God’s Keeping System: "That Guy" and Other Christian Myths
Virgil Stokes

Virgil Stokes is a Pastor and Teacher, serving churches since 1980 in Oklahoma, New York, and Arizona. He and his wife, Judy, pioneered Faith Christian Fellowship of Tucson in 2004. Prior to entering ministry Virgil worked as a Registered Nurse in the field of mental health and addictions treatment. A recovering addict himself, Virgil has written and spoken extensively on Christian recovery. He is the author of several books, and is the founder of Faith Ministry Training Institute, a training program empowering local pastors to equip ministers in their own churches. Pastor Virgil is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma and Rhema Bible Training Center. His passion is getting people out of the pews and into the harvest.

You may already know about "That Guy." I’ve never known his real name, so “That Guy” will have to do. I’ve asked many people about him. Most claim to know him but are either unwilling or unable to name him. When I first started preaching I thought he must surely have been following me around. It seemed that every place I went, someone would ask me about “That Guy.” My guess is that you have heard of him, too.

When I took my first pastorate, "That Guy” was quickly brought to my attention. He was in my church, too! He was described to me over and over again by sincere and pious saints. They usually started with a question that went something like this: “Pastor, how can a person come to church and act like a Christian on Sunday, lift his hands in worship, be saved and filled with the Spirit, be happy and blessed of God, when they go out and live in sin all week long?"  My response was always, "Who is ‘That Guy’ and what does he do? Where does he sit? I want to meet him!"  In every instance, it was impossible at that moment to find him.

Thus began my quest to actually locate and help "That Guy." I didn’t ever meet him, but I did learn several things in the search. First, a lot of folks just don’t like seeing other people get blessed. It makes them mad and they complain about it, sometimes even accusing another of wrongdoing. Second, some people who are miserable on the inside can do a great job of faking well-being for an hour or two on Sunday, thus giving the false impression that they are happy and content. Third, there are some people who go to church, act like Christians, but don’t really know the Lord. Fourth, and most important, "That Guy" doesn’t exist.

It would be genuinely irritating if there were Christian people who lived in all the blessings of God, enjoyed health, peace, and prosperity, yet lived a consistently immoral lifestyle. The appearance of such a thing has always grated on the people of God. The Psalmist spoke for most of us when he said, "For I was envious of the boastful, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. (Psalm 73:3)". It is even more irritating when we think that someone will live in blessing, serve the flesh, and make Heaven his home just as we do. It’s just doesn’t seem right!!!

Every school of doctrinal thought has some way to deal with “That Guy.”  When I was a kid I went to the Baptist church. There they told me that if I went to the altar and prayed with the deacon I could come back on Sunday night and be baptized. This would then assure me of being saved no matter what. I was “once saved always saved.”  I immediately thought, “Does that mean I can just live any way I want and still make Heaven as long as I prayed the prayer?”  That didn’t seem right.

A few years down the line, after leaving church and living in the world, I came back to the Lord in the Word of Faith, Charismatic move. They were firmly planted in the Pentecostal tradition, with its holiness roots. These folks tended to be quite sin-conscious. Some even said that every time I sinned I lost my salvation. “You don’t want to die with unrepented sin in your life, brother!” The implication being that if I somehow overlooked something, or slipped up and cussed right before I died, I was bound for Hell even if I had served God faithfully for years. That didn’t seem right, either.

A few years ago, I worked in a church where the Pastor decided he would follow after the Calvinist crowd. He told us that man was totally depraved and incapable of making a decision to follow God. In fact, God had already decided who He was going to save before the world was ever created, and that He would save those people and no others. Not only that, but if He wanted to save you then you would get saved no matter what you did. He called that “grace.”  The blood of Jesus was only shed for these “elect” ones, and the rest of humanity would burn in Hell in order to give glory to God by showing He could do as He pleased. He called that “sovereignty.”  Now that sure didn’t seem right.

Most of these folks are good people who love God, and have done their best to deal with the questions that come up when we watch the lives of people. “That Guy” presents all of us with honest questions:  “Can you live like that and still go to Heaven?”  “Are we once saved, always saved?” When a Christian sins does he have to be born again, again? The problem springs from the questions. We ask the wrong ones. Every question that focuses on specific behaviors rather than on quality of relationship takes us away from grace and into law. The moment we start down the road of, “Can I wear jewelry, pick my nose, and get a tattoo?” we have missed the point. The question is, “Have I been born of the Spirit?” If the answer to that is, “Yes,” then God will deal with me in a manner completely separate from lists of forbidden behaviors. He is my Father and He wants to keep me. That is grace.

