Is "Grace" BIBLICAL? (Fallen + Free 2025 • LIVE)
Gather 'round, folks! We’re diving deep into the wild waters of grace at Fallen & Free 2025 with the Misfit Preachers – Tullian, Jean, and Byron. Picture this: three unlikely heroes hanging out in Jupiter, Florida, and serving up a buffet of truths about grace, especially for all us prodigals and ragamuffins. The crew tackles three juicy lies about grace that make the rounds in religious circles: that it’s not biblical, not practical, and not historical. Spoiler alert: they dismantle these myths faster than you can say ‘Jesus loves you!’ With plenty of laughs and some serious soul-searching, they remind us that grace is not just a theological concept; it’s the lifeline for the most messed-up among us. It turns out, grace isn’t just for the saints; it’s for the real, raw, and sometimes ridiculous people we are. So if you’re looking for a refreshing perspective on grace that doesn’t shy away from the messy bits, you’re in for a treat!
Takeaways:
- Grace isn't just a fancy concept; it's the lifeboat for the most messed up!
- We tackled three big lies about grace: it’s biblical, practical, and historical, folks!
- Our past mistakes don’t define us; grace is there to rescue and renew us all!
- Jesus came for the ragamuffins and prodigals, and we're all in that club together!
- Feeling stuck? Grace is the key that unlocks the door to freedom and joy!
- When life gets messy, remember: grace isn’t about being perfect, it’s about being loved!
Chapters:
Transcript
You're listening to the misfit preachers, Talian Chavigian, Jean Larue and Byron Yan from ProdigalPodcast.com we're plagiarizing Jesus one podcast at a time. Now here are the misfits.
Speaker B:Welcome to the misfit island. Yes, Misfit preachers. On my left is Jean LaRue III. And on my right is Tully and Chevidge. And I am Byron Yawn.
And we are live fallen and free in Jupiter, Florida.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker B:So excited to be here. I want to thank the sanctuary for hosting this. Everybody who's been involved in organizing this. Been so much work. Tullian, for the vision for it.
You guys are in for a huge blessing over the weekend. And we are just very privileged to be a part of this in the smallest way.
So we thought it would be a great idea to jump in and have a live recording of misfit preachers and cover a very specific topic that relates to the topic of fallen and free on the subject matter of grace. And so what we're going to do is we're going to cover three lies that are often propagated about the teachings of grace.
That you hear from Tullian, that you hear from Jean Larue, that you hear from me, that you hear from the sanctuary, that you hear from Christ. Here are those three lines like you're.
Speaker C:Kind of doing the game show announcer voice.
Speaker B:Do you not want it?
Speaker A:He came so close to not interrupting. I like you were rolling. I'm like, val, where are you? Val?
Speaker C:Oh, really?
Speaker B:It's not that. It's just.
Speaker C:Go ahead. I'm sorry.
Speaker B:Big mar in the parking lot.
Speaker C:I know what shame is. All right, Tullian.
Speaker A:I got tons of it.
Speaker B:Well, how would you rather me do this in the Southern right? Lie number one, ladies and gentlemen, grace is not biblical. Lie number two, grace is not practical. And lie number three, grace is not historical.
So let's start with the first one. Grace is not biblical. You can't find this teaching in the Bible.
Speaker A:Tullian, go, yeah, I haven't heard that grace isn't biblical a whole lot. I mean, I've heard lots of objections over the years to the things that I've been saying for a long time.
I haven't heard so much that grace isn't biblical as much as I've heard unbiblical qualifications of what grace actually is. So there are a lot of, yes, grace, but interpretations of passages and sections of the Bible.
The first thought that came to mind, honestly, when we were Talking about this a little bit ago is I used to live in a world where if it's biblical or what is biblical was like of premier importance. People were studious, they cared a lot about what the Bible says. They wanted what we believe to be verified and justified by what the Bible says.
I still believe that to be true. I just live in a very different world now.
It's not that the Bible is less important, it's that I am now mixing and mingling with people who don't really care if grace is biblical or not. Their questions aren't is grace biblical?
Their question is more like what we're going to get to in the second question, which is does this actually work? Does this work in real life? Does this work to comfort me and forgive me and help me and that sort of thing?
But I think to answer the question shortly or quickly, grace not being biblical is, I mean it's insanity for anybody to affirm that. I don't even know non Christians.
Speaker B:Just to clarify something, and you clarified this in the beginning so that we're not torching a straw man here. When people say that's what we're saying is not biblical, they mean that they, they want to insert the grace.
Speaker A:And yeah, yes, grace, but yeah, yeah, yeah, so there. I mean obviously grace is scary because it up ends our system of checks and balances and deservedness and merit and those sorts of things.
It's uncomfortable. I think that's one of the reasons why we resist it. It's scary. It wrestles control out of our hands.
