THROUGH: The Results of Righteousness Pt. 2

Who's ready to get the word today? You guys ready? Man, God's got something great for us today. I'm excited to go to part two.

I started a message two weeks ago called the results of righteousness. And remember where the overarching theme is the word of the year that Pastor Seth gave us, which is through, that everything and anything in life comes through one person, his name is Jesus, that all things that we have come through Jesus. So that's the overarching theme, but I really started, I wanted to teach one Romans 5, one and two, three things that are through Christ, but they are the result of righteousness. So we're not talking about becoming righteous.

The day you accept Jesus, you are made the righteousness of God in Christ. So Paul is speaking to people that have already been made righteous because he starts Romans 5, 1 out with this. He said, therefore, having been justified by faith. So we talked two weeks ago, justified is the act of somebody declaring or pronouncing you righteous.

That when you accept to Jesus, God declared you, God pronounced you to be righteous, to be just. That you could stand before Holy God. You could stand there innocent guiltless, faultless. The easy way to remember righteousness is not right doing.

It's not the actions that you do. It is right standing. It's having being able to stand before God. And you can stand there righteous.

You can stand there just innocent guiltless and faultless. That you can stand without shame or guilt. That when you, think of it this way, when you really understand and you get that you've been made the righteousness because God on the inside, that that's who you are, that's your identity. You could see somebody that you did something really bad, that somebody knew some dark secret about you from your past.

And you could stand in front of them without shame, not because you didn't do it, but because God completely eradicated that from your life. You're not only paid for your sin, you're paying for your shame, you're a guilt. And he took that all the way. So that because of that, having been made righteous, we have what?

We talked about two weeks ago, peace. We have peace with God. That God, we talked about reconciliation. That God just didn't sign a ceasefire.

Right? A lot of times we think about that when a ceasefire signed, a ceasefire is a temporary halting of hostility. That we're gonna agree not to shoot each other until we can come to an ultimate terms and agreement of peace. But when you're a ceasefire, as soon as one person fires a shot, then it's all, it's back on, right?

And then you probably experience that in your marriage sometimes. You're having an argument with your spouse, you're like, you know what? Let's just go to our own corner. Right?

And then you settle down. You know what I'm talking about. Right? And then it's just one little comment.

And then it's back on, right? It's back on. Cease fire. But God didn't, and see, we think of a relationship with God that way that when Jesus died, it's a ceasefire.

But the moment I do something wrong, God's there. Well, God's there because there, God's not there to put punishment on you because he put all that punishment on Jesus. It actually says that he was in Christ reconciling the world back to himself, which means that he was restoring the world, not just believers, but the entire world restored to a place of friendship. And so what God did, he ratified or signed a peace treaty, which is a permanent end to all fighting.

And he went ahead and signed that peace treaty in the blood of Jesus. But any peace treaty needs to be signed, not just one side, but by both. So God's already signed it. You just have to, when you say yes by faith, you're putting your signature there and it's done.

It's permanent, it's forever. That because we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God. We can be confident that he's not angry with us. That doesn't mean that God does not discipline.

Discipline and correction is different than judgment and wrath. Completely different. He'll continue to discipline those he loves. So if you want to listen to that, you can pick it up from two weeks ago.

Today we're gonna talk about number two. It says that we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Verse two says, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in the hope of God, the glory of God. So next week, I'm gonna preach next week, we're gonna talk about what that means, because rejoicing in hope, Paul goes on to talk about, we also rejoice in tribulations, because tribulations produce perseverance, and perseverance produces character, and character produces hope.

And hope doesn't make you ashamed because the love of God has been shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Spirit. We're gonna talk about all that next week. So this week is number two, that we have access. And how do we have access by what?

By faith, it's through Jesus Christ, we have access by faith. Access very simply means admission. When I was younger, back in my wild days, we had a club up in Clarie'sville called Scampies. Now before it was Scampies, it was called the Clary Club, but when I was 18, it was Scampies.

Now the drinking age was 21, but that didn't deter me. I would actually wear a suit to Scampies, suit and tie, because I wanted to look older, because I wanted admission. So what I would do, we had this laundry basket in the bathroom that would get out of the basement to where the laundry was. I would take my suit and put it in the laundry and drop it to the basement.

