Already Approved | GRACE WINS AGAIN | Julia Veach

Last week, Chad talked about the reality of grace and truth. And uh so this week, our staff, we were pointing who was truth and who was grace out, you know. So uh don't be like us uh that points fingers after a message. Apply the message, receive the message.

No. Uh it's been an unbelievable series. And so if you haven't had a chance, if it is your first time, you can go back on YouTube and check out the messages. Uh but we've been in a series on grace and uh it's been unbelievable. If I'm being honest, I'm more of a works girl, you know, like uh I I related with Martha, not so much Mary.

These are Bible jokes. But uh but I'm excited to share because I always feel like when I am preparing, I'm like, God, you're speaking to me as well. And uh I'm excited to share this message. Uh grace is not just a principle. It's a person we've been learning about. uh it's not just an idea or a theological term but it's actually Jesus his heart reaching towards humanity reaching towards us today.

Uh it means we've heard an undeserved unmmerited unwarranted unearned blessing. It's this free beautiful gift that we get to all receive today. And when you receive his grace, you're admitting something so beautiful and something so powerful. You're admitting I didn't earn this. I didn't deserve this. And uh but I will say yes and I will receive it anyway.

Anyone like something free? All the youngest kids, they like that free unearned stuff. No. Yeah. Okay. Just mine. He's been putting things in my Amazon cart. I see you. my shopper. I love it. In our world though, everything it runs on earning. It runs on an exchange. We work for promotions. we put in the hard work or we study for the degree or we train for the championship or if you're like me I eat 200 grams of protein and take all the supplements and use cort cortisol management and whatnot just to feel four months younger in age like we put in the work to res to to reach a result >> we want an exchange of earning for something.

And grace is that tricky concept where uh you're like, "Wait a minute. This plus this does not always equal this." And grace is when God looks at you before you've performed before you've proved anything and says, "I love you just the way you are >> and I choose you anyway.

I choose you and I want you just the way you are. It's like uh I I was a non-athlete. Okay. Uh so I was uh in the choir, you know, had was in leadership and choir, but um it I I attended a few teams and when they got the championship award, I gladly took it, but I knew that I wasn't a key player.

So, um, it's like all of us today that are like me, we're receiving our participation trophy, okay? You know, it's it's that unearn win. It feels unfair sometimes because it actually is. And that's why we call it amazing grace. Uh, I'm looking at this verse in second Corinthians.

Paul uh says these beautiful words chapter 12 it says my grace is sufficient it's enough for you for my power is made perfect in weakness. This verse is a direct response to Paul's uh persistent uh and troubling and debilitating pain that he's been in. He actually refers to this three different times as a thorn in his flesh.

He has this condition that is frustrating to him. So he goes to God and he says, "God, heal me of this. This is a thorn in my flesh. This is painful. This is this is frustrating." So Paul pleaded with God three times to remove this. And God in exchange, he answered his prayer in a different way.

Doesn't that sound familiar? Sometimes you're like, "God, I need you to get on my schedule. If we could just link and share calendars, and if you could just know exactly what I need, that would be very helpful for my organizational leadership here, you know." But God God responds to Paul in a way and he answers Paul and shifts his perspective.

And I love that the second part of this verse is a realization that in Paul's weakness uh it wasn't something to be ashamed of that in his weakness became an opportunity for Christ's power to be displayed through him. And this led Paul to have more confidence even in his weakness, even with his condition.

The second part says, "Therefore, I will," Paul is saying this, "I will boast. I will have confidence all the more gladly." He's saying, "I will be glad. I will choose to put my confidence and boast about my weakness so that Christ's power may rest on me." This principle of perspective that Paul talks about uh is that he is gaining an understanding that in his condition in his weakness he will still boast about Christ's grace, Christ's goodness and Christ's ability to be able to work powerfully powerfully through our weakness.

And in that place he finds confidence. In that place he finds hope. I really do believe that it is a cornerstone of our Christian faith. Emphasizing that God's strength is most visible. It's most active. It's most on display when we fail. And as believers, we must rely and depend on his grace instead of our own abilities and our own merits and our own earned worthiness or our earned um our earned uh accolades.

And today I want to talk about something. If you're taking notes, I've titled uh this talk over the next few minutes uh unlearning earning. Unlearning, earning. >> Here's the thing. I love to earn. I like the work. I like the hustle. I like to put in the work.

