Podcasts about meaning god

Living in Goshen: God's Shelter in the Storm To support: www.ToddCoconato.com/give Website: www.PastorTodd.org 10 essential truths every Christian should know and understand about Goshen—both in its biblical context and its spiritual application for today: 1. Goshen Was a Real Place of Refuge Biblical Insight: Goshen was a fertile region in Egypt given to Joseph's family (Genesis 45:10). It became a safe haven during famine. Spiritual Application: God always prepares a place of protection for His people in times of crisis. Goshen represents God's intentional provision during times of shaking. 2. Goshen Was a Place of Divine Provision Genesis 47:6 (NKJV): "Let them dwell in the land of Goshen...the best of the land." Meaning: Goshen wasn't just about survival—it was the best part of the land, showing that God doesn't provide minimally; He provides abundantly. 3. Goshen Was a Place of Separation Exodus 8:22 (NKJV): "I will set apart the land of Goshen... that no swarms of flies shall be there." Meaning: God made a clear distinction between His people and the Egyptians. Today, Goshen represents being set apart from the world, holy unto the Lord. 4. Goshen Was a Place of Supernatural Protection Exodus 9:26 (NKJV): "Only in the land of Goshen... there was no hail." Meaning: While plagues hit Egypt, Goshen was untouched. This points to God's covenant covering over His obedient people—even in judgment. 5. Goshen Was Accessed Through Relationship Genesis 45:10 (NKJV): "You shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near to me..." Meaning: Proximity to Joseph (a type of Christ) brought the family into Goshen. Intimacy with Jesus positions us to live in spiritual Goshen today. 6. Goshen Was a Place of Generational Blessing Genesis 47:27 (NKJV): "They had possessions there and grew and multiplied exceedingly." Meaning: Goshen wasn't just a blessing for one generation—it was a place where families flourished. God's provision covers your children and grandchildren. 7. Goshen Required Obedience and Trust Genesis 46:28 (NKJV): "Judah went ahead... to point out before him the way to Goshen." Meaning: Joseph's family had to follow instructions and move in faith. Living in Goshen today means being sensitive and obedient to God's direction. 8. Goshen Was Temporary but Strategic Exodus 12:37 (NKJV): "Then the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth..." Meaning: Goshen was not the Promised Land. It was a temporary shelter for preparation and preservation. God gives Goshen-seasons to prepare us for greater things. 9. Goshen Represents God's Covenant Faithfulness Meaning: God promised to be with Israel, and Goshen was the manifestation of that covenant. It reminds us that God keeps His promises even in troubled times. Isaiah 43:2 (NKJV): "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you..." 10. Goshen Points to a Last Days Remnant Meaning: In the end times, not all who are religious will live under Goshen-like protection. Only those who are fully surrendered, obedient, and set apart will experience the fullness of God's covering. Revelation 3:10 (NKJV): "Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial..."  

Message from Will Lewis on March 2, 2025

In Exodus chapter seventeen, we read of Israel's great victory over their enemy. Moses then built an altar and called it: Jehovah-Nissi. Meaning God is our Banner and standard of defense. As we give honor to the flag of our United States, let's give honor, praise, and glory to the ONE Who is our banner! His truth is marching on! The post The Lord Our Banner appeared first on The Blythe Family.

There is a consistency with God. Meaning God never changes. Why does he change because he is perfect in every way. And that which is perfect endures. Not only is there a consistency with God, but there is a permanency with God. God is forever. We all know the verse of scripture from Hebrews, where it says concerning your show, that he is the same yesterday, today and forever. To donate please visit us at: https://loveisrael.org/donate/ Checks may be sent to: LoveIsrael.org 6355 N Courtenay Parkway Merritt Island, FL 32953 Feel free to download our MyBibleStudy App on telephone https://get.theapp.co/yjjq we don't know how long we can post the teachings on YT https://www.instagram.com/mybiblestudyofficial/ To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/1256/29

There is a consistency with God. Meaning God never changes. Why does he change because he is perfect in every way. And that which is perfect endures. Not only is there a consistency with God, but there is a permanency with God. God is forever. We all know the verse of scripture from Hebrews, where it says concerning your show, that he is the same yesterday, today and forever. To donate please visit us at: https://loveisrael.org/donate/ Checks may be sent to: LoveIsrael.org 6355 N Courtenay Parkway Merritt Island, FL 32953 Feel free to download our MyBibleStudy App on telephone https://get.theapp.co/yjjq we don't know how long we can post the teachings on YT https://www.instagram.com/mybiblestudyofficial/ To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.lightsource.com/donate/1255/29

There is a consistency with God. Meaning God never changes. Why does he change because he is perfect in every way. And that which is perfect endures. Not only is there a consistency with God, but there is a permanency with God. God is forever. We all know the verse of scripture from Hebrews, where it says concerning your show, that he is the same yesterday, today and forever. To donate please visit us at: https://loveisrael.org/donate/ Checks may be sent to: LoveIsrael.org 6355 N Courtenay Parkway Merritt Island, FL 32953 Feel free to download our MyBibleStudy App on telephone https://get.theapp.co/yjjq we don't know how long we can post the teachings on YT https://www.instagram.com/mybiblestudyofficial/

There is a consistency with God. Meaning God never changes. Why does he change because he is perfect in every way. And that which is perfect endures. Not only is there a consistency with God, but there is a permanency with God. God is forever. We all know the verse of scripture from Hebrews, where it says concerning your show, that he is the same yesterday, today and forever. To donate please visit us at: https://loveisrael.org/donate/ Checks may be sent to: LoveIsrael.org 6355 N Courtenay Parkway Merritt Island, FL 32953 Feel free to download our MyBibleStudy App on telephone https://get.theapp.co/yjjq we don't know how long we can post the teachings on YT https://www.instagram.com/mybiblestudyofficial/

God testing our faith is a good thing as it is always for our good.  We fear tests, we get anxious about tests, we don't like tests.  But when God tests our faith through demands, His goal is for us to grow in Godliness.  What we need to do is to change our perspective on the testing's that God gives us.  When God tests us with demands, the first thing we need to do is ask ourselves a question…..”who do I trust more?”  Meaning God or myself.  Join us as we dive into changing our perspective on life to see things the way God sees them.

an Opps: had to download my "backup" audio file" Thank God for Backups! Praying: It is the same with my word.I send it out, and it always produces fruit.It will accomplish all I want it to,and it will prosper everywhere I send it. Is 55Todays Takeaways  Soul Ties | removing them | Praying for others | and Angelic intervention Come up Higher | political prayer God is into details In the area of Soul Ties, first, what are they? A soul tie is a spiritual link between two people. Kristen Shares experiences in her own life, how to pray, remove them and assign your angels to help re-wire thoughts. Let's get to our prayer point of Coming up Higher:A dear friend and I were given a prayer assignment from the Lord in the area of the current political seats. Our assignment was to safely deliver God's spoken word: Meaning God has assigned the names of individuals to particular seats, it is written on that individual's destiny scroll, and recorded in heaven. Hear how the Lord assisted them and called them up higher to see a different perspective. You will be blessed. Episode Links: CoachingforLife helping you succeed in Life and the marketplace  Interested in Inner Healing Sessions Kristen's #1 Productivity Tool (Pretty Evernote Templates) Patreon Thank you for supporting this podcast  The UnFinished Book is available directly from Kristen Wambach or at all your local online retailers.  Podcast Directory   Watch the video version of the podcast on  Intentional Now Podcast View YouTube Channel  Listener Connect  I keep getting asked by Podcasters about my template (Evernote Podcast Planner) here you go! Follow us on Instagram please remember #intentionalnowpodcast so I can say Hi!  Intentional Now Podcast FacebookLinkTree for the fastest connection to weekly goodies Contact Kristen@kristenwambach.com  Episode Website KristenWambach.com I will bid you a blessed day.These links are for your convenience to locate me on Social Media, access resources on my website, and also contact information. If this podcast is a blessing to you, I invite your partnership as a Patreon subscriber. Your comments, questions, and encouragement help to support this podcast.I look forward to hearing from you. See you next week: Bye now Kristen 

A casual, conversational discussion about various theological topics. God is eternal and exists outside of time. Christians believe in the omnipresence of God. Scripture teaches that there is no space where God is not present, which means God is also in hell. Listen to learn more. Cornerstone Baptist Church, Alice, Texas, is a church where friends become family. Our Senior Pastor is Dr. John L. Rothra. Join us each Wednesday night to participate in the discussion, fellowship, and fun. Support Our Ministry CONNECT WITH US Website YouTube Facebook Instagram

The Lord is everlasting!!! GOD IS ENTERNAL  he doesn't operate in time but I guarantee you he wouldn't want us to dwell in or own the past or put to much thought in the future without him! He wants us to have a vision for where we should go In fact his vision is the vision we should focus on. Besides God has all our past, and future cared for and covered but our focus is on the now!!! God has that covered too. In....Matthew 6:34 KJV Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Meaning God had us covered we don't need to be anxious or filled with doubt. Fear and worry. Earlier in the scriptures of Matthew 6 God points out that he cares for the birds and nature and we are much more important than them and they don't contribute to their own well-being so how much more will he care for us. So it's all about having faith in God so we can have freedom in the now. Mat 6:25-34 KJV 25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? We eat to live not live to eat! We don't live to be clothed God covers us while we yet live, so enough of worshiping material things. Where your treasure is your heart will be also. So store up your treasures with the Lord in heavenly places where no corruption or destruction can damage them. Your treasures are what aligns with God's vision for you not a handbag or new shoes. Not that God doesn't what us to have those things it's our heart, our spirit and our soul he wants. He wants our obedience, our sacrifice, our love, our faith and trust those are true treasures. Confidence in him not your worldly possessions you can't take them with you but you can live your life for and with the Lord now and later or not, it really is your choice. But he told us that your life is more than worrying about what you will consume to satisfy the flesh and what you put on to make you feel good and look good and impress others. 26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? 27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? 28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. 34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. We also need to know that our past can affect our present and our future if we don't allow God to through the Holy Spirit filter out what has happened to us in such a way that we are not continuing to be a victim to situations and circumstances but in a way of being victorious and tell our story as a testament to how God brought us over. If we do this we will soon learn that as 2Corinthians 5:17-21 KJV 17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unt --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/courageous-beauty/message