My parents didn't know that the suit and tie were in the basement, and I'd wear some dirty old clothes, and I'm gonna go hang out at Joe's house, okay. And now I get down in the basement, put my suit on, and off to Scampies, I go. But then as a teenager, you're not supposed to be there. And so I go out, and this guy's still around Cumberland, so I won't tell you, but there was a big bouncer who eventually became a state cop.

And so the first time you're like, man, am I gonna get in? Am I not gonna get in? Am I gonna go to jail? And then when they opened the gate, and you're like, oh, I'm in.

And then every time you go after that, it's a little easier. So there's this thing about, there's always this hesitancy, if I'm supposed, if I'm not supposed to be there, am I gonna get through? But let me tell you, when you access the presence of God, there's no hesitancy, because you're supposed to be there. You're not entering somewhere that you're not allowed to be, you're not entering somewhere that you're not supposed to be, you're entering somewhere that has been opened.

There's not even that velvet rope. It's not like you're standing there, you know, if you go to the club, like they're gonna let me in, they're letting all the good looking women in, and all the guys are standing out, man, am I gonna get in? Not at, the rope is gone. It's an open door of access.

We have admission. Faith is your admission ticket. Works are not your admission ticket. Coming to church today doesn't access anything.

You're gonna grow, you're gonna develop, you're gonna mature by being here. But it doesn't access. Faith is your access. Giving offering is not your access.

Your parents' faith is not your access. Your faith is your access. It's the ticket that gives you access into something called grace. Now when Seth talked about GraceLax Week, he said, what if grace was bigger than we actually thought it was?

What if we didn't limit grace to something that we could comprehend and understand and bring it down to a level that we could box it in? That he said that grace and truth came through, came by Jesus Christ. He'll always get by Moses, grace and truth. And he talked about grace being this big thing.

It's bigger than we can imagine. There's more to it. There's not just saving grace. We're all saved by grace through faith, but there's empowering grace.

There's enriching grace. There's ministry grace. There's helping grace. Grace is multidimensional, but when we minimize it to just the thing that we experience the day that we say yes to Jesus, we're actually missing out on everything that he has paid for you to access.

It says that we have access by faith into the grace in which we stand. It's no secret that you remember the verse 2 Corinthians 5, 7, says, what? We walk by faith and not by sight. Walk means to live.

This is the lifestyle that we live. We live, and we're called to a life of faith. We're called to walk things out even when we can't see what's ahead. Paul says this in Colossians chapter 2, 16.

He says, therefore, as you have received Christ, how did you receive Christ? By grace through faith, therefore, as you have received Christ, so walk in him. So that the same way you receive Christ the day you said yes, is the same way that I live my entire Christian life. It's by faith.

But what happens a lot of times is we receive salvation by faith. We're justified, declared righteous by faith, but then we get sucked back into the law mentality and try to maintain our righteousness by effort. And that's the struggle that many Christians go through. It's not the initial salvation and impartation in the great exchange that takes place the day you say yes, but it's the daily walk of faith.

How do I maintain? How do I stay? Well, you stay the same way you received. You live the same way that you receive.

You live by faith. And you can put all that other stuff aside. Not that it's not important, but it's not the access to where God wants to take you. They're more the byproduct.

All right, so let's go ahead. I want to look at three main passages today. I can go forward from there. I can skip that.

But let's go back. We have access by faith into this grace in which we what? Stand. OK, if access is into the grace in which we stand, how can I access grace that I'm not standing in?

If we're to access the grace we're standing in, how do I access it if I'm not standing in it? Well, I'm going to tell you. I have the same question because it's just not talking about accessing grace. Paul says that you have access by faith into this grace in which you stand.

Having been justified by faith, justification is to be declared in right standing. Having been declared in right standing by faith, we now have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. So it's time to righteousness. There's a hint.

So that we access the thing that we stand in. But what happens is, as we're going to see, we fall from the place that we should be standing. And then we try to access something that we now have limited ourself access to by our own effort. This is going to be good.

All right, so we're going to look at three passages. We're going to look at Galatians, Chapter 5, verses 1 through 4. We're going to look at Hebrews, Chapter 4, verses 14 through 16. And then I want to tie it all together with the story of Esther.

And I want to show you two things. Interesting thing about the Book of Esther, only Esther and Song of Solomon. There's only two books in the Bible that don't mention God. No mention of God.