And so when the primary messaging that comes from religious circles is that the focus of the Christian faith is the life of the Christian, the life of the Christian, doing more, trying harder, getting better, climbing higher, that sort of thing. Grace seems to be an enemy to that project. What I would call a self salvation.
Speaker B:Project doesn't seem to be right.
Speaker A:Absolutely. That's what it is.
It is what is going to cause people to change their behavior, to modify their behavior to get better, to stop doing the bad things and start doing the good things.
If we constantly tell people God loves you unconditionally and has given himself, himself to you in the person of his son, to cover all of your sins, past, present, future, so that you now live your life under a banner that reads it is finished.
The primary objection that I get when I say those kinds of things come from people like I mentioned a few minutes ago, who want to qualify it without really knowing why they want to qualify it. Now there they may be using the Bible as Justification.
And if I preach on a particular passage, Romans 8:1, for instance, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Not. There will one day be no condemnation if you learn to fly straight. There will one day be no condemnation if you get better.
But there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
When I say that kind of thing, they will always throw another verse at me or another passage at me, which seems to indicate that this whole thing is about us working, doing, trying, that sort of thing.
So I think, psychologically speaking, I think the reason that grace is resisted has a much less to do with what they believe the Bible says or doesn't say, and much more to do with their own human condition and the resistance of grace that comes natural to all of us. Really.
Speaker B:That's excellent.
Speaker C:Right? I mean, you, you go to the story of the workers in the vineyard, right? I mean, the whole idea that grace is unfair is biblical.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker C:Like, if you, if you're, if your takeaway is that grace is unfair, you're hearing it correctly. And I think when people say that maybe necessarily the view of grace that we would espouse. How did you say it at the beginning?
The unfettered, total, free. When you fall, you don't fall out of grace, you fall into it. That view that they say is not biblical would be really.
They're saying grace without disclaimers is unbiblical.
Speaker A:Right? Yeah.
Speaker C:Right. Like it's too housebroken.
Speaker A:Grace without footnotes.
Speaker C:Right, right. You got it. But there's always the asterisk. And so I think that's, that's the real issue. And all over Scripture. Do you see?
I mean, I love the way you say it. There's, there's, you should find me a hero in the Bible other than Jesus. They don't exist.
Speaker A:Yeah, they don't. No.
Speaker B:Yeah.
I, I, the only thing I have to add to that, and thank you for that answer, is that not only is grace biblical, unconditioned grace, but the opposition to it is also biblical.
Speaker C:Good point.
Speaker B:If you think about the Apostle Paul, he spent his entire life receiving the criticisms and questions and trying to make sure nobody put conditions on it. All of his letters are about this. Right. In fact, the Book of Romans, which is essentially a fundraising letter for Paul's ministry to Jerusalem.
He wanted to take a trip to Rome, and he was planning on coming there. Never did. But he had to because his opponents had gotten ahead of him and said things like, yes, grace, but yes, adding things to it.
The book of Galatians is where Paul just loses it and throws something against the wall, right? But in the book of Romans, he carpet bombs the people's heart with one of the most brilliant messages that is there.
I mean, Romans 8 is the Mount Everest of the Bible and proves that it is without condition in every way possible.
And then Romans 8, 30, he takes justification, sanctification, glorification, and election, puts it in one container and says, all of this is of grace. The point being that the Apostle Paul, who wrote the majority of the New Testament, faced these criticisms all the time.
If you want to read the Bible through a pretty specific lens, particularly Paul's letters, read it through that lens. He is constantly defending the gospel against conditions, constantly. So not only is grace biblical, but the opposition to it is, you know.
Speaker A: Probably back in:And I thought to myself, what I will learn in my life and through my study by the time I'm 50 is going to be so much better than anything I could say now. So I put it off. Put it off. And I was preaching unconditioned grace at the church that I was serving at the time. And people were confused.
Some people were confused, people who had become accustomed to the do more, try harder, get better, climb higher version that they had heard of Christianity. And, you know, I was able to answer questions and pastor people through some of their issues and objections.
But I had two close friends of mine decide simultaneously that they were going to leave the church because I was essentially saying the same thing every single week, but in a different way. And I remember that really messing me up.
It's one thing for people you don't really know, but these were two close friends, people who had known me for a long time. And I woke up one morning just really frazzled by this. And I woke up fearful that maybe I was getting it wrong.
Maybe these two close friends of mine are messengers from God to steer me back on a different track. I mean, that's really what I thought. I was genuinely wrestling with it. And so I grabbed. I didn't even get out of bed.
I grabbed my Bible off the bedside table and I opened it up to Romans. And in one sitting, I read Romans 1 through 8, every word. And by the time I finished, I knew two things. Number one, this is absolutely true.
