July 14, 2023 • 50 mins
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This week in Relentless Hope, Andre Farley delves into the transformative power of the New Covenant and how it impacts our lives as Christians. Through personal experiences and reflections, he explores the themes of forgiveness, freedom, and identity in Christ, while challenging traditional rule-based religion and emphasizing the importance of understanding our true identity and embracing the finished work of Jesus Christ.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let us pray, Let him eschew evil and do good.
Let him seek peace and ensue it first Peter three eleven.
Dear God, thank you for your forgiveness and forgiving me
another chance to do good according to your word. Forgiving
others is not always easy, so help me to be
(00:21):
forgiving like you. I know that by adopting a forgiving mindset,
I will be able to let go of unwonted pain
and unnecessary negative emotions, allow the relationships in my life
to be full of grace, patience, and forgiveness. Please help
me to let go of past behaviors that do not
(00:42):
benefit me or my purpose in life. Continue to transform
my heart to be more like you. Amen. Thank you
for joining us in prayer. Now for the Relentless Hope Podcast,
where we bring you true stories and personal testimonies that
will help you love your life, lead with purpose, and
(01:05):
leave a legacy of helping others.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Many people struggle to grasp the immense power of God's grace,
his unconditional love, and his complete forgiveness through Jesus Christ.
It can be easy to get tangled up in legalism
or works based on righteousness, feeling as if we have
to earn God's love or approval. However, as you pointedly describe,
(01:37):
the Bible teaches that we are saved not by works,
but by faith alone in Jesus Christ Ephesians two eight
through nine. This is the heart of the new covenant,
a covenant based not on our ability to keep the
law perfectly, which we can't, but on Christ's perfect sacrifice
on our behalf. It's true that we're completely forgiven in Christ.
(02:00):
He paid the full penalty for all of our sins, past, present,
in future when he died on the cross. He is
the atoning sacrifice for our sins, not only for ours,
but also for the sins of the world First John
two two. There is no sin that his sacrifice does
not cover. As Christians, we are freed from the bondage
(02:24):
of sin, and we are given new identity. In Christ.
We are a new creation, as it says in Second
Corinthians five seventeen. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, a
new creation has come. The old has gone, the new
is here. And in Romans abe one we're reminded that
there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are
(02:49):
in Christ. Freedom in Christ doesn't mean we're free to
sin without consequences, but that we're free from the bondage
and penalty of sin and free to live a life
pleasing to God, empowered by His Spirit within us. Our
actions don't earn us salvation at their unnatural outflow of
our love for God and are transformed identity in Christ.
(03:16):
In this episode of Relentless Hope, doctor Andrew Farley describes
the transformative power of understanding the grace and forgiveness offered
through the New Covenant. It's indeed a message of hope
and liberation, one that can bring about profound transformation in
the lives of believers as they fully embrace the truth
of who they are in Christ. It's also a valuable
(03:39):
reminder for all Christians to stay grounded in the truth
of the Gospel and not to drift into legalism or
self effort, but to rest in the finished work of Christ.
Let's begin today's episode of Relentless Hope with doctor Andrew Farley.
(04:00):
In a thought provoking reflection, Andrew Farley delves into the
profound forgiveness offered through the Cross and explores the extent
of God's forgiveness, pondering the weight of various sins and
the uncertainties many Christians face regarding their own forgiveness and
the liberating concept of true freedom.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
In Christ, there's incredible forgiveness through the Cross, and I
talk about that a ton nowadays. How forgiven are we?
Did God fail to forgive us for one of those sins?
What about the big sins? What about the frequent sins?
What about the forgotten sins? The ones you don't even
remember anymore? And we Christians, it seems like we have
(04:43):
a lot of hang ups. We're not sure how forgiven
we really are. And then I love to talk about
the freedom of the believer. Freedom can be a scary word.
I mean, you think about the guy in the movie
Shawshank Redemption and he, well, he didn't love freedom. There
was one character in there he kept getting in trouble
(05:06):
on purpose, over and over so he could go back
to prison because he loved bondage. He loved to be
told when to get up and when to go to sleep,
and when to have free time and when he could
go to the restroom. He liked bondage because there were
rules involved and there was structure, and freedom scared him. Well,
there's a lot of Christians today where you know the
(05:28):
word freedom. It can scare us. But I'm talking about
a beautiful freedom, a freedom from rule based religion. It's
not about rules, It's about letting Christ rule.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
On Part one of this three part series, Andrew Farley
delves into the themes of forgiveness, freedom, and identity in
Christ with an honest and personal ties much Andrew Farley
discusses the struggle of understanding the depth of God's forgiveness
and the fear that can accompany the concept of true freedom.
(06:11):
Emphasizing the transformative power of the New Covenant and our
new identity in Christ, he invites us to embrace the
liberating truth that the finished work of Jesus is truly enough.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
God. I'm doing everything they say to do. I'm sharing
my faith with every single person that I meet. I'm
in church every time the doors are open, and I'm
reading my Bible four and five hours a day, and
yet I still don't feel like I'm getting closer to You.
Where did I go wrong? My formula is broken. I
(06:51):
was nineteen years old, and that was my prayer to God.
I had had a crash and burn experience. I had
put my antenna up to the religion world and I
was doing everything they said to do. I was in
halfway houses, in jails and prisons. I was preaching in
subway cars and on the streets of Greece and Italy,
(07:13):
going door to door sharing my faith so that I
could get God to like me and then keep him
liking me. And you know what, the whole thing it
just didn't work. I was so miserable. I mean, if
I were being honest back then, my sales pitch would
have been, Hey, would you like to become a Christian
(07:35):
and be miserable like me? So there I was on
the floor of my apartment and I was begging God
for real answers, and nothing made sense. But I got
to tell you, it wasn't like a lightning bolt out
of heaven. It was more like ten years of replacing
old thoughts with new thoughts. And at the center of
(07:57):
that was something called the New Covenant. Now, for me,
the New Covenant just meant maybe that's the name of
the church down the street or something. But I had
no clue what the New Covenant was. I had never
heard a single sermon on the topic. And it wasn't
an immediate, overnight change. It was more like a decade
(08:20):
of coming to know what this New Covenant is, coming
to know what a New Testament relationship with God is
really all about. And it was ten years of replacing
old thoughts with new ones. And yeah, I was a believer.
I mean, I grew up in Virginia on a horse farm.
I grew up in a Christian home, and I prayed
(08:42):
to receive Christ at a young age. Actually, when I
was about three years old, my parents told me about
how I could receive Christ, and so I prayed with them,
and then about ten minutes later, I invited my parents
back into my room and I said, Hey, now now
that I've got Jesus in my heart, could I get
an angel in my stomach? So it was pretty obvious
(09:06):
I did not understand what real salvation was yet. But
later later on I was eight years old, and I'll
never forget, I decided that I really wanted to have
Jesus Christ live in me, and I opened the door
of my life and received him when I was eight
years old. And so I grew up in a Christian home,
(09:28):
and I certainly got a lot of Bible teaching and
went to church regularly, and somewhere along the way, though
I got really really confused about what Christianity is supposed
to be like on a daily basis. I started to
make it about me and what I was doing for
(09:52):
God instead of it being about God and what He
had done for me. So I didn't understand and a
good portion of the Gospel. I was really feeling like
a black sheep in God's family. By the time I
hit my teen years, I had a sense of humor.
I was a class clown. I was student body president.
(10:15):
By the time I was a senior in high school,
I was popular, and yet I had a guilt complex
because I thought, well, if you're a serious Christian, then
you'll be walking the aisle every week at chapel. I
went to a Christian school where we had chapel every day,
and at the end of the chapel there would always
be this altar call, and they were basically inviting us
(10:38):
to do more and be more and love more and
be better and commit and rededicate and again and again.
There was this cycle of trying to present yourself to
God and get more right and get more acceptable to him,
and it really created a revolving door experience where you
(10:59):
saw the same people get up and rededicate and recommit,
and then a week later, a month later, there they
were again tears in their eyes, having failed God. They
were promising that they were really gonna do it this time.
And so that was the environment that I grew up in.
And you either got up and walked the aisle and
(11:20):
recommitted over and over, or you felt like a second
class citizen in God's family. And that's where I landed.
But once I went to college, I decided, you know what,
I am going to do this thing for real. I
am going to be the Christian that I never was before.
I'm going to do exactly what they said to do
(11:43):
back in those chapel messages. So when I went off
to college as a freshman, I decided that I was
going to be the most dedicated and most committed Christian
anybody had ever seen. And so I was reading my
Bible four and five hours a day, and I was
literally sharing my faith with everybody that I came into
(12:06):
contact with, whether they wanted to hear it or not,
they were going to get grace in their face, man.