No mention of Jehovah, Yahweh, Elohim, nothing. But God is all through the Book of Esther. And when we look at that later at the end, I want you to see some types and shadows. I want you to see a shadow of Jesus, our King, and actually this worldly King called King of Hazers.

So we'll get there. All right, Galatians 5, verses 1 through 4. Let me pick up in my Bible. What kind of grace are we accessing?

The grace that we stand in? I'm going to ask you one more time. What kind of grace are we accessing? The grace that we stand in?

All right, so if I'm not standing in it, I can't access it. Because this is access to the grace that I'm standing in. All right, so it's important. Galatians 5, 1, Paul starts out with two words.

What are they? Stand fast. Stand firm. Maintain your position.

Don't move. He says, stand fast. Therefore, in the liberty, now last week, Seth also talked about the grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The effect of truth is what?

And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Whom the sun sets free, John 836 is free indeed. Jesus is both grace and truth. And Seth made the comment I thought was really good was that people today will try to weaponize truth to bring you into condemnation as opposed to releasing the truth of the gospel that's supposed to have the effect of freedom.

And so that he says, stand fast in the freedom by which Christ has made you free. Where did the freedom come from? Christ, whom the sun sets free is free indeed. All right, so I'm standing here.

I've been made righteous. I've been set free. I'm free. I'm standing here.

Paul says, stand firm. Stand fast therefore in the liberty or freedom by which Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again. You said entangled again. If I'm going to have the potential to be entangled again, that infers that I had been entangled before, right?

So he says, don't be entangled again with what? The yoke of bondage, it's also the yoke of slavery. Now right away, I want to compare this. Jesus talked about a different yoke.

We have the yoke here he's talking about. We're going to see is the yoke of the law. The yoke of the law was heavy. The yoke of the law was burdensome.

You couldn't keep it. But Jesus talked about another yoke. He said, come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden. And I will give you rest.

He says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart. He said, because my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So the yoke of the law is heavy. If you remember, if you think about two oxen pulling a cart, they put a yoke around them.

So there's a yoke of the law that's very heavy in burdensome. And then there's the yoke of grace that Jesus puts on us that brings us rest, that teaches us. So I've talked about the grace teaches from the book of Titus last week. Grace teaches us how to live.

So he says, I'm gentle. I'm lowly in heart. I have a yoke, but it's an easy yoke. It's a teaching yoke.

It's the yoke of grace. It brings rest to your life, not effort. And so Paul says, as he says, Dan, fast therefore, in the liberty by which Christ is made, it's free to not be tangled again with the yoke of bondage. Indeed, I, Paul, say to you, if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.

Well, circumcision today is not really a hot button. I don't really see people on Facebook making circumcision videos. Yeah, you women have no idea. My parents waited till I was two.

Don't tell me kids can't remember things when they're two years old. Circumcision was an act that Jewish people did that was a symbol of their token of the relationship with God. We know in the New Covenant that we have circumcision of the heart or a cutting away of the flesh of the heart. But what was happening at the time, Jewish people were infiltrating those who were not of Jewish descent and requiring them to get circumcised, because they thought that was what was necessary.

The principle doesn't really apply today. That's not a hot button today, but the principle still applies. We just substitute other things in there. We might substitute water baptism.

We might substitute church attendance. We might substitute whatever. But anything that we do other than receiving what Jesus did, what's the result? There's four things to happen because this.

Number one is this, Christ is of no advantage to you. Christ is the person who is the most advantageous person in the universe, Jesus Christ, becomes of no advantage to you. He's no profit to you. So when you start to do things to maintain this, all of a sudden, when you try to maintain that, He becomes unprofitable.

No advantage. No benefit to you. The first three says this. Next slide.

It says, and I testify again, everyone who becomes circumcised not only does Christ become no profit to you, but when you pick one thing, I bless you, when you pick one thing out of the law and say, well, I'm going to focus on this, Paul says, if you pick one, you can't just pick one, you now have an obligation to keep the whole thing. Some people say, well, you need to observe the Sabbath. OK? If you want to do that, then you need to keep all 613.

If you're going to enforce tithing as a law, then you need to keep all 613. It's not that you can pick and choose that of the law. If you pick one, you become under obligation or in debt to the whole thing. Because under the law, the only way to be righteous under the law was perfectly keep every one of the commands, which we know is impossible.