God Wants to Keep You

And now-all glory to him who alone is God, who saves us through Jesus Christ our Lord; yes, splendor and majesty, all power and authority are his from the beginning; his they are and his they evermore shall be. And he is able to keep you from slipping and falling away, and to bring you, sinless and perfect, into his glorious presence with mighty shouts of everlasting joy. Amen.  
Jude 24, The Living Bible

There is an old lullaby that goes something like "rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop. When the wind blows the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks the cradle will fall, and down will come baby, cradle and all." Many good Christian people have this picture concerning their status in the Kingdom of God. They go through every day fearful that they will inadvertently, in a moment of carelessness or passion, do something that will cause them to fall out of God’s grace. This is simply not true!

Attention all believers: God is working to keep you, not kick you out!!!! The entire mission and heart of our Lord Jesus Christ was to seek and to save that which was lost. He went through all the shame and sorrow of the cross, applied all the power of the resurrection, and dedicated Himself to live eternally to make intercession for us, all for the purpose of saving us to the uttermost. His desire is to save us, not drop us screaming into Hell.

The New Testament is full of references to God’s desire and ability to hang on to us until the Day of the Lord. On the eve of His crucifixion, Jesus prayed that the Father would keep us:

Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.      
John 17:11,15

Notice the basis on which Jesus asks the Father to keep us. He appeals to the Name of God. This is an appeal to the Person of Jehovah, to all that He is and all that He does. God is not keeping us based on who we are and what we have done. He is keeping us based on who He is and what He has done. For many people this is difficult to grasp. Human thinking wants to earn salvation. Even though we know we are born into the kingdom by grace, we still want to earn the privilege of staying in the Kingdom.

Peter clearly addressed this issue in his first epistle:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
1 Peter 1:3-5

You are born again through faith in the resurrection of Christ. The motivation behind this wonderful gift rests in the abundant mercy of God, not in you. This new birth entitles you to an eternal inheritance in heaven. The word inheritance refers to something that is yours because of your position in the family. Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament says, "It is the portion or heritage which one receives by virtue of birth or by special gift." Heaven is yours because of your relationship to the Father that came to you by being born into the family. You don’t earn it, you inherit it.

We enter the kingdom through faith in the resurrection power of God. We believe that if we continue in Him we will go to Heaven when we die, or when the Lord returns. The question is how do we manage to stay in the Kingdom in the meantime? How are we supposed to live down here? Peter provides a clear answer. We are kept by the power of God. We access that power daily in the same way we accessed it to be born again. We use our faith, or as Paul put it, “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7)

As surely as we are saved by faith, we are kept by faith. As long as we believe and confess that Jesus is Lord, the power of God will keep us. There is no shortage of power with God. He is perfectly able to keep us, and we can surely see that He wants to keep us.

This all sounds fine until we bump into the issue of sin. What about sin in the life of the Christian? Isn’t there some universal code of justice that requires those who don’t live right to pay the consequences? Isn’t salvation more than a doctrinal issue? Isn’t some change in behavior required? Of course!

Most of our problem comes because we lack understanding concerning what happened to us when we were born of the Spirit. We see ourselves as still under law. We think like insurance actuaries in a system of debits and credits. We have an innate desire to balance the books. This is not the way God’s kingdom works. We have to move into Kingdom thinking.

God adopted us into His family. He deals with us as sons in His house, not as employees or subjects. Like any Father, His desire is to keep us in the family, not disown us and send us away. As a result He deals with our failures, our ignorance, and even our rebellion, as a loving Father not a Heavenly Constable. This does not mean we escape the consequences of our actions, but it means that our actions have different consequences than those of outsiders. Didn’t your dad deal with you differently than he did the neighbor kid?

The whole issue is summed up in a little passage from 1 Corinthians 11 where Paul is dealing with some behavioral issues surrounding the Lord’s Table. In verse 32 he says, "But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world." T. his phrase lets us know that God doesn’t want us to be condemned with the world. The world is condemned to spend eternity in Hell because they have rejected Jesus Christ. Our Father deals with us in a way designed to prevent this from happening.

This is God’s Keeping System. It is designed by God to keep us because He wants us kept. He is a very powerful God and a very wise God. When He designs a system, it works!!! It works because of Him, not us. It works in a way that reflects His nature. It works in a way that reflects our family relationship with Him. It works whether we know it or not. It works whether we like it or not. It just works. Once we know how it works we can quit worrying about “That Guy,” we can stop fretting over our own salvation, and we can begin to enjoy the freedom of grace. We can live as children of God, lovingly corrected when we fail, but confident that we are still part of the family.

Learning these simple truths did several things for me. First, it convinced me that God is very capable of keeping His kids in the family. Second, it brought a great measure of peace to many in my church who had honest questions about their faith and their life experience. Finally, it put to rest forever the search for "That Guy." He doesn’t exist. If you think you know him, think again. If someone seems to fit the description of "That Guy" you must pray earnestly for him because he is either lost or he is a Christian pretending to be blessed. Either way, he needs your prayers.

This article is excerpted and adapted from “You are a Keeper.”  The book is available at www.fcftucson.org or at amazon.com. Inquiries for more information may be emailed to [email protected], or you may phone the office at 520-792-FCFT.