And so I would steer every conversation around to some
sort of evangelistic moment so that I could feel like
I got a notch on my belt for that day
so that God would like me yet another day and
(12:27):
I had pleased him, only to go to bed that
night and feel a sense of well, maybe a lack
of service. I could have done more, I should have
done more. So I would literally get up and go
to the twenty four hour grocery store and find somebody
in the produce aisle who was squeezing the fruit, and
(12:47):
I would share Christ with them so that I could
go home and feel better and get some sleep. Finally,
only to wake up the next day and try to
serve God and more and make him happy with me.
So do you see what happened? I mean, yeah, I
knew I was saved by grace. I knew that salvation
(13:10):
was a free gift because of what Jesus did through
the Cross and the resurrection. The problem is that somewhere
along the way everything got twisted and I started making
it about me and how much I'm doing and whether
I'm doing enough and if I've hit the mark of
hit the benchmark or not, and what does God think
(13:31):
of me? And I began to live in my emotions
and I would let that be the barometer of my closeness.
And so you fast forward a decade or two and
you look at my life now, and yeah, I'm talking
about Jesus, but it's certainly not from the same perspective.
(13:54):
It's not from the same vantage point. I mean, you know,
I would wish my relation relationship with God on anyone.
Today it's not like it was before, living in misery
on the treadmill, trying to jump through all those hoops,
trying to get in God's will and stay in God's
will and get forgiven and stay forgiven and get in
(14:16):
his good graces and stay in his good graces. I mean,
that was a nightmare. But today I have more confidence
in who I am in Jesus Christ. I have confidence
in my God. I have confidence in what he did
for me. And I'm finally seeing that this closeness that
I have with him, that was his idea. It wasn't
(14:40):
even my idea. That's why he sent Jesus to initiate
this closeness with me. And so when I realized that
it's God's idea, that he knew what he was doing,
and that he initiated and completed everything that needed to
be done, Jesus has said on the Cross, he said
(15:02):
it is finished, and that means that God did it
and he doesn't need to do anything else. And so
through the Cross and through the Resurrection, we're set up.
We're set up for a free gift of closeness with God,
a free gift of intimacy. It's not about what we're
trying to do. It's about what He did one hundred percent.
(15:24):
And so today I enjoy sharing the good news of
the Gospel more than ever, and I get to talk
about the New Covenant, which is a very neglected message.
I mean, it's the idea that God couldn't swear by
anyone greater, and so he swore by himself. You know,
when I was a kid, I couldn't do that. I
(15:45):
couldn't swear to God. If I swore to God, my
mom would have me in trouble in a heartbeat. But hey,
there is one person who can swear to God, and
that's God. And that's exactly what the New Covenant is.
He says that it's an oath or a promise that
he made with himself so that there would be two unbreakable, unshakable,
(16:10):
unchangeable things in one corner, We've got the God of
the universe and he's a perfect promise keeper. And then
in the other corner, we got the God of the universe,
and he is a perfect promise keeper. And when you
have two perfect promise keepers, then everything is rock solid.
And so you see, I was thinking that I had
(16:33):
to be the promise keeper, that I've got to keep
my end of the bargain up. And that's what empty
religion offers us. It says, do your best and then
God will respond. You initiate, and if you do enough,
then he'll come and bless you. But the New Covenant
is not like that. It turns religion on its ear
and we ultimately see that it's a promise that He's
(16:55):
made to himself. And so what's the benefit of the
New Covenant. Well, there's incredible forgiveness through the Cross, and
I talk about that a ton nowadays. How forgiven are we?
Did God fail to forgive us for one of those sins?
What about the big sins? What about the frequent sins?
What about the forgotten sins? The ones you don't even
(17:18):
remember anymore? And we Christians, it seems like we have
a lot of hang ups. We're not sure how forgiven
we really are. And then I love to talk about
the freedom of the believer. Freedom can be a scary word.
I mean, you think about the guy in the movie
Shawshank Redemption, and he, well, he didn't love freedom. There
(17:41):
was one character in there he kept getting in trouble
on purpose, over and over so he could go back
to prison because he loved bondage. He loved to be
told when to get up and when to go to sleep,
and when to have free time and when he could
go to the restroom. He liked bondage because there were
rules involved and there was structure, and freedom scared him. Well,
(18:04):
there's a lot of Christians today where you know the
word freedom, it can scare us. But I'm talking about
a beautiful freedom, a freedom from rule based religion. It's
not about rules. It's about letting Christ rule. And when
we let Christ rule, that's not a scary thing. He
(18:26):
knows what he's doing and we can let Christ be Christ.
And that's a beautiful thing. To not be driven by
external rules and regulations, to not be driven by something
written on tablets of stone, but instead to be led
internally by the indwelling Christ and his presence in us,
(18:47):
letting that be our motivation. So I talk about new
identity in Christ. It's amazing to me how so many
Christians have bought the enemies lie that we have to
diminish ourselves and get rid of ourselves. We're told we
got to die to self. We're told we got to
deny ourselves. But all of those are salvation pitches. I mean,
(19:11):
Jesus says, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him.
Where do you follow him? You follow him into death
and new life. And that's what salvation is. We follow
him into death and new life. So now, if you're saved,
you've got a new self. You don't need to deny
that self. You've got a new self. So why would
(19:32):
you deny the new creation? Why would you deny who
you are as a child of God. And so I
love sharing the good news of who we are in Christ.
That yes there's an enemy, Yes we say no to sin,
Yes we say no to the flesh. Yes we trust
Christ and walk by the spirit. But as far as
(19:54):
who we are, God has recreated us in Christ Jesus
as a new self, a new creation. We're redesigned from
the ground up for good works. So that tells you
something about our beautiful design. And when we use these
phrases like hey, you got to die to self, well,
(20:15):
the phrase die to self is nonexistent in the Bible.
It's not even there. And so I love talking about
this stuff because I have seen it liberate so many people.
Christians go free in their new identity. They start believing
that they're totally forgiven, past, present, and future. They drop
(20:37):
the rule based religion and start letting Christ rule and
ministering this New Covenant message. That is my passion. I
mean tewod Corinthians chapter three. It says that that's the
only message that we're qualified to minister. It says God
has qualified us as ministers of a new Covenant, not
(20:59):
of the law. He says, you're a minister of grace.
And that's what it's all about. It's not about us
and what we're trying to do for God. It's all
about Jesus and what He already did for us. And
so you know, if there's one thing that I want
to shout from the rooftops to the Christian world and beyond,
(21:23):
it's that the finished work of Jesus Christ really is
enough and I'm excited. I'm excited about my life right now,
I'm excited about the future. I'm excited to share these
truths with other people because I've seen how God used
them in my life, and I have seen how God
(21:45):
is rescuing so many people when the Gospel gets to
shine brightly, when all of the fig leaves of religion
are peeled away and we get back to the core message.
My first book was called The Naked Gospel Jesus plus Nothing,
one hundred percent natural, no additives, and that's what I
(22:10):
love talking about. That's what I love sharing, and that's
why I'm excited, maybe well the most in decades ever
since Salvation. Looking back on this journey, I can say
that today I am more excited than I've ever been,
and it's because I know who I am in Christ,
(22:31):
and I know who He is in me. We've heard
in popular theology that we have deceitfully wicked hearts. And
you might even see a worship leader on stage at
some point. He's strumming on his guitar, he's mid song,
and he looks up to Heaven and he says, God,
We've got wicked, wicked hearts. Lord, And then everybody erupts
(22:55):
into a big amen to affirm that notion. You just
want to hit the pause button and say, no, wait
a minute, we don't have deceitfully wicked hearts. The Bible
says he took out our heart of stone as believers,
He took out that stony heart, and he gave us
a new heart. And Romans chapter six, it says that
(23:19):
we were slaves of sin, but we became obedient from
the heart.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
On part two of this three part series, Andrew Farley
challenges the notion that believers have deceitfully wicked hearts, emphasizing
the transformation that occurs through salvation. He delves into his
own journey of leadership, highlighting the shift from a self
focused approach to one centered on availability and dependency on Christ.
(23:51):
With an organic and grace oriented perspective. They advocate for
leading from the heart and trusting the new heart in
a there's fostering a community driven approach to leadership.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
You know, when I think about my initial approach to
leadership as a young believer, I would describe it as
pretty much a lone ranger approach to leadership. I was
doing my own thing. I was out on an island
religiously speaking. I was in halfway houses and jails and prisons.
(24:31):
I was sharing my faith on airliners and in subway cars.
I was going door to door in neighborhoods, and it
was all about me and what I was doing for God.
And there was no community in it. There was no
relationship or fellowship in it. It wasn't about connecting other
people or empowering others or enabling other people to succeed.