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit mosiacboston.com.Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of life. And we remember your holy scriptures that say that children are a blessing from you, they're a heritage from the Lord. And we thank you for baby Audrey. We thank you for her life. And we pray a special prayer of anointing and blessing upon her. And we pray that you strengthen Joyce and Pastor Andy in the season. We pray for Clara and Drew as well. Bless their family. We thank you for a beautiful, beautiful little girl. And we also pray Lord that you bless our time, the holy scriptures. We thank you for the scriptures. We thank you, Lord that despite our law breaking, our rebellion against you, you didn't leave us in our sins. And while we were still sinners, you sent your son, Jesus Christ. Jesus, we thank you that you lived a life that was wholly motivated by love toward God and people, love for God and people.And Lord, we thank you that you fulfilled the law perfectly. You never coveted once. We thank you for that. Not just example, but we thank you for your substitutionary atonement on the cross for us, bearing the penalty for our law breaking, the curse for our law breaking. And we thank you, Jesus, that you didn't stay dead, but you rose on the third day. You ascended and you're seated the right hand of God, interceding for us even now. And we pray, Jesus, send us the Holy Spirit. We pray, Holy Spirit, take these words from the holy scriptures and reveal them to us, illuminate them to us, enlighten them to us and use them to convict us of sin and draw us to righteousness.We pray for justification for those who are not yet Christians, we pray that you convert them, regenerate them, draw them to yourself, make them your children. And I pray for those of us who are Christians, convict us of sin as well and show us where we need to progress in sanctification, in pursuing obedience of faith. We pray that you bless our time, the holy scriptures, and we thank you for them. We pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.We're continuing our sermon series through Romans today. We're in chapter seven verses seven through 13. The title of the sermon is Sinful Beyond Measure. And what St. Paul said in the very beginning, he said, look, God entrusted me with the gospel. And the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, for whomever would believe. But we don't really understand our need for the gospel until we understand the law, until we understand our condemnation under the law, how much we've broken the law. And he's made clear that the law of God, the moral code, the 10 Commandments is neither the problem nor really the solution to the ultimate problem that plagues all of us. And that ultimate problem is the sin within our hearts.There are two tremendously naive perspectives on the world. These are two world views that are espoused all around. Every single one of us, we know there's something wrong with humanity. We know there's something wrong with us. And one of the views is, hey, let's just get rid of God's law because God's law isn't making us feel good. There's intuitive goodness, that people are basically good. And what's really in the way is the prohibitions of the Bible, the prohibitions of the church. We can figure out what's good and evil on our own. We can be good without God. We can figure out our own morality. Let's get rid of the law in scripture that makes us not feel so good about ourselves. Let's get rid of it completely.The second worldview is that we can recreate our own law. We don't need God's law. We can have our own law. We can figure out how to progress. We can figure out how to get rid of all the problems of humanity through education. But not one of these ultimately wrestles with the heinous power of sin. If we get rid of God's law, we still don't get rid of sin because God's law is written on our hearts. We have developed a reputation in the city that we are a church that talks about sin a lot. We talk about sin all the time. I basically preach the same sermon every Sunday. I get up and I tell you, you are all wicked sinners and so am I. We're all sinners. We are all under condemnation and we need to repent of our sin. And a lot of people say, let's not talk about sin. Let's just talk about love.But St. Paul talks about sin because understanding our sin, how sinful we are, gets us to still point where we beg for God's grace and mercy. And once we receive God's grace and mercy, then we experience love like we've never experienced. So if you get rid of talking about sin, you're actually getting rid of talking about love. St. Paul talks about sin all the time, seven chapters in sin, sin, sin, and grace, sin, sin, sin. Why? Because he views his job as a soul doctor. He diagnoses the problem. And he's honest about the problem of our condition, he's so honest about it because there is medicine available. He needs to convince us to understand how much we need the medicine. Then he says, yes, there is medicine. And that's called grace.St. Paul, he understood the dire condition because he himself was a sinner, so he talked about his own sin all the time. He actually called himself a chief of sinners. He's like number one, sinner. And the reason why he felt fine doing that, and wasn't downtrodden about it was because if you understand, you're the chief of sinners, you can also say, I am the chief of being loved by God. And when you're the chief of being loved by God, your heart erupts with love for God and love for people because scripture teaches the one who understands, he's forgiven much. The one who understands that she is forgiven much loves much. And that's to set up our time in Roman 7:7 through 13.Would you look at the text with me? What then shall we say that the law is sin? By no means. Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, you shall not covet. But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive, apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good then bring death to me? By no means it was sin producing death in me through what is good in order that sin might be shown to be sin and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. This is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts.We'll look at three devastating effects of the law in relation to sin from the text, three points to frame up our time. First, the law reveals sin. The law provokes sin, and the law condemns sin. First, the law reveals sin. Verse seven. He asked the question, what then shall we say that the law is sinful by no means? Why is he asking this question? Because in the earlier text, he did say that the law comes and the law arouses our sin. When something happens in human nature, we're so rebellious. When God says, don't do this or do this, we're like, who are you to tell me what to do or we're not to do. And we actually want to commit that sin even more in our unregenerated state. So he's like, but the problem's not in the law, he says. Certainly not, the law isn't sinful. If desires to sin are aroused by the law, and if the law actually fosters and promotes sin in a sense, then yes, the goodness of the law is called into question.The opponents of Paul were mostly Jewish opponents who grew up there nourished and nurtured in the law of God. And when Paul says, we're not under the law, but we're under grace. All of a sudden, there's red flags in their hearts. And they say, if you tell people we're not under law, we're actually telling them that they were free to sin and Saint Paul says, no. When you understand that you're under grace, you understand that you're free to obey God, not free to sin. There's no problem with the law. The problem is with our own sin. And just because the law stirs up our sin, it stirs up our sinful passions, it stirs up hostile feelings toward God, that doesn't mean there's a problem with the law. That means there's a problem with us. The law isn't evil or sinful. Our hearts are.The law isn't corrupt. Our sinful hearts are. The law is righteous, even if our response to it is sin. And he says, yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. He says, in a sense, God reveals his character through the law. And also, the law is a mirror that reveals our character. The law on the one hand flows from God's perfect radiance and perfection and his glory. On the other hand, Samira, that reveals just how sinful we are. The law isn't sinful, but it does reveal our sin. And it does take the Holy Spirit, when we hear how sinful we are. When we hear of the commandments that we've transgressed and when the Holy Spirit takes that message and applies it to our heart, that's what changes us. That's what regenerates our heart. That's the power of the gospel. This is why we have to talk about sin, because talking about sin gets people to a place where they can actually hear, okay, what's next.The Holy Spirit takes that convicted heart, melts it, pours the Holy Spirit and grace and transforms the person. The less you know about God, the less you're burdened about his law. The less you're aware of your sin and the more you know about God, the more you know about his law, the more acutely conscious you are of just how much you've sinned and the severity of your sin. Paul here brings in an illustration. We're talking about moral law. We're talking about commandments. Can you give us a specific one? And he says, okay, I'll tell you how the law reveals my sin. "If it wasn't for the law revealing my sin, I wouldn't know just how sinful I am." He says, "For I would not have known what it is to covet, if the law had not said, you shall not covet." Well, what's wrong with coveting? What's wrong with seeing something that someone else has and wanting the same thing? Is it okay to aspire to that? Is it okay to have ambition to have something similar?Yes, of course. But coveting is desiring that which is forbidden. It's someone else's and you want what belongs to someone else, what doesn't belong to you. Coveting. And scripture says that coveting is a sin. Did you know that? See, apart from the law, we do have a subjective understanding that, yeah, it probably isn't good to be covetous or envious of someone or jealous of some. We know that's not a positive thing, but no one in our culture says, that is sin. That is wickedness. The closest I think we get, there's no one in the media telling us this. There's no politicians telling us that covetousness is actually a root of many of your problems and dissatisfaction in life. No one in business tells you this. They tell you that you got to get the new iPhone. You got to get the new iPhone. You'll never be happy unless you get the new iPhone. That business is made on that.So we're not taught that. The closest we get to people saying don't covet it is teaching kids to share in school. That's the closest it gets. But St. Paul says it is, it's a commandment. Thou shall not covet. And the sin of covetousness, a particularly apt illustration, because it gets to the heart of the issue. It gets to the heart of sin, the inner root of sin, the inner root of man's rebellion and sinfulness because it addresses desire before behavior.A lot of people think that the commandments are just about don't do bad things. It's about conditioning our behavior, regulating our behavior. No, Jesus said, look, before you talk about behavior, you got to talk about heart because the heart of the matter is the heart. It was far easier in the first century for the Jews of Paul's time to say, I can imagine that I haven't broken most of the commands. I haven't committed adultery. I haven't stolen. But the honest man knows, the honest person knows that every single one of us has coveted. Exodus 20 verse 17. This is commandment number 10. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbor's, your neighbor's. That's what the emphasis is. You want someone else's life. There's a deep dissatisfaction with your own life and then you see someone else's life, and you're like, I want that. Envy is wanting someone else's life.In the movie, the Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. So Robert Ford wants to kill Jesse James, because he is jealous of his fame. Finally, Robert Ford finds Jesse James, sneaks up on him, and then they have a conversation. And then Jesse James says, look, I can't figure out. He says, "Do you want to be like me or do you want to be me?" That's what he's talking about. This is covetousness, coveting that which does not belong to you. And the law is written on our hearts, so we know deep inside when we do something wrong, but then the preaching of the law comes or the reading of the law comes and you're like, oh, this is what God's law is. And then it takes the subjective experience in the heart and it codifies it, it makes it objective. And you say, oh, this is wrong. God says that this is evil.Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever thought that coveting someone else's lot in life is actually sin, transgressing God's law? And we do this all the time. Look at someone else's life. By the way, if you live in Brookline, if you live in this area and you know real estate, how expensive it is, coveting someone else's house. That's the thing. And you know why God knew. God knew that you would live in Brookline, Massachusetts, or in this area. And God knew the real estate markets. And they like do not hunt, do not covet your neighbor. And it comes before anything else. Don't covet your neighbors house. That's the first one that's mentioned. By the way, I've stopped watching HGTV. I can't do it anymore, too much sin. Look at all those parking spots, multiple parking spots. They just come with the, I can't do it.The phrase, must be nice. Anytime you use the phrase, must be nice. Must be nice to live in that neighborhood. Must be nice to have that house. Must be nice to have that much money, that vehicle. Must be nice to have that spouse. Must be nice to be single. Must be nice to have kids. Must be nice not to have kids. Must be nice to be a man. Must be nice to be a woman. Must be nice to have a fast metabolism. Must be nice to be beautiful, tall, short, athletic, smart. Must be nice to be someone else. We all feel that dissatisfaction. The great famous quote from Augustine, "Our hearts are restless until they find it rests you." Our hearts are restless. And this restless, this dissatisfaction with our lot in life, with what God has given us or what God has not given us. It's toxic. It stems from pride because you feel entitled. You should have something better than what God has given you.And ultimately it is idolatry because what you're saying is, God, you're not a good God. You're not doing your job well. I could do your job better than you. I'd rather worship a different God. And ultimately, it's not loving toward God or toward people, because if you're questioning God's doing of his job, you're not loving him. And then also you're not loving your neighbor when you can't rejoice for the blessings that they've been given. Scripture tells us, rejoice with those who rejoice. First Corinthians 13:4 says, love is patient and kind. Love does not envy.So this commandment is a commandment that every single one of us is broken. By the way, this is a tremendous way of sharing gospel with anybody. No matter what age, no matter where they come from, everyone knows this part of human experience. This is how I teach my daughters. I have four daughters. My youngest is four. And when they can't share their stuff and they're like, ah, she's got that dress. I want that dress. Or her room's bigger than mine. I'm like you are coveting. You're a little sinner. You're all sinners. You need to repent of your sin. We all covet. We all sin. And this is where St. Paul starts. Level playing field. He said, I coveted. The great apostle, the second most influential person that ever lived after Jesus Christ. He said, if it wasn't for the law, I wouldn't have even known how covetous my heart is. So the law, no, it's not sinful. It's the sin inside that actually takes the law and does sinful things with it.Like what? Well, this is point 2. The law provokes sin. He talked about this in the earlier paragraph that the law arouses our sins, sin within, hears the law thou shall not. And all our sinful heart wants to do is the exact opposite of what God tells us. So verse eight, but sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment produced in me all kinds of covetousness for apart from the law, sin lies dead. He says, apart from the law coming, I didn't understand just how sinful my heart is, but when I heard thou shall not covet, all my sinful heart wants to do is covet even more. And he says, sin, seizing an opportunity, the Greek term is used of a military base.It's a starting point or a base of operation for an expedition. It's a springboard for advance, further advance. And he says, sin establishes within us this base camp. And St. Paul uses this picturesque term to depict this ongoing military conflict in our soul. And he says, it happens when the law is preached to us. When we hear it, sin springs to life, kindles in us a desire to do the opposite of what the law compels us to do. It exacerbates our sin. It provokes us.Ever since Adam and Eve, human beings have always been enticed by that which is forbidden. The forbidden fruit. God says, don't do this, and that's all they could think about. So instead of restraining my sin, the law arouses my sin. Our sin response to God's law is stirred up and the sin somehow exploits the law. First Corinthians 15:56 says, the sting of death is sin. And the power of sin is the law. The power of sin is the law. The law comes and sin within us, wants to rebel against the law as hard as we possibly can. Indicates a dormant sinfulness that springs into life whenever we hear what God's will is. The serpent doesn't tempt Adam and Eve until after God gives the commandment in Genesis 2:17. Thou shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Satan comes in in chapter three. It was only once the commandment had been given that Satan had a specific objective to attack. It produced in me all kinds of covetousness, he says.The word covetousness just means desire for that which isn't yours, which is forbidden. Forbidden by whom? Forbidden by God. And it's an evil desire that gives birth to evil action. So in a sense, desires are as damnable before God as our deeds. Desires are as damnable as our deeds if the desires contradict God's will. So we're not just sinners because we sin. We sin because we're sinners. And James 1:14 through 15, but each person is tempted when he's lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin. And sin, when is fully grown, brings forth death. Where, apart from the law, sin lies dead. The law comes, sin is awakened in the presence of the law and the law exposes and magnifies this.What do I mean that sin, that the law provokes our sin? Well, I can give many examples, but because we're in Boston, Massachusetts in the month of June, I'll have a very specific example. So last week, I did mention that I'm not a fan of the pride flag being flown in my four-year old daughter's preschool room. I don't want them even knowing about sexuality for years to come. And then I come home and I get email that someone gave us a Google maps review, and it was a one-star review. And the person didn't like that comment. Like, oh, the church should be welcoming to absolutely everybody. Well, we are. We're welcoming to everybody. We welcome everybody and we're equal opportunity offenders of everybody. Doesn't matter what your sin, you're welcome here. Come with your sin. And we're going to tell you, you're all wicked sinners. You are all not wicked in the good sense, but you are all wicked, wicked sinners. You need to repent. Everybody's welcome to come hear that message.But the reason I bring that up is because the command, thou shall not commit adultery, that's where that commandment comes from. And what that commandment says, it regulates sexuality. That sex is only allowed between a man and a woman that are in a covenant relationship of marriage and that covenant relationship for all of life. So what our culture has done is taking that, oh, that shall not come in adultery. Oh, that's the only place that God allows for sexual relations. We're going to do everything else. And we're just going to keep adding. There's a new updated flag every year, every year there's an update and they add letters. And it's just every single way imaginable to do the opposite of what God says. That's what our rebellious culture does. And we are called as a people to celebrate the sin, which we do not. And because if we celebrate the sin, then you never get to a place where you actually get grace and where you actually experience the love of God.So the law reveals our sin. It provokes our sin and it does condemn our sin. Verse nine. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. So there was a sense where Paul was apart from the law. When was that? Most likely it was before he turned 13 because in Jewish culture, you become a man at 13. You become a woman at 12, which is actually tremendous. My oldest is 13, I've been telling her since she was 12. I was like, you're a woman. You are a woman. And she's like, what does that mean? I was like, you know that babysitting job you got, yeah, you made money. You're a woman, but you're going to have to pay rent. No, we didn't get there. But you are responsible under God's law, you are responsible as a 12-year old girl, as a 13-year old boy, you're under the law. You are responsible for your own soul.Is that what he's talking about? I think that's part of what he's talking about. But he says when the commandment came, so for Paul, yes, he was responsible under the law at 13, but he was also conditioned in this culture of the fair sect he was part of. He was conditioned to fulfill the law from the letter, not the spirit. So for example, in Philippians 3:5 through six, he's got a spiritual autobiography. And he says, "I was circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin and Hebrew of Hebrews as to the law of Pharisee, as the zeal persecutor of the church, as the righteousness, under the law, blameless.What's he saying? He's saying, I thought I had fulfilled the law. I thought I hadn't broken one commandment. I thought I was absolutely blameless. So did the commandment come to him yet? No, because he didn't understand the fullness of the commandment, that God demands a love from the heart toward God, toward people, that God doesn't want you to just fulfill the letter of law. But the intent of the law, the spirit of the law when the commandment came, when the law came home to me. When I finally realized what was required of me, I was made to face the fact that far from being a law keeper, I was inveterate law breaker.And this is what happens to every person that becomes a Christian. Like, yeah, you hear about the commandments. Yeah, you hear that you sinned against God. Yeah, you hear that. God is holy and that we're sinful and there's an eternal gulf between us, a chasm between us. Yeah, we're separated from it. We hear it. And then you hear it, and all of a sudden it comes home. The commandment comes home and you realize, I have transgressed against the holy God. At any moment that I die, I will spend eternity apart from God. It comes home. It wasn't just someone sinful out there, it's theoretical. When you realize I have sinned against the holy God, I am in need of grace. I am in need of mercy. And that's what brings you to repentance. That's what Paul is talking about. He tried to fulfill the law apart from faith, and obviously anything done apart from faith is sin.So in Galatians 3:23, he says, now before faith came. So there was a time when he was trying to fulfill the law, but he didn't have faith, so he wasn't pursuing obedience of faith. He wasn't pursuing loving God from the heart and obedience to the commandments. Now, before the faith came, we were held captive under law, in prison until the coming faith would be revealed. He says, when the commandment came, the subjective experiences, conscience was ratified by the objective law that was spoken. So he realized he was guilty before the law. Apart from the work of the holy spirit to convict us of sin. Using law, people think they're fine before God. And then the Holy Spirit comes when the law is proclaimed and quickens our conscious and makes us alive to the law. And we feel for the first time, the weight of our guilt. That's what he's saying.Verse 10, the very commandment that promised life, proved to be death to me, for sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through killed me. So commandment does promise life. God says, obey the commandments and you shall live. If you break the commandments, you shall die. He says it promised life, but proved to be death. Why? Because sin seizes this opportunity through the commandment, deceives me and through it killed me. Sin deceives. That's why we sin. In the moment of temptation, sin is promising us things. What does sin promise? Sin promises us the same thing that the serpent promised Eve. Sin promises us happiness apart from God. This deep soul satisfaction that we long for, sin says, you're going to find it when you follow me, when you act on the sin. That's why sin is so attractive.Why would we be inclined to steal what belongs to another? Why would we bear false witness against our neighbor? Why would we lust? Why would we covet? Because the temptation comes with this promise of bliss. I want things to change. Sin has promised me happiness now. If I follow sin, maybe I'll be happy. And we begin to believe that the path to happiness is to act against the law, to act in accordance with our passions. That's why sin is attractive. It does bring pleasure, even if temporary, but pleasure doesn't automatically or necessarily bring happiness. If pleasure, equated to happiness, then drug addicts would be the most happy people alive. We know pleasure does not equate to happiness, but sin promises the same thing every time. Sin and you'll feel better. The pleasure will make you feel a little happier than you do now.Genesis 3:4 through five. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Hey, not only is this going to make you happy, not only is this going to satisfy you at the deepest level, this is the satisfaction you're longing for, but sin also deceives by saying that God will not bring about the promised consequences for the breaking of the law. You're not going to surely die. Well, did they die? Yeah, they died spiritually the day they sinned. And then they also ultimately died physically. Of course, they died. If God promises that there will be consequences for sin, there always are consequences for sin. Unless you taste the forbidden fruit, he's saying you won't be happy. Meaning God is withholding happiness from you. Meaning God is not good. God is not loving. His law is created to keep you from happiness. That's what Satan says. That's how he lies. That's how sin lies.Verses six through seven of Genesis three. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired, to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate. And then the eyes of both were open and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin clothes. It was a delight to the eyes. In the Hebrew, nehmad, which means beautiful or desirable. It's this desire that's internal, a drive, a lust that includes anything that is forbidden by God. And this is how sin deceives us. Have you been deceived by sin? Yeah. We all have been deceived by sin.St. Paul says he has been deceived by sin, but it wasn't the law's problem. Verse 12, he says the law is holy. So the law is holy. The commandment is holy and righteous and good. He says the law is holy and just and good. So meaning when the law forbids something or the law commands something and says that this is the way to holiness, what God is actually saying, this is the best thing for you because, and not many people say this, but this is true. The way to happiness is holiness. The way to happiness is holiness. As you study church history, and as you talk to saints who've been in the faith for a long time, they'll tell you that the most satisfying moments in life are when you experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit.Well, the Holy Spirit in the name, Holy Spirit is the word holy. You cannot experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit if you're not pursuing holiness. If you're pursuing sin, you are grieving the Holy Spirit and actually moving yourself away from where happiness is found. He says the law is holy. It's just, it's good. So Satan comes in and says, no, no, no, this law isn't good. It's not good to have your desires restrained. It's not good to deny yourself things that everyone else is doing. But he says, no, that's false. Those are lies. And you need to counter all those lies with the truth of God's word. The law was designed by God to bring life. And we in turn, turn that occasion for death. Verse 13. Did that which is good then bring death to me? By no means, it was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.You're saying that the law of God was given to us so that we understand just how sinful we are. We need to recognize sin for what it is, just how heinous it is. And God's will is no longer hidden from us or tucked away in the recesses of our hearts. His will has been published for all to see. And any violation of his commandment is sin. The law reveals our sin. The law provokes our sin. It does condemn. The law says that we're all guilty as charged. We are under condemnation. And in that state, if you die, you spend eternity apart from God in hell. So it gets us to this place where you say, well, what hope is there for us? What hope is there? We have coveted.Paul, you coveted. You are the chief of sinners. Paul, where did you find hope? Where did you find forgiveness, where do you find mercy? And he says, well, I'm glad you asked. That's the whole point. The whole point is to get us to a place where we realize just how sinful we are. And St. Paul would say, I thought I was fine apart from Jesus Christ. And then Jesus met me on the road to Damascus, and I saw his radiance and his glory and his holiness and his righteousness. And I realized just how far I am from him. And St. Paul, then for three days, didn't eat or drink. And all he did was repent. And he was repenting of a sin and his self-righteousness. Where can we find hope for forgiveness of our sins? Only in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came and he lived a perfect life. He never coveted once. He never lusted once. He never committed sin, not in deed or in heart or in desire.And Jesus Christ fights sin all of his life though he was tempted over and over. He was tempted by Satan, we read in Matthew four. And then Jesus Christ goes to the Garden of Gethsemane, and it hits him that he is about to absorb the wrath of God for every single sin that was ever committed though he had never committed a sin. So the shame and the guilt that we feel the very first time that we commit a sin, all of that, he was experiencing on the cross as he's going through excruciating physical pain. But the worst of which was the spiritual anguish where you realize is the wrath of God being poured out on him. Jesus dies on the cross. He's buried, raised on the third day. He's ascended. And the gospel is that if we repent of our sin, whatever our sins are, if we repent of all our sins, Jesus Christ forgives us. We're united with him, buried with in baptism, raised with him in newness of life and Jesus's perfect law keeping is reckoned to us and his death pays for the guilt of our sins.Now, what happens to the law for the Christian? So the law came to reveal our sin. Yes, we're sinners. It provokes our sin. We want to sin more. It condemns us. And then the grace comes in, covers all of that. Now we're no longer sinners, so what role does the commandments and the law of God play? Well now, the law is given to us as a rule for life, and we're filled with such gratitude for our forgiveness that we want to honor God in obedience of faith. And the more we realize that we've been forgiven, the more we're filled with love for God. And this is why I want to conclude with Luke 7:36 through 50, a wonderful story that communicates that the more you've been forgiven, the more you love.This is Luke 7:36 through 50.One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at table. And behold, a woman of the city who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment. And standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wipe them with the hair on her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. Now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would've known who and what sort of woman this is who's touching him, for she is a sinner. And Jesus answering said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to you." And he answered, "Say it, teacher." "A certain money lender had two debtors, one owed 500 denari and the other 50. When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both. Now, which of them will love him more?"Simon answered, "The one, I suppose, for whom he canceled the larger debt." And he said to him, "You've judged rightly." Then turning toward the woman. He said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house. You gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss. But from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But he was forgiven little, loves little." But he said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." Than those who are at table with him began to say among themselves, "Who is this, who even forgives sins?" And he said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace."Friends, do you know how much you've been forgiving? Have you been forgiven a little or have you been forgiven much? If you are not yet a Christian, we today welcome you to repent of your sins and accept the forgiveness that God offers to each one of us, to be forgiven much so that we then in turn love God much. And Christians, meditate on this. Meditate on the fact that we have transgressed a great law, holy law, good and just law. There's been condemnation for us because of the law breaking, but because of Jesus Christ, there's no more condemnation for any of us. That's how much we've been forgiven an infinite debt. And in response, how are we to love? We're to love with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind.Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gospel. And we thank you for the gift of grace. Yes, Lord, we have coveted. And yes, Lord, we've lusted. Yes, Lord, there's been anger and hatred in our hearts, both toward people and toward you. And we ask you to forgive us of our rebellion. And I pray that you make us a people that don't try to change your law, and don't try to jettison your law, but make us a people who love your law, delight in your law. Not because through it, we can earn salvation, no, but because Jesus Christ fulfilled it completely. And Jesus, through this law, you tell us how we can live a life of holiness. And when we do so, you fill our hearts with a satisfaction that nothing else in this world can provide. Lord, if anyone is not yet a Christian, I pray today, save them, regenerate them. And I pray right now, tune our hearts to worship you and sing praises to your holy name. And we pray all this in the beautiful name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Whats hitting you today:The enemy is hitting your communications trying to stop Christian's ability to hear Gods directives/and his Holy Angels ability to get those directives to you.  Break the weapons off, so that you can continue moving through C2.  Remember C2 is a battle of the mind against “strange fire” and the enemy/witchcraft is releasing major blanketing spells to stop our ability to hear/see (or to block our 5 Fold Gifts).  They are also trying to get the body so hopeless that they quit/give up but if you remember:  C2 is also a REFINING place where we find out the WILL of God in all situations that concern us.  Situations like:1) The Fate of the nation2) The Fate of your dreams- contingent upon how well you hear the Lord to follow Him through the fire to attain them3) The Fate of the calling of God on your life For this generation- The Lord showed me that He has done a permanent separating.  Meaning: those that are following Jezebel- DO NOT KNOW HIM.  Those that are God's child and are following Saul- those Saul's/Jezebels are losing power.  Their weapons/anointings (Even if for evil) are being disintegrated by God Himself to where they will never harm His true sheep EVER again.  And in this season God has taken His true sheep within His robe Ps 104:2 and is walking us thru this spiritual  illusion of darkness.  That even though the pressure is becoming great- the Lord told us that with C2 comes refining fire pressure.  To see how well we listen to the King/ TRUST/Follow His directives and then keep casting down strange fire.  Meaning:  God is trying to see which god will choose to serve!  HIM or the Sauls/Jezebel! It's a test to see how easily we are duped into following other gods.  Or IF we truly can discern the voice of the ONLY TRUE and Living God!Support the show

