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What We Believe and Why - Vol. II
Written by Dr. Lester Hutson

Copyright - Lester Hutson - 1982
This material is copyrighted and may not be copied or reproduced without the express written permission of Dr. Lester Hutson.

Chapter Fourteen
Falling From grace
(Part 2)

"We Can Only Fall From the Grace That Sustains"

INTRODUCTION: TEXT: Galatians 5:4

Galatians 5:4, which speaks of falling from grace, is a passage dealing with the grace of God that sustains us daily from the dominion or power of sin.

I. UNLIKE THE GRACE OF GOD THAT SAVES FROM SIN'S PENALTY, WHICH IS A COMPLETE AND FINISHED ACT, (JOHN 5:24) THE GRACE OF GOD THAT SUSTAINS IS A PROGRESSIVE, UNFINISHED WORK OF GOD ON OUR BEHALF: A WORK THAT IS BEING CARRIED OUT IN US DAY BY DAY AS WE LIVE OUR MORTAL LIVES.

A. Remember that God told Paul, in II Corinthians 12:9, "My grace is sufficient for thee." That is present tense, indicative of a work that God is doing for us now.

B. We are serving God day by day as we live, and Hebrews 12:28 speaks of having this grace "whereby we may serve God acceptably." Again, it is on a continuous, progressive basis.

C. On a daily basis we must "come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." (Hebrews 4:16) That's why our Lord instructed us to ask for "daily bread." (Matthew 6:11) We need God's sustaining grace every moment of every day of our lives.

II. JUST AS WE RECEIVED THE SAVING GRACE OF GOD BY FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST AND HIS FINISHED WORK ON THE CROSS, EVEN SO WE RECEIVE THE SUSTAINING GRACE OF GOD ONLY BY FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST AND HIS COMMANDMENTS AS TO HOW WE MIGHT HAVE ABUNDANT LIFE.

A. That is why Paul wrote, "as ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him." (Colossians 2:6) It is just as impossible to please God without faith after you are saved as it was before. (Hebrews 11:6) That is why Romans 1:17 says, "the just shall live by faith."

B. God wants every child that He has to trust Him every day. He wants His people to "yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." (Romans 6:13) He says, "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth." (Colossians 3:5) And Paul said of himself what ought to be true of all believers, "For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:19-20)

III. AND, ANY TIME A CHILD OF GOD HAS SO KILLED OR MORTIFIED THE FLESH, AND YIELDED HIMSELF TO GOD SO THAT GOD IS WORKING IN AND THROUGH HIS LIFE, "BOTH TO WILL AND TO DO OF HIS GOOD PLEASURE," (PHILIPPIANS 2:13) THAT CHILD OF GOD'S LIFE WILL BE FULL OF GOOD WORKS AND FRUITFULNESS.

A. He will be working, for as Ephesians 2:10 says of the saved, they are God's "workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." As Paul wrote to Timothy, "If a man therefore purge himself of these [fleshly efforts of sight and not of faith], he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work." (II Timothy 2:21)

B. Every believer walking by faith, which is obedience to the word of God, will "learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that they be not unfruitful." (Titus 3:14) Such an one will have virtue, temperance, patience, Godliness, brotherly kindness, love, and other such desirable characteristics. And Peter said, "If these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." (II Peter 1:8)

C. We are not capable in our own strength of producing good works or fruits in our lives that will honor God. When we do such things, our production becomes a shame as God sees it. Jesus said He is the vine and we are the branches in John 15:5. He furthermore pointed out what every grape grower knows to be a fact: that no branch can produce grapes or fruit apart from the vine. (John 15:4) The fact is that all the materials necessary to the production of grapes comes from the vine through the branches. The branches only bear the fruit that is produced in them by the vine. They don't produce fruit, they just bear it. Likewise, we cannot resist the devil and be fruitful to God in our own strength. But if we trust our Lord day by day, yielding to Him to be used however He chooses in His service, we can be sure that He will use us to work diligently. He may use us to teach others, help poor people, attend church properties, win souls, do missionary or pastoral work, or do a variety of other good works, but though the works may vary, all believers yielded to the will of God will be zealously working. God will see to that as He works in them.

IV. THE UNIQUE THING ABOUT THIS WORK THAT WE DO BY GOD IN US IS THAT IT IS DONE FREELY OUT OF LOVE.

A. We, who've experienced the salvation of God from sin's penalty, are free to do or not do whatever we please. We can serve or not serve and it has no bearing on our deliverance from sin's penalty of death. That's why Jesus said, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," (John 8:32) and "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." (John 8:36) Paul said, "brethren, ye have been called unto liberty." (Galatians 5:13)

B. Now, if we are free in Christ to serve or not to serve, then why would any child of God serve? The answer is love. Paul said, "The love of Christ constraineth us." (II Corinthians 5:14) We simply love Him who "first loved us," (I John 4:19) and that love motivates us to serve Him.

