Grace Over Grind p3

The fastest way to drain joy out of your faith and your marriage is to turn grace into a scorecard. We talk about legalism and performance not as an abstract doctrine, but as a daily trap that reshapes how we see God, how we see ourselves, and how we treat our spouse. When acceptance feels like something we have to earn, the bar keeps moving, fear starts driving obedience, and the home begins to reflect it through anger, frustration, isolation, and a quiet loss of hope. 

We take a hard look at the “me-centered” questions many believers carry around and why they keep us looking inward instead of fixing our eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2). Then we lay out a clear, practical path out of the bondage: four steps from defeat to freedom, knowing, owning, offering, and walking. Along the way, we ground everything in key gospel passages like Romans 5 and Romans 6, showing what it means to stand in “undeserved privilege,” to move from Adam’s legacy to Christ’s new life, and to stop trying to grow through sheer willpower. This is Christian sanctification with the Spirit in the lead, not a spiritual to-do list. 

We also speak directly to spouses who see legalism taking root at home. We share warning signs to watch for, how performance can show up as approval-seeking in marriage, and why encouragement is rarely a one-time talk but a daily commitment to keep the gospel close. If you want a biblically healthy marriage shaped by grace, not grind, this conversation gives you language, Scripture, and next steps you can take together. Subscribe, share this with a friend who feels stuck, and leave a review so more couples can find hope, and what step do you need to take next?

Transcript

Welcome And Why Legalism Matters

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Welcome to Vows to Keep Radio with David and Tracy Sellers. The mission of Vows to Keep is to help couples develop a biblically healthy marriage through the application of God's Word and a deeper relationship with Him. They desire to help you and your spouse grow closer to each other and closer to the heart of God's design for your marriage. Now, here's David and Tracy with today's broadcast.

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We are David and Tracy Sellers, and we have made Vows to Keep. Welcome back to Vows to Keep Radio. Today, part three of a three-part series on legalism and performance. Now we want to talk with you about this today because, as conceptual and fundamental and doctrinal as this may seem, this is a topic that no one escapes. And since no one escapes it, legalism is going to affect your marriage. Now, some people deal with legalism and they're able to move on. All they need are intermittent reminders of truth to get them back onto the path of grace. Some people are going to struggle with legalism and performance like me most days of their lives, and we are the ones who are going to need constant reminders of grace and mercy and the cross. In the past two parts of this series, we've debunked what some of us have passed off as biblical truth when it comes to this topic. We have defined legalism, what it is, what it isn't, and how it waylays us from the path of truth. If you miss part one or part two, please listen online at vowstokeep.com. So let's take a minute to go over what we talked about in those broadcasts before we move on today to exposing and opposing legalism with truth and then learning what God truly expects of us as believers.

What Legalism Is And Is Not

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In part one, here's what we learn. Number one, legalism is a doctrine that believes that the right performance is going to equal the right acceptance and approval from God and from others. Number two, legalism feels good. Doing the right thing, even with the wrong motive, fools us into thinking that we're good before God. Number three, legalism is a gospel replacement. When we believe we can earn God's approval, we no longer need the cross, which leads us to number four. Legalism enables me to feel justified even when my heart isn't right with God. And number five, legalism is sin because it exalts human ability to be our own savior. It prompts me to place my faith in me, not in the life and death and resurrection of Christ. And finally, in part one, we talked about how legalism is not obedience. That's number six. Our works look like a response to the gospel rather than a replacement for it. Our works can look an awful lot like obedience to God's word. And then in part two, we learn number seven. Legalism is like a yeast. It spreads until it infects every area of our lives, including every relationship in our lives, like our marriage. And the final three points. Number eight in legalism and performance, here's what happens. I become judge of my standing before God. I judge if I did good enough, he's happy with me. I judge if I didn't do good enough, I've got to get on his good side again. I've got to earn that. And the bar is constantly moving because I'm constantly moving it and it wears me out. And that causes number nine. In legalism, I perform in fear. I don't obey out of love. And the final one, legalism is a sanctification replacement. See, I can't grow in Christ if I'm trying to change myself on my own. I have to remember that I'm the branch and he's the vine, and that apart from Christ, really I can do nothing. That's what John 15 says. I hope you take time to study these points out on your own. They're going to be on our website with scripture references because these aren't truths that you and I can hear one time and be done with them. If you struggle to believe that God is pleased with you, if you picture him standing above you, tapping his foot, just waiting for you to get your act together, these are things you're going to have to go over and over and over. And spouses, I'm talking to you right now as well. God has placed you in your spouse's life to walk beside them, to uphold them, even at times pick them up off the ground when their legalism trips them up. Both the person who dabbles in legalism and performance and the person who believes the lies of legalism wholeheartedly are gonna ask