I like uh I I like to do things. When Chad said yes to marrying me, he said yes to marrying the girl. Uh that self-care is productivity. It's like I, you know, I know that this is messed up, but like you know those people that like before they go on vacation like every drawer needs to be organized.

Uh, every corner needs to be cleaned like before you earn the rest. Like this was me. Like I uh I say was it kind of still is. I'm I'm in progress. Thank you for his grace. It's sufficient. It's enough in my weakness. Uh but then I like we go on a trip for 24 hours and it's like I I need to like unpack.

There is like safety when the socks are in their secure place in a drawer, you know? Like I he signed up for marrying the girls that have girl that had not girls plural just one. It's one. Sometimes it's girls. I don't know. You don't know who you're going to get.

There's two of me. Boo. Boo. Uh no. Just one singular. Uh he signed up for marrying the girl that is uh you know is from the Turkey Trot family. Uh-oh. You know like we have to earn those calories. we have to work before we rest, you know. Meanwhile, his family is just, you know, they wake up with a mentality of grace.

Like they're watching the parade and sipping their coffee. It looks good, but like we I like I'm the earner, you know, like uh I I do naturally combat this concept of accepting and earning love. And I have learned through a lot of years that it requires me to unlearn different mentalities, different uh uh thinking patterns.

And I think that sometimes the problem is that we start bringing this same system of earning into our relationship with God, but also with others. And suddenly faith becomes performance and love becomes something that we think we have to prove. Yes. Like love is patient. Love is kind.

Love uh it it it is all those beautiful things that the New Testament talks about. But but love is love is love is a reflection of who God is in our life. And the first thing that we need to unlearn is performance. Why we try to prove what God already gives. >> Grace is hard for all of us to receive.

Not because it isn't available, not because we don't recognize that it's this amazing free gift that we've been given, but because it contradicts everything that we've been taught about earning our entire lives. I had already mentioned if I put in the work, if I study hard, I will get this.

And then there's those frustrating people that just show up and just get the A or get this. You know, it it does it performancebased mentality is how we are wired and how how we have been conditioned to think. We've been trained to perform. We we we've been we have been conditioned to prove that we belong to earn our worth to earn our value.

Now I have uh four kids my younger two are in the service today and I would say out of all the kids those younger two yes he's trying to stand. Uh they're my performers. They're more Yes. One is actually performing right now. Um honey sit down. Uh I grew up with all girls in my family.

I'm the oldest of four girls and uh we uh I mentioned that I was in choir. We were also theater kids. Okay. Yep. This is and uh one thing about a theater home, you know, Chad didn't just marry into the Turkey Trot family. He married into the family that like sings around the piano.

Now you think um just because we're not on a baseball field doesn't mean that we are not competitive. We are the most competitive people you've ever met. Now, if you are new to a worship experience and someone next to you today sang very loudly and in four-part harmony, that is a theater kid that is next to you because they are going to let themselves known.

And it escalates and it's competitive. And I don't know why we have to bow all the way to the ground. Like it is very dramatic everything that we do. Now, my younger two boys, like they are competitive. Now, when they perform, I just think we're just like doing a bop.

Like, we're just doing a little song in our kitchen. We're adding celebration. All of a sudden, it escalates. Am I the one on the island dancing? Yes, I someone is swinging from a light. Chad doesn't know what to do with us theatrics in our home. But, uh, performance can get competitive.

It can feel like I'm going and I'm proving and I'm I am doing and it's on display because in exchange there's an accolade, >> there's an acceptance, there is an approval, there's an applause. And we've been conditioned for this performance base, but grace doesn't it doesn't work that way.

Ephesians 2. I love what Paul says here too. It says, "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith." And this is not from yourselves. >> It is not your gift. It is the gift of God. Not by works, not by theatrics, not by performance, so that no one can boast.

Paul isn't rejecting boasting here. He's redefining it. He's saying in the old system, earning and performance, boasting is pride in what we did. But in the grace system, boasting becomes joy in what God did through us. See, we don't have to earn this. We don't have to perform for him.

We already have him. We already have him saying, "I love you. you. I choose you. I accept you. I know you. In Luke, in the chapter of Luke, there is a story of the prodical son. It's one of my favorite pictures of grace where the father um he is standing at the edge of his property, looking and longing and waiting for his son that squandered his inheritance and his wealth and left and he spent it all.

But he's looking and he's longing for his son to come back home. And so his son, his younger son, uh he finally comes back home. And so the dad is saying, uh I am so grateful that you came back home that I am going to throw you the best of the best parties and we are going to celebrate your return return.

