Conditional Grace - Bennett Broadcast Ep. 12

Hello, Matt Bennett here. Welcome to the Bennett Broadcast episode 12 on Conditional Grace. Think about what could change and improve your life, maybe more than anything besides becoming a Christian. And that is understanding what conditional grace is. Many Christians do not receive everything the Lord would have for them because this is not understood. It's not even a phrase that's used very much, but understanding this phrase and seeing where it is in the scriptures, the concept of it and then applying to your life can possibly benefit and change your life more than anything else besides becoming a Christian. Again, thank you for watching the Bennett Broadcast. These are designed to help you grow in your love and devotion to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and to be an instrument of His grace in your family, in your community, and in the nation that we might see revival. We're taking a bunch of themes from the scriptures and looking in particular, how they affect revival, how to bring outpourings of a spirit, how to bring radical change to your own life and to friends, family, and the nation in every way. And this is the subject of conditional grace and it will change your life as it's understood and internalized. So this is essential for all Christians wanting to understand and know God and love him wholeheartedly. And we need to come to the Lord and understand him as he is and not just how we think he should be. And this is very critical. And the scriptures are here for this. They help us to understand as we do a deep dive, look at the passages, look at examples. We can understand the Lord as he is and how and why would we want him to know him in another way. We want to know him as he is and not some caricature of him. But in every age, every season of the church caricatures can arise. Some cases it might be a caricature where God is unloving and all he is is a taskmaster or something like that. And that's completely false. Another age is other aspects of who he is. What he is like and come to the fore that aren't quite accurate. And so the Lord's given us the scripture so that we can understand and take it in and know him as he is that we might walk with him, love him, know him, honor him and in every way. So let me start with this question for you for you to consider. Here it is, it's sad. There is nothing you can do to gain favor with God through your own efforts. Now think about that and consider that. Let me say it again. There's nothing you can do to gain favor with God through your own efforts. Do you agree or you do you disagree? I could slightly change the phrasing of this and it would change the answer yes or no, whether this is true or false. Just by slightly changing a few words in this. So the subtlety and the distinction is very important to know that we may walk with the Lord, please him and honor him. Let's look. This will become plain as we get into the passages. And as we consider the subject of conditional grace, I thought I would start with a quote from a famous reformed teacher. He teaches about this subject as well as other subjects in his book Future Grace. And Dr. Piper says this. He says, I know that for many people, the very term conditional grace sounds like a contradiction like dry water or short sky scraper. That is not entirely bad because in fact, not all grace is conditional. Some of it's unconditional. And not all that is conditional is conditional in the same way. Now this will be more apparent and be a easier to understand as we go through these next number of minutes in this Bennett broadcast and it will change your life as you understand it. I put him here at the beginning because I think it could be thought that well, if you're reformed and you don't believe in conditional grace, but conditional grace is everywhere in the Bible and all Christians should believe in it. And deep down, all Christians do believe in it, but it has to be explained and distinct brought to indistinction to unconditional grace. So I'm bringing here now a verse or a couple of verses that are used so often in revival. People quote this Old Testament versus a lot and it's a good passage to quote. There are others that can be quoted Old and New Testament, but this one is used a lot for good reasons. And you'll see here that it lays out conditions before the Lord will respond and pouring out his spirit. So this is second Chronicles 7, 13 to 15. Now listen to the first part, which is the conditions they have to be met. And then you'll see it's indistinction versus the second part, which is what we call revival. And that is God responding and wonderful and beautiful way, supernatural in our lives and community. So second Chronicles 7, 13 to 15 says when I shut up the heaven so that there is no rain or command the locust to devour the land or sin pestilence among the people. Okay, here we go. If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face in turn from their wicked ways. So these are the conditions says then this is the response. Then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and heal their land. That's revival. That is the Lord coming and working profoundly in our midst. Now my eyes will be open in my ears. It tends to the prayer that is made in this place. So the following sentence he says, this is real. I'm listening. I'm waiting. Are you going to do these things? Because if we do, he'll do his part. We got to do our part and then the Lord will do his part. This is a great example of conditional grace. So the first part again is and this lists a lot of the aspect. This doesn't list everything. What it means to seek the Lord, but it lists like four of the main ways or three of the main ways. We got to humble ourselves and we do that often with fasting, pray, we got to repent of our sins, turn from our wicked ways, obey the Lord, take in the scriptures, radically seek him. And another been a broadcast. I go more in depth than what it means to seek him and it's seven main dimensions. But when we do that, then the Lord does respond to us. And here he forgives