But if you go that way, you put yourself back under that, and Paul calls it a yoke of slavery. Number three is this. You become estranged. Now, look at your neighbor, and you might think your neighbor is strange.

It's not strange. It's not that you became strange. You became estranged. estranged means severed, separated.

You've cut off the life flow because you've moved from where you should be standing to here. The word estranged actually means to render idle or to unemployed or to deprive of influence or power. I like to think of it like this way. When I move from the place I should be standing in and go back over here to try to maintain my own righteousness, I just unemployed Jesus.

Think of Jesus standing in the unemployment line waiting to get his check, because that's what you just did. The person with all power, all might, all provision, all everything, you just fired him. You put him on unemployment, because when you begin to work, Jesus rests. But when you rest by standing, he goes to work.

See, when you try to do it, you unemployed him, because he's not competing for the job. He's already done it. Our job is to stand in the thing that he's already done. It says you become estranged.

You become severed. You become disconnected from the anointed one, Christ. You who attempt to be justified by the law, look at this. You have fallen from grace.

To fall means to descend. It means to go from a higher plane to a lower one. It means to come from a higher place to a lower place. Falling from grace is not falling into sin.

Falling from grace is falling back into the law mentality of maintaining your unrighteousness. See, when you think of falling from grace, we think, well, that person, oh, they're living a life of sin. That's not falling from grace. Falling from grace, according to the apostle Paul, is going back under the yoke of the law.

And if you fall from something, that tells me the place that I fell from is higher than the place that I fell to. Just in chapter four, we're not going to read it. But Paul talks about the law and grace in the term of Abraham's two sons. You read it when you're in chapter four Galatians.

He says this. He said, do you not know that Abraham had two sons? Ishmael and Isaac, right? He said, those two sons.

He says, one was born of Hagar, the bond woman, or she was a slave. The other was born of Sarah, his natural wife, or the free woman. So he has two sons born of two women. One woman was a slave woman.

Hagar, one was a free woman, Sarah. He said that Hagar, who had a son Ishmael, who was born after the flesh, Sarah, the free woman, had a son Isaac that was born, was the son of promise who was born after the spirit. He said, these two women correspond to two mountains. Hagar, who represents the law, corresponds to Mount Sinai and the Jerusalem that now is, whose children are in slavery right now.

Sarah corresponds to Mount Zion or the heavenly Jerusalem, whose children are free. So he's saying that Sarah, remember, the law was given on Mount Sinai. Sarah corresponds to Mount Sinai. The children that are born out of the law were born by effort.

Ishmael was born through the effort of Abraham. The one that the children that are born through grace are born after the spirit that come through the free woman, and Paul says this, we're her children. We're not this woman's children, we're this woman's children. But he says that the two covenants represent two mountains, Mount Sinai and Mount Zion.

Mount Sinai represents the Jerusalem that now is. The Jerusalem that now is is where it's on the earth, right? The Jerusalem that's above the heavenly Jerusalem is where? It's not your question.

It's heaven. So you've got one down here that leads to bondage, and you've got one up here that leads to freedom. And he says, when this is where you stand, but when you try to go back under the law, which is down here, you fall from the place that you were down to here. And that's what it means to fall from grace.

It's like this. If I'm standing in grace, I'm standing at a position that's in a realm that's not even of this earth. I'm standing in a heavenly realm. And I'm fixed here.

Paul says to stand here. But where I stand is the place that I can access, right? So in order to access it, I have to be standing. I can't walk unless I first stand.

So I'm standing here. But when I access it, I access it how? By faith, which means anytime we take a step of faith, there's an element of risk. It means I can't see what's there.

But I have God's word as my confidence, knowing that when I step, and when I take a step, that there's a new grace going to be there. And when I stand in this one, and he calls me deeper, and I take another step of faith, there's grace there. But see what happens. Whoops.

Don't fall for grace. There's more grace. See what happens is the people that are down here by a bunch of crabs in a bucket, they see you standing in grace that they're not standing in. And they're trying to pull you down to the level of the earth.

They're trying to pull you back into works. Oh, don't follow that greasy grace. That's a slippery slope. Don't follow the grace message.