I mean, God used my reading of those eight chapters to say, keep going, don't stop the Second thing that I concluded when I finished those eight chapters was I'm gonna preach through Romans next. And I was maybe 41 at the time.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So nine years before I said I was gonna do it. 50. But it was just. It was the book of Romans and those eight chapters in particular that saved my life, that saved my ministry.
And it was such an affirmation, confirmation from God himself through his word that this is everything. Absolutely the message. So as you've heard me say a lot, you know, I.
My mission, my goal, and I think it should be the mission and goal of every preacher and communicator of the gospel is not to say 10,000 different things, is to say one thing 10,000 different ways. And that's essentially what the Apostle Paul did in and through all of his.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker B:There it is.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Amen.
Speaker B:Before we, before we move on, I had the exact same experience where I. I was. The gospel and grace were coming dominant in my mind. I was shedding a lot of theology.
And I had the same thought, like, if you preach Romans too soon, you're going to miss everything. If you preach it too late, you're going to regret not having preached it sooner. And I preached it right in the middle of that experience.
And for the people who were sitting in the audience who were doubting because I was setting foot fire to their flannel boards and moral heroes and those.
Speaker C:Sorts of things, that's such a terrible metaphor.
Speaker B:And they believed in the authority of scripture. I thought, you know what? Let's go. So we just processed through Romans and they saw it absolutely clearly that it can be no other way.
It's either law and you do it, or it's grace and it's done for you.
Speaker A:That's it.
Speaker B:And it converted people to the message. But I was. I was so, so thankful for the providence of God. In the timing where I went, I'm doing it.
Speaker A:I mean, the fact that it took God himself in and through the Bible to reconvince me, that I wasn't off on some bunny trail is all the proof I need, existentially and personally, that the message we have given our lives to. This is the one last hill I am willing to die on. And it's true. And if you start, we'll get into this in the next episode.
But when you start teasing out how this actually sets you free and softens you, you just see evidence of grace everywhere. We were sitting.
Three of us were sitting in a room with 50 guys last night who had come in for fallen and free and it's a recovery group setting, so guys are sharing and they're opening up and sharing some really raw stuff. And I'm thinking, even if the Bible didn't teach this, I would be tempted to believe it because this is so real.
The fact that the Bible does teach it, and it teaches it unashamedly and clearly is, you know, that's sort of the.
Speaker B:And it's, it permeates the entire Bible. I mean, Abraham believed and it was counted to him as righteousness. I mean, it's been grace.
Speaker C:Well, they asked Jesus point blank, what are the works the Father requires? And he said to believe in the one whom he has sent.
Speaker A:John, chapter six.
Speaker C:There it is. I mean, James, which is always pointed to as, as, you know, it's the kryptonite to grace, right?
And I think James doubles down because what James says is, you say you have faith, I say I have works. He said, but can such a faith save a man? He, he goes to saving faith, he's not going to works. He says, faith looks like, so it shows up.
It makes you compassionate, it makes you transparent, it makes you loving. You find tears in your eyes for people who suffered like you do.
Speaker A:Well, and you and I went to the same seminary, different campuses, same seminary. I, we both sat in classrooms. I mean, all three of us did.
We didn't go to the same seminary, but we all, we all three have sat in classrooms at the graduate school level with some very learned, smart men, people who are scholars, New Testament scholars, Old Testament scholars, historians, theologians. And I never heard.
And I was, my gosh, man, I was exposed to the best that Christianity had to offer from the moment I came into this world, surrounded by it my entire life.
:I mean, I sat with some really smart men who were supposed to teach me this stuff. I sat in Sunday school classes, I went on youth retreats, I listened to sermons. No one ever said this. It was always, yes, grace.
But I learned more about what grace wasn't than what it was. Grace doesn't mean this, it doesn't mean that.
Speaker C:Can't do that.
Speaker A:No. And it was just. It was at one in the same time liberating and maddening.
Because I'm thinking, man, we have been robbed, robbed of a message that sets us free in some wild ways. And the church is just so damn scared of the freedom that grace produces.
Speaker B:And it's a very common phenomenon when people who've lived in one world transition through whatever temporal experience into the reality of grace. I was talking to Kevin. We went to lunch the other day. And I'm seeing it, the anger and the frustration. I can't.
Like, we should have kept our receipts for seminary sort of experience. And I said. I said to him, kevin, let me diagnose you.
You're in what's known as the cage stage, where you come to the realization that this has been hidden from you your entire life. You've been climbing a ladder somewhere and you're so furious.
The only thing that can be done with you so as not to harm other people is put you in a cage.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:You're in the cage state.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I told him the problem I had was when I went through the cage stage, I was behind a pulpit.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B: hurch, what did you say? From: Speaker C:So it is.
Speaker B:Anyway, great job, guys.
Speaker A:You've been listening to the misfit preachers. Like, subscribe and share more grace centered resources@prodigalpodcasts.com that's Prodigal P R O D I G A L podcasts with an S Com.
