grace. See, folk, that's turning grace into license. No, grace doesn't mean there are no rules.

In fact, nine of the Ten Commandments are repeated in the New Testament for Christians. The only one that's not repeated is the Sabbath. The other nine of the ten are repeated, but repeated under the grace covenant, not under the law covenant. There are many commands for believers in the new covenant, in the grace covenant, in the New Testament. Grace does not mean there are no more rules. It means the rules are under a new system.

In my flip phone, there are some things that shift over like a signal. I get a signal in my flip phone. I get a signal in my iPhone. That transfers over, picking up a signal. But the signal is in a new system, not in an old system. So grace doesn't mean there are no more rules, there are no more guidelines. No, it doesn't mean that. Then what does it mean? Grace is a system whose rules are predicated on a relationship. That's the difference.

Guest (Male): Dr. Evans will return in a moment with a final word about people who have been set free but either don't know it or don't believe it, as he wraps up this message from his series on The Magnificent Grace of God. First though, I want to remind you about our featured resource for this series: Tony's devotional book, Anchored by Grace. This encouraging resource is designed to help you stop striving in your own strength and start living from the stability of God's unchanging favor. It's filled with practical insights to help steady your faith when life feels uncertain.

It's the perfect way to dig deeper into what we've been learning on the program today. If you contact us right away, we'll send you a copy of Anchored by Grace as our gift in appreciation for your donation to this ministry. Along with it, you'll get an added bonus: all 12 full-length audio messages in Tony's current series, The Magnificent Grace of God. TonyEvans.org is the place to go to get the details and make the arrangements. Or call 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our friendly resource team members help you. They're standing by 24/7, so there's no need to wait. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222 or online at TonyEvans.org. I'll repeat that contact information for you after part two of today's message. Here's Tony.

Dr. Tony Evans: In the old system of law, the keyword was "if." If you do this, I will bless you. That's the old system. The old system was conditioned on what you do to get divine favor. Not so when the rules are in the grace system. Now watch this. The word changes. It is no longer rules for if. It is now rules for since. In the old system, this is what you need to do to get God to bless you. In the new system, this is what I'm doing because He's already blessed me.

Ephesians 1:3 says, "For He has already blessed you with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places." In the old system, it was "I have to." In the new system, it is "thank you." So you know why more people don't live in grace? Because they're not thankful. More people don't live in grace because they don't understand what God has done for them. More people don't live in grace because they don't appreciate the cross. More people don't live in grace because they don't understand what the Holy Spirit is.

And because the "thank you" is small, grace experience is limited. It's a thank you response. Look, how many of you would tell your child, "If you obey me, I'll love you. If you do your housework, I'll treat you right. If, if, if... but if you don't, I ain't going to love you. If you don't, I ain't going to care for you. If you don't, I ain't going to feed you." You're not going to relate to your child like that, I hope.

No, you want your child to do what you ask them to do because they feel the love, see the love, experience the love. You want it to be a thank you obedience, not a have-to obedience. Because "have to" means you live under a threat. And that's why the whole Ten Commandments are negative: thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not. Because you're living under a threat. But when Christ came, He's flipped the script and He says, "Here is the good news: everything I'm ever going to do for you, I've already done."

That's grace. Everything I'm ever going to do for you has already been done. All you have to do is let the grace flow. Let the grace flow. And how does it flow? It flows by relationship, not by rules. Once you try to earn it... see, this is where the trick comes in. Because if I can make you, if I've got a strong enough personality, and I can try to scare you into obedience or scare you into wanting to be blessed, I can say to you, "Look, look, if you really want to be blessed, I got a blessed prayer cloth from the Jordan River that's been sprinkled."

"If you really want to be blessed, then send me 50 dollars. And if you send me 50 dollars or more, I'm going to send you this blessed prayer cloth from the Jordan River, and God is going to bless you. If you send me, then God will bless you." That's the old system. In the new system, God says give because you see how much I've given to you. It's a whole different mindset. It's not mind control. It's freedom.

It's like the woman who married a husband and the husband came up with a list of 25 requirements to make me happy. "You've got to do these 25 things. You've got to do them on a regular weekly schedule. You've got to do them on time. You've got to do them at excellence. If you want me to love you, you're going to have to do it this way." So the woman did her best, but she was miserable. She hated the list and she hated him because every week he wanted to know, "Okay, go over the list with me. Show you what you did. Show me whether you did it on time. I'm checking behind you to see if you did it."

A few years later, he died. She wasn't sad he died. Then she went on a trip and she met a guy named Bill and fell in love with Bill a few months later. She and Bill were married. She was cleaning the house one day and she came upon the old list that she had from her first husband. And the list of 25 things she saw and she began to laugh. What made her laugh was she was doing all 25 for the new husband and loving it.

But when she was doing it for the old husband, was hating it because she had a relationship over here that she didn't have over there. And still, the law was being fulfilled because of the relationship. See, what the law does is it puts you on a leash, like a dog. Why do you put a dog on a leash? So it won't be able to go anywhere. You want to control where it goes, how far it goes, and when it goes. But have you ever seen an owner of a dog where the dog is walking with the owner but still not going anywhere? That means there's a relationship between the dog and the owner.

What legalism does is it takes the law and turns it into a leash. Jesus Christ wants you to worship Him because you love Him. Jesus Christ wants you to serve Him because you appreciate Him. Which means if you grow in grace, you'll grow in a deeper experience of Him. Grace, he says, is apart from the law. Galatians chapter one, verses seven to nine. He says in Romans 5:17, grace gives you the ability to rule. To rule that which used to be ruling you.