(24:56):
It was all about me and what I could accomplish
in order to get God to like me yet another
day and wake up with the confidence that I had recently,
at least recently done enough for him. And so the
whole thing was about me and my impact and me
trying to be a world changer. And then I had
(25:20):
that crash and burn experience, the one where I'm on
the floor of my apartment and I'm begging God for
answers and I'm saying, God, you know, I'm doing what
the Christian world told me to do. I'm out there, dedicated, committed,
sharing my faith, reading my Bible. I'm in church, I'm volunteering,
(25:41):
I'm helping out, I'm leading youth groups. I'm going on
mission trips. I'm doing jail ministry, everything I could possibly do,
and yet I feel depleted. I feel depressed, I feel disillusioned.
Where did I go wrong? And you know, looking back
on that, God taught me so much through that crash
(26:04):
and burn experience, and today I see that leadership is
first about availability. It's about being available to the God
of the universe and letting him inspire us. And it's
about dependency. That's why Christ lives in us. I mean,
think about it. He could have just said, hey, here's
(26:25):
a ticket to heaven and I'll see you in eighty years.
But what did he do? Instead? He deposited his life
inside of us. He gave his life for us on
the cross, and then he gave his life to us
through the resurrection so that he could live his life
and express his life through us every day. And so
(26:48):
what's our role, well as leaders, as people, just as humans.
Our role is to be available. And I think there's
a lot in that. The Bible says, let your speech
be seasoned with grace. It says, let this mind be
in you. I love that word let because that three
(27:11):
letter word it says so much about the attitude we
can have as believers. God has everything rigged. Christ is
in us, We're in Christ. Everything is set up for success.
All we have to do is let Yes. We could
fight it, Yes we could dig our heels in, or
we could just let it happen. And to me, that's
(27:33):
step one of being a leader is living from the
heart and letting Christ be Christ in us and through
us as we relate to people we work with, as
we relate to people that we encounter every day. So
as a pastor, I have a very organic style of leadership.
(27:54):
I don't know a better term for it. I mean,
in our church, we don't build program and then try
to fund them later. We don't even create positions and
then try to fill them later. We have a bottom
up approach as much as possible. And what does that mean?
(28:15):
I guess it means that we kind of survey the
gifts of the people that are already evident, you know,
around us, and we look to their desires and their
passions and we ask ourselves, well, where did these passions
and desires and gifts come from? If they came from
(28:35):
God and they're already in our midst, then we can
let these things dictate where we go next. So you
see what I mean. That's why I would call it
an organic approach. We're not setting up all kinds of
programs and then hoping that we eventually get the right
people for those slots. Instead, we're relational and we're looking
(28:59):
for them. The natural growth Colossians two says, there's a
growth that comes from God, and we're trusting in that
that that's real. And so it's just like our church giving.
I mean, we don't teach a mandated ten percent tithe
in our church. We just happen to have noticed that.
(29:21):
It's not in any New Testament epistle. You look at Romans,
it's not there, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, it's not there.
So how did the Galatians survive? How did the Thessalonians
get by? How did the Corinthians make budgets? So to speak? Well,
Paul says, give freely from the heart, not under pressure.
(29:43):
He says not reluctantly, but he also says not under pressure.
And he says God loves a cheerful giver. And so
that's where we're coming from leadership wise, I mean, a
cheerful giver. Can that really be? Can that happen. Is
it gonna occur if you just take a step back
(30:05):
and let people get motivated and inspired by Christ living
in them. Well, grace giving is the same as grace living.
The theology doesn't change when you get out your wallet.
It's real, and yeah, it's risky from a human standpoint,
(30:25):
it's risky to lead that way. Yeah it might mean
that you end up cutting some things, but it also
might mean incredible excitement about the areas where God is
stirring in people. So we lead from the new heart,
that's what we're saying. And unfortunately, there are just too
(30:46):
many bad ideas out there about the Christian's heart. I mean,
we've heard in popular theology that we have deceitfully wicked hearts.
And you might have and see a worship leader on
stage at some point. He's strumming on his guitar, he's
mid song, and he looks up to Heaven and he says, God,
(31:09):
we've got wicked, wicked hearts. Lord, and then everybody erupts
into a big amen to affirm that notion. And you
just want to hit the pause button and say, no,
wait a minute, we don't have deceitfully wicked hearts. The
Bible says he took out our heart of stone as believers,
(31:30):
he took out that stony heart, and he gave us
a new heart. And Romans chapter six it says that
we were slaves of sin, but we became obedient from
the heart. Now that's awesome. That means that we have
new hearts, that we have obedient hearts. And then Paul
(31:52):
even goes as far as to call us slaves of righteousness.
Now just think about that, all of the slavery that
you had to sin, all of the connectedness that you
had to the power of sin. As an unbeliever, you
know everybody would say, yes, unbelievers, the Bible says there's
slaves to sin. Yes, I agree without one hundred percent. Well,
(32:14):
the same Bible, the same Bible says you're a slave
of righteousness. The same Bible says you have an obedient heart. No,
our attitudes are not always online, they're not always right,
they're not always obedient. Yes, we're getting a renewing of
the mind. Yes, our mind is being renewed. But our heart. No,
(32:37):
our heart has already been extracted and replaced. The Bible
says that salvation is basically like a heart surgery. It's
like a DNA swap. We talk about Christ living in us,
but do we know what Christ did to us. He
doesn't live in dirty places. He cleaned house and then
(32:59):
he moved in. And so when Christ dwells in our
hearts by faith, that's a new heart that He gave us.
And so we can lead from that new heart. And
then here's the even bigger thing. We can trust that
other people also have that new heart, and we can
(33:20):
liberate them to learn to be who they are in
Christ without micromanaging them, without lording things over them and
manipulating them. We can learn to lead by grace when
we recognize the new heart in other people. So I
(33:40):
would say, leadership wise, that's what we're doing. We're letting
that happen in people's lives. Yes, of course, we intervene
at times to disciple and counsel and exhort people, but
for the most part, we are letting that happen. So
that's what I mean by that. It's truly organic. We're
(34:02):
living from the heart, we're leading from the heart, we're
giving from the heart. God has this whole thing rigged
to work in community. If we will trust what he's
done in transforming the core of our being. Hey, we're
letting it happen. And to me, that is so exciting
(34:25):
And there's no better way to lead The Gospel is
God's idea, and he initiated it, and he did it perfectly.
Everything that was done through the Cross and Resurrection is
so very effective to the max, and there's just no
concern about any work being left over. We don't add
(34:48):
to what Christ already did. He said it's finished and
that's real. And so I love talking about the believer's forgiveness.
I love talking about issues of freedom. I mean, this
is my cause to proclaim the new Covenant of God's
grace for the rest of my days. And I hope
that when I'm ninety years old or when they're talking
(35:12):
at my funeral, that they say that far Lea sure
was a broken record. All he kept talking about over
and over and over was God's grace and he wouldn't
let up, and he was a broken record, just constantly
celebrating the new Covenant of God's grace. That's what I
want to be remembered for, because that's what endures. What
(35:35):
endures is the message itself, not the Messenger.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
In Part three of this three part series, Andrew Farley
passionately shares their mission to proclaim the message of God's
grace and the beauty of the Gospel. Andrew emphasizes the
completeness of Christ's work on the Cross, highlighting the forgiveness
is not based on human apologies, on the blood of Jesus.
Andrew's desires to see believers experience the freedom, confidence, and
(36:07):
rest that come from knowing that they are unconditionally loved
and forgiven by God. Andrew's hope is to leave a
legacy of pointing out others to the finished work of
Christ so they too can experience the profound reality of
God's of wavering love.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
So I'm on a mission, and frankly, I'm excited about that.
It's a mission that's all about freedom. It's all about
getting into touch with that heartfelt motivation. I mean, that's
my cause. My cause that I'm fighting for is to
(36:47):
enable believers to see how beautiful this message is. That
the Gospel is better than any of us realize. I mean,
what's not to like? You think about the forgiveness that
we have. Okay, so a lot of people think that
forgiveness is apology based. I mean, sure it is if
it's human to human. I mean, if you and I
(37:09):
are in a fight, and if I do something to
tick you off and you do something to tick me off,
well I'll forgive you, hey, but you got to show
up on my doorstep with an apology on your lips
and tears in your eyes and sorrow in your heart,
and then I'll say I forgive you, and then you
(37:32):
get to go away feeling forgiven. And we have an
apology based economy when it comes to two humans relating.
But that's not God's way, Like God's way is not
our way. His way is higher and his way is better.