See what happens is we get so worried about falling into error when it comes to grace. We create rules that actually inhibit us from walking into what God wants us to call us into. See, in trying to keep people from going into error, they create more error. And what God wants, he just wants you to be confident in what he's done, stand in it, and then take a step.

And there's grace there. And then I take another step. And there's grace there. See, and if I make a mistake and I fall from grace, Jesus never told somebody to walk before he told them to stand.

See, people will say, you've got to crawl before you walk. But I submit to you, you have to stand before you walk. See, when Jesus went to the pool of Bethesda and he sees the guy who's been laying for 38 years, he didn't just say walk. He said, stand.

Take up your mat and walk. You've got to stand first. If you're not standing in the grace that you've received, you can't walk into the grace that he has. See, well, here's what people try to do.

See, if you're supposed to stand in this realm, this is where grace is accessed here. If I'm down here, living at the sea level of self-effort, I can't, I can bump into it, but I can't access it. Because the only way to get there is to stand here by faith. It's not to walk around and like, we're bumping into grace and oh, I touched a little, you know, you have to stand in the thing that he's provided.

You've got to be solid in it. And when you have that confidence, you can step into it. By faith. Thank you, Pastor Seth.

I don't know about you, but I'm sweating. Let's go. Feel like I'm back in India. All right, next slide.

So I want to read this. Remember, I want to read a couple of scriptures. I want to put these together today. You guys good?

He first chapter four. None of these are all familiar passages. Seeing then, remember, faith. How can you see something that's in the heavenly realm?

You can't naturally, but you see it with eyes of faith, right? Seeing then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. Where is your high priest? He's there.

Where are you seated? You're seated there. Don't live here. Don't live at the sea level of self-effort.

Step into the realm that's in the heavenly realm where the person of grace is seated. It says we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Let us hold fast. So we're to stand, get your feet planted.

Now get your mouth in gear. Because what happens, we stand there and then we melee mouth. Well, I don't know if I'm going to get in today. I don't know if God's going to let me in.

I don't think you start talking about all the stuff you did instead of talking about the one thing that Jesus did that made you righteous. Hold your profession. Hold fast onto it. Know what you believe.

Faith speaks. The righteousness of faith speaks this way. I believed and therefore I spoke. He says, hold fast your confession.

Verse 15, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses. Sympathize just means this. It means that to have shared pain. It means that Jesus went through the same pain that you go through.

Have you ever gone through a traumatic event? I think we all have. One way or another. When you see somebody else go through that same traumatic event, you have a shared pain.

You have a common experience. Jesus suffered every single thing that each one of us individually and collectively will ever go through. He feels it. He's touched by it because he was here as us.

He feels it. It says we don't have a high priest. It can't be touched. We do have a high priest that is touched.

With our weaknesses was in all points tempted as we were, or yet without sin. It means he did it perfectly. Verse 16, therefore, because of that, because we have a high priest who's in the heavens, because we have a high priest that one day came to earth, went through everything we went to before he ascended, because he's there, because he did it perfectly, he has an eternal priesthood, a priesthood after the order of Melchizedek, who had no beginning, no end, no mother, no father, which means his priesthood never changes. This is an eternal fact.

Because of that, let us therefore come boldly. I'm not coming with my head hanging down. Humility is not self-deprecation. Humility is accurately discerning who you are in Christ.

It's not arrogance, and it's not self-deprecation. It's knowing who you are and who he's made you to be. I can come boldly. I can come with assurance.

The word boldly there actually has the connotation of speaking with boldness. When the disciples in Acts 4 said, we prayed that you would fill us. It said that the Holy Spirit descended, the place where they prayed was shaken, and they went out and spoke the word of God with boldness. Remember I said, hold fast to your confession, because there's a speaking that takes place here.

There's a bold speaking. Not only am I bold in who I am, but I'm confident in what I say. I believe what God's word says, and I'm confessing it. He says, be bold.

Come boldly to the throne. The throne is the seat of Kingly power. It's the place where the king sits. It's where all power and authority flows from.

There's a throne called grace. That there's a place where grace is dispensed from a king who has all authority and all power to release it. That's where I'm standing. I'm standing facing the throne of grace.

Like I need grace. We talked about multi-dimensions of grace. It says that when we come boldly to the throne of grace that we may do what? Obtain.