The Me-Focus That Fuels Fear

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these kinds of questions. How does God feel about me today? Am I getting this right? Does God's grace mean that I sit limply on the sidelines just doing what I want because I have a covering of grace? What is my part in the Christian life? What does God expect of me? I think these questions are very legitimate. I've asked each and every one of them myself, but there's a fundamental problem with each one of these. Do you hear the theme in those questions? Me, me, and me. The temptation for us has been and will always be to turn in on ourselves and not look to Christ. The temptation will be to define our own classification before God based on our evaluation of me, myself, and I. To look inward to either our sin or inward to our solution to our sin. Our feelings are going to reign sovereign when we do that, not the finality of God's grace pronounced over us. That's why it's going to be so important as we go forward from here in the remainder of our broadcast today to practice Hebrews 12, 2, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, because it's going to be through these truths that we'll study today that we're going to be enabled to shift our focus from us to Christ where it belongs.

Four Steps Toward Gospel Freedom

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Today on Vows2Keep Radio, we're excited to be walking through four steps to getting you and me from being crippled in the defeat of performance, which is looking inward, to staying in step with the Spirit, which is looking Christward. In other words, four steps to take us from where we are to where God has for us to be, from isolation to intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father, from self-analysis to freedom, from a to-do list type of life to a purpose-filled life, from a life of constant wondering questions to a life of absolute certainty. I want to give you just a glimpse of what God has for us in our Christian walk. In a couple verses from Colossians chapter 1, it says we live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might. Yes, Lord, let that be true of us. But as we know, this is not the experience of every Christian to live in this kind of victory. It is for this freedom that Christ has set us free, but we get bound again to a yoke of slavery. And that's where many of us find ourselves, bound up, tied up, tripped up, unable to run this race that God has set before us. You've seen it in yourself, you've probably seen it in your spouse, you've seen the fruit of it in your home. When we are enslaved to anything other than Christ, you're gonna see depression in your home, anger, distrust, frustration that rules, a lack of hope, a lack of purpose. Today on Vows to Keep Radio, we're gonna go through four steps, four stages of our Christian faith walk, our Christian journey. Here they are knowing, owning, offering, and walking. And as we go through these four steps, we're gonna assume today that we're speaking to believers, those of us who have professed faith in Jesus, God's Son, if that's you today, I pray that you're gonna let God's word have its effect on your heart, so much so that you're gonna be able to live fully in the liberty that's already yours in

Knowing Grace And Your Position

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Christ. So, number one today, knowing. What would you say you know about grace? Is God's grace the place where you live? Or is it a place far off that you long to be? Is God's grace something you possess? Or do you believe it's not yours quite yet? Let's review right now some of the essentials of grace that are also on our website with scripture references. Grace is unmerited favor. We are given what we don't deserve. Grace is given through Jesus. He's the one that came full of grace and truth. Grace is how we are justified. You can find that in Romans 3. Grace is why we're able to stand in right position before God, in that position of favor. Grace is our covering that we live under. Grace is a gift, praise God for that. Grace has a job, grace trains us in righteousness, that's Isaiah 26, and grace is sufficient for our worst sin, our worst weakness. Like I said, all the scripture references for those are on our website, vowstokeep.com. So the space between reading those truths and unequivocally believing them and therefore participating in them is where many Christians live. This space is a state of limbo that our enemy labors tirelessly to keep us in. Why? Because when we vacillate in what we really believe, we are disabled in our faith. Now, Satan can't take away our salvation, we know that, but he can make us question who we are in Christ. He can make us live in that space of legalism, and we willingly believe his foolhardy lies about legalism and performance. Many people spend their entire Christian life in that space, never reaching the full understanding of where they stand in Christ. Here's your position today in Christ, no matter what your feelings are, no matter what the enemy might be telling you. Here it is. Here's your position from Romans chapter 5, verse 1 and 2. Therefore, since we've been made right in God's sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Christ Jesus our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory. So we may in theory, quote unquote, know these truths. We can see with our own eyes in black and white these words on the pages of Romans chapter five. We can sing about grace with the artist on the radio. We can listen to a sermon about grace in church on Sunday. We can even try to picture ourselves before the throne of God, clothed in his righteousness and not ours. We can do all these things, but grace can still feel very far away. Have you grabbed hold of God's grace as your own? Or are you borrowing feelings and phrases from pastors and singers and friends? Is this grace yours? Or does it only belong to those who've got it, quote unquote, figured out, whatever that it really is? Let this truth free you today. You don't have to figure anything out. It's already been done for you. You have God's grace given to you through his son Jesus. You can't change it or remove it even on your worst day, but here's what you can do, and here's what you need to do differently. You can change how you accept it in faith and how you live under this beautiful umbrella that God has placed over you. Just as believing in Christ as your Savior is a matter of faith, so is knowing your position in Christ. And I think we can go a step deeper in that as we study out Romans chapter 5.