And I'm finding that part of my mission is to
help people resonate with the blood economy. Hebrews says, without
(37:57):
the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. And so
if I could recognize that it's a blood economy instead
of an apology economy, then the whole thing makes a
lot more sense. It can't be about my five million apologies.
It can't be about my confessions. It can't be about
(38:18):
my memory and my legal pad and my many words.
It has to be about Jesus Christ and his blood
and that's why he shed his blood one time. It
worked the first time. It needs no repeat. The cross worked,
and that's why Jesus said it is finished. And so
(38:41):
we just we need people to see this because it's huge.
We are not being forgiven progressively. We're totally forgiven. People
think about it. How many of your sins were in
the future when Christ died? All of them, right, your past,
your present sins, your future sins. They were all in
(39:03):
the future when Christ died. And he didn't differentiate between
the big sins or the little sins, or the frequent sins,
or the occasional sins, or the confessed sins and the
unconfessed that no, he died for all your sins. He
took away all your sins. He remembers your sins no more.
He removed them as far as the east is from
(39:25):
the west. That's the message of forgiveness through Jesus. And
there's just nothing to not like about that. It's an
incredible message that Christians need to know. This is the
gospel for Christians. Yeah, we got saved through the gospel,
but it's like then we just sort of took a
(39:46):
vacation from the message and tried to start working to
impress God, and we're trying to live for God instead
of living from God. And what I'm trying to say
is when you know know that you're this clean, and
when you know that you're this close to God as
a free gift, you start acting like a person that's
(40:07):
clean and close, and you get your confidence back and
you don't have any hang ups about where do I
stand with God? And what does He think of me?
And all of that fear and that guilt. We're asking
questions like is God mad at me? And did I
mess this up? And is it too late for me?
Am I all washed up? And have I lost my salvation? Ultimately,
(40:31):
it feels like we're asking the big question, Am I okay?
And I think that's what the Gospel is designed to answer.
The Gospel is shouting from the rooftops a resounding Yes,
you are okay. You are more than okay. You are
forgiven and cleansed of all unrighteousness, past, present, future. You're
(40:55):
the righteousness of God. You're holy, You're blameless. It's like
you never send a day in your life. And again,
I mean, all of this was God's idea. It's not
our idea. Look if this was our idea, then look
at the religions of the world and how they're trying
to climb up to God and get prepped to relate
to the deity. The Deity is far off and perfect
(41:18):
and we are lowly and sinful, and we got to
get ourselves prepared to relate to him as if it's
our idea. And so we're going to go through these
steps and jump through these hoops and do these things
and then we'll be okay. Well, the Gospel is God's idea,
and he initiated it, and he did it perfectly. Everything
(41:39):
that was done through the Cross and Resurrection is so
very effective to the max, and there's just no concern
about any work being left over. We don't add to
what Christ already did. He said it's finished and that's real.
And so I love talking about the believers forgiveness. I
(42:00):
love talking about issues of freedom. I mean, this is
my cause to proclaim the new covenant of God's grace
for the rest of my days. And I hope that
when I'm ninety years old or when they're talking at
my funeral, that they say that far Lea sure was
a broken record. All he kept talking about over and
(42:23):
over and over was God's grace, and he wouldn't let up,
and he was a broken record, just constantly celebrating the
new covenant of God's grace. That's what I want to
be remembered for, because that's what endures. What endures is
the message itself, not the messenger. And so the freedom
(42:45):
that we have as believers, not living under a rule
driven theology, not living under a rule based system, but
just recognizing that we have something written on our hearts,
that God has etched his desire on the lining of
our new spiritual hearts, that we have something in there
(43:05):
inside of us that will never be deleted, and that
is to believe in Jesus Christ and love others even
as He's loved us. And John writes and he says,
these commands are not burdensome. The Christian life is not
supposed to be burdensome. Don't we remember the original invitation.
(43:27):
The original invitation went something like this, My yoke is easy,
my burden is light, and you will find rest for
your souls. That's got to be real. Either Jesus is
a liar or that's got to be real. And I
think it is real. And so that's my mission is
(43:49):
to help and encourage believers as they come to know
the finished work of Christ and the real message of
the Gospel, and the fear and the guilt, they begin
to dissipate. But let's be honest. I mean, the Bible
can be like a weapon for people. There are many
(44:11):
twisted scriptures out there. I'm thinking of things like depart
from Me. A lot of Christians are freaking out about
a passage like that, depart from me. Is that what
God is going to say to me if I didn't
do enough for him? Well? I love helping Christians see
the truth. The truth will always set us free. And
(44:33):
in that case, just as a tiny example, I mean,
Jesus says, depart from me, I never knew you. So
those are people who never knew him, they never had relationship.
Those aren't people that are with Jesus. And then suddenly
they're on the outs. They haven't done enough, they haven't
achieved enough, and so God just gets sick of them
(44:53):
and kicks them out. No, this is depart from me,
I never knew you. And then we have, you know, know,
other fears like is God gonna blot us out? Of
the Book of Life. And that's so ironic because when
you look at the Book of Revelation, what you discover
is that it's actually a promise to the contrary. He's saying,
(45:14):
I'll never blot you out, I'll never delete you, I'll
never erase you. And it's a passage designed to encourage
people and build them up in the truth of their
security and give them assurance. And look at what we've
done in our paranoia and our fear. It becomes a
twisted scripture and the enemy uses it to accuse us.
(45:36):
Maybe God has left you, maybe God will leave you,
and we know the truth is staring us in the
face the whole time. I'll never leave you, I'll never
forsake you. Nobody can snatch you out of my hand.
Even when you are faithless, I remain faithful. So these
questions have answers. Is God mad at me? No, Roman
(45:58):
says you're saved from the anger of God. Did I
mess this up? No, it's not about you. It's about
God being a promise keeper. We're not very good promise keepers,
but God is. And that's why the New Covenant is
two unchangeable things, God and God getting together making an
oath so that everything you have in Christ is rock solid, unshakable, unbreakable.
(46:25):
We keep asking these questions is it too late for me?
And have I lost my salvation? And am I okay?
And again and again and again, the Gospel affirms that
were more than okay, that were off the charts righteous,
that God is smiling in our direction. Look, these are
the questions that I want to help answer for people.
(46:47):
I love encouraging people. I want to be remembered as
someone who was pointing. Every time you looked at me,
I was pointing, pointing to Jesus, pointing to the Cross,
pointing to the resurrection, pointing to the finished work of Christ,
to let people know that the Cross worked, that the
(47:08):
resurrection was an amazing success, and as a result, we
have a love from God that will never be revoked,
and leaving that legacy of unconditional love, and people knowing
that it's real, that it's not a cliche, that it's
not a sermon, that it's really how God feels about us.
(47:30):
That God demonstrated is love in dying and resurrecting for us.
When people get to know that, that's what puts a
smile on my face. That's what I get most excited about.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Often we find ourselves questioning the extent of God's forgiveness.
Are we truly forgiven for every sin? What about the
big ones, the frequent ones, or even the forgotten ones.
It's easy to get caught up in the doubts and
uncertainties about our forgiveness. But the truth is that through
the Cross we have been granted an unimaginable level of forgiveness.
(48:08):
It's a forgiveness that extends to every sin, past, present,
and future. Moreover, we explored the notion of freedom in
life of a believer. While the word freedom can sometimes
evoke fear or apprehension, we discussed a beautiful kind of freedom,
one that liberates us from the rule based religion. It's
(48:30):
not about striving to follow endless rules and regulations. It's
about allowing Christ to rule in our lives and experience
the transformative power of His grace. Throughout this episode of
Relentless Hope, we discovered the significance of embracing our new
identity in Christ. We debunk the notion that we must
(48:50):
deny ourselves or diminish who we are. Instead, we celebrate
the truth that in Christ we have become new creations,
redeemed given and designed for good works. It's about living
out our new identity with confidence and embracing the grace
filled life that God has prepared for us. The message
(49:12):
of the New Covenant resonates deeply, yet it often remains
neglected in our discussions. Today, Andrew Farley sheds light on
the profound truth that God initiated and completed everything necessary
for our salvation. It's not about our efforts or performance.
It's about what Jesus did on the cross. Through him,
we can experience closeness and intimacy with God, all based
(49:37):
on his perfect promise keeping nature. We should be passionate
about sharing this transformative message of the finished work of
Jesus Christ. It's a message that liberates, empowers and brings
joy to our lives. We should be excited about the
future and the impact these truths can have on the
lives of others. Together, let us celebrate the Gospel, the pure,
(50:00):
unadulterated grace of Jesus, without any additives. It's through his
grace that we find true freedom, joy, and a renewed
sense of identity. Thank you for being a part of
this journey. I'm your host, Matthew Potter. Stay tuned for
more empowering episodes of Relentless Hope as we continue to
explore the depths of God's love and grace. And as always,
(50:24):
may you embrace your identity in Christ, walk in the
fullness of His grace, and give Hope a voice.