That word obtain means to seize with the hand. It means to make it your own. It actually means to receive that which has been given. So I'm coming to the throne of grace to receive what?

Mercy. So a lot of times we, remember how we, I won't go back there, but grace has multi-dimensions, right? Mercy is multi-dimensional too. See what happens a lot of times when we minimize grace and mercy to these two definitions, and I've been guilty of this, so forgive me.

Grace is getting something good you don't deserve. Mercy not getting something bad that you do deserve. So mercy, one aspect of mercy is not receiving the punishment you deserve, that God is withholding it. But that's just one dimension of mercy.

Mercy also means this. It's goodwill or kindness against somebody who is struggling or in a difficult situation with, joined with the intention to help them. It's somebody that is miserable, actually it's the word miserable. You know any miserable people?

It's the action of kindness or goodwill toward the miserable with, joined with the intention of doing something about it. It's not just kindness, it's just not just gonna be nice to them. I wanna fix the problem. See if you think about it when the woman, you remember the woman and Jesus said, you know, she's like, well even the dogs, even the bread of the master's table, that woman, the Canaanite woman, when she abroached Jesus, she said, Jesus have mercy on me, my daughter is demon possessed.

When the man who had the epileptic son that was had a deaf and mute spirit, he said have mercy on him. When the blind two blind men, when Jesus passed by, they say, son of David, have mercy on us. When blind Bartimaeus, Jesus went to him, he said, have mercy on me. When the 10 lepers came to Jesus, they said, master, have mercy on us.

When the rich man was in Hades, he looks across the golf to Abraham, he says, father Abraham, send Lazarus to dip his finger in water that you may touch it on my tongue, because I'm being tormented by these flames. Mercy in that case was the act of touching water on a tongue, which didn't happen. But mercy is more than just not getting the bad that you do deserve. It's actually receiving the kindness and goodwill of God because you're in a miserable situation and I need some help.

And we go to the throne of grace to obtain mercy. See, compassion is love and action. Mercy is the fruit of compassion. So that when Jesus was moved with compassion and he healed the multitudes, the healing that took place that they received was the mercy that was the result of the compassion that he was moved by.

That's what we can get. And you can get it when you stand in the grace that you've already received. That you may obtain mercy and do what? Well, I didn't know grace was lost.

Somebody go find grace. That you may find grace. I love this word, find. In the Greek, it's the word, harisco.

It means to find by observation or discovery or experience. Hereco is where we get the English word, eureka. Eureka, what does that mean? I found it that there is grace that God has hidden for billions of years that he's just waiting for you to step into so you can discover it.

See, it's there. He's not creating it. He's hidden it for you. That you can step in and be like, my gosh, I just found it.

You didn't invent it, but you discovered it. It's like Madame Curie, my wife and I watched a movie going to India called Radioactive. And it was Madame and Pierre Curie that had the peace prizes for developing and finding radioactivity. And it discovers radon and out of that comes x-rays.

Out of that comes radiation treatments for cancer because they discovered something that God had hidden in creation that wasn't new. It just wasn't discovered yet. And I propose to you that God has grace that you need to discover that could actually impact millions of people. He's just waiting for somebody to stand and then take a step to receive it, to discover it.

That there's grace that you can't even exhaust it. As Seth said, it's bigger than you can imagine. Why would you want to limit it? That we may find, obtain mercy and find grace, what?

Grace to help. So they're saving grace. There's empowering grace. There's enriching grace.

There's giftings of grace. This is helping grace. There's grace to help. That word help is Beo Thea.

Beo Thea is two words. It comes from the word Beo, which means to cry. And say-o, which means to run. It's, here's what it is.

It had to do when somebody was hurt on a military field. Imagine in a battle, somebody's wounded. Help, help. And upon hearing the cry, Beo, somebody sprung into action and ran to them to bring help in their time and need.

That's what help is, but they owe. It means running to the cry for help. That when you stand there, God runs to you. When the prodigal son came home, the father scanning the horizon, and when he saw him afar off, he ran to him.

That we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time and need. The time and need is just this. It's echikairos, which means the opportune time, the exact moment that God has grace for you for this moment. Right now, for what you're going through today.

There's grace there. There's mercy there. There's grace to help now. But if you're living at the sea level of self-effort, you're going to forfeit the grace that he has today for you.