sin, heals her land, and the new covenant he pours out a spirit and extraordinary measure much more than the old covenant, the Lord responds much more. It's not that the concept of conditional grace doesn't apply in the New Testament. It says that now we have more grace because of Jesus Christ because he's gone through. He destroyed the barrier between us and God no longer. I do sacrifices have to be made only once per year by the high priest, but the veil was ripped in the temple. And because of the blood of Jesus, we have greater access to him and him to us in this way. So when the New Testament, this is all the more true for us, more grace is given more than ever. And we see this all throughout the book of Acts and in Christian history. So let's look at a definition of what grace is. Grace is receiving something as a gift or a favor, not because it's owed or it's merited or it's earned. So what's the difference between unmerited grace and merited grace? Well, that's a trick question because there is no such thing as merited grace. Grace means a favor or a gift. It's not something you can merit or earn. And to call it merited grace makes no sense or even unmerited grace. You can say that to emphasize it, but it's you don't have to because inherent to the term grace is the concept of unmerited. It's like saying a free gift. Well, all gifts are free. That's what a gift is. But if you want to emphasize that you might put the word free there before it. So if that's the case, then what's this language about unconditional grace and conditional grace? If all grace is free and that is unmerited, then not given because it's owed. What is this? What is the distinction between conditional? Because there is both conditional and unconditional grace. Now, this is a great quote from Dallas Wallard, a who passed away not too long ago, 2013, professor of philosophy at USC has written a lot of respected Christian books. He says, this grace is opposed to earning, not opposed to effort. This will come out here more fully and explain conditional grace. You do have to put effort in at some level. So let's look at unconditional grace. And that is a grace given favor benefit of blessing where no conditions need to be met. So an example is God creating the universe and creating life. You did not, I did not, none of us did anything to meet conditions or met any conditions with this God just did it. It's an unconditional benefit that we have in our lives. Secondly, what about the gift of community? We, this passage in Genesis 2, 18 references Adam and Eve. But people in general, as we think about friends and families and people we come across, we get all the benefits of this. But this is something that God has given to us. We didn't meet any conditions for this. God's created many people in the world apart from anything that we did. Another example is the rising of the sun and the rain. This is referenced in Matthew 5, 45. And Jesus says, God does this all the time. He brings rain on communities and plants grow and you get prosperity. Or the sun rises and makes plants grow and you get it's warmth and heat. These are all things that God just gives to humanity. Another example is his patience and forbearance. In Romans 2, 4 it says God's patience leads to repentance. This is not something we merited or any conditions that we met either, but he just gives it. Also the offering of Christ sacrifice Romans 5, 8 says he gave it to us and we're enemies of God. So the offering is just an unconditional grace that he's given us. That God's given us through our Lord Jesus Christ. So these are all examples of unconditional grace, but not all grace is unconditional, some is conditional. And if we think that all grace is unconditional, then it leads to an entitlement mindset or some misunderstandings about God and who he is. Because he's put forth in the scriptures, old covenant and new covenant, a lot and a lot of examples of conditional grace, which we'll be getting to, but we need to explain what it is first. All right, conditional grace. This is grace, gifts that we give where conditions need to be met. Now we're going to get into some examples in the Bible, but let's look at a few just examples from everyday life. So the first example I want to give is imagine a scenario where a kid is in his early 20s. Maybe he's recently married. He really needs a job. Perhaps he's got a baby on the way and he needs a job to pay for the family. So jobs are scarce. It's an economic downturn. His uncle, let's say, runs a big company, a warehouse and company or shipping business. And so the son goes or the nephew goes to him and says, hey, I really need a job. Now tons of people are wanting this job. A lot of people qualified worked in the industry forever. But the uncle has compassion on him and says, okay, look, even though you're not qualified, you've never done this before. And I got a hundred people for every open job. I'm going to give it to you. But you got to be there down at the docks, starting at 6 a.m. Or else I'm going to give the job to somebody else. Somebody's waiting. So the next morning, this nephew, he's elated. He goes down there and he sits at 6 a.m. And he gets a job and he's there every day at 6 a.m. Now, did he merit or earn that job? No, he was given it to him. He was even unqualified for it. But did the condition have to be met? Yeah, he had to be down there at 6 a.m. And if he wasn't there at 6 a.m., he's not getting the job. So that's an example of a conditional grace. It's a gift, but conditions have to be met. And so these incidents, they happen all the time in our lives. We don't use the term conditional grace, but that's what's going on here. Now, let me give another example. You think of a parent dealing with a child and the child wants something. They want a piece of candy or an extra dessert or something like that. And the parent will say, say, please, and I'll give it to you. And the child says, please, and then the parent gives it to the child. Well, a condition had to be met. And the parent is wanting to teach the child polite manner. So he puts forth a condition. Now, did