God’s Love and Grace Draws Us and Keeps Us

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More Lessons from the Book of Galatians — short video clips.

Highlights from the message 

We tend to think that God stands at some antiseptic distance from our sin and our failures and waits for us to clean up our acts before we can approach Him.  But that’s not who He is.

If the arrival of Jesus 2,000 years ago tells us anything, it tells us that God meets us in our sin, in our failure He curls up on the bathroom floor with us and reminds us that He will never leave us, never forsake us.

There’s nothing we can do, or fail to do, that will ever get him to walk away, reject us, or unjustify us.

A Story from Civil War Days

Whether this really happened or not I don’t know. But there’s a well-known story about a northerner who went to a slave auction and purchased a young slave girl.

She looked at the man who was bidding on her and she figured he was just another white man who was going to buy her and then abuse her.  It’s the way she had lived her life and he won the bid.  As they walked away from the auction the man turned to the girl and told her you’re free.  She was confused because she had never heard those words before, and asked, what do you mean? He looked at her with a smile on his face, and he said, you’re free.  She asked, you mean I’m free to do whatever I want? He said, yes, you’re free to do whatever you want, say whatever you want, do whatever you want, and go wherever you want.  Then she looked at him with tears streaming down her face and said, then I will go with you.

That’s the effect that unconditional love has on us.  

It’s the unconditionality of God’s love and grace, His mercy, which is new every morning, and His forgiveness, which is final and full for us, that over time softens our heart and woos us and makes us want to go with Him.

The unconditional love from God doesn’t make us want to leave Him and sin more. It melts our hearts and makes us want to go with Him, follow Him, keep Him close.

Paul here says, you know the law can’t do any of that stuff.  The Law may modify your behavior temporarily but if behavior modification was what God was after he would have praised the Pharisees.  He didn’t. He called them whitewashed tombs and said, you are clean on the outside. Your behavior is on point, but you are dead on the inside.  He said, with your lips you worship Me but your hearts are far from Me.  The heart is always what God is after, and it’s His mercy and His grace that softens it, melts it, and makes us go with Him.

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Video clips from Pastor Tullian Tchividjian, The Sanctuary Jupiter, FL

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Lessons from the Book of Galatians — short video clips.

About Tullian Tchividjian

Tullian is the pastor at The Sanctuary church in Jupiter, Florida. He is the grandson of the late evangelist Billy Graham and his wife Ruth Graham. Tullian pastored two churches in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, before planting The Sanctuary in Jupiter.  The Sanctuary is a non-denominational church proclaiming the boundless love of Jesus to a broken world.  Because of what Jesus has accomplished for us, The Sanctuary is a place to find love and laughter, hope and healing, acceptance and forgiveness, and mercy and help. Watch more of Pastor Tullian's messages on The Sanctuary's YouTube.channel.  Connect with the church on Facebook or online. Find Tulllian's books on Amazon.