Because you're over here trying to earn it. And you just rendered him unemployed. All right, let's wrap this up with the story of Esther. Was I done with Hebrews?

I think so. Somebody said the other day. Pastor sat told me. He said, so and so goes.

Yeah, I like Fred. He's a real grace guy. I said, shouldn't everybody be a grace guy? Like, wouldn't everybody want to be a grace guy, or a grace girl?

Like, Jesus was a grace guy. Grace and truth. He's grace personified. If Jesus is the person of grace, and I'm made in his image, and he perfectly reflected the father, and he's in me, wouldn't I just naturally be a grace guy?

Like, it's not something to earn or to deserve. Like, we all should be. This should like stir something in you. If this doesn't stir you up, you got a problem.

And I know the answer. His name is Jesus. All right, so here's what I want. I want to just give you a picture.

You guys, you'll have to read the book of Esther. I can do this in 10 minutes. You'll have to read the book. So just a little background.

If you haven't read the book of Esther, King of Hasris, he's like the, he's over 127 provinces. He has a party. All his staff, everybody from these 127 provinces, they have a party for 180 days. Now that's a party.

And it was open access. And at the end of that, he invites more people and has another party for seven days. And he decides when he gets, he has a bunch of wine. He says, I'm going to bring my wife in.

I'm going to parade her around. And she refuses. So because she refuses to do it, people said, well, if you don't do something, all the women are going to rise up against her husband. So you've got to make an example of her.

So he banishes her from being queen. And so they say, you need to go look for somebody else. So he brings all the young virgins in from all the area. And they go through a one year process.

And after a year, it's like six months of oil and six months of like it's like getting a massage for a year. I mean, that would be pretty cool. You're not getting a massage for a year. You're already married.

So yeah. OK, you're not. Are you anybody come into singles? Just Wendy's going to be getting two weeks of massages and treatments leading up to the couple's dinner.

So they would bring these women in one at a time in front of King Hasris. And it doesn't really tell you what happened between the night and the next morning, but whatever. And if he called them back, then they were the one. And so Esther's turn, who's called Haddasah, she's now Esther, her turn comes up.

And so now I want you to remember, God is not mentioned in his book at all. And King Hasris is not a Jewish guy. He's outside the covenant. But I want you to see the picture of the King of Kings in the bride of Christ.

I want you to see that. It said, so Esther was taken to King Hasris into his royal palace the 10th month, which is the month of Tabith. Interesting, the word Tabith means goodness. We're in the 10th month perfection in the month of goodness.

Every good and perfect gift. The month of goodness, the 10th month, in the seventh year of his reign, the King loved Esther more than all the other women. And she obtained grace and favor in his sight, more than all the virgins. So he set the royal crown upon her head, made her queen, instead of Ashthai.

The King, now remember, she's an orphan. She's brought up by her uncle Mordecai. And she gets brought in from nothing. And now she's being made queen.

It says, the King loved her more than. It's really stuck out to me yesterday. He loved her more than all the other women. And she obtained grace and favor more than all the other virgins.

That there is a direct proportion between the King's favor and his love. That his grace and favor to you are in direct proportion to his love for you. He loved her more than. And she received more than.

And so as the King of Kings, Jesus loves you indefinitely, I mean, infinitely, that his grace and favor for you is equivalent to his love for you. So think about this. We want to talk about that the day we become part of the body of Christ, the day we become part of the bride of Christ, is the day that we receive saving grace. I think that's what this represents here.

She comes in, he loves her, not because she did anything. He loves her, she receives favor, and he makes her his bride. Saving grace. But then what happens is after she becomes his bride, she has a time of need.

If you remember, the second highest ranking guy named Haman just hates Mordecai, her uncle, wants to get rid of the Jews, makes it decree that all the Jews will be killed in the 13th of the month, and it goes out to all the provinces. They're all going to die. And so Mordecai, her uncle, says, you need to go to the King. You need to go to the King and implore him to save your people.

And don't think, just because you're queen, that it's not going to happen to you too. See, just because she was the bride of the King didn't insulate her from having a desperate time of need. Just because you're part of the bride of Christ does not insulate you from dealing with difficult issues in life. There will come times when you have a time of need.