Owning Your New Life In Christ

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It talks about the first Adam and the second Adam. We have the first Adam in the Garden of Eden. Romans 5, 12 tells us that sin entered the world through one man, that's Adam, and then death through that sin. And in this way, death came to all people because all sin. So Adam hung in indecision between two trees, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life, and he chose to sin, and we reap the fruit of Adam's disobedience. Watchman Ne says, You are a sinner not because you sin, but because of your heritage in Adam. You sin because you're a sinner. In our old nature, we are spiritually dead. But Jesus became the second Adam and he hung between two trees. And because of his choice, Romans 5 says that many will be made righteous. So now we reap the fruit of Christ's obedience. You have new life in Christ, not because you're sinless, but because he is. We have a new nature and now we are spiritually alive. Grasp that truth, know that truth today. Not only did Christ make atonement for your sins by the blood he shed for you, making you accepted in the beloved, his death was your death. His resurrection was your resurrection. These truths can be seen in Galatians 2.20, where it says, I've been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And in Romans 6, several verses in this chapter 3 and 4 says, all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of God the Father, we too may live a new life. We were born into sin, but that old sinful nature has been crucified. Sin may still be present in our lives, but it no longer has power over our lives. This is the abundant provision of grace where we now stand. God's grace is always based on his character, not ours. God's grace is always based on what he did on the cross for us, and that's our truth to own today. So what else out of what we just talked about do you need to take on faith? Faith that's already been given to you to believe, to stop vacillating between these two points, grace and legalism. We've got to make the step from knowing to owning. This is what God is calling you to. Can you see his good plan for you to make you rich through his poverty? Through his death, you died to sin. Through his resurrection, you are alive in Christ Jesus. Just like Paul says in Galatians 5, 20 and 21, the life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, then Christ died for nothing. Heaven forbid, right? When in faith you're able to thank God for his indescribable gift and see yourself as crucified with Christ and now risen to new life in him, you are well on the way to owning this as yours. And the state of owning is not nearly as long as the state of knowing. Like I said, a person can be in the knowing stage for years and years because their head knowledge and their human reasoning and their lack of faith hasn't allowed the truth to make the 18-inch journey down to their heart. When in faith you transition from knowing to owning, the next step is immediate. The next step is offering.

Offering Yourself As A Living Sacrifice

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There really is no lag time in between these stages. Because this next step is truly not a question of when do I offer or what do I offer to God or how do I offer it? This is an all-in, all-out, joyous surrender of everything we are to God, in whose grace we now stand. Turn back to Romans 6 where we were just a minute ago. Let's start in verse 16. Paul says, Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one you obey. Whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves of righteousness. So this word offer that we're talking about right now, this third stage from knowing to owning to offering is really a submitting to our new master, Jesus, no longer making ourselves available to sin. Now we will sin, but we are not under obligation to its mastery any longer. We have a new master, and now we are just so anxious to serve him. And this is Romans 12:1, where in view of God's mercy, we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice to God. We see this progression of knowing, owning, and then offering with Paul in Philippians chapter 3, verses 8 and 9. See if you can follow this. So he says, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. There's the first step, knowing, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ. There's the owning of what's true, being found in Christ through faith. And then verse 10, we have the third part. He says, I want to know Christ. Yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participate, there's the offering in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. Paul's saying, dying to my slavery to sin and being instead a slave to righteousness. Now, don't hear me say today that we get past the knowing and move on to owning and then offering. Just as Paul reiterates here in Philippians 3, he wants to continue to know Christ, his life, his suffering, his death, and his resurrection. He's saying, May I never forget the gospel. Let me review it over and over again. In fact, in verse 11, he says, Not that I've already obtained all of this or I've already arrived at my goal, I'm gonna press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. And therein comes our final point before we speak to those of you who have a spouse living in the trap of legalism.