And it wasn't anything that the son did. He obviously did the opposite of earning or performing. There's a beautiful picture of grace. But the older son, he struggles with this concept. And it says in Luke 15 29, the older brother says, he answered his father and he says, "Look, all these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders.

I've been performing. I've been doing the right thing. Yet you never gave me even a young goat. so I could celebrate with my friends. But when the son of yours, this younger brother who has squandered your property with prostitute comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him.

My son, the father said, you are always with me and everything I have is yours. Everything I have is yours. this older brother, uh, he represents us who's still trying to earn everything that we have. >> He's living in the father's house. He's living the comfortable good life, but he still has a servant's mindset.

He's working for love instead of from love. And grace, it breaks that pressure of performance off of us. Grace, it it it it eliminates us saying, "I have to impress or perform for God because he already picked us." Amen. >> I love this concept of unlearning earning. It challenges us to think about something deeper.

Our need to control. Yeah, >> because grace doesn't just say stop earning. It also says start trusting. >> The second thing that we need to unlearn is the concept of power. We want to control what God actually wants us to trust. Do I like having control? Yes, of course I love having control.

Do I Do I like being in charge? Yes, of course. I like being in charge. Do I like when things are out of control and I and I don't have uh an ability to control the outcome? No. No. No. I don't. Uh I feel like some of the worst feeling is when you are lost or when you've lost something because now you cannot manage an outcome.

It's frustrating. Am I a good version of myself when I don't know the outcome and when I can't manage the outcome? Me questionable. I don't know, you know, but uh I'm just not the greatest version. Now, God's working on me and in me and I want to be someone that says, "I totally trust you."

But when I say that, what I mean is like I totally trust you and I recognize that you are capable, but I can totally do it better. So, you can go um do load the dishwasher and I'm going to just tiptoe over and I'm just going to rearrange the glasses so they are lined up just the way I like them.

You know, just a little bit. Uh I think that sometimes the concept of trusting as believers is saying, "Wow, God, I recognize that I cannot manage my outcome and I have to trust that it is your way and it is your thoughts and your word says they're higher than mine."

And so I have to relinquish my control and I have to trust that through your grace, you are actually going to produce an outcome that is better than anything I could have ever thought or imagined for my life. I think that control sometimes can give us a sense of safety.

I think we all like to feel secure and safe. Even if sometimes it's just an illusion that might feel harsh, but sometimes it is. And I think that if we can manage our own goodness, sometimes we feel like we can manage God's goodness to us. >> If I can control what I do, maybe I can control what he gives to me.

But grace doesn't flow through control. It flows through surrender. When we say, "God, I surrender. My life, my home, my finances, my children, my gifting, my calling is yours. And I trust you." And in that place, give me a revelation of your heart and your ways and your love for me.

And in turn, I can get a revelation of your love through others because I'm not so fixed on managing outcomes. Then I can look up and see and have perspective like Paul did to see that he I can boast. What does he say? More gladly. I can have more gladness and joy and contentment because I'm saying God I surrender to you and in exchange I will accept his grace and his peace.

I love in Matthew there's this parable um of workers in the vineyard in chapter 20 Jesus tells this story where these workers come uh to this land owner and the landowner goes out early in the morning and he hires all these workers for the vineyard. Now he agrees to pay them daenery for their hours of work.

So, some workers show up at 9:00 a.m. Some show up at 12:00 p.m. Some show up at 3:00 p.m. And some even show up at 5:00 p.m. And he lines them all up at the end of the day's work. And he pays them each the exact same wage.

Now, I'm the type that's going to show up for the 9:00 a.m. shift at 8:45. Like, I I told you like I like the work. I like to earn. I don't want the freeway. And it frustrated those firstborn nonamemers. Okay. And uh I love that in verse 12, naturally these early workers are frustrated.

They say uh these these who were hired last worked only one hour and you have made them equal to us. They're comparing, they're quantifying, they're measuring or managing the amount of earning or input. They have quantified this and they said equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.

It's hard out here. I was cheering for my son, uh, my youngest son yesterday in soccer and like the great encouraging parent I am, I made some suggestions from the sidelines and he came up to me during the game and he says, "Do you know how hard soccer is?"