the child earn it? Well, no, they didn't go and get a job and pay for the dessert or whatever it was, but they needed to meet a condition before it was given to them. Now, let me give a third example. You think about getting a coupon or seeing a coupon, 50% off on this product in a store. But there's a condition written on it that the coupon has to be presented in person to the cash year in the store. And that might be written right there on the coupon. And often these conditions are written on these things. So you go to the store and you present it to them. Now, if you go to the store and you don't have the coupon and you don't present it to them there, then you don't get the gift or the 50% off as set. That's a condition of getting this free gift or this 50% off a gift that's being given to you as a promotion in some sense. So all these are examples of gifts free things that you're getting, but conditions are being met. Now, maybe right now your mind, the wheels are turning and thinking about the scriptures. I hope it is as you think about this in terms of your own spiritual life, because this is not understood and practiced much in the West today in the American church, then so many miss out on what the Lord wants to give us. So thinking a conditional grace is an unconditional grace leads to passivity and failure to meet the conditions. If we think that everything that the Lord wants to give us is going to be given no matter what and no conditions need to be met, well, think about that. That changes your behavior and then if it changes your behavior, then you don't get it. So if the child said, oh, it doesn't matter that I say, please, well, then he's not going to get what the parent, maybe once in a while, the parent might give it anyway, but in general, they may not be getting it. Saying with all these examples that I gave here and all of these are the conditions aren't met most of the time, then they're not going to get the gift. You can think of once in a while an unusual situation where it might happen anyway, but not consistently. And this is what happens in our spiritual lives all the time. And this is why this subject is so incredibly important. Now, there are so many examples and the New Testament about conditional grace working on just scan over a few, go a few of them in detail, but you can't swing a cap throughout the New Testament and not see all these examples. It's virtually every few verses, not even just every chapter. It's all over the place in the Bible. And once you see and know this term, you'll see it everywhere. We're going to go to some of these more in depth, but an overview is that we receive rewards when we pray fast and give with the right motives. It says in Matthew, when we ask you can knock, we get benefits. When all things work together for good for those who are called by him, when we walk with the Lord, salvation itself is a conditional gift. Its offer is unconditional, but if we don't believe and repent of our sins, we do not get the gift of salvation. We get rewards when we seek him. That's an example. God draws close to us when we draw close to him. God forgives us when we confess our sins. It says in 1 John 1, on and on. Let's look at a few of these more in detail. So let's take Luke 11, 9 to 13. Now, this is about prayer and as this is understood and we ramp up our prayer lives, things change in our lives. It says here, and I tell you ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find knocking will be open to you for everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds and the one who knocks will be open. What Father among you if a Son asks for a fish will instead of a fish give him a serpent or if he asks for an egg will give him a scorpion. If then you or evil know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? So here Jesus is teaching on prayer. They specifically asked him, Lord teaches about prayer and so we can know that this is something that doesn't naturally occur to us apart from the Lord's direct teaching and hear what he's teaching is repetitiveness and continuation in prayer and that it yields more of the Holy Spirit's operation in our lives. That is incredibly important. So do we want to be repetitive in our prayers? Absolutely. Pray for something morning, noon and night. Remember Hannah and the Old Testament. She kept praying for a son and the Lord heard and answered. This is true in many cases. Many examples where people kept coming before the Lord kept coming. He delights in it. He loves it. This is who he is and how he operates. We need to understand him as he is. I remember years ago reading a book and this person changed their view later on. But in the book, they said, oh, I thought I needed to beg God for things or keep coming. But then I realized he's just asking by faith. And I just need to ask God once and then just believe that he's given it to me and move on with my life. Sound is so good. And when I read this, gosh, 30, 35 years ago, I wasn't sure what to do with it. My understanding of this wasn't very clear. I respected this person, but I was just confused by it. And as I've dug in a scripture, was realized, no, that's a misunderstanding. The Lord loves it. Loves it when we keep coming before him, asking, seeking and knocking. It makes a difference in our lives. Okay, here's another example. John 15, 45 and 9 through 11 says, abide in me and I in you as a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit for a part for me. You can do nothing. That continues in verse 9. As the Father has loved me so I've loved you, abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. Just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love, these things I've spoken to you, that my joy might be in you and that your joy may be full. So this is an important passage and what's being made plain here is that if we keep the commandments of God, then by definition, we are abiding in Jesus, abiding as he's abiding in the Father and then comes fruitfulness in our lives, then comes joy in our lives as we're abiding in him. So this is really key to understand. Now, unfortunately, this