Walking By The Spirit Not The Law

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The fourth point is walking. So here again, we're gonna have to watch carefully where we put our eyes, what we're actually focused on, because this is where we can get in trouble, having come so far in Christ, knowing, owning, offering only to try to do this. Last point, walking all by ourselves. Oh my goodness, may it never be so for us. If I have died to the law so that I might live for God, I cannot try to walk by the law in order to please God. Let me say that again. If I have died to the law so I might live for God, I cannot try to walk by the law in order to please God. Legalism has to go. So my job now is to keep the gospel so close to my heart that it's on the tip of my tongue and on the cusp of my heart at any given moment. So that I don't forget that I am not under the law. I am no longer in Adam. I'm no longer in my old sinful nature. I am in Christ Jesus. Praise God. And my calling now is to walk after the Spirit. We see that in Romans 8, verses 3 and 4, and to never live independent from God's Spirit. That is the path of sanctification. Not that we're trying to lead ourselves on the path, not that we're trying to change ourselves, but we are being led by the Spirit, not our flesh. This is God's work in us, God's work that He started, and God is the one who's going to finish it. He is the vine and we are the branches. And the thing is, we don't have to strive to stay attached to the vine. We are already there because we are in Christ. We have already been grafted in, and now our aim is to rest in him, to abide in him, and to let him do his work in us and through us. Hudson Taylor, the great missionary of the 1800s, puts it this way. He says, I used to ask God if he would come and help me. Then I asked God if I might come and help him. Then I ended by asking God to do his own work through me. And that's the walking out that we're talking about right now. That's the freedom of the Christian life. It is a matter of staying in step with the spirit. And in this place of freedom, I'm not ruled or mastered by my sin. I'm not ruled by my lies of legalism. I'm not ruled by my emotions. As I walk, I am led by the Spirit and I'm not under the law. And it's in this freedom that I walk in the way of love, as it says in Ephesians 5.2, and I live a life worthy of the calling I've received, as it says in Ephesians 4.1. And it is here that I finally come to let the peace of Christ rule in my heart, like it says in Colossians 3.15, and what a joyous place that is. So what is your next step in grace? What do you need to know? Do you need to know the gospel? Do you need to own it? Have you hesitated in offering all of yourself? In your walk, are you walking in the spirit or after the flesh? Where are you fixing your eyes? Please take time to go to our website, to listen again to

How To Help A Legalistic Spouse

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the broadcast, to go through these verses on your own, to go over them with your spouse, to tell him or her what step you need to take and ask them to keep you accountable, to encourage you on your faith journey. As we conclude today on Vows to Keep Radio, I want to say a word to spouses. If what I'm saying today is describing your husband or your wife, you are in a prime position, maybe the only person in their life, in that position, who can see the warning signs from far enough off that you can step in and help them take these steps that we talked about today. Knowing, owning, offering, and walking. You can watch for warning signs that your spouse is in legalism, either with you or with God. And a lot of times it's both at the same time. You can watch for their lack of peace. Watch for frustration when things aren't perfect. Watch for a lack of believing that they're completely loved and accepted that might lead them into isolation or depression or anger. Watch for lack of hope and purpose when they fail. One of the biggest warning signs you Might see is your spouse trying to gain your approval, but not ever feeling like they have it. What do they believe their performance with you buys them? Security, approval, maybe, acceptance, more love. From personal experience, I know if that's the way they feel about you as their spouse, they're probably projecting those same feelings onto their relationship with God. Be on the lookout so that you can come alongside them and help them take their next step of faith. Understand though, if you're married to someone who is legalistic, your encouragement of them is not a one-time conversation. You might want it to be. But legalism is something that requires a much longer grace. Hebrews 3 12 says, See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God, but encourage one another daily, as long as it's called today, so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. As the spouse of a legalistic person, keep the gospel close to your heart as well, so that you can remember it's the God of comfort who comforts us in all of our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

Closing Scripture And Ministry Support

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Like what you heard today on Vows to Keep Radio. Listen to more life-changing broadcasts at vowstokeep.com.

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Here's what it says: Good and upright is the Lord. Therefore, he instructs sinners in his ways. He guides the humble in what is right and he teaches them his way. All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful towards those who keep the demands of his covenant. Who then are those who fear the Lord? He will instruct them in the ways they should choose. They will spend their days in prosperity and their descendants will inherit the land. The Lord confides in those who fear him. He makes his covenant known to them. My eyes are ever on the Lord, for only he will release my feet from the snare.

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Vows to Keep is supported by a team which includes biblical coaches, writers, and pastoral advisors. If you have a desire to serve marriages in your community, we would love to hear from you. Vows to Keep is a not-for-profit marriage ministry designed to bring God's encouraging truth to the marriages of our area. As a not-for-profit organization, our commitment to Christ-like marriages includes providing much-needed services regardless of a couple's financial ability to offset the cost of Vows to Keep operations. If you are unable to donate your time or abilities, but would like to help support Vows2Keep financially, visit VowsToKeep.com and click on the donate link.