To say no to that which would demand you say yes. To say yes to that which was demanding that you said no because you're growing in the relationship and the power of Christ in grace is being dispensed to you. So you find helium in the balloon rising above your circumstances. That's why Paul says, "That I might know Him and the power of His resurrection," because the more I get to know Him, the more I'm going to rise out of this mess. So yes, grace doesn't mean there are no rules, but it means there are rules connected to relationship.

He says in Galatians chapter three, verse 19, "Why give the law?" He says it was added because of the transgressions. He only added the law because sin was running rampant and it had to be controlled. We had to put handcuffs on people because without the handcuffs they would not obey. He wanted the relationship, but in the meantime, he had to keep things under control. He says, "I added the law because of sin. I didn't add the law to make you better. It can't do that."

Not because the law is bad, the flesh is bad. And when the flesh sees the law, it gets worse. It's a totally different way of thinking, it's a totally different way of functioning, it's a totally different way of relating, and now you don't have to relate to God in fear. You relate to God in relationship and let Him take care of empowering you to keep the very things He's demanding by His Spirit. He says in Galatians 3:3, "What are you thinking, you foolish Galatians? You foolish people, what are you thinking? If you could do this, Jesus wouldn't have had to die."

He says Jesus died because you cannot pull off what God demands in the flesh. Best you can do is try to manage it for a while, but that's not transformation. And so he wants you to move from "if" to "since." He wants you to move from "have to" to "thank you," to "want to." My drink of choice, don't worry, my drink of choice is sweet tea. That's my drink of choice. It is sweet tea. When I go to a restaurant and they say, "What would you like to drink?" I say, generally, sweet tea.

When they tell me, "We do not have sweet tea. We have unsweetened tea, but we will bring you sugar," I say, "Never mind." The reason I say never mind is if they bring me sugar, I've got to work it, work it, work it, work it, work it, work it. Watch it settle down and work it, work it, work it, work it some more. Watch it settle down and work it, work it, work it, work it some more. I've got to make the tea sweet. But when there's sweet tea, they've already heated up the water, heated up the tea, and dissolved the sugar in the tea. So all I get to do is sit back and enjoy what they have already taken care of.

The law, you've got to work it, work it, work it, work it, work it. Watch it settle down, then work it, work it, work it, work it some more. But when Jesus Christ comes, He's already set that thing up.

Guest (Male): Dr. Evans will return in a moment with a final word about people who have been set free but either don't know it or don't believe it, as he wraps up this message from his series on The Magnificent Grace of God. The full-length versions of these messages include material we don't have time enough to bring you on the air. So we'd like to send you the complete 12-lesson, two-volume set as our gift when you make a donation to help support this ministry.

Along with it, you'll also receive that companion devotional book from Dr. Evans I told you about earlier: Anchored by Grace. Now, this is a special double offer that will only be around for a short time. So be sure to take advantage of it right away. You can do that today at TonyEvans.org or reach out to our resource center by calling 1-800-800-3222. Team members are on hand 24/7. That's 1-800-800-3222 or online at TonyEvans.org.

Guest (Female): What if Jesus had spent the night before His crucifixion in the park down the street from your house? Or changed water into wine at a wedding in your neighbor's backyard? These stories wouldn't just be stories anymore. They'd be memories because you were there. Tony Evans wants you to have that kind of experience every time you read scripture. That's why he's hosting his Israel tour.

You'll visit the site of the Sermon on the Mount, tour the old city including the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, the Garden of Gethsemane, and the upper room where Jesus washed His disciples' feet. You'll overlook Nazareth, stand on the Mount of Olives, and walk the road where Jesus made His triumphal entry. You'll gather as a group for great music and worship, and Tony will have messages that will give you new insight into familiar Bible stories. There's a lot more on the itinerary. Check it out at TonyEvans.org and make your reservation before spaces run out. Don't miss this chance to add a whole new dimension to your faith. Visit TonyEvans.org today.

Guest (Male): Imagine a warehouse that only receives deliveries and never shipped anything out. Well, Dr. Evans will talk to us on Monday about the danger of becoming a blessing depository as he turns his attention toward what it means to serve by grace. Right now, he's back with this story to wrap up our time together today.

Dr. Tony Evans: In closing, slavery is a miserable thing. The slaves were set free by Abraham Lincoln in January 1863. But the folk in Texas didn't find out until June 19, 1865. So there was a year-and-a-half gap between the declaration of freedom and the recognition of freedom. So for a year and a half, folk were thinking like slaves, talking like slaves, walking like slaves, acting like slaves although they had been set free, because folk lied to them.

You see, it was in the interest of the slave owner to not get that information out because then if they found out that they were free, they might start acting like they were free. It is in the devil's interest for you not to find out about the freedom in Jesus Christ because then he can hold you hostage. But on June 19, 1865, when the slaves found out they were free, they've been partying ever since.

Every June 19th, there's barbecues, there's dances, folk don't go to work because they are celebrating their freedom. But what was worse was when the slaves found out, a lot of slaves still wouldn't leave the plantation. And the reason they wouldn't leave the plantation is they had gotten so used to slavery, they didn't want to take the risk of being free. Well, I hope you are tired of being a slave today.

I hope you are tired of the devil owning you today. I hope you are tired of Satan having his way with you today. And based on today's message, you can look the devil in the eye and say, "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last."