Let us pray, Let him eschew evil and do good.
Let him seek peace and ensue it first Peter three eleven.
Dear God, thank you for your forgiveness and forgiving me
another chance to do good according to your word. Forgiving
others is not always easy, so help me to be
(00:21):
forgiving like you. I know that by adopting a forgiving mindset,
I will be able to let go of unwonted pain
and unnecessary negative emotions, allow the relationships in my life
to be full of grace, patience, and forgiveness. Please help
me to let go of past behaviors that do not
(00:42):
benefit me or my purpose in life. Continue to transform
my heart to be more like you. Amen. Thank you
for joining us in prayer. Now for the Relentless Hope Podcast,
where we bring you true stories and personal testimonies that
will help you love your life, lead with purpose, and
(01:05):
leave a legacy of helping others.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Many people struggle to grasp the immense power of God's grace,
his unconditional love, and his complete forgiveness through Jesus Christ.
It can be easy to get tangled up in legalism
or works based on righteousness, feeling as if we have
to earn God's love or approval. However, as you pointedly describe,
(01:37):
the Bible teaches that we are saved not by works,
but by faith alone in Jesus Christ Ephesians two eight
through nine. This is the heart of the new covenant,
a covenant based not on our ability to keep the
law perfectly, which we can't, but on Christ's perfect sacrifice
on our behalf. It's true that we're completely forgiven in Christ.
(02:00):
He paid the full penalty for all of our sins, past, present,
in future when he died on the cross. He is
the atoning sacrifice for our sins, not only for ours,
but also for the sins of the world First John
two two. There is no sin that his sacrifice does
not cover. As Christians, we are freed from the bondage
(02:24):
of sin, and we are given new identity. In Christ.
We are a new creation, as it says in Second
Corinthians five seventeen. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, a
new creation has come. The old has gone, the new
is here. And in Romans abe one we're reminded that
there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are
(02:49):
in Christ. Freedom in Christ doesn't mean we're free to
sin without consequences, but that we're free from the bondage
and penalty of sin and free to live a life
pleasing to God, empowered by His Spirit within us. Our
actions don't earn us salvation at their unnatural outflow of
our love for God and are transformed identity in Christ.
(03:16):
In this episode of Relentless Hope, doctor Andrew Farley describes
the transformative power of understanding the grace and forgiveness offered
through the New Covenant. It's indeed a message of hope
and liberation, one that can bring about profound transformation in
the lives of believers as they fully embrace the truth
of who they are in Christ. It's also a valuable
(03:39):
reminder for all Christians to stay grounded in the truth
of the Gospel and not to drift into legalism or
self effort, but to rest in the finished work of Christ.
Let's begin today's episode of Relentless Hope with doctor Andrew Farley.
(04:00):
In a thought provoking reflection, Andrew Farley delves into the
profound forgiveness offered through the Cross and explores the extent
of God's forgiveness, pondering the weight of various sins and
the uncertainties many Christians face regarding their own forgiveness and
the liberating concept of true freedom.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
In Christ, there's incredible forgiveness through the Cross, and I
talk about that a ton nowadays. How forgiven are we?
Did God fail to forgive us for one of those sins?
What about the big sins? What about the frequent sins?
What about the forgotten sins? The ones you don't even
remember anymore? And we Christians, it seems like we have
(04:43):
a lot of hang ups. We're not sure how forgiven
we really are. And then I love to talk about
the freedom of the believer. Freedom can be a scary word.
I mean, you think about the guy in the movie
Shawshank Redemption and he, well, he didn't love freedom. There
was one character in there he kept getting in trouble
(05:06):
on purpose, over and over so he could go back
to prison because he loved bondage. He loved to be
told when to get up and when to go to sleep,
and when to have free time and when he could
go to the restroom. He liked bondage because there were
rules involved and there was structure, and freedom scared him. Well,
there's a lot of Christians today where you know the
(05:28):
word freedom. It can scare us. But I'm talking about
a beautiful freedom, a freedom from rule based religion. It's
not about rules, It's about letting Christ rule.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
On Part one of this three part series, Andrew Farley
delves into the themes of forgiveness, freedom, and identity in
Christ with an honest and personal ties much Andrew Farley
discusses the struggle of understanding the depth of God's forgiveness
and the fear that can accompany the concept of true freedom.
(06:11):
Emphasizing the transformative power of the New Covenant and our
new identity in Christ, he invites us to embrace the
liberating truth that the finished work of Jesus is truly enough.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
God. I'm doing everything they say to do. I'm sharing
my faith with every single person that I meet. I'm
in church every time the doors are open, and I'm
reading my Bible four and five hours a day, and
yet I still don't feel like I'm getting closer to You.
Where did I go wrong? My formula is broken. I
(06:51):
was nineteen years old, and that was my prayer to God.
I had had a crash and burn experience. I had
put my antenna up to the religion world and I
was doing everything they said to do. I was in
halfway houses, in jails and prisons. I was preaching in
subway cars and on the streets of Greece and Italy,
(07:13):
going door to door sharing my faith so that I
could get God to like me and then keep him
liking me. And you know what, the whole thing it
just didn't work. I was so miserable. I mean, if
I were being honest back then, my sales pitch would
have been, Hey, would you like to become a Christian
(07:35):
and be miserable like me? So there I was on
the floor of my apartment and I was begging God
for real answers, and nothing made sense. But I got
to tell you, it wasn't like a lightning bolt out
of heaven. It was more like ten years of replacing
old thoughts with new thoughts. And at the center of
(07:57):
that was something called the New Covenant. Now, for me,
the New Covenant just meant maybe that's the name of
the church down the street or something. But I had
no clue what the New Covenant was. I had never
heard a single sermon on the topic. And it wasn't
an immediate, overnight change. It was more like a decade
(08:20):
of coming to know what this New Covenant is, coming
to know what a New Testament relationship with God is
really all about. And it was ten years of replacing
old thoughts with new ones. And yeah, I was a believer.
I mean, I grew up in Virginia on a horse farm.
I grew up in a Christian home, and I prayed
(08:42):
to receive Christ at a young age. Actually, when I
was about three years old, my parents told me about
how I could receive Christ, and so I prayed with them,
and then about ten minutes later, I invited my parents
back into my room and I said, Hey, now now
that I've got Jesus in my heart, could I get
an angel in my stomach? So it was pretty obvious
(09:06):
I did not understand what real salvation was yet. But
later later on I was eight years old, and I'll
never forget, I decided that I really wanted to have
Jesus Christ live in me, and I opened the door
of my life and received him when I was eight
years old. And so I grew up in a Christian home,
(09:28):
and I certainly got a lot of Bible teaching and
went to church regularly, and somewhere along the way, though
I got really really confused about what Christianity is supposed
to be like on a daily basis. I started to
make it about me and what I was doing for
(09:52):
God instead of it being about God and what He
had done for me. So I didn't understand and a
good portion of the Gospel. I was really feeling like
a black sheep in God's family. By the time I
hit my teen years, I had a sense of humor.
I was a class clown. I was student body president.
(10:15):
By the time I was a senior in high school,
I was popular, and yet I had a guilt complex
because I thought, well, if you're a serious Christian, then
you'll be walking the aisle every week at chapel. I
went to a Christian school where we had chapel every day,
and at the end of the chapel there would always
be this altar call, and they were basically inviting us
(10:38):
to do more and be more and love more and
be better and commit and rededicate and again and again.
There was this cycle of trying to present yourself to
God and get more right and get more acceptable to him,
and it really created a revolving door experience where you
(10:59):
saw the same people get up and rededicate and recommit,
and then a week later, a month later, there they
were again tears in their eyes, having failed God. They
were promising that they were really gonna do it this time.
And so that was the environment that I grew up in.
And you either got up and walked the aisle and
(11:20):
recommitted over and over, or you felt like a second
class citizen in God's family. And that's where I landed.
But once I went to college, I decided, you know what,
I am going to do this thing for real. I
am going to be the Christian that I never was before.
I'm going to do exactly what they said to do
(11:43):
back in those chapel messages. So when I went off
to college as a freshman, I decided that I was
going to be the most dedicated and most committed Christian
anybody had ever seen. And so I was reading my
Bible four and five hours a day, and I was
literally sharing my faith with everybody that I came into
(12:06):
contact with, whether they wanted to hear it or not,
they were going to get grace in their face, man.