And I was like, "You're right. I'm not playing. I'm just sitting in my nice chair with my water bottle. You are the one that's doing the hard work in the heat of the day." I get it. I get that it can be frustrating. And right after these verses in verse 13, the land over act the land owner actually responds and he says he answers to one of them I am not being unfair to you.

Didn't you agree to work for Daenerys? Didn't you all just sign up for the work? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right >> because I am the land owner. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money?

Or are you envious because I am so generous? >> Right after this verse is verse 16 and it says that the last shall be first and the first shall be last. Meaning that we serve a generous God >> who wants to give his children He wants to supply all of our needs. >> And we want God's generosity to make sense, but it doesn't. >> We want to measure it.

We want to quantify it. We want it to add up. And you don't get to control how good he is. We just get to trust and know that he is good. I love that so much because when we try to control his grace, we can miss it. >> When we try to measure it, we can we can limit its ability.

We can limit its ability. But when we trust his grace, when we surrender our lives to his generosity and his goodness, we get to walk and we get to experience how good it actually is. The third thing that we need to unlearn is our programming. Uh I don't know what you did on your Saturday, but yesterday uh we spent all day at a robotics competition.

Woo! 8:00 a.m. to 400 p.m. Uh no, actually we um we have been married for a long time, so we've got nothing to prove and we know our limitations. So Chad took the first shift and I took the second shift. Tag, you're in. Uh, no. We did robotics all day yesterday and it was amazing.

Now, I've never been to a robotics competition. Um, but am I all for uh my son joining the era of inventors? Absolutely. But this was way over my head. Oh, are you going to start the soft? Okay. in the first service he started and I was like, "You can't do the soft pedal when I go people, you know, like I'm the robot.

It just doesn't work." But he's going, "Anyways." Okay, Josh will talk later. Uh, okay. So, we're at robotics and like these brilliant kids like do such a good job. They have spent endless hours uh the coder and the designer and the developer and I watched some of these kids fall apart and my heart like broke because when they're up there and something wasn't going right with their robot like they were devastated because they had programmed this for months and months and months and then it's like no no no like I actually envisioned a specific outcome.

I I'm I'm not gonna win because something was disrupted. And a lot of times we feel that way and we're like, "No, no, no, no. Maybe I maybe I've been programmed because I've programmed myself, but maybe also culture or family values programmed us. Maybe uh the home environment that you came from, maybe uh you you came from a home where uh you weren't accepted or communicated uh love to you or told that you uh were um you were called and you were chosen.

Maybe you have been programmed to create a culture in your own life where there's a measurable outcome. >> And grace isn't like that. >> It disrupts. And I love Romans. It it te tells us that we do not need to conform >> to the patterns of this world.

The patterns of this world is not necessarily ways of um partying or doing things like the world, but it's ways of thinking like the world. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve. I love that. Test and approve what God's will is. his good, his pleasing, and his perfect will.

I don't know about you, but I need God to renew my mind, to transform me from the inside out, to reprogram the ways, that I have limited God's grace, that I have decided on my own merit that I need to earn love or I need to earn acceptance.

But God say no. We need to reprogram by renewing our mind to say God your ways are higher. Your thoughts are higher. I trust you. That's how good his grace is. The world says earn your place. Grace says you already have one. The world says prove your worth and grace says you are loved and that's it.

The world says don't show weakness and grace says my strength shows up in that space and in that place. It's a complete rewiring. It's a complete reprogramming. But I believe that in God's presence, he can renew our mind today. Amen. Amen. Lastly, the fourth thing that we need to unlearn is our past.

Maybe you're here and you feel disqualified by failure, by shame, by shortcoming. That's a real one. Maybe you feel like you don't measure up. not good enough. Someone might have told you once in your past that you were not good enough or you were undeserving and it stuck with you and it's been a part of your programming.

That past can shape us, right? But I love God is the God that restores. God is the God that renews. God is the God ((applause)) that recreates. >> He doesn't just pick up broken pieces. He puts things back together better than the way that they were. I believe here today that there are some people that for some it's maybe not the hardest reason for them to receive grace is not just pride but it's actually pain.

It's pain of failure, pain of shame or pain of our past. And I want to pray for us today that God in his presence can renew our mind into thinking that we are worthy of his grace and his goodness. Amen. Would you stand to your feet today as we read one last verse in first Timothy?

((music playing)) It says, "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy. So that in me the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience or let's put in the word grace there, his immense grace as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.

Some of you are living like your past has power over the purposes and the plans that God has for you today. With every eye closed, I want to pray right now.