is taught in many circles in the wrong way. The way this is taught, maybe you've heard this in some places is that justice fruit doesn't need to do anything. It just sits there on the vine and it just automatically comes. Same with us and we just need to believe that the fruit's coming. That's not what this is teaching. The context makes it clear. It is specifically saying you do need to do certain things. You do need to meet conditions. If you don't have the level of joy in your life, that the Lord that you feels represented here, then examine yourself. Are you obeying the Lord in all things? There's a good chance that you are not, which is why you're not having the joy that the Lord wants for you. It's a very critical that we understand this passage and what Jesus is wanting to teach to us. This is a conditional grace. He will give us joy, but we got to meet the conditions of faithful obedience just as Jesus did with the Father. I'm very critical. All right. More examples here from James. There's so many in the New Testament. I'm just given skipping over a few two. So this goes deep. James 15 says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach. So if you want to wisdom, then you need to ask. And James 42, it says, you have not because you ask not. There's a lot of benefits that you do not have in your life, grace, that you do not have because you have not asked or if you're not asked repeatedly. That is a fact. That's true. Every Christian so much grace. We do not have simply because we've never asked or not asked with enough rapidity and perhaps humbling ourselves. Here's another passage. Hebrews 11. And without faith, it is impossible to please them whoever would draw near to God, must believe that exists and that he rewards those who seek him. So he's a rewarder of those who seek him. And if you want to please him, then we must draw near to God. So we've got to understand what it means to draw near to God. And that's the same concept of seeking him, humbling ourselves, praying, repenting of our sins, and obeying him moment by moment. Then we receive blessings. All right. Here's another example in Galatians. Galatians 6, 7 to 10 on reaping and sowing. Maybe you've heard this concept before. It says, do not be deceived. God has not mocked for whatever one sowed. That will he also reap for the one who sows to his own flesh. Well, from the flesh reap corruption for the one who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary in doing good. For in due season, we will reap if we do not give up. So then as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone and especially to those who are the household of faith. So here the Apostle Paul is giving a motivation for why we should persist in doing good. There's a lot of motivations. A one is at a gratitude. That's not what's mentioned here, but that's a good motivation gratitude to the Lord. Here, the motivation is that you will get benefit. You will reap in due season. You will receive good things. You receive blessings if you do not grow weary in doing good. And you know what? I need to hear that. We all need as Christians to hear it is why it's in the Bible. This is a profound motivation that's everywhere throughout the New Testament and Old Testament that good things come when we persist in doing what's pleasing and honoring to the Lord and every way. All right, here's another example. I think this is the last one I have for this. I think you're getting the idea, but it's good just to hit so many of them. This is from 1 Peter 3.7. It says, likewise husbands live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life. So that your prayers may not be hindered. So catch that last part there. So that your prayers may not be hindered. What Peter is saying here is that of husbands are not living with their wives in an understanding way and showing honor to their wife, then prayers are hindered. So if you are married and as a man and if you feel your prayers are hindered, then consider this. This might be why you're not your prayers are not being answered the way you would like them to be answered. Now I think it's fair to say this would apply the other way as well from women to men and all sorts of other situations. If we're not treating people the way the Lord wants us to treat them, then it can hinder our prayers. So this is a conditional grace. The grace is the Lord is doing things hearing our prayers and responding. He's not obligated, but conditions are put upon it and that is we need to be treating other people with kindness and respect. All right, so how this impacts our daily lives? So many Christians do not have with the Bible promises, not because God does not want to give it, but because they are unaware of the conditions or they don't meet the conditions he sat down. Both of those, sometimes we're just simply unaware that conditions the Lord is waiting or we know what they are, but we're not meeting them. And that is profound. This has to be understood. If there's anything in your life that you're wishing and wanting, search the scriptures. Are there conditions around it? Look at it and take it in deep and take it seriously. The new covenant, I mentioned this earlier on, but the new covenant does not cancel the doctrine of conditional grace. Some can think that. I think about one Christian years ago said to a friend of mine, and this is astounding, but it's looking at these examples in the Old Testament through the book of First and Second Chronicles. A lot of times the kings would have troubles and problems, and an enemy would be coming at them, and then the king would call a fast, call a time of repentance and seek in the Lord, and then the Lord would deliver them. And it's really beautiful. And so what this Christian teacher said completely false was, hey, isn't that great that we're in the new covenant now? Because Jesus has done all this for us. So we just need to sit back and rest. Rest in Jesus was the mindset completely false, un-Christian, not true. There is a difference in the covenants. The difference is because of the blood of Jesus, we receive more grace than