V. IT IS WHEN WE, OUT OF A HEART OF LOVE, ARE YIELDING OURSELVES TO GOD'S CONTROL TO WORK IN US TO WILL AND DO OF HIS GOOD PLEASURE, THAT WE EXPERIENCE THAT ASPECT OF HIS GRACE THAT IS ALWAYS ABLE TO SUSTAIN US FROM THE POWER OR DOMINION OF SIN.

A. Notice that Galatians 5:6 says, "For in Jesus Christ (those who are already saved from sin's penalty) neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision (legalistic or duty bound service to God, anything we might do in the energy of the flesh or self-will); but faith (obedience to God's word) which worketh by love (service out of a free heart of love)." It is this kind of service for which Paul is calling when he says in Philippians 2:12, "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." Work in you, because of a spirit yielded to God, will result in God's salvation or deliverance of you from sin's power and dominion over you, which is His second aspect of grace or unmerited favor to you.

B. It is to those in this yielded condition that He promises, "my grace is sufficient for thee." (II Corinthians 12:9) It is these whom He promises, "God...will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way of escape, that ye may be able to bear it." (I Corinthians 10:13) It is these who have the "blessedness" which Galatians 4:15 says the Galatian saints once had. These are the ones who are victorious in the Lord, who are happy, (John 13:17) and of whom Romans 6:14 says, "sin shall not have dominion over you."

C. It is these who are living in or continuously experiencing the second category of God's amazing grace, namely that sustaining grace from sin's dominion.

VI. BUT, WHENEVER THOSE WHO'VE BEEN SAVED FROM SIN'S PENALTY LOSE THEIR LOVE AND BEGIN TO ACT OUT OF PRIDE, SERVE OUT OF DUTY OR BE MOTIVATED BY SOME OTHER SELF-WILL, THEY FIND THIS GRACE THAT SUSTAINS IS NO LONGER THERE IN THEIR LIVES TO DELIVER THEM FROM TEMPTATIONS AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THEIR JOY, FRUITFULNESS, AND TESTIMONY BY THE DEVIL.

A. Paul said, "to be carnally minded is death" and "the carnal mind is enmity against God. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." (Romans 8:6-8) Whenever God's children begin to lose their freedom and love for God, and begin to allow fleshly (CARNAL) motives to rule their lives, they are not pleasing God. Instead of Him working in them "to will and do of HIS good pleasure," they have rebelled and are working in themselves to do of their own will and pleasure.

B. James speaks of such in James 1:7 and says, "let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord." These persons do find themselves tempted above what they are able to resist. Sin does have dominion over their lives. They fall into the snare of the devil. (I Timothy 6:9) Doubtless all of us have been, and know of others who have been, defeated by the devil in spite of the fact that we are saved from sin's penalty. We've found ourselves discouraged, filled with worry, bitter over what someone has said or done to us, bitter and resentful over some sickness, death, or loss in our lives, in spite of the fact that we knew God allowed it to happen. (Romans 8:28)

C. Why is it that God's people are so often thus defeated by the devil? It is not because God's sustaining grace is no longer available, nor because it has lost its power to sustain. No, the grace is there and just as able to sustain as ever. But, it is not operating in the lives of God's people because they have removed themselves from the sphere in which this grace operates. This is exactly the condition some of the Galatian believers were in as Paul wrote to them in Galatians 5:4 where he said, "Christ is become of no effect to you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace." They were not lost, hell-bound sinners again. Paul is not even talking about that grace that saves from sin's penalty. He is talking about that grace that sustains daily from sin's dominion, which only operates where faith works by love. These Galatians, like many of God's people down through the years, had fallen from that grace. As Galatians 4:9 clearly points out, they know God, yet were turned "again to the weak and beggarly elements." They were no longer freely serving God out of a heart of love, dominated by God working in them.

D. Every time any child of God lets self-will or the flesh take over he falls from grace, not the grace that saves from the penalty of sin, but the grace that sustains from the dominion of sin. Not this passage, nor any other in the Bible, ever suggests that any man or woman can ever fall from the grace that saves from sin's penalty.

VII. IN VIEW OF THE FACT THAT GOD'S PEOPLE CAN FALL FROM THE GRACE THAT SUSTAINS, AND THUS SUFFER MANY LOSSES AND DEFEATS AT THE HAND OF SATAN, GOD'S WORD OFTEN WARNS US TO MORTIFY OR DESTROY OUR SELF-WILL, AND TO SURRENDER OURSELVES WHOLLY TO THE CONTROL AND WILL OF GOD SO THAT WE WILL BE IN A CONSTANT STATE OR SPHERE IN WHICH HIS GRACE WILL CONTINUOUSLY SUSTAIN US.

A. His words through Paul the Apostle in Galatians 5:1 are, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled with the yoke of bondage."

B. Paul's words in Colossians 3:5 are, "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth," and he said in Romans 12:1-2, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable and perfect, will of God."

C. Walk by faith and serve by love, and God will always sustain you and give you victory. But live to self and you will fall from that unmerited favor or grace of God that sustains. But do not misunderstand. Falling from grace does not mean you can lose your eternal life. Instead, it means you can lose your victory over the power of sin.

"It Does Make a Difference What You Believe"