And so I would steer every conversation around to some
sort of evangelistic moment so that I could feel like
I got a notch on my belt for that day
so that God would like me yet another day and
(12:27):
I had pleased him, only to go to bed that
night and feel a sense of well, maybe a lack
of service. I could have done more, I should have
done more. So I would literally get up and go
to the twenty four hour grocery store and find somebody
in the produce aisle who was squeezing the fruit, and
(12:47):
I would share Christ with them so that I could
go home and feel better and get some sleep. Finally,
only to wake up the next day and try to
serve God and more and make him happy with me.
So do you see what happened? I mean, yeah, I
knew I was saved by grace. I knew that salvation
(13:10):
was a free gift because of what Jesus did through
the Cross and the resurrection. The problem is that somewhere
along the way everything got twisted and I started making
it about me and how much I'm doing and whether
I'm doing enough and if I've hit the mark of
hit the benchmark or not, and what does God think
(13:31):
of me? And I began to live in my emotions
and I would let that be the barometer of my closeness.
And so you fast forward a decade or two and
you look at my life now, and yeah, I'm talking
about Jesus, but it's certainly not from the same perspective.
(13:54):
It's not from the same vantage point. I mean, you know,
I would wish my relation relationship with God on anyone.
Today it's not like it was before, living in misery
on the treadmill, trying to jump through all those hoops,
trying to get in God's will and stay in God's
will and get forgiven and stay forgiven and get in
(14:16):
his good graces and stay in his good graces. I mean,
that was a nightmare. But today I have more confidence
in who I am in Jesus Christ. I have confidence
in my God. I have confidence in what he did
for me. And I'm finally seeing that this closeness that
I have with him, that was his idea. It wasn't
(14:40):
even my idea. That's why he sent Jesus to initiate
this closeness with me. And so when I realized that
it's God's idea, that he knew what he was doing,
and that he initiated and completed everything that needed to
be done, Jesus has said on the Cross, he said
(15:02):
it is finished, and that means that God did it
and he doesn't need to do anything else. And so
through the Cross and through the Resurrection, we're set up.
We're set up for a free gift of closeness with God,
a free gift of intimacy. It's not about what we're
trying to do. It's about what He did one hundred percent.
(15:24):
And so today I enjoy sharing the good news of
the Gospel more than ever, and I get to talk
about the New Covenant, which is a very neglected message.
I mean, it's the idea that God couldn't swear by
anyone greater, and so he swore by himself. You know,
when I was a kid, I couldn't do that. I
(15:45):
couldn't swear to God. If I swore to God, my
mom would have me in trouble in a heartbeat. But hey,
there is one person who can swear to God, and
that's God. And that's exactly what the New Covenant is.
He says that it's an oath or a promise that
he made with himself so that there would be two unbreakable, unshakable,
(16:10):
unchangeable things in one corner, We've got the God of
the universe and he's a perfect promise keeper. And then
in the other corner, we got the God of the universe,
and he is a perfect promise keeper. And when you
have two perfect promise keepers, then everything is rock solid.
And so you see, I was thinking that I had
(16:33):
to be the promise keeper, that I've got to keep
my end of the bargain up. And that's what empty
religion offers us. It says, do your best and then
God will respond. You initiate, and if you do enough,
then he'll come and bless you. But the New Covenant
is not like that. It turns religion on its ear
and we ultimately see that it's a promise that He's
(16:55):
made to himself. And so what's the benefit of the
New Covenant. Well, there's incredible forgiveness through the Cross, and
I talk about that a ton nowadays. How forgiven are we?
Did God fail to forgive us for one of those sins?
What about the big sins? What about the frequent sins?
What about the forgotten sins? The ones you don't even
(17:18):
remember anymore? And we Christians, it seems like we have
a lot of hang ups. We're not sure how forgiven
we really are. And then I love to talk about
the freedom of the believer. Freedom can be a scary word.
I mean, you think about the guy in the movie
Shawshank Redemption, and he, well, he didn't love freedom. There
(17:41):
was one character in there he kept getting in trouble
on purpose, over and over so he could go back
to prison because he loved bondage. He loved to be
told when to get up and when to go to sleep,
and when to have free time and when he could
go to the restroom. He liked bondage because there were
rules involved and there was structure, and freedom scared him. Well,
(18:04):
there's a lot of Christians today where you know the
word freedom, it can scare us. But I'm talking about
a beautiful freedom, a freedom from rule based religion. It's
not about rules. It's about letting Christ rule. And when
we let Christ rule, that's not a scary thing. He
(18:26):
knows what he's doing and we can let Christ be Christ.
And that's a beautiful thing. To not be driven by
external rules and regulations, to not be driven by something
written on tablets of stone, but instead to be led
internally by the indwelling Christ and his presence in us,
(18:47):
letting that be our motivation. So I talk about new
identity in Christ. It's amazing to me how so many
Christians have bought the enemies lie that we have to
diminish ourselves and get rid of ourselves. We're told we
got to die to self. We're told we got to
deny ourselves. But all of those are salvation pitches. I mean,
(19:11):
Jesus says, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him.
Where do you follow him? You follow him into death
and new life. And that's what salvation is. We follow
him into death and new life. So now, if you're saved,
you've got a new self. You don't need to deny
that self. You've got a new self. So why would
(19:32):
you deny the new creation? Why would you deny who
you are as a child of God. And so I
love sharing the good news of who we are in Christ.
That yes there's an enemy, Yes we say no to sin,
Yes we say no to the flesh. Yes we trust
Christ and walk by the spirit. But as far as
(19:54):
who we are, God has recreated us in Christ Jesus
as a new self, a new creation. We're redesigned from
the ground up for good works. So that tells you
something about our beautiful design. And when we use these
phrases like hey, you got to die to self, well,
(20:15):
the phrase die to self is nonexistent in the Bible.
It's not even there. And so I love talking about
this stuff because I have seen it liberate so many people.
Christians go free in their new identity. They start believing
that they're totally forgiven, past, present, and future. They drop
(20:37):
the rule based religion and start letting Christ rule and
ministering this New Covenant message. That is my passion. I
mean tewod Corinthians chapter three. It says that that's the
only message that we're qualified to minister. It says God
has qualified us as ministers of a new Covenant, not
(20:59):
of the law. He says, you're a minister of grace.
And that's what it's all about. It's not about us
and what we're trying to do for God. It's all
about Jesus and what He already did for us. And
so you know, if there's one thing that I want
to shout from the rooftops to the Christian world and beyond,
(21:23):
it's that the finished work of Jesus Christ really is
enough and I'm excited. I'm excited about my life right now,
I'm excited about the future. I'm excited to share these
truths with other people because I've seen how God used
them in my life, and I have seen how God
(21:45):
is rescuing so many people when the Gospel gets to
shine brightly, when all of the fig leaves of religion
are peeled away and we get back to the core message.
My first book was called The Naked Gospel Jesus plus Nothing,
one hundred percent natural, no additives, and that's what I
(22:10):
love talking about. That's what I love sharing, and that's
why I'm excited, maybe well the most in decades ever
since Salvation. Looking back on this journey, I can say
that today I am more excited than I've ever been,
and it's because I know who I am in Christ,
(22:31):
and I know who He is in me. We've heard
in popular theology that we have deceitfully wicked hearts. And
you might even see a worship leader on stage at
some point. He's strumming on his guitar, he's mid song,
and he looks up to Heaven and he says, God,
We've got wicked, wicked hearts. Lord, And then everybody erupts
(22:55):
into a big amen to affirm that notion. You just
want to hit the pause button and say, no, wait
a minute, we don't have deceitfully wicked hearts. The Bible
says he took out our heart of stone as believers,
He took out that stony heart, and he gave us
a new heart. And Romans chapter six, it says that
(23:19):
we were slaves of sin, but we became obedient from
the heart.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
On part two of this three part series, Andrew Farley
challenges the notion that believers have deceitfully wicked hearts, emphasizing
the transformation that occurs through salvation. He delves into his
own journey of leadership, highlighting the shift from a self
focused approach to one centered on availability and dependency on Christ.
(23:51):
With an organic and grace oriented perspective. They advocate for
leading from the heart and trusting the new heart in
a there's fostering a community driven approach to leadership.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
You know, when I think about my initial approach to
leadership as a young believer, I would describe it as
pretty much a lone ranger approach to leadership. I was
doing my own thing. I was out on an island
religiously speaking. I was in halfway houses and jails and prisons.
(24:31):
I was sharing my faith on airliners and in subway cars.
I was going door to door in neighborhoods, and it
was all about me and what I was doing for God.
And there was no community in it. There was no
relationship or fellowship in it. It wasn't about connecting other
people or empowering others or enabling other people to succeed.