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com. Heavenly father, we thank you for the blessing it is to gather. We thank you for this church. We thank you Holy Spirit for knitting our souls together. And one voice, we have the privilege to worship you to glorify you. And as we glorify you, as we grow in glorifying you, meditating on your glory on how much higher you are than anything in the created order. Our faith and our hope are strengthened and we thank you for that. We thank you for the holy scriptures. You did not leave us without a word from you. You are a God who communicates to us. We thank you for the incredible book of Romans. It's so rich and so deep, and the implications are so transformative. We thank you that despite our sin, Jesus Christ came and he died for us. Jesus, you died for us when we were yet sinners rebelling against you, running from you, blaspheming your holy name. We wanted nothing to do with you. You came, you lived the perfect life of love and worship toward God and cared toward people so much so that you gave yourself as a sacrifice. In obedience to God the father, you gave the ultimate sacrifice, yourself, your life. And you bled on that cross and you suffered. You died and you were entombed. You didn't stay dead and we thank you for that. We thank you that because of your resurrection, you are now just and the justifier, that by grace through faith, when we repent our sins and trust in you, it's as if we had never sinned. I pray today, set our gaze upon the path of sanctification that you call us to each one of us. And I pray that you empower us by the Holy Spirit and encourages from the holy scriptures today. And we pray all this in the beautiful name of Jesus Christ. Amen. We're continuing our sermon series through the incredible Book of Romans. Today in Romans 6:15 through 23. The title of the sermon is The Paradox of Freedom. We've talked about, and this was chapter 5 and then the beginning of chapter 6, St. Paul has been transitioning from talking about justification by grace through faith, to sanctification. Justification by grace through faith is when you repent of your sin and you trust in Jesus Christ. It's just as if you had never sinned. From God's perspective, you are sinless. You are holy. God's gift of righteousness, Christ's righteousness imputed to you, and now begins the process of sanctification. All those freely and instantaneously justified through faith begin the process of sanctification. How through the same act of faith, by continuing to believe, by continuing to repent and believe on a daily basis, that's how we are sanctified. The word means to become more holy, more set apart, more righteous, sanctity. We get the word sanctity from agios in the Greek, holy. Sin for the Christian therefore should be out of character. Sin should be uncharacteristic. When sin happens in your life, you say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not me. That's not who I am. That's not my new identity in Christ." And if you think you're a Christian, but you have never meditated on sanctification, if this isn't even a category for you in your life, then you're probably not a Christian. And today, we're going to help you become a Christian and show you how important it is to follow Christ in this path. Yes, we do battle indwelling sin. We battle with it daily. While we were in Adam, we didn't battle sin. It was just normal. We were on team sin. Now, we are on team Jesus. It's a winning team over sin. That's what it means when scripture says we are more than conquerors. That's what the text is about today. We're in Roman 6:15 through 23. Would you look at the text with me? What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law, but under grace? By no means. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death or of obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that you were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching, to which you were committed. And having been set free from sin have become slaves of righteousness. I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations for just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time, from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. This is the reading of God's holy inherent and fallible authoritative word. May you write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame up our time this morning. First, set free from slavery to sin, set free for slavery to God, and set free for sanctification. First, set free from slavery to sin. The context is we are in Christ. Pastor Andy did a tremendous job last Sunday explaining what that means to be in Christ, that we've been crucified with Christ, buried and entombed with Christ and raised from the dead with Christ in newness of life. And this is symbolized with baptism. We have baptism today after the second service. It's symbolized with baptism. What is baptism? Baptism is a sign. It's a sign, outward sign of an inward reality that you died with Christ. You died to sin and you were raised with Christ to walk with him in the newness of life. So we've been set free from sins, horrible consequences. That's death. From sins, shameful guilt, that's condemnation. From sins, desperate tyranny, which is slavery to the flesh. Therefore, we must reckon. And you see this phrase over, and over, and over in Romans 18 plus times. He said, "You have to reckon this. You have to count this. You have to consider yourself dead to sin." God considers you righteous, therefore you have to consider yourself righteous and dead to sin. Practically speaking, how does this look? There has to be a vehement, a vehement, vociferous, digging deep into my GRE words. Inside of you, there has to be a militant reaction against sin. When the temptation rears it's ugly head, you have to say to the sin like to a terrible old girlfriend or boyfriend, ex, you broke up. They weren't good to you, cheated on you. That person keeps calling and you have to say, "You are dead to me." Sin, not to the person. "You're dead to me. You're dead to me. You're dead to me. Your number is blocked. I never want to see you sin. You rear its ugly head. You're dead to me. You're dead to me." That has to be the posture of, "We're broken up forever. Sin, you do not entice me. You do not lure me. You do not attract me." The stream of thought begins in Roman 6:12 through 14. And Pastor Andy handled this masterfully last week. But it begins of verse 12. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God is instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law, but under grace. He says before we come to Christ, sin does have a dominion over us. It has an authority. It has a power over us. He says, "But that power is broken through Christ." Just a aside here, but it's an important aside, it's about this concept of free will. And I have to set this up because we're going to get to Romans 9 through 11. I cannot wait. I'm excited for Romans 9 through 11. But this idea that we are born with a free will, of free moral will. This idea is not biblical. This idea is actually very pagan. The idea the free will is every time we have a moral option before us to sin or not to sin, to do good or to do evil, that we have the power to say yes or no and the will is basically a state of indifference. Well, this idea isn't biblical at all. It's actually anti-biblical. Indeed we do have a will. What's the will? It's the power of volition. We have the capacity to make choices according to towards our desires. But the problem is our desires want nothing to do with God. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not want to think about God. We don't want to worship God. We don't want to obey God. We have no affection stored God at all. By nature, we are only wicked continually. By nature, we have no inclination towards things of God. So this idea of I can choose Jesus anytime I want. I can follow Jesus anytime I want. Not unless Jesus Christ saves you. Not unless Jesus Christ regenerates your heart. Before Christ sin does reign in our moral body making you obey. Non-Christians are not walking around thinking how they can be moral obedient to God. They're not thinking about how they can study the scriptures to find out eternal life. You want nothing to do with God. And at best, maybe just lip service. If you haven't studied this concept of free will, I would commend to you Martin Luther's the Bondage Of the Will. Masterful. It's a Christian classic. He responds to Erasmus of Rotterdam in which he explains, "Look, we're born sinners. Scriptures, clearly, Ephesians 2, and you were dead in your sins and trespassers. We have not the capacity to worship God to do his will. And also Jonathan Edwards wrote The Freedom of the Will. Also masterful work. "Unless you're born again," Jesus told Nicodemus, "you can't enter the kingdom of God. But once you are regenerated, sin no longer holds your will in bondage. Once you become a Christian, you can say no to sin. You have that power given to you by the power of the Holy Spirit. That's why in verse 12, he says, "Don't let sin reign in your body. You have the power, Christian to say no. Sin, you are not king. You are not desperate. You are not fewer. You are not in charge of me. I will say no to you." Don't let sin make you obey it's passions. Verse 13, don't present your members to sin. Present yourself to God. Verse 14, don't let sin have dominion over you. Sin is mastered no more. Sin no longer owns you. Sin no longer has authority over you. Stop taking orders from sin. Don't go where sin might be attractive to you. Literally block sin out. That's what he's saying. As Christians obviously, we still sin, but we don't have to. I was never taught this. I was never taught this. I was taught Jesus is always there for you when you sin. Come to him for forgiveness. Oh, clean slate. Now, okay, go and attempt not to sin. But when you sin, we all know you're going to sin. Come back. There wasn't... Which is actually a very defeated spirit. If you wake up and you're like, "Yeah, I'm a sinner, so I'm going to sin today," you're going to live categorically different than if you wake up and you say, "I am a saint, I am a saint. I am saint and I will reign over sin. I will not let sin reign over me." Today, as Christians, we still sin. But hypothetically, Christians, the moment you get saved, the moment you get justified, the moment you trust in Jesus Christ, you were repent of your sin. Hypothetically, from that moment, you could live a life of absolute holiness. Sit with that for a little bit that from... Oh, wait. You've already sinned from the moment that you got justified. Let's start from today. Starting today, dear Christian, you can live a life of absolute holiness, righteousness, perfection, hypothetically. Obviously, we sin, but you could. So every time you're faced with this temptation, God gives you the power of the Holy Spirit if we simply cooperate. Okay, a couple terms I got to give you if you haven't heard these. Monergism and synergism, monergistic and synergistic, our regeneration, our justification is monergistic meaning it's the work of one person. Our justification, our regeneration, it's the work of God, only of God. You did nothing to justify yourself. You did nothing to be born again in the same way that you did nothing to be born physically. You did nothing to be born spiritually, it's monergistic. God elects before the foundation of the world. God predestines. God draws. God writes your name in the book of life before you were even born. Justification is monergistic. But from the moment that you are reborn, the Christian life becomes synergistic. It's a joint effort. It's you and God. Now, you are paddling together. You're in the rowboat of life. And unless you're pulling your side, you're just going to be going around in circles. Or if you think it's only up to you, you'll also be going around in circles. Philippians 2:12 through 13. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do you see that tension? Do you see that cooperation? You are to work out your salvation. I'm to work out my salvation. It's my responsibility to work out my salvation. It's your responsibility to work out your salvation. But then he said, "But it's God who works in you. You work out what God works in both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So God is the one that actually activates the will. And the word for work here is he gives energy for the work for his good pleasure." So work out what God works, and you diligently use the means of grace. The means of grace of holy scripture, studying the scriptures. Feed your soul, dear Christian, in the form of studying a scripture every day, praying to God. Corporate worship. When the saints gather together, there is more Holy Spirit in the room. I have the Holy Spirit. You have the Holy Spirit. When we get together, the Holy Spirit is moving. That's a means of grace. Community groups. That's another means of grace. During the week, you meet brothers and sisters and you share life together. You share your burdens. You pray for one another. That's a means of grace. As diligently as you care for your body, and many of you do, and that's tremendous. The body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. We are to care for our bodies. I had so much spinach last night. I had extra spinach. Whenever my girls don't finish much spinach, whatever's left over, that's what I have for dinner. That's when you know your dad, whatever's left over, that's what you got. You care for your body. You want the vitamins. You want the nutrients. You want to care for your heart. You do a little cardio. You work out. You care for yourself. In the same way that you care for your body, you have to care for your soul, if not more important. Feed the new man. Feed that new soul. Starve the old man. Starve the flesh. You can't reign in life if sin is reigning in you. So this is what he talked about in chapter 5. He says, "We are called by grace, by God's grace. We're called to reign in life." So in a sense where, we're children of God, but we're also kings and queens. We are to take authority, dominion over the kingdoms of our lives in submission to Jesus Christ. So in a sense, we're slaves to God, but when we're slaves to God, we're also kings reigning over sin. He says, "If sin is reigning in you, it's because you let it reign." Every part of your body, all your members are personified here. It's instruments as tools, either for righteousness or unrighteousness. A lot of people think Christianity is just spiritual. That has nothing to do with life. Like, "Oh, your faith. All right, all right. That's what you believe. It's out there. It's very personalized." Nothing to do with the way that you physically live. And we push back at that. That's a false idea. It has everything to do with how we live. Romans 12:1 through 2, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies, not just your souls, your bodies as live as a living sacrifice, wholly and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." Every day you wake up and you say, "God, I am yours. Jesus, I'm yours. I am on the altar. My body is on the altar as a sacrifice." That's through worship. "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." Full body. Holistic submission, your mind. Lord, my mind is yours. Help me take captive every single thought that is a virus against my walk with you. Submission of the mind, submission of the mouth, of the voice, tongue, legs, arms, hands, fingertips, everything in submission to God. Roman 6:14, he continues, "For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law but under grace." And this is what you need to understand in context. He's not saying that this is license to sin. "Oh, we're under grace." I heard this so many times. You meet with someone and you're like, "Hey, man or sister, you're living in sin. Here's the scriptures. We should repent." And he says, "We're not under the law. We're under grace." No, no, no. Hold on. You can't just rip a verse out of context. What's he talking about? Paul has already explained the law condemns us. So before Christ, we are all under the dreadful burden of the law. The law reveals our disobedience that we can't be saved by obedience to law. We're all debtors to law. But once in Christ, we are no longer in the condition of being crushed by the weight of the law. Now, we're under grace and the law operates differently depending on which realm you're in. We talk about that in chapter 5. And Adam, the law condemns us and reveals our sin. It has no power to affect change. In Christ, you're saved by grace. Now the law is transformed by this whacking stick of burden, condemnation, repent, repent, repent. Once you do repent, the law becomes this path that God gives us as a rule for life. God says, "Here's the guardrails for the fullness of life, a life in which you are going to flourish. Not just temporarily, but for all of eternity shows us the way of life is freedom from sin. So no grace doesn't nullify the law. It transforms what the purpose of the law in our lives. So Romans 3:31, he says, "Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?" By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law." Romans 7:12, that next chapter. "So the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good." Romans 7:14. "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am over the flesh sold under sin." So we're not under the principle of law as a means of salvation. We don't look at the 10 commandments and say, "Fulfill the 10 commandments and then God will allow you to go to heaven." That's not how Christianity works. God gives us 10 commandments and he says, "Try doing it." And as soon as you try doing it, you're like, "Yep, I can't do it." And he's like, "Good. Now, you get the point. Repent of your sin. You need Jesus Christ. Once you're in Christ, you get the power of the Holy Spirit to now live according to God's will." Which is the law. We're justified by grace through faith. We're under grace, which doesn't mean we're free to sin. It actually means now we're free to obey. We have the ability to obey God, and its obedience from the heart. And it's all by grace. Our justification is by grace. And so is our sanctification. Roman 6:15. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under the law, but under grace. By no means. So Paul has been a pastor long enough. He knows. He knows this is always the objection. Whenever you tell people, you can't earn your salvation. There's nothing you can do to merit your way into heaven, it's only by grace. And they're like, "But that doesn't work." You can't just tell people that you can repent of your sins anytime and all of your sins are forgiven. Now, there's no motivation to live a righteous life. No, no, no, that can't be how it works. This is what Paul continues to say, he says, "But if that's how you think, you don't understand grace." He says, "By no means. May it never be. God forbid." Verse 16. "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey either of sin, which leads to death or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?" So to fully understand this verse, you need to understand the culture of that time and indentured servitude. When modern readers hear the word slave or slavery, we think of the slave trade in the west and recent centuries, which was essentially kidnapping, stealing people, bringing them across the ocean, then selling them at the auction block to other people. In the ancient world, slavery was primarily voluntary servitude. So if someone couldn't pay their debts or couldn't provide for their family, didn't have a place to live, did not have work to provide. This person would offer their services to fulfill the debt and they would live in the master's house and they would fulfill the will of the master indentured servitude. And it was estimated that Rome at that time, when Paul was writing, that one third, at least one third of the population of Rome were in this kind of indentured servitude as slaves. And initially they were made to wear this distinctive style of clothing, so people could say, "Okay. You're a slave. You're not a slave." And then the Romans figured out, "Oh, that's actually a bad move because it's communicating to the slaves just how powerful they could be if they united and worked together of their numerical strength." So then they said, "No, no, no. You have to address like everyone else." And many free men had once been slaves and likely more than half of the Roman church at that time had been enslaved. So they intuitively understood this metaphor that when your master tells you something to do, you are to obey your master and you can't serve to masters. So Paul here is saying in, "Adam, we were slaves to sin, which leads to death, but in Christ we're slaves to a master who redeems us, who loves us, who turns aside God's wrath from us by his own obedience. We worship a master who himself enslaved himself, took on the form of a servant. This is the greatest master that has ever lived. This is a master that did everything to serve us, Christ." God becomes a doulos, becomes the slave to take on the penalty that we deserve. He fulfills the will of God completely. And Paul is saying by repentance, by obeying in him, we're liberated from sin and from death, which formally held us in bondage. Do you ever feel like you are enslaved to sin? Are there sins now in your life that you're like, "I can't even imagine having freedom from the sin"? I can't even imagine what freedom would feel like, what it would taste like. Well, today I'm calling you to believe that you can have victory over that particular sin. Whatever sin the Lord is bringing to mind now. And in your Christian walk... One of the things I like doing my free time is watching fights. I like fights. I like boxing. I like MMA. I told my wife second career, if this doesn't work out, I think I'm going to be an MMA fighter just in case. So one of the things I like to see is the records of these guys. Because some of the guys in the boxing world, they're like, "I am undefeated. I'm 99 and 0." And then you look at their opponents and you're like, "They were all trumps. They were all trumps." I've been to matches like this and I've seen how these guys pad their numbers. It's basically like a professional gets in there and they're like, "Okay, who wants to fight him?" But in the Christian life, we should have a column of wins over sin. You should be able to look back at your life and you say, "You know what? Two years ago, I struggled with envy. I struggled with insatiable desire for social media. I struggled with..." whatever the sin is. "I struggled with pride." And pride is the last enemy. We'll get to pride. Because actually as you grow in the Christian faith, you should be able to look at your resume of wins and be like, "That was pretty good." And then the Holy Spirit comes in and you're like, "Sinner, you wicked sinner, now here's your thorn in the flesh, so you don't get proud." But that should be our goal is to like to graduate away from lesser sins to greater sins. How do you do it? You do it by coming to Jesus saying, "Jesus, set me free. Jesus give me the power to remain free." John 8:31 through 36. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." And they answered him, "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free?" Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever, the son remains forever. So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed." So obeying sin leads to death. Obeying God leads to righteousness. And the master we obey shows whose slave we really are. Point two is set free from slavery to God. Verse 17. But thanks be to God that you who are once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you are committed and having been set free from sin have become slaves of righteousness. Remember the monergistic, synergistic thing I said? Here it's synergistic, but who gets all the glory? God, of course. He says thanks be to whom? To God that you who were on slaves have become obedient. So you are doing the obedience, but you give glory to God because it's God who gives you the power. He gives you the desire to do it. Thanks be to God. Paul pours forth a burst of Thanksgiving having considered the greatness of what God has done for him. Our goal should be to become slaves of righteousness. And what kind of slaves of righteousness? How are we to obey? He says from the heart, from the heart. And this is the paradox of freedom that you are enslaved to Jesus Christ. And by the way, sometimes it does feel like slavery. I'm not going to stand up here and say, once you follow Jesus Christ, it's just hunky-dory. It's easy. It is smooth sailing. It's not. It's work. It's a lot of hard work, but it's transformative work. He says, "But this is from the heart. From the heart you want to obey." You want to fulfill everything that God has called you to do. You want to do God's will. This is the difference between religion and a relationship. Religion, you're like, "I got to do this thing, so I don't go to hell. I got to do this thing so that I get blessed. I go do this thing because God said so." And he says obedience is from heart. Oh, it's not I have to do this, I get to by the power of the Holy Spirit serve this God that loves me and he's given me a new heart that's free to obey God. Galatians 5:1. For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yolk of slavery. So the freedom Christ offers isn't autonomous self-direction. But if deliverance from the enslaving powers of sin that prevent us from becoming everything God intended us to be. This is why our children's ministry and our youth ministry is so important. It's so important. I don't know why things work this way, but they do. It's like when you're a teenager, when you're in high school, when you're in college, you basically set up your spiritual trajectory. In the ministry here at Mosaic, I've been in the city 13 years. Mosaic is 11. Very few people have come to faith in their 80s, 90s. We've had a few and it's like, "Oh, praise God." Because once you get on this path of, this is what I believe, this is my worldview, and then you just get really busy in life in your job and your career. And then you don't really study, so you don't really... It's when you're a teenager, the spiritual formation is so important. When you're a child, when you're a teenager, when you're in high school, when you're in college spiritual formation... Because you're figuring out how am I to live? What are the decisions I should be making? What should I be addicting myself to? Good things or bad things? Things that will make me prosper and flourish or things that will be destructive for me. The sooner you get on this path of like, "Oh, this is the way I am to go. This is how I can become the best version of myself." And then you just go. And there's also hope for everyone who at any time you come to the Lord, you can sin, sin, sin, and then the Lord saves you, regenerates you, justifies you, gives you the Holy Spirit. And then transformation all of a sudden. But he says, "This is the path for our flourishing. It's following God's law." Every other religion is a religion of law and human merit. Christianity and stark contrast is a religion of freedom. That's why we mistakenly think that freedom is the absence of all restrictions. Like, "Freedom, yeah." I remember when I got my license, my first car was an Audi 80. It was tremendous. It was a stick shift. I didn't know how to drive stick shifts. I learned that day when I bought it to drive it home and I thought, "It's freedom, freedom. I have freedom." I finally have freedom. I had overbearing immigrant parents and I'm like, "Finally, got my own car." I thought I was free until I got pulled over and I got my first speeding ticket and I realized, "Oh, hold on. Oh, no, no, no, no. There's restrictions to the freedom. And if you do not drive within those restrictions, you are actually going to lose your freedom." Freedom isn't the absence of restrictions. Freedom is the presence of restrictions that we were designed for. This is why we shouldn't get mad and we should be like, "Oh, the law of God." The Psalmist says, I delight in the law of God. I love the law of God because he knows that it's the law of God that brings blessing in life. When a Christian is like, "This is too hard. I can't follow the Lord. This is too hard. It's too restricting. I need freedom. I need freedom. I need freedom away from God, away from his commandments, away from the church. I just need a breather. I need freedom." That's like a fish saying, "You know what? I am restricted by this water. This water is not for me anymore. I'm tired of swimming in water. I'm going to walk." I've got five fish in my house and I've been studying fish for a while. That would be ludicrous of the fish to jump out and say, "I want freedom from this tank." And that's what a lot of people do when they want freedom from God. It's freedom from the environment in which you flourish. It's like a train. A train is most free when it's restricted to rails and humans are most free when we're running on oxygen, so our souls are most free when we're restricted to and by God. We are most free when we are in submission of God's authority, when we humbly submit to God who submitted himself to the law and the punishment for our law breaking. True freedom is found in submission to the God who submitted himself in order to free us. So for us, for Christians, we're set free from sin for sanctification, for obedience to God, and we should be happy with the fact that we are enslaved to God, because this is where we flourish. Matthew 6:33. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added onto you. He said, "These are the priorities for the Christians. Seek God's kingdom and righteousness and God will take care of the rest of our needs. This is that priority. Matthew 5:20. "For I tell, unless your righteousness," Jesus said, "exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." So he says Christians are to have a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees. If we don't, we're not going to enter the kingdom of heaven. So he's not saying we enter the kingdom of heaven through our righteousness, but he says, if you have entered the kingdom of heaven, you will pursue righteousness. So if faith is real, the fruit of faith is righteousness. It's obedience from the heart. I've always found that verse. Very interesting. What does it mean that our righteousness needs to exceed that of the Pharisees? Because if you follow the Pharisees in many ways, they were very righteous. They weren't righteous from the heart, but they did a lot of things that were very righteous that we could learn from them. Let's look at them. Let's look at the Pharisees real quick. Who were the Pharisees? They rose up against the secularism of the Jews of that day. They're like, "You're not Jewish enough. You're not obedient to God's law enough." So they start their own movement of conservatives and they sought to restore covenant purity in Israel. They were called the set apart ones and they consider themselves set apart for the singular pursuit of righteousness. But they did it hypocritically. They didn't do it from the heart. But we can still learn from their righteousness. Matthew 23:23 through 24. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faithfulness. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel." So the problem with them, Jesus is like, "You did the lesser parts of the law, tithing, but you missed the more important parts of the law, justice, mercy faithfulness." You should have done the other stuff. It's good. You should be tithing. Don't forget the weightier matters of the law. Here, I just want to emphasize that this was part of their righteousness. They understood that 10% of their income that the Lord gives them, they are to give back to the Lord for kingdom building purposes. So in terms of our righteousness, Christians, does your righteousness exceed that of the Pharisees in terms of tithing? And I say that because statistically less than 3% of Christians in the United States, tithe give 10% of their income to the Lord. The rest rob God of what he calls us to give for the building of his kingdom. So this is a tremendous opportunity for me to plug our building campaign because we still are praying for the Lord to provide us with resources, to build or purchase a ministry center. We've located a tremendous property. And if the Lord would lead you to give, you can go to our website and there's the Mosaic Build and give to build the kingdom of Lord here. So our right to succeed, including with our finances. Luke 18:11 through 22, another example we can learn from the Pharisees. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus, "God, I thank you that I am not like other men extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and I give tithes of all that I get." Obviously, he's a hypocrite and self-righteous for thinking that he's better than this other guy, and that other guy, the tax collector, repented of his sins and he walked away justified. And when this guy didn't, so they had a heart issue, the Pharisees did, but they still had a righteousness in that. This guy tithes. He's said, "I tithe." And he says, "I fast twice a week. I fast twice a week." And the expectation for Christians, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. He's not saying if you fast, he says, when you fast. That's an expectation. We are to discipline our bodies even from food, for the purpose of drawing near to the Lord and spending more time in prayer. Something to learn from the Pharisees. John 5:39 through 40 that Jesus says to the Pharisees, "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is day that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life." Their problem here in the text, they didn't come to the Lord. The scriptures were clear that the Messiah is Jesus Christ and Jesus proved it to them. But here we can learn, at least they did study the holy scriptures. They searched the scriptures. And we can learn from that. Matthew 23:15, "Woe to you, scribe and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves." So he calls him children of hell. He calls them hypocrites. But here, I just want to emphasize, they shouldn't have converted people to hypocrisy that they were doing, but at least they cared about evangelism. That's what the word proselyte means. A proselyte is a convert. They travel across sea and land. That's how important evangelism was to them. We can learn from that. That's part of the righteousness that the Lord calls us to. The great commission is given to all of us to go and make disciples of all nations. So Jesus said, "Unless our righteous succeeds that of the Pharisees, we won't enter the kingdom of heaven. Obedience is an expectation for every Christian. It's not a popular word today in many circles. It's never even used this word. But if you study church history, you see that when the church thrived, when there was revival in the church, when people were quickened by the Holy Spirit drawn near to the Lord, they cared about obedience. Dietrich Bonhoeffer has a tremendous word called The Cost of Discipleship in which he talks about cheap grace. And he says, "Cheap grace is the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom it departs. Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin, which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance. Baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ living and incarnate. Such grace is costly because it cause us to follow, and it is grace because it cause us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it cost a man his life. And it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. True grace sets us free from sin and sets us free for God. And we're set free for sanctification, which is growing in proximity to God, growing in closeness to the Lord. The holier you become, the closer you get to the Lord. Roman 6:19 through 20. I'm speaking human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness. So now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification for when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Since some people don't easily grasp spiritual things, Paul used the graphic metaphor of making his point to slavery that we are to be just as wholehearted and obeying God as we used to be to sin. Think about your life before meeting Christ, dear Christian. Think about how your life revolved around sin. And you look at young people around the city and it's like their lives revolve around sin. The sin of pursuing wealth. Just to pursue wealth because of greed, because you're in love with money. The sin of pursuing pleasure, despite any kind of... Without even thinking about morality. Seeking freedom to sin you and then all of your finances and time, and the way that you orchestrate where you live and who your friends are, it's all based around sin. And for the Christian, once you become a Christian that needs to shift. Now, the sin of your life is Jesus Christ and you should have a singular pursuit of righteousness and center your whole life around that. Prior to regeneration, people give themselves wholeheartedly to sin. Now, we are to equally wholeheartedly give ourselves to righteousness. When we are under slavery to the dominion of sin, we're completely free from righteousness. And to be free from righteousness is the same thing as being given over to sin. This is the paradox of freedom. Satan promises us freedom, but gives us only slavery to sin. Jesus Christ promises us a yolk. He promises us slavery, but gives us incredible freedom over the soul. It's like your heart just opens up. Your soul opens up. There's no guilt. There's no shame. There's no regret. You're just focused on the Lord, focused on love, the ultimate paradox of the Christian life to be free from sin is to be a slave to righteousness. Now, we are free to pursue righteousness, to present our members as slaves, to righteousness leading to sanctification. Roman 6:21. "But what fruit were you getting at that time, from the things in which you were not ashamed? For the end of those things is death." What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? I was speaking with a college student. I won't say when. I was speaking with a college student and the college student said, "You know what? I live for the weekend. That's all I live for. Nothing else in my life gives me pleasure. I hate Monday through Friday until 4:00 PM." I said, "Why 4:00 PM?" He said, "It's happy hour somewhere." Just living for the weekend. He said, "But then the rest of the week, I am just miserable. I hate my life. I hate my work. There's just no satisfaction, no joy, nothing." And then you look back and you're like, "What did I reap from living like that, from living for myself, from living for sin? What did I reap? What do I have now from all of that? But when you have the Holy Spirit and your vision is clear and you look back at your life and you think of the sins you committed. It's incredibly shameful." That's what he says. He said in verse 1 and 2, "But now that you've been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life." Said enslave to God. Not only do you get satisfaction and joy and you get the presence of God, but you get the satisfaction that your life is actually incredibly meaningful. What you do is fruit that you're producing fruit, that leads to sanctification, to sanctify you. But in the end also eternal life for you and then building of the kingdom. Roman 6:23 for the wage of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Wages of sin is death. So if you are not yet a Christian, if you are here today and you're just not sure. You're not sure. I'll just ask you. Do you care about holiness? Because that's really the test. If you have been justified, then you care about sanctification. You care about obedience to God. If you don't care about obedience to God, you're probably not a Christian. So I call you today to do the following. When we pray, when we worship appeal to God in your heart, in your heart and the depth of your heart appeal to God and say, "God, forgive me for my sins. Forgive me for living for myself, living as if you don't matter as if you don't exist for living as if I were dead to you and you were dead to me." I repent of that sin. Lord, I repent of that sin. I trust in Jesus Christ that Jesus Christ died on the cross, that Jesus Christ on the cross, he says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Meaning God the father in some sense says to God the son, "You're dead to me. You're dead to me. Son, you're dead to me." Because Jesus Christ took our sin upon himself to save us. So repent of your sin, trust in Jesus Christ. And from that moment on, you will see the Holy Spirit is going to grow a desire for sanctification in you. The wage of sin is death. It's eternal death in a place called hell, a place of eternal damnation, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ. One of my favorite things to do is to go to the reservoir, the Cleveland Circle Reservoir in the evening to watch the sunset. I like that. There's lots of benches. There's always at least one bench I can find to sit there. I like to stare into the sun. I was told that that's not healthy. So in the vicinity of the sun, I stare and I pray and I pray. I was kind of bummed out this week that one day, and I drove to the reservoir. I just sat down. I'm praying. I'm like, "Lord, I don't know." There was a spiritual sadness of him battling. I met with a pastor friend of mine and he said, "Welcome." He said, "It's an occupational hazard." That's what he told me and he laughed and that made me feel better. So I'm sitting there and I'm like, "Lord, just send me some good news." I need some good news. I even left my phone up because I'm like, "Whenever I pray, sometimes the Lord specifically sends me a phone call or text like someone is going to encourage me." And I'm like, "Lord, Lord, Lord." And nothing, just nothing. Just nobody. I'm like, "Lord." And then out of nowhere I hear a voice and the voice says, "Jesus Christ died for your sins." And I was like, "Who's that?" And I realized it was me. I was just talking to me. It was my voice because I learned from the Psalmist that you were to encourage yourself. The Psalmist says, "Why are you downcast, O my soul?" Why are you downcast? This is the greatest news in the history of the universe. What other news do we need other than Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins because of his great love for me, he washes away my shame, my sin, my regret, all of that. Honestly, I just started laughing. I'm like, "Oh, I just Pastor Jan'd myself. It worked. It worked. I got a big smile on my face and I went home and it was tremendous." And the essence of Christian theology is grace and the essence of Christian ethics is gratitude." We get power for sanctification from justification. We are saved by grace through faith. That's how we get justified. But then sanctification happens when we just think and we meditate on the sufferings of Jesus Christ in our behalf. That's what it took to justify us. And as you do, your faith increases and your sanctification increases as well. A close to this, 1 Samuel 15:22, Samuel says to King Saul, he says, "Has the Lord has great delight and burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord. Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen than the fat of rams. So obedience, God cares more about obedience than the sacrifices that we bring to him. But we can't even obey God unless we meditate the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ sacrificed himself because he was in total obedience to God the father. In Gethsemane, he said, "Lord, if there's any other way, let this cup pass for me, but not my will but yours be done." So as we meditate on Christ obedience, as we meditate on his sacrifice, the Lord strengthens our own resolve to be obedient to the Lord. If God is speaking to you about any area of your life, dear Christian, where you are in disobedience, today is the day of repentance and today is the day of resolve. To say to sin, "You are dead to me, because I am alive to Christ." Let's pray. Heavenly father, we thank you for this time in the holy scriptures. We thank you for the meditation on the gospel. And we thank you, Lord, that we can live a life of righteousness, a life of sanctification. And even when we don't do it perfectly, we can always come to you and repent and find grace and pray for anyone who doesn't yet know you today, draw them to yourself, regenerate their hearts, save them and give each one of us an extra dose of the Holy Spirit to work out our salvation, to do it with fear and trembling. We pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com.Heavenly father, we thank you for the blessing it is to gather. We thank you for this church. We thank you Holy Spirit for knitting our souls together. And one voice, we have the privilege to worship you to glorify you. And as we glorify you, as we grow in glorifying you, meditating on your glory on how much higher you are than anything in the created order. Our faith and our hope are strengthened and we thank you for that.We thank you for the holy scriptures. You did not leave us without a word from you. You are a God who communicates to us. We thank you for the incredible book of Romans. It's so rich and so deep, and the implications are so transformative. We thank you that despite our sin, Jesus Christ came and he died for us. Jesus, you died for us when we were yet sinners rebelling against you, running from you, blaspheming your holy name.We wanted nothing to do with you. You came, you lived the perfect life of love and worship toward God and cared toward people so much so that you gave yourself as a sacrifice. In obedience to God the father, you gave the ultimate sacrifice, yourself, your life. And you bled on that cross and you suffered. You died and you were entombed. You didn't stay dead and we thank you for that.We thank you that because of your resurrection, you are now just and the justifier, that by grace through faith, when we repent our sins and trust in you, it's as if we had never sinned. I pray today, set our gaze upon the path of sanctification that you call us to each one of us. And I pray that you empower us by the Holy Spirit and encourages from the holy scriptures today.And we pray all this in the beautiful name of Jesus Christ. Amen. We're continuing our sermon series through the incredible Book of Romans. Today in Romans 6:15 through 23. The title of the sermon is The Paradox of Freedom. We've talked about, and this was chapter 5 and then the beginning of chapter 6, St. Paul has been transitioning from talking about justification by grace through faith, to sanctification. Justification by grace through faith is when you repent of your sin and you trust in Jesus Christ.It's just as if you had never sinned. From God's perspective, you are sinless. You are holy. God's gift of righteousness, Christ's righteousness imputed to you, and now begins the process of sanctification. All those freely and instantaneously justified through faith begin the process of sanctification. How through the same act of faith, by continuing to believe, by continuing to repent and believe on a daily basis, that's how we are sanctified. The word means to become more holy, more set apart, more righteous, sanctity.We get the word sanctity from agios in the Greek, holy. Sin for the Christian therefore should be out of character. Sin should be uncharacteristic. When sin happens in your life, you say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not me. That's not who I am. That's not my new identity in Christ." And if you think you're a Christian, but you have never meditated on sanctification, if this isn't even a category for you in your life, then you're probably not a Christian. And today, we're going to help you become a Christian and show you how important it is to follow Christ in this path.Yes, we do battle indwelling sin. We battle with it daily. While we were in Adam, we didn't battle sin. It was just normal. We were on team sin. Now, we are on team Jesus. It's a winning team over sin. That's what it means when scripture says we are more than conquerors. That's what the text is about today. We're in Roman 6:15 through 23. Would you look at the text with me?What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law, but under grace? By no means. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death or of obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that you were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching, to which you were committed. And having been set free from sin have become slaves of righteousness. I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations for just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification.For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time, from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.This is the reading of God's holy inherent and fallible authoritative word. May you write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame up our time this morning. First, set free from slavery to sin, set free for slavery to God, and set free for sanctification. First, set free from slavery to sin.The context is we are in Christ. Pastor Andy did a tremendous job last Sunday explaining what that means to be in Christ, that we've been crucified with Christ, buried and entombed with Christ and raised from the dead with Christ in newness of life. And this is symbolized with baptism. We have baptism today after the second service. It's symbolized with baptism. What is baptism? Baptism is a sign. It's a sign, outward sign of an inward reality that you died with Christ. You died to sin and you were raised with Christ to walk with him in the newness of life.So we've been set free from sins, horrible consequences. That's death. From sins, shameful guilt, that's condemnation. From sins, desperate tyranny, which is slavery to the flesh. Therefore, we must reckon. And you see this phrase over, and over, and over in Romans 18 plus times. He said, "You have to reckon this. You have to count this. You have to consider yourself dead to sin."God considers you righteous, therefore you have to consider yourself righteous and dead to sin. Practically speaking, how does this look? There has to be a vehement, a vehement, vociferous, digging deep into my GRE words. Inside of you, there has to be a militant reaction against sin. When the temptation rears it's ugly head, you have to say to the sin like to a terrible old girlfriend or boyfriend, ex, you broke up. They weren't good to you, cheated on you. That person keeps calling and you have to say, "You are dead to me." Sin, not to the person. "You're dead to me. You're dead to me. You're dead to me. Your number is blocked. I never want to see you sin. You rear its ugly head. You're dead to me. You're dead to me."That has to be the posture of, "We're broken up forever. Sin, you do not entice me. You do not lure me. You do not attract me." The stream of thought begins in Roman 6:12 through 14. And Pastor Andy handled this masterfully last week. But it begins of verse 12. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God is instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law, but under grace.He says before we come to Christ, sin does have a dominion over us. It has an authority. It has a power over us. He says, "But that power is broken through Christ." Just a aside here, but it's an important aside, it's about this concept of free will. And I have to set this up because we're going to get to Romans 9 through 11. I cannot wait. I'm excited for Romans 9 through 11. But this idea that we are born with a free will, of free moral will. This idea is not biblical. This idea is actually very pagan.The idea the free will is every time we have a moral option before us to sin or not to sin, to do good or to do evil, that we have the power to say yes or no and the will is basically a state of indifference. Well, this idea isn't biblical at all. It's actually anti-biblical. Indeed we do have a will. What's the will? It's the power of volition. We have the capacity to make choices according to towards our desires. But the problem is our desires want nothing to do with God. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not want to think about God. We don't want to worship God. We don't want to obey God. We have no affection stored God at all.By nature, we are only wicked continually. By nature, we have no inclination towards things of God. So this idea of I can choose Jesus anytime I want. I can follow Jesus anytime I want. Not unless Jesus Christ saves you. Not unless Jesus Christ regenerates your heart. Before Christ sin does reign in our moral body making you obey. Non-Christians are not walking around thinking how they can be moral obedient to God. They're not thinking about how they can study the scriptures to find out eternal life.You want nothing to do with God. And at best, maybe just lip service. If you haven't studied this concept of free will, I would commend to you Martin Luther's the Bondage Of the Will. Masterful. It's a Christian classic. He responds to Erasmus of Rotterdam in which he explains, "Look, we're born sinners. Scriptures, clearly, Ephesians 2, and you were dead in your sins and trespassers. We have not the capacity to worship God to do his will.And also Jonathan Edwards wrote The Freedom of the Will. Also masterful work. "Unless you're born again," Jesus told Nicodemus, "you can't enter the kingdom of God. But once you are regenerated, sin no longer holds your will in bondage. Once you become a Christian, you can say no to sin. You have that power given to you by the power of the Holy Spirit. That's why in verse 12, he says, "Don't let sin reign in your body. You have the power, Christian to say no. Sin, you are not king. You are not desperate. You are not fewer. You are not in charge of me. I will say no to you."Don't let sin make you obey it's passions. Verse 13, don't present your members to sin. Present yourself to God. Verse 14, don't let sin have dominion over you. Sin is mastered no more. Sin no longer owns you. Sin no longer has authority over you. Stop taking orders from sin. Don't go where sin might be attractive to you. Literally block sin out. That's what he's saying. As Christians obviously, we still sin, but we don't have to. I was never taught this. I was never taught this. I was taught Jesus is always there for you when you sin. Come to him for forgiveness.Oh, clean slate. Now, okay, go and attempt not to sin. But when you sin, we all know you're going to sin. Come back. There wasn't... Which is actually a very defeated spirit. If you wake up and you're like, "Yeah, I'm a sinner, so I'm going to sin today," you're going to live categorically different than if you wake up and you say, "I am a saint, I am a saint. I am saint and I will reign over sin. I will not let sin reign over me."Today, as Christians, we still sin. But hypothetically, Christians, the moment you get saved, the moment you get justified, the moment you trust in Jesus Christ, you were repent of your sin. Hypothetically, from that moment, you could live a life of absolute holiness. Sit with that for a little bit that from... Oh, wait. You've already sinned from the moment that you got justified.Let's start from today. Starting today, dear Christian, you can live a life of absolute holiness, righteousness, perfection, hypothetically. Obviously, we sin, but you could. So every time you're faced with this temptation, God gives you the power of the Holy Spirit if we simply cooperate.Okay, a couple terms I got to give you if you haven't heard these. Monergism and synergism, monergistic and synergistic, our regeneration, our justification is monergistic meaning it's the work of one person. Our justification, our regeneration, it's the work of God, only of God. You did nothing to justify yourself. You did nothing to be born again in the same way that you did nothing to be born physically. You did nothing to be born spiritually, it's monergistic. God elects before the foundation of the world. God predestines. God draws. God writes your name in the book of life before you were even born.Justification is monergistic. But from the moment that you are reborn, the Christian life becomes synergistic. It's a joint effort. It's you and God. Now, you are paddling together. You're in the rowboat of life. And unless you're pulling your side, you're just going to be going around in circles. Or if you think it's only up to you, you'll also be going around in circles.Philippians 2:12 through 13. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.Do you see that tension? Do you see that cooperation? You are to work out your salvation. I'm to work out my salvation. It's my responsibility to work out my salvation. It's your responsibility to work out your salvation. But then he said, "But it's God who works in you. You work out what God works in both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So God is the one that actually activates the will. And the word for work here is he gives energy for the work for his good pleasure." So work out what God works, and you diligently use the means of grace. The means of grace of holy scripture, studying the scriptures.Feed your soul, dear Christian, in the form of studying a scripture every day, praying to God. Corporate worship. When the saints gather together, there is more Holy Spirit in the room. I have the Holy Spirit. You have the Holy Spirit. When we get together, the Holy Spirit is moving. That's a means of grace. Community groups. That's another means of grace. During the week, you meet brothers and sisters and you share life together. You share your burdens. You pray for one another. That's a means of grace. As diligently as you care for your body, and many of you do, and that's tremendous.The body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. We are to care for our bodies. I had so much spinach last night. I had extra spinach. Whenever my girls don't finish much spinach, whatever's left over, that's what I have for dinner. That's when you know your dad, whatever's left over, that's what you got. You care for your body. You want the vitamins. You want the nutrients. You want to care for your heart. You do a little cardio. You work out. You care for yourself. In the same way that you care for your body, you have to care for your soul, if not more important.Feed the new man. Feed that new soul. Starve the old man. Starve the flesh. You can't reign in life if sin is reigning in you. So this is what he talked about in chapter 5. He says, "We are called by grace, by God's grace. We're called to reign in life." So in a sense where, we're children of God, but we're also kings and queens. We are to take authority, dominion over the kingdoms of our lives in submission to Jesus Christ.So in a sense, we're slaves to God, but when we're slaves to God, we're also kings reigning over sin. He says, "If sin is reigning in you, it's because you let it reign." Every part of your body, all your members are personified here. It's instruments as tools, either for righteousness or unrighteousness. A lot of people think Christianity is just spiritual. That has nothing to do with life. Like, "Oh, your faith. All right, all right. That's what you believe. It's out there. It's very personalized." Nothing to do with the way that you physically live. And we push back at that. That's a false idea. It has everything to do with how we live.Romans 12:1 through 2, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies, not just your souls, your bodies as live as a living sacrifice, wholly and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." Every day you wake up and you say, "God, I am yours. Jesus, I'm yours. I am on the altar. My body is on the altar as a sacrifice." That's through worship. "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."Full body. Holistic submission, your mind. Lord, my mind is yours. Help me take captive every single thought that is a virus against my walk with you. Submission of the mind, submission of the mouth, of the voice, tongue, legs, arms, hands, fingertips, everything in submission to God.Roman 6:14, he continues, "For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law but under grace." And this is what you need to understand in context. He's not saying that this is license to sin. "Oh, we're under grace." I heard this so many times. You meet with someone and you're like, "Hey, man or sister, you're living in sin. Here's the scriptures. We should repent." And he says, "We're not under the law. We're under grace."No, no, no. Hold on. You can't just rip a verse out of context. What's he talking about? Paul has already explained the law condemns us. So before Christ, we are all under the dreadful burden of the law. The law reveals our disobedience that we can't be saved by obedience to law. We're all debtors to law. But once in Christ, we are no longer in the condition of being crushed by the weight of the law.Now, we're under grace and the law operates differently depending on which realm you're in. We talk about that in chapter 5. And Adam, the law condemns us and reveals our sin. It has no power to affect change. In Christ, you're saved by grace. Now the law is transformed by this whacking stick of burden, condemnation, repent, repent, repent. Once you do repent, the law becomes this path that God gives us as a rule for life.God says, "Here's the guardrails for the fullness of life, a life in which you are going to flourish. Not just temporarily, but for all of eternity shows us the way of life is freedom from sin. So no grace doesn't nullify the law. It transforms what the purpose of the law in our lives. So Romans 3:31, he says, "Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?" By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law."Romans 7:12, that next chapter. "So the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good." Romans 7:14. "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am over the flesh sold under sin." So we're not under the principle of law as a means of salvation. We don't look at the 10 commandments and say, "Fulfill the 10 commandments and then God will allow you to go to heaven." That's not how Christianity works. God gives us 10 commandments and he says, "Try doing it." And as soon as you try doing it, you're like, "Yep, I can't do it."And he's like, "Good. Now, you get the point. Repent of your sin. You need Jesus Christ. Once you're in Christ, you get the power of the Holy Spirit to now live according to God's will." Which is the law. We're justified by grace through faith. We're under grace, which doesn't mean we're free to sin. It actually means now we're free to obey. We have the ability to obey God, and its obedience from the heart. And it's all by grace. Our justification is by grace. And so is our sanctification.Roman 6:15. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under the law, but under grace. By no means. So Paul has been a pastor long enough. He knows. He knows this is always the objection. Whenever you tell people, you can't earn your salvation. There's nothing you can do to merit your way into heaven, it's only by grace. And they're like, "But that doesn't work." You can't just tell people that you can repent of your sins anytime and all of your sins are forgiven. Now, there's no motivation to live a righteous life.No, no, no, that can't be how it works. This is what Paul continues to say, he says, "But if that's how you think, you don't understand grace." He says, "By no means. May it never be. God forbid." Verse 16. "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey either of sin, which leads to death or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?"So to fully understand this verse, you need to understand the culture of that time and indentured servitude. When modern readers hear the word slave or slavery, we think of the slave trade in the west and recent centuries, which was essentially kidnapping, stealing people, bringing them across the ocean, then selling them at the auction block to other people.In the ancient world, slavery was primarily voluntary servitude. So if someone couldn't pay their debts or couldn't provide for their family, didn't have a place to live, did not have work to provide. This person would offer their services to fulfill the debt and they would live in the master's house and they would fulfill the will of the master indentured servitude. And it was estimated that Rome at that time, when Paul was writing, that one third, at least one third of the population of Rome were in this kind of indentured servitude as slaves.And initially they were made to wear this distinctive style of clothing, so people could say, "Okay. You're a slave. You're not a slave." And then the Romans figured out, "Oh, that's actually a bad move because it's communicating to the slaves just how powerful they could be if they united and worked together of their numerical strength." So then they said, "No, no, no. You have to address like everyone else."And many free men had once been slaves and likely more than half of the Roman church at that time had been enslaved. So they intuitively understood this metaphor that when your master tells you something to do, you are to obey your master and you can't serve to masters. So Paul here is saying in, "Adam, we were slaves to sin, which leads to death, but in Christ we're slaves to a master who redeems us, who loves us, who turns aside God's wrath from us by his own obedience. We worship a master who himself enslaved himself, took on the form of a servant. This is the greatest master that has ever lived. This is a master that did everything to serve us, Christ."God becomes a doulos, becomes the slave to take on the penalty that we deserve. He fulfills the will of God completely. And Paul is saying by repentance, by obeying in him, we're liberated from sin and from death, which formally held us in bondage. Do you ever feel like you are enslaved to sin? Are there sins now in your life that you're like, "I can't even imagine having freedom from the sin"? I can't even imagine what freedom would feel like, what it would taste like.Well, today I'm calling you to believe that you can have victory over that particular sin. Whatever sin the Lord is bringing to mind now. And in your Christian walk... One of the things I like doing my free time is watching fights. I like fights. I like boxing. I like MMA. I told my wife second career, if this doesn't work out, I think I'm going to be an MMA fighter just in case.So one of the things I like to see is the records of these guys. Because some of the guys in the boxing world, they're like, "I am undefeated. I'm 99 and 0." And then you look at their opponents and you're like, "They were all trumps. They were all trumps." I've been to matches like this and I've seen how these guys pad their numbers. It's basically like a professional gets in there and they're like, "Okay, who wants to fight him?"But in the Christian life, we should have a column of wins over sin. You should be able to look back at your life and you say, "You know what? Two years ago, I struggled with envy. I struggled with insatiable desire for social media. I struggled with..." whatever the sin is. "I struggled with pride." And pride is the last enemy. We'll get to pride. Because actually as you grow in the Christian faith, you should be able to look at your resume of wins and be like, "That was pretty good." And then the Holy Spirit comes in and you're like, "Sinner, you wicked sinner, now here's your thorn in the flesh, so you don't get proud."But that should be our goal is to like to graduate away from lesser sins to greater sins. How do you do it? You do it by coming to Jesus saying, "Jesus, set me free. Jesus give me the power to remain free." John 8:31 through 36. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." And they answered him, "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free?" Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever, the son remains forever. So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed."So obeying sin leads to death. Obeying God leads to righteousness. And the master we obey shows whose slave we really are. Point two is set free from slavery to God. Verse 17. But thanks be to God that you who are once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you are committed and having been set free from sin have become slaves of righteousness.Remember the monergistic, synergistic thing I said? Here it's synergistic, but who gets all the glory? God, of course. He says thanks be to whom? To God that you who were on slaves have become obedient. So you are doing the obedience, but you give glory to God because it's God who gives you the power. He gives you the desire to do it. Thanks be to God.Paul pours forth a burst of Thanksgiving having considered the greatness of what God has done for him. Our goal should be to become slaves of righteousness. And what kind of slaves of righteousness? How are we to obey? He says from the heart, from the heart. And this is the paradox of freedom that you are enslaved to Jesus Christ.And by the way, sometimes it does feel like slavery. I'm not going to stand up here and say, once you follow Jesus Christ, it's just hunky-dory. It's easy. It is smooth sailing. It's not. It's work. It's a lot of hard work, but it's transformative work. He says, "But this is from the heart. From the heart you want to obey." You want to fulfill everything that God has called you to do. You want to do God's will. This is the difference between religion and a relationship.Religion, you're like, "I got to do this thing, so I don't go to hell. I got to do this thing so that I get blessed. I go do this thing because God said so." And he says obedience is from heart. Oh, it's not I have to do this, I get to by the power of the Holy Spirit serve this God that loves me and he's given me a new heart that's free to obey God.Galatians 5:1. For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yolk of slavery. So the freedom Christ offers isn't autonomous self-direction. But if deliverance from the enslaving powers of sin that prevent us from becoming everything God intended us to be. This is why our children's ministry and our youth ministry is so important. It's so important. I don't know why things work this way, but they do. It's like when you're a teenager, when you're in high school, when you're in college, you basically set up your spiritual trajectory.In the ministry here at Mosaic, I've been in the city 13 years. Mosaic is 11. Very few people have come to faith in their 80s, 90s. We've had a few and it's like, "Oh, praise God." Because once you get on this path of, this is what I believe, this is my worldview, and then you just get really busy in life in your job and your career. And then you don't really study, so you don't really... It's when you're a teenager, the spiritual formation is so important. When you're a child, when you're a teenager, when you're in high school, when you're in college spiritual formation... Because you're figuring out how am I to live? What are the decisions I should be making? What should I be addicting myself to? Good things or bad things? Things that will make me prosper and flourish or things that will be destructive for me.The sooner you get on this path of like, "Oh, this is the way I am to go. This is how I can become the best version of myself." And then you just go. And there's also hope for everyone who at any time you come to the Lord, you can sin, sin, sin, and then the Lord saves you, regenerates you, justifies you, gives you the Holy Spirit. And then transformation all of a sudden. But he says, "This is the path for our flourishing. It's following God's law."Every other religion is a religion of law and human merit. Christianity and stark contrast is a religion of freedom. That's why we mistakenly think that freedom is the absence of all restrictions. Like, "Freedom, yeah." I remember when I got my license, my first car was an Audi 80. It was tremendous. It was a stick shift. I didn't know how to drive stick shifts. I learned that day when I bought it to drive it home and I thought, "It's freedom, freedom. I have freedom." I finally have freedom.I had overbearing immigrant parents and I'm like, "Finally, got my own car." I thought I was free until I got pulled over and I got my first speeding ticket and I realized, "Oh, hold on. Oh, no, no, no, no. There's restrictions to the freedom. And if you do not drive within those restrictions, you are actually going to lose your freedom." Freedom isn't the absence of restrictions. Freedom is the presence of restrictions that we were designed for. This is why we shouldn't get mad and we should be like, "Oh, the law of God."The Psalmist says, I delight in the law of God. I love the law of God because he knows that it's the law of God that brings blessing in life. When a Christian is like, "This is too hard. I can't follow the Lord. This is too hard. It's too restricting. I need freedom. I need freedom. I need freedom away from God, away from his commandments, away from the church. I just need a breather. I need freedom."That's like a fish saying, "You know what? I am restricted by this water. This water is not for me anymore. I'm tired of swimming in water. I'm going to walk." I've got five fish in my house and I've been studying fish for a while. That would be ludicrous of the fish to jump out and say, "I want freedom from this tank." And that's what a lot of people do when they want freedom from God. It's freedom from the environment in which you flourish. It's like a train. A train is most free when it's restricted to rails and humans are most free when we're running on oxygen, so our souls are most free when we're restricted to and by God.We are most free when we are in submission of God's authority, when we humbly submit to God who submitted himself to the law and the punishment for our law breaking. True freedom is found in submission to the God who submitted himself in order to free us.So for us, for Christians, we're set free from sin for sanctification, for obedience to God, and we should be happy with the fact that we are enslaved to God, because this is where we flourish.Matthew 6:33. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added onto you. He said, "These are the priorities for the Christians. Seek God's kingdom and righteousness and God will take care of the rest of our needs. This is that priority. Matthew 5:20. "For I tell, unless your righteousness," Jesus said, "exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."So he says Christians are to have a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees. If we don't, we're not going to enter the kingdom of heaven. So he's not saying we enter the kingdom of heaven through our righteousness, but he says, if you have entered the kingdom of heaven, you will pursue righteousness. So if faith is real, the fruit of faith is righteousness. It's obedience from the heart.I've always found that verse. Very interesting. What does it mean that our righteousness needs to exceed that of the Pharisees? Because if you follow the Pharisees in many ways, they were very righteous. They weren't righteous from the heart, but they did a lot of things that were very righteous that we could learn from them. Let's look at them. Let's look at the Pharisees real quick. Who were the Pharisees? They rose up against the secularism of the Jews of that day.They're like, "You're not Jewish enough. You're not obedient to God's law enough." So they start their own movement of conservatives and they sought to restore covenant purity in Israel. They were called the set apart ones and they consider themselves set apart for the singular pursuit of righteousness. But they did it hypocritically. They didn't do it from the heart.But we can still learn from their righteousness. Matthew 23:23 through 24. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faithfulness. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel."So the problem with them, Jesus is like, "You did the lesser parts of the law, tithing, but you missed the more important parts of the law, justice, mercy faithfulness."You should have done the other stuff. It's good. You should be tithing. Don't forget the weightier matters of the law. Here, I just want to emphasize that this was part of their righteousness. They understood that 10% of their income that the Lord gives them, they are to give back to the Lord for kingdom building purposes. So in terms of our righteousness, Christians, does your righteousness exceed that of the Pharisees in terms of tithing?And I say that because statistically less than 3% of Christians in the United States, tithe give 10% of their income to the Lord. The rest rob God of what he calls us to give for the building of his kingdom. So this is a tremendous opportunity for me to plug our building campaign because we still are praying for the Lord to provide us with resources, to build or purchase a ministry center.We've located a tremendous property. And if the Lord would lead you to give, you can go to our website and there's the Mosaic Build and give to build the kingdom of Lord here. So our right to succeed, including with our finances. Luke 18:11 through 22, another example we can learn from the Pharisees. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus, "God, I thank you that I am not like other men extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and I give tithes of all that I get."Obviously, he's a hypocrite and self-righteous for thinking that he's better than this other guy, and that other guy, the tax collector, repented of his sins and he walked away justified. And when this guy didn't, so they had a heart issue, the Pharisees did, but they still had a righteousness in that. This guy tithes. He's said, "I tithe." And he says, "I fast twice a week. I fast twice a week." And the expectation for Christians, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. He's not saying if you fast, he says, when you fast. That's an expectation. We are to discipline our bodies even from food, for the purpose of drawing near to the Lord and spending more time in prayer. Something to learn from the Pharisees.John 5:39 through 40 that Jesus says to the Pharisees, "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is day that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life." Their problem here in the text, they didn't come to the Lord. The scriptures were clear that the Messiah is Jesus Christ and Jesus proved it to them. But here we can learn, at least they did study the holy scriptures. They searched the scriptures. And we can learn from that.Matthew 23:15, "Woe to you, scribe and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves." So he calls him children of hell. He calls them hypocrites. But here, I just want to emphasize, they shouldn't have converted people to hypocrisy that they were doing, but at least they cared about evangelism. That's what the word proselyte means. A proselyte is a convert.They travel across sea and land. That's how important evangelism was to them. We can learn from that. That's part of the righteousness that the Lord calls us to. The great commission is given to all of us to go and make disciples of all nations.So Jesus said, "Unless our righteous succeeds that of the Pharisees, we won't enter the kingdom of heaven. Obedience is an expectation for every Christian. It's not a popular word today in many circles. It's never even used this word. But if you study church history, you see that when the church thrived, when there was revival in the church, when people were quickened by the Holy Spirit drawn near to the Lord, they cared about obedience.Dietrich Bonhoeffer has a tremendous word called The Cost of Discipleship in which he talks about cheap grace. And he says, "Cheap grace is the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom it departs. Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin, which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance. Baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ living and incarnate. Such grace is costly because it cause us to follow, and it is grace because it cause us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it cost a man his life. And it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. True grace sets us free from sin and sets us free for God. And we're set free for sanctification, which is growing in proximity to God, growing in closeness to the Lord.The holier you become, the closer you get to the Lord. Roman 6:19 through 20. I'm speaking human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness. So now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification for when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.Since some people don't easily grasp spiritual things, Paul used the graphic metaphor of making his point to slavery that we are to be just as wholehearted and obeying God as we used to be to sin. Think about your life before meeting Christ, dear Christian. Think about how your life revolved around sin. And you look at young people around the city and it's like their lives revolve around sin. The sin of pursuing wealth. Just to pursue wealth because of greed, because you're in love with money. The sin of pursuing pleasure, despite any kind of... Without even thinking about morality. Seeking freedom to sin you and then all of your finances and time, and the way that you orchestrate where you live and who your friends are, it's all based around sin.And for the Christian, once you become a Christian that needs to shift. Now, the sin of your life is Jesus Christ and you should have a singular pursuit of righteousness and center your whole life around that. Prior to regeneration, people give themselves wholeheartedly to sin. Now, we are to equally wholeheartedly give ourselves to righteousness. When we are under slavery to the dominion of sin, we're completely free from righteousness. And to be free from righteousness is the same thing as being given over to sin.This is the paradox of freedom. Satan promises us freedom, but gives us only slavery to sin. Jesus Christ promises us a yolk. He promises us slavery, but gives us incredible freedom over the soul. It's like your heart just opens up. Your soul opens up. There's no guilt. There's no shame. There's no regret.You're just focused on the Lord, focused on love, the ultimate paradox of the Christian life to be free from sin is to be a slave to righteousness. Now, we are free to pursue righteousness, to present our members as slaves, to righteousness leading to sanctification. Roman 6:21. "But what fruit were you getting at that time, from the things in which you were not ashamed? For the end of those things is death." What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?I was speaking with a college student. I won't say when. I was speaking with a college student and the college student said, "You know what? I live for the weekend. That's all I live for. Nothing else in my life gives me pleasure. I hate Monday through Friday until 4:00 PM." I said, "Why 4:00 PM?" He said, "It's happy hour somewhere." Just living for the weekend. He said, "But then the rest of the week, I am just miserable. I hate my life. I hate my work. There's just no satisfaction, no joy, nothing." And then you look back and you're like, "What did I reap from living like that, from living for myself, from living for sin? What did I reap? What do I have now from all of that? But when you have the Holy Spirit and your vision is clear and you look back at your life and you think of the sins you committed. It's incredibly shameful." That's what he says.He said in verse 1 and 2, "But now that you've been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life." Said enslave to God. Not only do you get satisfaction and joy and you get the presence of God, but you get the satisfaction that your life is actually incredibly meaningful. What you do is fruit that you're producing fruit, that leads to sanctification, to sanctify you.But in the end also eternal life for you and then building of the kingdom. Roman 6:23 for the wage of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Wages of sin is death. So if you are not yet a Christian, if you are here today and you're just not sure. You're not sure. I'll just ask you. Do you care about holiness? Because that's really the test. If you have been justified, then you care about sanctification. You care about obedience to God.If you don't care about obedience to God, you're probably not a Christian. So I call you today to do the following. When we pray, when we worship appeal to God in your heart, in your heart and the depth of your heart appeal to God and say, "God, forgive me for my sins. Forgive me for living for myself, living as if you don't matter as if you don't exist for living as if I were dead to you and you were dead to me."I repent of that sin. Lord, I repent of that sin. I trust in Jesus Christ that Jesus Christ died on the cross, that Jesus Christ on the cross, he says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Meaning God the father in some sense says to God the son, "You're dead to me. You're dead to me. Son, you're dead to me." Because Jesus Christ took our sin upon himself to save us.So repent of your sin, trust in Jesus Christ. And from that moment on, you will see the Holy Spirit is going to grow a desire for sanctification in you. The wage of sin is death. It's eternal death in a place called hell, a place of eternal damnation, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ.One of my favorite things to do is to go to the reservoir, the Cleveland Circle Reservoir in the evening to watch the sunset. I like that. There's lots of benches. There's always at least one bench I can find to sit there. I like to stare into the sun. I was told that that's not healthy. So in the vicinity of the sun, I stare and I pray and I pray.I was kind of bummed out this week that one day, and I drove to the reservoir. I just sat down. I'm praying. I'm like, "Lord, I don't know." There was a spiritual sadness of him battling. I met with a pastor friend of mine and he said, "Welcome." He said, "It's an occupational hazard." That's what he told me and he laughed and that made me feel better.So I'm sitting there and I'm like, "Lord, just send me some good news." I need some good news. I even left my phone up because I'm like, "Whenever I pray, sometimes the Lord specifically sends me a phone call or text like someone is going to encourage me." And I'm like, "Lord, Lord, Lord." And nothing, just nothing. Just nobody. I'm like, "Lord." And then out of nowhere I hear a voice and the voice says, "Jesus Christ died for your sins." And I was like, "Who's that?" And I realized it was me. I was just talking to me. It was my voice because I learned from the Psalmist that you were to encourage yourself.The Psalmist says, "Why are you downcast, O my soul?" Why are you downcast? This is the greatest news in the history of the universe. What other news do we need other than Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins because of his great love for me, he washes away my shame, my sin, my regret, all of that.Honestly, I just started laughing. I'm like, "Oh, I just Pastor Jan'd myself. It worked. It worked. I got a big smile on my face and I went home and it was tremendous." And the essence of Christian theology is grace and the essence of Christian ethics is gratitude." We get power for sanctification from justification. We are saved by grace through faith. That's how we get justified. But then sanctification happens when we just think and we meditate on the sufferings of Jesus Christ in our behalf. That's what it took to justify us. And as you do, your faith increases and your sanctification increases as well.A close to this, 1 Samuel 15:22, Samuel says to King Saul, he says, "Has the Lord has great delight and burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord. Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen than the fat of rams.So obedience, God cares more about obedience than the sacrifices that we bring to him. But we can't even obey God unless we meditate the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ sacrificed himself because he was in total obedience to God the father. In Gethsemane, he said, "Lord, if there's any other way, let this cup pass for me, but not my will but yours be done."So as we meditate on Christ obedience, as we meditate on his sacrifice, the Lord strengthens our own resolve to be obedient to the Lord. If God is speaking to you about any area of your life, dear Christian, where you are in disobedience, today is the day of repentance and today is the day of resolve. To say to sin, "You are dead to me, because I am alive to Christ."Let's pray. Heavenly father, we thank you for this time in the holy scriptures. We thank you for the meditation on the gospel. And we thank you, Lord, that we can live a life of righteousness, a life of sanctification. And even when we don't do it perfectly, we can always come to you and repent and find grace and pray for anyone who doesn't yet know you today, draw them to yourself, regenerate their hearts, save them and give each one of us an extra dose of the Holy Spirit to work out our salvation, to do it with fear and trembling. We pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.