ever. We get far more benefits, the outpourings of the spirit and the presence of God. They didn't have the level we have this under the new covenant. It's amazing. It's incredible and strength to live a devout life. It didn't get nearly as much in the Old Covenant. So there are a lot of benefits. There's other benefits to authority over evil spirits and other such things. But the doctrine of conditional grace still stands as you can see through all these examples in the New Testament. And we could spend all day going through them. They're everywhere. Open your Bible and read about five verses and you'll see examples of conditional grace. Now, how does this impact revival? So when there's little power of God transforming a community, the question that should be asked is, are Christians not the non-believers, but the believers meeting the conditions for outpourings of the spirit of God? That's the question we should be asking. Instead, too many Christians today, we shrug our shoulders, declared that God has simply decided he doesn't want to provide that kind of grace, that kind of move of his at this time. They'll say he's sovereign and he is, he is sovereign. But he's also a promise keeper. God keeps his promises. And when we meet the conditions, then he does his part. But it never be said that the conditions he's put down are met by us and he won't do it. I mean, think about salvation. Will we ever say someone, oh, I know you're dependent of your sins, put your faith in Christ, but I don't know if God's really going to forgive your sins. Of course he does. He keeps his promises. And same thing with the promise of outpourings of a spirit. How much more does he give to the Holy Spirit? Those who ask, as we draw near to him, then he will do extraordinary and wonderful things in our communities. And so if we're not seeing in our communities, what we think he would like to do, or maybe we've seen it other times and ages, then most likely, we aren't meeting the conditions. And we aren't meeting the conditions. And other parts of the world, people are meeting the conditions in Africa, Asia, South America, and some places, because they have a level and depth of repentance, prayer, fasting, obedience. That's very uncommon for Christians today. And what we need to do is to realign ourselves and say we got to meet the conditions of God because we don't set the conditions. If we just say, oh, I prayed for one minute today, oh, oops, shrugged my shoulder, I guess that's God doesn't want to bring revival, doesn't want to change society or do things. I'll just kind of move along then. That's it. No, that's not the pattern you see in the Bible. In the Bible, you see people praying and fasting for days, for weeks. You also see this example, perhaps even requirement of Christians, believers praying every morning and every night, for like 30 minutes to an hour. Is that typical of Christians today? Christians fasted Wednesdays and Fridays and in the time of the new covenant in the first century. Is that done today? In times of great revival in America history, that's what Christians did. There will be no revival. There is no outpouring of the spirit until we meet the conditions. We can talk all day about it. We can declare it. We can say it's here. We can fool ourselves, or we can say, Lord, forgive us, help us understand from the scriptures what the conditions are so that then we can meet them. This is what a Christian does and that's why there's been an explosion, a fantastic Christian activity all around the world because these people seek the Lord with great energy and great devotion. And by the grace of God, we can do it too. It might seem overwhelming at first as you increase your own devotional life, but the Lord will help you. And if you're in ministry yourself, you can up it and call other people to seek the face of God. Take a day or a couple days to seek the face of God fast for it longer than just a Wednesday or Friday. But for many days, if you go to christianunion.org slash seven keys, you'll see all of this laid out in detail in 20 videos explaining it all in depth. And if you want to help with this movement, go to christianunion.org slash cornerstone and become a cornerstone partner to help get this message out to as many people as possible across the United States because we need to change and our behavior and our effort and seeking the Lord. So let's go way back to the beginning of this. One of the first, I think the first question put before and see how we would respond to this. Here's the statement. There's nothing you can do to gain favor with the God through your own efforts. Yes, absolutely. There are ways you can gain favor and get grace from God by humbling yourself, by repenting, by drawing near, by treating your wife well, by all sorts of conditions that we've gone through. It's all throughout the New Testament to please him. So of course, we can do things, we can put in effort to get that way. This is not a popular message today. There's a lot of misunderstanding. Let's look at again, this quote by Dallas Wallard. Grace is opposed to earning not opposed to effort. Every bit of effort you've ever put in and drawing close to the Lord. He sees he remembers. He responds. He blesses you for it. It's very, very meaningful to him. So may that always be remembered. I want to say a prayer and wrap up this Bennett broadcast and might be worth listening to this again. It takes time for these concepts to go deep. It's just not taught very much. Let me say a prayer. So Father, we love you and praise you. Thank you, Lord, for your unconditional grace. Lord, thank you for your conditional grace. And may we all understand this in a deeper, profound way. And may we meet all the conditions that are put forth in the scriptures to please you so that you will respond and shower even more grace on us in every way. Lord, we need you. We love you. We want revival in our families, in our cities, in our churches, in the nation. Help us, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for watching this episode of the Bennett broadcast. Lord, bless you and take care.