(24:56):
It was all about me and what I could accomplish
in order to get God to like me yet another
day and wake up with the confidence that I had recently,
at least recently done enough for him. And so the
whole thing was about me and my impact and me
trying to be a world changer. And then I had
(25:20):
that crash and burn experience, the one where I'm on
the floor of my apartment and I'm begging God for
answers and I'm saying, God, you know, I'm doing what
the Christian world told me to do. I'm out there, dedicated, committed,
sharing my faith, reading my Bible. I'm in church, I'm volunteering,
(25:41):
I'm helping out, I'm leading youth groups. I'm going on
mission trips. I'm doing jail ministry, everything I could possibly do,
and yet I feel depleted. I feel depressed, I feel disillusioned.
Where did I go wrong? And you know, looking back
on that, God taught me so much through that crash
(26:04):
and burn experience, and today I see that leadership is
first about availability. It's about being available to the God
of the universe and letting him inspire us. And it's
about dependency. That's why Christ lives in us. I mean,
think about it. He could have just said, hey, here's
(26:25):
a ticket to heaven and I'll see you in eighty years.
But what did he do? Instead? He deposited his life
inside of us. He gave his life for us on
the cross, and then he gave his life to us
through the resurrection so that he could live his life
and express his life through us every day. And so
(26:48):
what's our role, well as leaders, as people, just as humans.
Our role is to be available. And I think there's
a lot in that. The Bible says, let your speech
be seasoned with grace. It says, let this mind be
in you. I love that word let because that three
(27:11):
letter word it says so much about the attitude we
can have as believers. God has everything rigged. Christ is
in us, We're in Christ. Everything is set up for success.
All we have to do is let Yes. We could
fight it, Yes we could dig our heels in, or
we could just let it happen. And to me, that's
(27:33):
step one of being a leader is living from the
heart and letting Christ be Christ in us and through
us as we relate to people we work with, as
we relate to people that we encounter every day. So
as a pastor, I have a very organic style of leadership.
(27:54):
I don't know a better term for it. I mean,
in our church, we don't build program and then try
to fund them later. We don't even create positions and
then try to fill them later. We have a bottom
up approach as much as possible. And what does that mean?
(28:15):
I guess it means that we kind of survey the
gifts of the people that are already evident, you know,
around us, and we look to their desires and their
passions and we ask ourselves, well, where did these passions
and desires and gifts come from? If they came from
(28:35):
God and they're already in our midst, then we can
let these things dictate where we go next. So you
see what I mean. That's why I would call it
an organic approach. We're not setting up all kinds of
programs and then hoping that we eventually get the right
people for those slots. Instead, we're relational and we're looking
(28:59):
for them. The natural growth Colossians two says, there's a
growth that comes from God, and we're trusting in that
that that's real. And so it's just like our church giving.
I mean, we don't teach a mandated ten percent tithe
in our church. We just happen to have noticed that.
(29:21):
It's not in any New Testament epistle. You look at Romans,
it's not there, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, it's not there.
So how did the Galatians survive? How did the Thessalonians
get by? How did the Corinthians make budgets? So to speak? Well,
Paul says, give freely from the heart, not under pressure.
(29:43):
He says not reluctantly, but he also says not under pressure.
And he says God loves a cheerful giver. And so
that's where we're coming from leadership wise, I mean, a
cheerful giver. Can that really be? Can that happen. Is
it gonna occur if you just take a step back
(30:05):
and let people get motivated and inspired by Christ living
in them. Well, grace giving is the same as grace living.
The theology doesn't change when you get out your wallet.
It's real, and yeah, it's risky from a human standpoint,
(30:25):
it's risky to lead that way. Yeah it might mean
that you end up cutting some things, but it also
might mean incredible excitement about the areas where God is
stirring in people. So we lead from the new heart,
that's what we're saying. And unfortunately, there are just too
(30:46):
many bad ideas out there about the Christian's heart. I mean,
we've heard in popular theology that we have deceitfully wicked hearts.
And you might have and see a worship leader on
stage at some point. He's strumming on his guitar, he's
mid song, and he looks up to Heaven and he says, God,
(31:09):
we've got wicked, wicked hearts. Lord, and then everybody erupts
into a big amen to affirm that notion. And you
just want to hit the pause button and say, no,
wait a minute, we don't have deceitfully wicked hearts. The
Bible says he took out our heart of stone as believers,
(31:30):
he took out that stony heart, and he gave us
a new heart. And Romans chapter six it says that
we were slaves of sin, but we became obedient from
the heart. Now that's awesome. That means that we have
new hearts, that we have obedient hearts. And then Paul
(31:52):
even goes as far as to call us slaves of righteousness.
Now just think about that, all of the slavery that
you had to sin, all of the connectedness that you
had to the power of sin. As an unbeliever, you
know everybody would say, yes, unbelievers, the Bible says there's
slaves to sin. Yes, I agree without one hundred percent. Well,
(32:14):
the same Bible, the same Bible says you're a slave
of righteousness. The same Bible says you have an obedient heart. No,
our attitudes are not always online, they're not always right,
they're not always obedient. Yes, we're getting a renewing of
the mind. Yes, our mind is being renewed. But our heart. No,
(32:37):
our heart has already been extracted and replaced. The Bible
says that salvation is basically like a heart surgery. It's
like a DNA swap. We talk about Christ living in us,
but do we know what Christ did to us. He
doesn't live in dirty places. He cleaned house and then
(32:59):
he moved in. And so when Christ dwells in our
hearts by faith, that's a new heart that He gave us.
And so we can lead from that new heart. And
then here's the even bigger thing. We can trust that
other people also have that new heart, and we can
(33:20):
liberate them to learn to be who they are in
Christ without micromanaging them, without lording things over them and
manipulating them. We can learn to lead by grace when
we recognize the new heart in other people. So I
(33:40):
would say, leadership wise, that's what we're doing. We're letting
that happen in people's lives. Yes, of course, we intervene
at times to disciple and counsel and exhort people, but
for the most part, we are letting that happen. So
that's what I mean by that. It's truly organic. We're
(34:02):
living from the heart, we're leading from the heart, we're
giving from the heart. God has this whole thing rigged
to work in community. If we will trust what he's
done in transforming the core of our being. Hey, we're
letting it happen. And to me, that is so exciting
(34:25):
And there's no better way to lead The Gospel is
God's idea, and he initiated it, and he did it perfectly.
Everything that was done through the Cross and Resurrection is
so very effective to the max, and there's just no
concern about any work being left over. We don't add
(34:48):
to what Christ already did. He said it's finished and
that's real. And so I love talking about the believer's forgiveness.
I love talking about issues of freedom. I mean, this
is my cause to proclaim the new Covenant of God's
grace for the rest of my days. And I hope
that when I'm ninety years old or when they're talking
(35:12):
at my funeral, that they say that far Lea sure
was a broken record. All he kept talking about over
and over and over was God's grace and he wouldn't
let up, and he was a broken record, just constantly
celebrating the new Covenant of God's grace. That's what I
want to be remembered for, because that's what endures. What
(35:35):
endures is the message itself, not the Messenger.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
In Part three of this three part series, Andrew Farley
passionately shares their mission to proclaim the message of God's
grace and the beauty of the Gospel. Andrew emphasizes the
completeness of Christ's work on the Cross, highlighting the forgiveness
is not based on human apologies, on the blood of Jesus.
Andrew's desires to see believers experience the freedom, confidence, and
(36:07):
rest that come from knowing that they are unconditionally loved
and forgiven by God. Andrew's hope is to leave a
legacy of pointing out others to the finished work of
Christ so they too can experience the profound reality of
God's of wavering love.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
So I'm on a mission, and frankly, I'm excited about that.
It's a mission that's all about freedom. It's all about
getting into touch with that heartfelt motivation. I mean, that's
my cause. My cause that I'm fighting for is to
(36:47):
enable believers to see how beautiful this message is. That
the Gospel is better than any of us realize. I mean,
what's not to like? You think about the forgiveness that
we have. Okay, so a lot of people think that
forgiveness is apology based. I mean, sure it is if
it's human to human. I mean, if you and I
(37:09):
are in a fight, and if I do something to
tick you off and you do something to tick me off,
well I'll forgive you, hey, but you got to show
up on my doorstep with an apology on your lips
and tears in your eyes and sorrow in your heart,
and then I'll say I forgive you, and then you
(37:32):
get to go away feeling forgiven. And we have an
apology based economy when it comes to two humans relating.
But that's not God's way, Like God's way is not
our way. His way is higher and his way is better.
And I'm finding that part of my mission is to
help people resonate with the blood economy. Hebrews says, without
(37:57):
the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. And so
if I could recognize that it's a blood economy instead
of an apology economy, then the whole thing makes a
lot more sense. It can't be about my five million apologies.