Title: Post Tenebras, Lux Text: II Peter 1:1-2 FCF: We often struggle putting priority on serving our God. Prop: Because God has given us all we need for life and godliness, we must build upon the faith we've received. Scripture Intro: [Slide 1] Turn in your bible to II Peter 1. The title of the sermon is not in a language that many of you may know. Perhaps I could ask someone who's taken some Latin if he/she could translate for us. (Leland, Mallory). After darkness, light. The significance of this phrase is multifaceted. As we'll see today in foundations, this phrase, at least conceptually, is found in Isaiah 9. Matthew quotes this passage in chapter 4:16 of his gospel. Acts 26:18 references either this passage or Job's expression that after the evening hope comes in the morning in Job 17:12. And Jesus reveals that He is the light of the world. Whoever follows Him will not walk in darkness but in light and life (John 8:12). So first this phrase is a biblical concept of darkness conveying a place in which someone is trapped. Enslaved. Unable to break free. Darkness is not something you can do anything about – you must simply wait for something outside yourself to change it. Like the coming of morning. The reformers took this mantra to speak about the darkness that had come over the Roman Catholic church at that time. Not just darkness of sin practices, but even darkness of doctrinal confusion and digression. This phrase aptly communicates the state of natural man before God acts to draw them to Himself. Before God gives the truth of Christ to anyone, they are hopelessly lost in darkness. It is one of the great metaphors of scripture describing the total inability of men to seek God. Afterall, how can you seek light when you are in utter darkness? Today – we will see some of the inner workings of how God… turns on the light for His people. There is so much in these first two verses. Honestly I've cut so much from this sermon and even after typing this sentence, I realize I'm going to have to cut more. So let's dive in, I am in II Peter chapter 1. I'll start reading in verse 1 from the NET. You can follow along in the pew bible on page 1369 or in whatever version you prefer. Transition: As I said, lots to cover – you'll need your thinking caps and probably steel toed boots. If you don't get that joke… you will. Let's go. I.) Our faith is given from God through His Son, so we must build upon the faith we've received. a. [Slide 2] 1 – From Simeon Peter, i. The majority of manuscript evidence insists that this be Simeon and not Simon. ii. Simeon would be the Hebrew spelling and Simon the Greek spelling. iii. It is worth noting that every letter written in Peter's name that has been proved to be a forgery is signed as being from either Peter or Simon Peter. iv. So, in a subtle way, the very first word of this text indicates the authenticity that Peter wrote it. v. But who is Simeon Peter? b. [Slide 3] A slave i. Any negative connotation of this term must be repudiated immediately. ii. Peter does not say this to shock his readers, to call up negative feelings toward his position, or even to emphasize his unwillingness to be in this position. iii. But we should also refrain from seeing this as a “bondservant” concept too. Certainly voluntarily choosing to enslave oneself to a master did exist in the Roman world – but it was not the norm. iv. Further, the word here used is the word douloV or slave. And that word would not necessarily mean the bondservant relationship. v. As we've pointed out before, the world of slavery in 1st century Rome is simply impossible to paint with a broad brush. vi. More likely Peter is pointing to an older concept of slavery. Moses, David, and Elijah were all said to be servants or slaves of God. vii. In this context a slave was not only the property of his master but also represented his master. So much so that to disrespect or ignore the slave is to do the same to the master. viii. In other words, our 21st century western minds conjure up negative images when Peter calls himself a slave. However, nothing could be further from the truth. ix. In fact, being a slave of Jesus Christ- would be quite a significant honor bump to him and any who would also be called a slave of Christ. x. But not just a slave… c. [Slide 4] And apostle of Jesus Christ i. Peter is an apostle. A sent one. ii. With this carries the full weight of authority to pass on doctrine and expect to be listened to and obeyed. iii. He was taught by Christ, saw him resurrected, and was commissioned to go and establish the church. iv. Peter taught at Pentecost – and his words were used by God to draw 3000 people to saving faith. v. He performed signs, wonders, and miracles to authenticate the message he preached. vi. It is with this position of gifted honor and authority that he writes to his audience. vii. But to whom does he write? d. [Slide 5] To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ i. In this short phrase there are a few things we need to address. 1. First, Peter does not address his audience the way he did in I Peter. a. If you remember he identified them as chosen exiles in the northern provinces of present-day Turkey. b. In this letter Peter does not actually mention any specifics of his audience. c. The closest he comes is in chapter 3 where he says he wrote a second time with the same purpose. d. This, of course, assumes that the previous letter was I Peter, and that the audience was the same. Not a big leap, but not certainly something we know for certain. He could be referring to a letter that has been lost. 2. [Slide 6] Second, let's look at the phrase “of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ” a. Does this mean “of our God and of our Savior Jesus Christ?” Meaning God the Father and our Savior Jesus Christ. b. Or does this mean “of our God and Savior, namely, Jesus Christ?” Meaning that Jesus is both Savior and God. c. There is a translation rule in Greek, which I won't bog you down with, but essentially it means that in this particular case, this would be the second option. “of our God and Savior, namely, Jesus Christ.” d. What is the significance of this statement? e. This stands as one of the clearest statements in the whole New Testament of the divinity of Jesus. f. Any theological system, belief, cult, religion that does not teach that Jesus was fully God and Man – two natures in one – as the early creeds confess – is unorthodox and should be rejected as false teaching. g. Mormonism, Jehovah's witnesses, and even present-day Jesuses that are stripped of divinity so that he is just a good teacher, prophet, miracle worker, or political activist – are false teachings and ought to be courageously and unashamedly labeled as heretical. h. Jesus IS God. Amen? 3. [Slide 7] The final point we need to make before moving on, will unfortunately not be made completely obvious UNTIL we do move on. Nevertheless, we should point it out to help us as we move forward. a. Peter is addressing his letter to a specific group of people. b. That group of people is not defined by their location but rather by their identity. c. Their identity has been gloriously affected by or through the righteousness of the Jesus their God and Savior. d. But we must ask… e. To which righteousness is Peter referring? f. Is it his faithfulness? His justice? His goodness? His saving righteousness? All of these are appropriate definitions of the word “righteousness.” ii. In order to answer that question, we need to pause our thoughts on this and keep reading. e. [Slide 8] Have been granted a faith i. Perhaps the first question needs to be, what does Peter mean by “faith” here? 1. Faith throughout the scriptures can speak of many different ideas, all of which are determined primarily by the context in which they are found. 2. [Slide 9] Faith can mean a. A set of beliefs or received doctrinal truths b. A personal trust c. Faithfulness 3. We can see the interrelationship of each of these. In many ways not one of these can exist without the others. However, the particular nuance can be important for us to understand. 4. In the context of II Peter he often refers to knowledge of God and Christ, reminded truths, and adding to such knowledge with more knowledge and holiness. 5. So, with this context in mind, it seems that the faith to which Peter is referring has to do with the illumination of the truth of Christ and our dependance or clinging to that truth. 6. [Slide 10] Meaning it is a combination of 1 and 2, but mostly 2. 7. Taking this definition of the word faith will actually fit quite well to some of the themes that Peter wishes to develop throughout the letter. 8. [Slide 11] So, the faith that Peter talks about is the sudden awakening to the identity and work of Christ and our subsequent dependance on that revealed truth. ii. [Slide 12] The second concept we must understand in this phrase is the word used here “have been granted.” 1. This word means to obtain by lot or to have assigned to you or to receive. 2. We can say you were given something or that you received a gift. One emphasizes the giver and the other the receiver. 3. This word serves to emphasize the giver not the receiver. 4. [Slide 13] One scholar wrote “… the attainment is not by one's own exertions, but is like ripe fruit falling into one's lap” 5. The NET actually does a great job by translating this - rather than receive – have been granted. 6. [Slide 14] In other words, the faith, or the awakening to truth and dependance on that truth, is something that fell into our lap. It was unforeseen. Even, to some degree, unexpected. And because it was unforeseen and unexpected, it was not by our own effort or exertion. 7. Faith – both the understanding of the truth of Christ and Him crucified and the personal trust in that for all hope – all of it is a gift given from God. And that gift comes through the righteousness of Jesus our God and Savior. iii. [Slide 15] But what definition should we take of this “righteousness” in light of the definition of faith and receiving it through this righteousness? 1. As we saw it is “through” the righteousness of Christ that an understanding and dependance on who Christ is and what He's done has fallen into our laps. 2. What kind of righteousness could make the fruit of faith fall to us? Is it Jesus' moral excellence? Is it Jesus' justice? Is it Jesus' faithfulness? Is it Jesus' saving righteousness? 3. [Slide 16] There are really only two positions that scholars take, but for reasons I will explain on Wednesday night at bible study, the only righteousness that makes sense in the context, would be the forensic or the imputed righteousness of Christ. His saving righteousness. What is this? 4. We divide these into two. 5. [Slide 17] His active and passive righteousness. a. Active: i. The fact that He did not sin. The fact that He fulfilled the law. The fact that Christ perfectly obeyed all of God's moral expectations for men. ii. The fact that Christ was a second Adam. The model human. iii. He came and with the Spirit of God and the Father's good pleasure and love – He did perfectly keep all that God commanded. iv. Meeting in every way God's covenant of works made by God with Adam. v. Adam could not keep it -but Christ did. vi. In the end, this is the righteousness that God will judge each of us by – and in the end all God's people will be permitted to enter into the Kingdom of God because we have His righteousness. b. Passive: i. His passive righteousness is displayed in His obedience to the Father to go to the cross and suffer as though He had committed every single sin of His people. ii. So in the end, not only are we judged according to the perfect and perpetual righteousness of Christ but we also we are judged without the total and complete unrighteousness of our sorry state. 6. So, this is the righteousness of Jesus our God and Savior. 7. This is actually summarized quite well in our NCC catechism questions #22 and #23 a. [Slide 18] #22 “Why must the Redeemer be truly Human?” i. That in human nature, He might on our behalf, perfectly obey the whole law and suffer the punishment for human sin; and also, that He might sympathize with our weaknesses. b. [Slide 19] #23 “Why must the Redeemer be truly God?” i. That because of His divine nature His obedience and suffering would be perfect and effective; and also, that He would be able to bear the righteous anger of God against sin and yet overcome death. 8. But we are not quite done. How does this righteousness deliver to us… faith? 9. On this matter – it is very difficult to understand but think deeply with me as I read from John Gill. a. [Slide 20] “…righteousness is before faith, or otherwise faith could not come by it; and, moreover, is the cause and reason of it; faith has no causal influence upon righteousness, but righteousness has upon faith: the reason why a man has a justifying righteousness is not because he has faith; but the reason why he has faith given him is because he has a justifying righteousness provided for him, and imputed to him.” b. What is John Gill saying? c. Some weeks ago we discussed that when God justifies us, declares us righteous, though we be simultaneously sinner but declared righteous, this is an act that God does alone and it is based upon nothing we have done or will do. He simply does it. d. My friends here is that teaching in black and white. The faith that has fallen in our laps. The illumination of Christ and our binding ourselves to Him comes through God applying Christ's righteousness to us. e. Like a rope fastened to a man dangling off a cliff. Faith is only given after it has been anchored to something solid. Further, faith is only as good as the thing to which it is anchored. And so certainly we believe that we are declared to be righteous by trusting in Christ alone. This is true. But simultaneously we must also believe that without Christ's righteousness imputed to us, we would have no ability to believe. f. Once again, the scriptures consistently emphasize, by the word faith, not our action or exertion in it, but rather the object of it. In other words our expressing faith is not the mechanism that secures our declared righteousness. Rather it is the fruit and proof that we have been declared righteous. g. Is this not then… a precious faith. h. A faith… f. [Slide 21] Just as precious as ours. i. The shift to a plural pronoun here has us wondering who is “us” and who is “you.” Peter compares the gifted faith of apostles to the gifted faith of his audience and shows that there is no difference. It is of equal quality, value, and worth. ii. Just as Simeon Peter was granted the favorable honor of the status of slave… iii. So, we are bound to Christ and found to have this granted or given faith. iv. Peter's faith is the same as ours… unearned, unsought, but sure and stable in the person and work of Christ. v. This comes pretty heavy on the God sovereignty side. If you are waiting for the human responsibility side you'll have to wait until next week – but let me just toss this in there to give you hope or clarity. Yes – humans still have a responsibility to believe and keep on believing. vi. But we must not let that human responsibility remove or take away anything from what we've seen today. vii. God applies the righteousness of Christ to a person and in so doing shakes the tree to drop faith in the lap of those to whom Christ's righteousness is applied. So much so that they immediately grab hold of the Righteous One. For, indeed, as God has just revealed to them…they must. He is their only hope. g. [Slide 22] Passage Truth: So, Peter wants to remind his readers that their faith is a gift given by God through Christ's imputed righteousness to them. It is the same quality and the same essence of the faith the apostles received. h. [Slide 23] Passage Application: There is no stated application to his audience as of yet. Nevertheless, perhaps the assurance of the quality of their gifted faith is to encourage them and bolster their resolve to cling to it all the more and even to, as he'll get to soon, build upon it. i. [Slide 24] Broader Biblical Truth: Zooming out to the rest of scripture it is clear that since natural man is described as a “child of wrath” “sons of disobedience” “of our Father the devil” of whom “none are righteous” and “none seek after God” is becomes abundantly clear that as Paul tells us, we need an alien righteousness. We need someone to take our place. The Old Testament is full of examples of men and women that were not good enough. They couldn't follow God's law well enough. Even the best of them could not measure up to God's desire. Truly in Adam, all men are hopelessly lost and unable to please God. But as our new representative, as the ideal human, Jesus through keeping the whole law yet suffering as though He violated it in every point as we have, has both exchanged our infinite sin debt for His infinite righteous merit. We are declared to be righteous on His account and in this God gifts to us both truth and trust in His righteousness alone. Why alone? For we have no righteousness of our own to bring. j. [Slide 25] Broader Biblical Application: And in application we ought to cling to the preciousness of this faith. It is precious because it is a gift. But not just a gift, a gift from God. But not just a gift from God, but a gift from God secured in the active and passive righteousness of Jesus our God and Savior. Who took our place, bore our shame, suffered our wrath, and gave us His glory. That is the faith we have received. To Him be glory and power forever. Amen? And it is on this faith that we must continue to build for Him and His glory. Transition: [Slide 26(blank)] So God has given the righteousness of Christ to us and by this has dropped truth and trust in our laps. Because of this we ought to cling to and build on that faith. But what else has God given us to help us build upon our faith? II.) Grace and peace are given by God, so we must build upon the faith we've received a. [Slide 27] 2 – May grace and peace be lavished on you i. Here are those theologically rich words again. ii. What beauty is in the word grace. I hope that if you have been with us for any length of time that you have seen a renewed and deepened understanding of this word. iii. Not simply God's unearned favor. Not a bad definition. But it is just lacking. It is God's power, God's passion. God's push, God's pull to get us where He wants us. iv. And peace. Not peace from problems, not peace from persecution, not peace from trials or tribulations… but first peace with God. Peace with a holy God who looks at us as sons and daughters. And second as peace in our souls. Peace and contentment. Resting in Him and His grace. v. And may both of these be lavished. May they be poured over. May you be baptized in them. This is Peter's wish. vi. What a prayer. vii. What will they need grace and peace for? What are they going to be doing? b. [Slide 28] As you grow in the rich knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord! i. Knowledge is a big concept in II Peter. Specifically, the knowledge of God. ii. He prays that God's grace and peace would be multiplied to them. The text does not actually say “as you grow” it simply says “in the knowledge of God…” But seeing that this is the purpose of grace and peace being multiplied, it follows that it is as we grow in that knowledge. iii. But what do we mean by knowledge? iv. Peter uses this term and another that are both translated knowledge, to convey a spiritual insight that manifests in outward change. v. This knowledge translates into personal relational knowledge that transforms how we live. vi. [Slide 29] Indeed, in Ephesians 4, the work of the ministry is the edification of the body of Christ. And the goal of that edification is to grow each other in the knowledge of Christ so that we become like Him. vii. [Slide 30] My friends – the aim of the church – the aim of God's people – is to know God, Christ, and the Spirit. And it requires your head, your heart, and your hands. 1. Head: Exploring God. You must grow in your understanding and knowledge of God. a. First, you must know the gospel. You must know what the bible teaches about how God saves His people from their sin. b. In many ways the gospel is very simple, but in other ways the gospel is quite complex. Know the gospel in all its complexities. If you want to put in theological terms – your soteriology ought to be pages not paragraphs. c. But you cannot rest even on this knowledge of the gospel, but rather you must build upon it. d. To not love the study of God is to not love God's primary purpose for His people. To grow in knowledge of Him. e. Your head must expand. And by this I don't necessarily mean knowing all the theological jargon and what it means… but I do NECESSARILY mean the deep thoughts of all God has revealed about Himself through Christ. f. In our culture we are obsessed with knowing the answers, but many times it is the right questions that allude us. g. Too often we either google search the answer to find “what does the bible say about…” h. Or we confine ourselves to a specific book in the bible without thinking about the rest of what God has revealed to us. i. Rather than thinking deeply about the question of all that God is, we simply want someone to tell us what to think about who God is. j. God didn't write a systematic theology for us. He spoke through humans inspired to convey truth in their time about Himself and about themselves. But He did so in their time and in ways they could comprehend. But in these last days He has spoken to us through His Son. k. This however, does not prove that systematizing God's word is wrong. In fact, it proves that it is exactly what we must do if we are to truly know Him. l. It is exactly what Jesus did with the 12 disciples on the road to Emmaus. He showed them how He was revealed in the Scriptures. m. So, to know God's grace – you must scour Genesis 1 all the way to Revelation 22. n. Can you find His grace in Genesis 1? Oh yes. Abundant grace. But you can't claim to understand it until you have seen it on every page and in every chapter. And even then – you have only scratched the surface! o. To know His love. Same thing. To know His mercy, justice, wrath, holiness – all of these cannot be found in one book nor one internet search. To know God- you must seek Him as He has revealed Himself in this book. p. And let me repeat myself ad nauseum. Stop doing google searches to find out what to believe about God… Stop doing google searches for all the ways to prove _______ doctrine wrong. You know what is great and terrible about google? You can find answers to support whatever you want to support. Or destroy whatever you want to destroy. But if you spent all your effort, rather than google searching, instead seeking the God of the universe in the only way He has given us to know Him… perhaps then you might know God. q. My friends, if you do not desire to know God deeper and deeper still… than it is difficult to be certain that you have truly been regenerated. 2. Heart: But it is not enough to know Him. No, you must also delight in Him. a. The knowledge of God must sink deep into your soul. Beyond your head. b. The truth of His person must take hold of you – gripping you to your very core. c. So that when you discover what God's grace is – you are gripped by its power. When you know the love of God you are struck by its faithfulness. When you deepen in your understanding His holiness, you are cut to the heart, loathing every evil desire in you and pant after His cleansing. d. It is not enough to know who God is. You must be radically and spiritually turned forever because of what you have been shown! e. Can you truly know His holiness and walk away unaffected? Can your knowledge of His love be deep if you are not overwhelmed with its sweetness? Can you truly know grace without it bringing your heart to life? Without it turning its stony crags into flesh? f. True knowledge of God leads to soul level affections. g. To the extent that God becomes your one delight. 3. Hands: But it is not enough to know Him and delight in Him. For Jesus says that if you love me, you will keep my commandments. a. To know Him and delight in Him is also to be changed by Him. b. To know His grace is to act in obedience with it. c. To know His glory is to rise up and sing praise. d. To know His love is to display it to others whom He loves. e. To know His Holiness is to violently and expeditiously kill off your sin without mercy and without regret. 4. To know Him is to Love Him. To Love Him is to Obey Him. To Obey Him is to glorify Him. To glorify Him is to make His name known. 5. Head. Heart. Hands. This is what it means to know God. c. [Slide 31] Passage Truth: Peter hopes for his audience that the precious gifted faith that they have, If they truly have it, will be built on by grace and peace. d. [Slide 32] Passage Application: And so, they must grow in the knowledge of God. The full knowledge. The rich knowledge. They must know God more with the grace and peace He provides. e. [Slide 33] Broader Biblical Truth: We know from Scripture that although God does give grace and peace to the unbelieving world, it is grace with a small g. Peace with a small p. It is merely an expression of His character. He, not being like any other god, does not reign down fire and brimstone every time the world has earned it. If so, the world would have been destroyed long before Noah. Instead, God is a God of kindness. He offers grace to many. But to His elect. To those He loves, He gives greater grace. He has made a way for peace with them. He has lavished grace and peace on them and continues to do so. Indeed, that is why an assurance of a Christian is their gradual and growing righteousness before God. Because it proves that His Spirit is in them and working. So, if we truly have this gift of faith which God has given to us through the imputed righteousness of Christ, we will also have grace and peace lavished on us in order to build on our faith. f. [Slide 34] Broader Biblical Application: Because we have been abundantly provided for with grace and peace – because God is faithful to those He loves – We can seek to grow in our knowledge of God the Father, Christ Jesus, and The Holy Spirit. And we must know Him not only with our heads, not only with our hearts, but with our hands too. Conclusion: [Slide 35(end)] In what has already been a doctrinally rich and applicationally heavy sermon, I won't linger in concluding it. Let me simply wrap it all together in a tight bow. God will get glory from His people for what He has done in their lives. He has, through Christ's righteousness, declared sinners righteous, giving them spiritual sight to see the truth and to anchor themselves into it. He has given grace and peace and continues to lavish them upon His people. He has revealed Himself through many ages, through many people, Kings, prophets, shepherds, and in these last days God the Son. He has given us all we need and abundantly more than we could ever ask or seek awaits us in His coming Kingdom. Now… doesn't that sound like a God worth knowing? Doesn't that sound like a God worth exploring? Doesn't that sound like a God worth delighting in? Doesn't that sound like a God worth obeying? The chief end of all men is to bring glory to God. And God is glorified by all men's ends – in the fire of judgment or in the light and life made possible by grace. So, if you are an inheritor of such grace… tell me… what is more worthy of your time, energy, money, thoughts, feelings, opinions, words, letters, emails, facebook posts, text messages, goings, doings, givings, teachings, lovings – Your very soul, heart, mind, and strength – your head your heart and your hands – Who, what, is more worthy to receive all of these… than our God? May He receive the glory He is due from us. Amen.