It will be desperate. It'll be difficult. But let me tell you the good news, is you can obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need. But I want you to notice how she did this.

Mordecai says, go plead before the King. That's exactly what he says. But she didn't plead before the King. Look what she did in chapter five.

Skip ahead. It happened on the, what day? The third day. Now she fasted for three days.

On the third day, there's a whole message there. I'm not going to go there. But on the third day, what did she put on? She, go back.

Wait a minute. On the third day, back one side, Esther put on her righteousness is your robe. She was an orphan. Where did she get a robe?

From the King. Her royal robe came from her royal husband. She wasn't wearing an orphan's clothes. She won the third day.

She put on the robe of what? Righteousness. I propose to you, Paul says in Romans four, he says that Jesus was delivered up for our offenses. And he was raised up because of our justification.

Because I sinned, he went to the cross. And because I was declared righteous, God raised him from the dead, has proof that God accepted the payment. So Jesus was raised because I made righteous. The Bible says that we died with Christ.

We were buried with Christ. We rose with Christ and we are seated with Christ. I propose to you that in the spirit realm, outside of time and space, that when you died with Christ, rose with Christ on the third day, you rose on the third day with your robe of righteousness. And on the third day, she puts on her royal robe and fell down.

What'd she do? She stood. What are we to do? Stand firm.

She stood where? The inner court, the word inner is the exact same word as the holy of holies. She stood in the holy of holies. That's part of the most intimate place with the King.

Of the King's palace, across in the King's house, while the King sat where? On his throne. That we come to the throne of grace. The place where the King sits, that he has all power to dispense, everything you ever need.

Facing the entrance of the house. Now, verse two. So it was when the King saw Esther standing. Esther was standing.

Stand firm. We come to the throne room standing in the grace that we have. She received grace the day she got made queen, but now she's standing in the grace she has so that she can obtain grace that she needs for the situation that she's now in. And when he sees her standing there, she found what?

Favor. She found favor. Go back. She found favor in his sight.

The King reed, held out the golden scepter that was in his hand. Esther went, touch the top of the scepter. For time we're gonna go on. Next slide.

And the King said to her, what do you wish queen Esther? What's your request that she'll be given to you up to half of the kingdom? She didn't beg, she didn't plead, she didn't grovel, she didn't crawl. She put on her robe.

That was given to her by her husband. And she stood in the presence of the throne of the King. And when the King saw her standing, she received favor to help in the time of need. And this King, although he's a picture of our King, he falls short because he only offers her up to half of the kingdom.

But Jesus says, don't fear my little flock, for it is the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Like when he gives, he doesn't give half. It's a picture, but it's not a perfect picture because your King Jesus paid for everything so that you can receive everything that he paid for. It says in Hebrews, it says, without faith, it is impossible to please God.

So you're pleasing to God the way you are. He's pleased with you because you're in Christ. But when it comes to stepping out in faith, it brings pleasure to Abba Father's heart, that you walk into faith to access the things that he has for you. Without faith, it is impossible to please God for those who come to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him, who diligently seek him.

See, Jesus has paid it all. Jesus paid for your sin so you could be forgiven. He paid for your kids, he paid for your spouse, he paid for your sickness, he paid for your disease, he paid for your shame, your guilt, he paid for you to have a job, he paid for everything. There's, sometimes we think things in life are too insignificant for God.

Well, I'm not going to God with a cold because it's not cancer. Well, he paid for it. See, it doesn't take God any more power to heal leukemia than it does to heal the flu. It's the same power that he released 2000 years ago.

In Christ, he released grace that's now been hidden for anything you're going through, just waiting for you to say, you're Rika, I found it. And who knows that maybe it's the grace that you need, but it might be the grace that your neighbor needs that you can now share with him. See, that maybe it's the thing that God wants to impart to you that he wants you to release into somebody else, because it's not always about you. See, to me, it's an act of selfishness not to step into what God has paid for.

It's arrogance for one to think that I can do what Jesus did and do it better. Why would I want to unemployee the King of Kings? I want to keep him working. I want to keep Jesus active and employed in my life.

But then why would I ever not want to step into the more of God? I'm not that good. Like I'm not there yet. There's grace that I need today.

Like I'm going through stuff. You've got to be going through stuff. But God has grace to be discovered right now. Right now he's got grace for you.