It can't be about my confessions. It can't be about
(38:18):
my memory and my legal pad and my many words.
It has to be about Jesus Christ and his blood
and that's why he shed his blood one time. It
worked the first time. It needs no repeat. The cross worked,
and that's why Jesus said it is finished. And so
(38:41):
we just we need people to see this because it's huge.
We are not being forgiven progressively. We're totally forgiven. People
think about it. How many of your sins were in
the future when Christ died? All of them, right, your past,
your present sins, your future sins. They were all in
(39:03):
the future when Christ died. And he didn't differentiate between
the big sins or the little sins, or the frequent sins,
or the occasional sins, or the confessed sins and the
unconfessed that no, he died for all your sins. He
took away all your sins. He remembers your sins no more.
He removed them as far as the east is from
(39:25):
the west. That's the message of forgiveness through Jesus. And
there's just nothing to not like about that. It's an
incredible message that Christians need to know. This is the
gospel for Christians. Yeah, we got saved through the gospel,
but it's like then we just sort of took a
(39:46):
vacation from the message and tried to start working to
impress God, and we're trying to live for God instead
of living from God. And what I'm trying to say
is when you know know that you're this clean, and
when you know that you're this close to God as
a free gift, you start acting like a person that's
(40:07):
clean and close, and you get your confidence back and
you don't have any hang ups about where do I
stand with God? And what does He think of me?
And all of that fear and that guilt. We're asking
questions like is God mad at me? And did I
mess this up? And is it too late for me?
Am I all washed up? And have I lost my salvation? Ultimately,
(40:31):
it feels like we're asking the big question, Am I okay?
And I think that's what the Gospel is designed to answer.
The Gospel is shouting from the rooftops a resounding Yes,
you are okay. You are more than okay. You are
forgiven and cleansed of all unrighteousness, past, present, future. You're
(40:55):
the righteousness of God. You're holy, You're blameless. It's like
you never send a day in your life. And again,
I mean, all of this was God's idea. It's not
our idea. Look if this was our idea, then look
at the religions of the world and how they're trying
to climb up to God and get prepped to relate
to the deity. The Deity is far off and perfect
(41:18):
and we are lowly and sinful, and we got to
get ourselves prepared to relate to him as if it's
our idea. And so we're going to go through these
steps and jump through these hoops and do these things
and then we'll be okay. Well, the Gospel is God's idea,
and he initiated it, and he did it perfectly. Everything
(41:39):
that was done through the Cross and Resurrection is so
very effective to the max, and there's just no concern
about any work being left over. We don't add to
what Christ already did. He said it's finished and that's real.
And so I love talking about the believers forgiveness. I
(42:00):
love talking about issues of freedom. I mean, this is
my cause to proclaim the new covenant of God's grace
for the rest of my days. And I hope that
when I'm ninety years old or when they're talking at
my funeral, that they say that far Lea sure was
a broken record. All he kept talking about over and
(42:23):
over and over was God's grace, and he wouldn't let up,
and he was a broken record, just constantly celebrating the
new covenant of God's grace. That's what I want to
be remembered for, because that's what endures. What endures is
the message itself, not the messenger. And so the freedom
(42:45):
that we have as believers, not living under a rule
driven theology, not living under a rule based system, but
just recognizing that we have something written on our hearts,
that God has etched his desire on the lining of
our new spiritual hearts, that we have something in there
(43:05):
inside of us that will never be deleted, and that
is to believe in Jesus Christ and love others even
as He's loved us. And John writes and he says,
these commands are not burdensome. The Christian life is not
supposed to be burdensome. Don't we remember the original invitation.
(43:27):
The original invitation went something like this, My yoke is easy,
my burden is light, and you will find rest for
your souls. That's got to be real. Either Jesus is
a liar or that's got to be real. And I
think it is real. And so that's my mission is
(43:49):
to help and encourage believers as they come to know
the finished work of Christ and the real message of
the Gospel, and the fear and the guilt, they begin
to dissipate. But let's be honest. I mean, the Bible
can be like a weapon for people. There are many
(44:11):
twisted scriptures out there. I'm thinking of things like depart
from Me. A lot of Christians are freaking out about
a passage like that, depart from me. Is that what
God is going to say to me if I didn't
do enough for him? Well? I love helping Christians see
the truth. The truth will always set us free. And
(44:33):
in that case, just as a tiny example, I mean,
Jesus says, depart from me, I never knew you. So
those are people who never knew him, they never had relationship.
Those aren't people that are with Jesus. And then suddenly
they're on the outs. They haven't done enough, they haven't
achieved enough, and so God just gets sick of them
(44:53):
and kicks them out. No, this is depart from me,
I never knew you. And then we have, you know, know,
other fears like is God gonna blot us out? Of
the Book of Life. And that's so ironic because when
you look at the Book of Revelation, what you discover
is that it's actually a promise to the contrary. He's saying,
(45:14):
I'll never blot you out, I'll never delete you, I'll
never erase you. And it's a passage designed to encourage
people and build them up in the truth of their
security and give them assurance. And look at what we've
done in our paranoia and our fear. It becomes a
twisted scripture and the enemy uses it to accuse us.
(45:36):
Maybe God has left you, maybe God will leave you,
and we know the truth is staring us in the
face the whole time. I'll never leave you, I'll never
forsake you. Nobody can snatch you out of my hand.
Even when you are faithless, I remain faithful. So these
questions have answers. Is God mad at me? No, Roman
(45:58):
says you're saved from the anger of God. Did I
mess this up? No, it's not about you. It's about
God being a promise keeper. We're not very good promise keepers,
but God is. And that's why the New Covenant is
two unchangeable things, God and God getting together making an
oath so that everything you have in Christ is rock solid, unshakable, unbreakable.
(46:25):
We keep asking these questions is it too late for me?
And have I lost my salvation? And am I okay?
And again and again and again, the Gospel affirms that
were more than okay, that were off the charts righteous,
that God is smiling in our direction. Look, these are
the questions that I want to help answer for people.
(46:47):
I love encouraging people. I want to be remembered as
someone who was pointing. Every time you looked at me,
I was pointing, pointing to Jesus, pointing to the Cross,
pointing to the resurrection, pointing to the finished work of Christ,
to let people know that the Cross worked, that the
(47:08):
resurrection was an amazing success, and as a result, we
have a love from God that will never be revoked,
and leaving that legacy of unconditional love, and people knowing
that it's real, that it's not a cliche, that it's
not a sermon, that it's really how God feels about us.
(47:30):
That God demonstrated is love in dying and resurrecting for us.
When people get to know that, that's what puts a
smile on my face. That's what I get most excited about.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Often we find ourselves questioning the extent of God's forgiveness.
Are we truly forgiven for every sin? What about the
big ones, the frequent ones, or even the forgotten ones.
It's easy to get caught up in the doubts and
uncertainties about our forgiveness. But the truth is that through
the Cross we have been granted an unimaginable level of forgiveness.
(48:08):
It's a forgiveness that extends to every sin, past, present,
and future. Moreover, we explored the notion of freedom in
life of a believer. While the word freedom can sometimes
evoke fear or apprehension, we discussed a beautiful kind of freedom,
one that liberates us from the rule based religion. It's
(48:30):
not about striving to follow endless rules and regulations. It's
about allowing Christ to rule in our lives and experience
the transformative power of His grace. Throughout this episode of
Relentless Hope, we discovered the significance of embracing our new
identity in Christ. We debunk the notion that we must
(48:50):
deny ourselves or diminish who we are. Instead, we celebrate
the truth that in Christ we have become new creations,
redeemed given and designed for good works. It's about living
out our new identity with confidence and embracing the grace
filled life that God has prepared for us. The message
(49:12):
of the New Covenant resonates deeply, yet it often remains
neglected in our discussions. Today, Andrew Farley sheds light on
the profound truth that God initiated and completed everything necessary
for our salvation. It's not about our efforts or performance.
It's about what Jesus did on the cross. Through him,
we can experience closeness and intimacy with God, all based
(49:37):
on his perfect promise keeping nature. We should be passionate
about sharing this transformative message of the finished work of
Jesus Christ. It's a message that liberates, empowers and brings
joy to our lives. We should be excited about the
future and the impact these truths can have on the
lives of others. Together, let us celebrate the Gospel, the pure,
(50:00):
unadulterated grace of Jesus, without any additives. It's through his
grace that we find true freedom, joy, and a renewed
sense of identity. Thank you for being a part of
this journey. I'm your host, Matthew Potter. Stay tuned for
more empowering episodes of Relentless Hope as we continue to
explore the depths of God's love and grace. And as always,
(50:24):
may you embrace your identity in Christ, walk in the
fullness of His grace, and give Hope a voice.
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