In this fifth message of this series you with learn about the fourth key God uses to get people heal. Meaning God's methods to get people heal!

In this fifth message of this series you with learn about the fourth key God uses to get people heal. Meaning God's methods to get people heal!

Let us examine ourselves as this Passover is a time of great judgment from the Father during this season. Israelites who observed the Passover for years know that the LORD judges our people during this time. Meaning God does put ppl to death before, during, and after Passover. It is a serious time so let us do our best to keep the Father's commandments by purging out the old leaven which represents malice and wickedness.

Galatians 5:22-25 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. 24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Take your own temperature to see where you are too hot and or too cold in situations that will cause you to be angry and fall into sin. The bible says to be anger but sin not. Espesians 4:26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: 2 Peter 1:6 6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; Meaning God understands our emotions because he created them and in fact he has them too but he doesn't sin. So Jesus was and is and will always be the example we should live by when it comes to controlling our anger. A man (woman) that can't control his spirit is like a city without walls. It's ok to be angry but it's not OK to lash out on folks venting is different and having heated fellowship and or a discussion with someone that you have a disagreement with is ok just as long as it doesn't turn into throwing darts and bows. The Word of God in Roman's 12:18 If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Berean Study Bible Romans 12:18 If it is possible on your part, live at peace with everyone So when we get to a point of anger we feel there is no return from we need to remove ourselves from the situation to cool down and pray. It would be foolish to say be prayed up so you will never get anger that's not realistic but it's never foolish to stay prayed up to be able to have Holy Ghost insight on how to handle your temper and have a spirit of temperance when the trial or situations arises. I've found that personally often times I'm not really angry but the emotion I might actually feel is hurt or discouragement or disappointment so we need to as I say before feel, deal and heal with that feeling as it comes because we maybe misplacing our anger and we haven't been fair to ourselves to actually discover how we really feel. We just run to anger because it's really easy to get mad and release thinking it will make us feel better but because we walk by the spirit of God and not our flesh we won't be condemned or cut off from God but the Holy Spirit will allow conviction to arise up in us once we have blown off steam. If you hear God you will be able to allow yourself to receive peace from his word and eventually calm down. Don't let your temper knock you off the tempo of God and rob you of your peace. Romans 12:1-2 1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/courageous-beauty/message

In Hebrews 6 we are going to see God making a promise to us. An OATH that is unshakable and rock solid. Unlike the old covenant, which was a promise made between God and man, we're going to discover that this new covenant is not about humans and their performance. Under the new covenant, God could swear by no one greater so he swore by himself. Meaning God promised God that when you are faithless he will remain faithful. God promised God that he would remember your sins no more. And by to unchangeable things, God can't lie, and God can't lie, this oath is one that can guarantee your salvation to the day of redemption.Watch in video format with slides at https://jesuswithoutreligion.com/bible-study-online/hebrews/hebrews-6/

1 (7m 49s): We are your children. 2 (12m 20s): Gotcha. Thank you for that gospel song that declares our sin is forgiven. Our debt has been paid Lord. We are so refreshed by that revelation, that truth God, as we open up the scripture today and we talk about forgiveness, or I pray that that truth would just continue to resonate in our souls and that we'd be so grateful. And then in turn, forgive those who need forgiveness in our lives. Lord God, that we would extend to those who have injured us, hurt us, offended us God, that we would extend the same grace that has been extended to us by our savior, that we would indeed be Jesus with skin on extending the grace and mercy that is so desperately needed in our lives in our culture. 2 (13m 14s): Lord God. So we just invite you to just do powerful and profound things through your word today. Thank you for what you've already done through just prayer and worship together and what you accomplish in the first service. Got we have great expectation that you're going to continue that good work for the second service Lord. And so God all over this campus and online, we just invite you to move to speak. God, I pray that our hearts would be tender and responsive and humble and ready, and God that we would do what you ask us to do. We love you. 2 (13m 54s): Thank you for loving us so well, we bless you Lord in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. Hey, if you're in youth group, go ahead. You can be dismissed. Now kids can be dismissed and we're going to have the rest of the service. Thank you very much. Appreciate that Amanda. Hey, we're in Lima today, but before we go there, the guys had a camp out this weekend. We call it a camp out, but it was really pretty plush. It was, it was at this ranch, this 600 acre ranch out in called the sharp ranch and we call it camping cause we were intense and that sort of thing, but it was on this lush green grass. 2 (14m 38s): That was just incredible with a great outdoor kitchen and bathrooms and the whole, whole nine yards. And then we just had this incredible chapel to gather in out there at the sharp ranch. And so we gathered and got there Friday nights and had a, I taught through Hebrews 11 about faith. And then Ron on Saturday morning talked about endurance. And so worships talked about faith and enduring and worship some more. And then I said, Hey guys, go out and spend about 45 minutes and just pray and ask the Lord to speak something to you regarding what we've been learning and just what God wants to speak to you. 2 (15m 18s): Just go out there and listen to the Lord. And then we're going to come back and talk about it. So we did that. We came back and we talked about it and really the best part of the whole 24 hour period that we had out there was just the testimonies of God's faithfulness. And so if you missed it, man planned to be a part of what's going on when we do it again, we'll do it again, probably around this time. Next year we'll have another camp, but maybe sooner it was so rich and refreshing and it's just a time for men to connect. And we had great food. We had some amazing try to for dinner. And then just this amazing we had, we cooked up so much bacon for breakfast. I mean the guys went through and they took as much bacon as they wanted. 2 (15m 59s): And they came back for more. It was just, there was this abundance of bacon. You can never go wrong with bacon and try to get with guys and hotcakes and all kinds of stuff. It was just an incredible time, but God was on the move with our men, this, this last 24 hours. And I'm really refreshed by that and really grateful for it. And I think God wants to do something with us today. As we teach through files Lehman, finally, man is all about forgiveness. I've titled the message today. Forgiveness is possible. Philemon is all about forgiveness. The apostle Paul writes as he's in a Roman cell, writes this letter to his friend, Phi Lehman, his partner in the faith. 2 (16m 44s): And he affirms him and blesses him through the words that he writes. And then he challenges him to receive again, to forgive, to extend grace to his servant, this slave that he hadn't named. Onesimus when he said miss had done something to cross FY Lehman to break trust with him. And then he ran away and somehow we encountered Paul and Paul had an impact in Onesimus life, led him to faith in Christ and, and then Onesimus became this really helpful person in Paul's life as he was in the prison cell there. And so Paul writes this letter challenging. 2 (17m 29s): Oh nice for Lehman to forgive when he summits. And it's a, it's a powerful thing. We've been talking a lot about forgiveness recently. It's kind of a theme. Well, at least it's a theme in my life. As I shared my story about my journey, forgiving my dad and what God did to kind of scrub my soul and to free me up. And that's, I think that's what God wants to do. Supernaturally the things God wants to do in us as supernatural. It's like, we can't see it, but we can experience it and we can feel it. We can walk through it and experience the blessings of it. And so when we're able to walk in freedom by forgiving others who have offended us, because who hasn't been offended, right? We've all been offended. Maybe it's somebody who just cut us off on the freeway and we just have to say bless them or right. 2 (18m 11s): I forgive that person, but maybe it's a deeper offense and we just have to work through it. And like I said, a couple of weeks ago, our life is kind of like in again, as layers, peel back, things are exposed and we have to deal with those things again. And so some people are easy to forgive because it's slight offense, but other people are really difficult to forgive. Well, Paul is challenging his brother in the faith. Do what God has asked you to do extend grace and mercy and love to your new brother in the faith. Paul says he's no longer just a slave to you, but a brother in the Lord. 2 (18m 51s): And so Paul gave this pretty heavy, had this pretty heavy expectation for his friend, but he knew because of God's grace and mercy, that he could do it. And that's my confidence for us when God raises the bar in our life. I just know that we can do it by God's grace because he's working in our lives. We've surrendered to him. We've submitted to him. And when we've surrendered and submitted to him, there's just untold goodness that can flow into our lives and out of our lives by his grace. And so as we get into five Lehman, I just want you to kind of buckle up and just be ready to respond. Maybe the Lord has already brought somebody to your hearts, your mind. 2 (19m 35s): I need to forgive that fly. Can you guys see it flying around or is it just my imagination? Just my imagination. That's not the first time I've had that going on. So just avail yourself of male, yourself, to what God might want to do in your life and your relationships with your friends, coworkers, family members, neighbors, and see what he will do. Forgiveness is possible. I say this all the time, everything that God wants to do in us and with us and through us is only accomplished through the power of the holy spirit at work in our lives. And so we've got to be filled empowered by God to do what he's asked us to do. 2 (20m 17s): And so today the big ask is forgiveness. Will you forgive? Will you choose to forgive the person in your life or the people in your life that have offended you, forgiveness is possible in Christ. So this letter to Phi Lehman is all about that. It's all about forgiveness. This has been again, kind of a theme. And so it's interesting that God keeps bringing this to the surface in our church, in my life and in our lives as a congregation. So maybe the Lords preparing us for something else, getting us ready for this decision to forgive and to let go and to, in a sense, get our souls scrubbed because I tell you, when I forgave my dad, I felt like I didn't even realize, but I felt like I had been like polluted and dirty and my soul cause I've been harboring so much. 2 (21m 10s): You know, I didn't realize it until it was revealed to me. And maybe you're here in, God's going to reveal something of the condition of your soul. And he, he just, he wants to reveal it to you so he can scrub it and clean it and free it from all of that stuff. That's in your heart that you're harboring. And so this is Paul's desire to reconcile these two men to allow the spirit of God, to do a work in finally men setting him free, equipping them to do the incredible work that God has called him to do. So Paul is writing to his friend. Filey Lehman asking finally meant to forgive. Onesimus a runaway slave who has wronged him in some way. 2 (21m 53s): The first one there's only one chapter flip finally Lehman one, one. This letter is from Paul, the prisoner for preaching the good news about Christ Jesus and from our brother Timothy. So Paul he's in a prison cell. He could be having a pity party. He could be harboring his own bitterness toward those who are holding him or those who have falsely accused him. But instead he's seeing the big picture and he sees he's got work to do. He's got work, the work of encouraging the saints, the people of God to do the right thing. And he's, he's a perfect candidate to speak this truth because he's living in an unjust situation. Like he has been falsely accused and imprisoned for simply preaching the gospel of the Lord, Jesus Christ. 2 (22m 38s): And so he's in this place and he could have a hard heart, but he chooses, he chooses to have a tender heart and to be led by the Lord. This letter is from Paul, a prisoner for preaching the good news about Christ Jesus and from our brother Timothy I'm writing to by Lehman our beloved coworker and to our sister of FIA and to our fellow soldier, Archie piss into the church that meets in your house. May God, our father and the Lord, Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. So Paul didn't just write this letter to fight Lehman. He and Timothy together wrote this letter to Filey men and to others around finally men and to the church that meets in their house. 2 (23m 22s): See what seem like this letter should be a personal letter friend to friend, but there was something going on that caused Paul to write this letter with Timothy to this group, this group of people, there was something happening in the congregation of believers. And so Paul writes to these people, he writes because number one of your unforgiveness negatively impacts God's family. Unforgiveness negatively impacts God's family. So it's not just about fire Lehman needing to forgive a runaway slave Onesimus is now a brother in Christ and the unforgiveness that's being harbored in fire. 2 (24m 6s): Lehman's heart is impacting those around and that's what happens. We don't just sin and I'm going to call it Sandy. Cause that's what the Bible calls it. Unforgiveness is sin. And so we don't just sit in a bubble, but our sin impacts the people who are in our sphere of influence. And so we need to understand that unforgiveness negatively impacts God's family. And so Paul didn't just write the letter to buy Lehman. Paul and Timothy wrote this letter to and to the church that meets in their home. And so it's a letter meant to be dispersed to more than just a Phi Lehman. His message was a message to fire Lehman, but its implications touch the body of believers at Colossi. 2 (24m 50s): So why? Because unforgiveness negatively impacts God's family. So verse four says, I always think my God, when I pray for you find Lehman, because I keep hearing about your faith in the Lord, Jesus and your love for all of God's people. So by Lehman had received forgiveness from God. And now he is growing in his faith as a believer, as a follower of the Lord, Jesus Christ and with growth and maturity comes greater ability and greater responsibility. As we grow in our faith and growing our understanding and growing the power of God comes greater ability. 2 (25m 33s): Meaning God gives us the ability to do things that maybe we couldn't do when we were in our before Christ days or when we were young believers. But as we grow in maturity, we grow, we there, it comes greater ability and responsibility. So Paul is calling Phi Lehman to this place of responsibility. You have to own this and you have to deal with it for six. And I am praying that you will put into action. The generosity that comes from your faith, as you understand and experience all the good things we have in Christ. So it's time for Phi Lima to put into action. What he's been learning and experiencing. 2 (26m 13s): He, he needs to now put into action. What he's experienced, he's experienced the grace and the mercy of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And then he's walked with God for a time now. And so now Paul is saying, Hey, it's time for you to do what has happened to you. You've been graciously forgiven by a good and faithful God. And actually now you have the responsibility to forgive others in your life. You get to be Jesus skin on forgiving. Those who have offended, you extending grace and mercy to those who do not deserve it. 2 (26m 54s): It's time for Phi Lehman to put into action. What he's been learning and experiencing. He gets to be like Jesus and extend forgiveness to the one who has wronged him. And it's a legitimate wrong something happened and it caused, and he said, Mr. Runaway, and in his running, he found Paul somehow. And in his running, he found a new life in Jesus. And God was beginning to put things back together for fire Lehman. His faith is beginning to cost him. The cost is now you buy Lehman are responsible. 2 (27m 34s): You've got responsibilities within the kingdom to work beyond yourself, beyond your own ability, beyond your own capacity, to trust and to be filled with the holy spirit and do what you are called and commanded to do. He was, it was going to cost him something to do what God had asked him to do, but his faith will also give him the ability to do the supernatural God work. And it's a God work. Isn't it. When we extend grace, we're just being like God, when we say I forgive you and I love you now, there's some people that we forgive that we see still keep a distance from because they're unsafe, but we must forgive. 2 (28m 16s): So we forgive and we keep them at a distance and we bless them from a distance. And then there's others like with Phi Lehman. And Onesimus Paul saying, Hey, you bring it back to yourself and love him and forgive him and welcome him back into your world. And so maybe there are people that we have to welcome back into our world. And by God's grace, we're able to do that by God's grace. We're able to extend that kind of mercy. And then there's others. We say, I forgive you from a distance. God bless you, but you're not safe. And we need to keep our distance. So I Lehman was called to the supernatural purposes of God. 2 (28m 57s): Paul said, your love has given me much joy and comfort. My brother see the kindness, the tenderness. This is a great example. Paul's a great example of challenging the body of Christ, challenging believers to do the right thing. He's affirming him and loving him and then raising the bar in his life. He's saying you're, you're growing my brother. I'm so encouraged by your growth. Let's raise the bar in your life. There's something more that God has for you. He's been doing amazing things as a believer, as a follower of the Lord, Jesus Christ. But there's more, there's, there's this and dealt with issue in your life. And maybe there's an issue in our lives in your life that needs to be dealt with. 2 (29m 39s): You're like most of my life is good, but there's just this one thing. Maybe it's a person that needs forgiveness. Maybe it's a sin that just is not being addressed. Maybe it's an issue that you need to pray through. God would challenge us as believers, as followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ. You get it all dealt with and to get it all handled, to do business with the Lord. Your love has given me much joy and comfort. My brother for your kindness is often refresh the hearts of God's people. I believe that God has been preparing for Lehman and probably preparing each of us to hear this message today about forgiveness by Lehman had been growing and, and been used by the Lord to refresh the people of God. 2 (30m 22s): And now the bar was going to be raised in his life. And he was going to have the opportunity to refresh someone who had hurt him deeply by extending grace and mercy. It's a supernatural thing. It's something that we cannot do that we can't even imagine doing in our own strength and our own human capacity, but God gives us the grace to do it. So God has been preparing for Lehman for this moment, as it's obvious, his loving kindness for others has been a source of refreshing to the people of God. He's going to now have the opportunity to refresh someone who has been at odds with it. Doesn't sound like by is a bad guy. Sounds like he's a pretty good guy. 2 (31m 4s): Just struggling to do the right thing in this situation. And in this scenario, it isn't, God's so good to point out these things so that we can do business with the Lord so that we can be freed up by his grace and mercy so that our souls can be scrubbed from the ugliness that contaminates us from this world and for sin and unforgiveness. And so the Lord saying, Hey, I want to free you up so I can clean you up. And so that you can be free in Jesus name, unforgiveness negatively impacts God's family. Number one, and number two, we need to realize as followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ, people who've received the grace and mercy of God. 2 (31m 45s): That number two forgiveness is not optional. It's not optional. It's actually required that we would forgive Matthew six, 14, and 15. Jesus said, if you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your father will not forgive your sins, man. I think what Jesus is saying is listen, when you've experienced the mercy and the forgiveness, the grace of our good God and savior Jesus Christ. 2 (32m 28s): When, when you've truly experienced that, and you understand it at your core, that once you were lost and now you've been found you were blind, but now you see God resurrected your life. He has saved you. He's extended forgiveness and grace. And now out of that experience, God is calling us to forgive those that we need to forgive. He's saying, if you, if you've really experienced that supernatural work of God in your life, then you will have the capacity by my grace to extend it to others. If you, if you cannot do it, then maybe you've missed out on the forgiveness of God. Maybe you don't really have the forgiveness of God and you need to do some business with the Lord. 2 (33m 10s): I think, I think if we realize what Jesus is saying, we need to take serious. This issue of forgiveness. It's not optional. So maybe you're sitting here today and say, man, I've, I don't know how to forgive this person. Well, God knows how he does. He does. I was thinking about my life and what a scoundrel I was. And before Christ found me. And then I think about my life and what a scoundrel. I still am even as a follower of Christ. And I think God has found a way to forgive me by his grace because his mercy is so abundant and his love is so unconditional. I think, man, if God can continue to forgive me, man, I, I, by God's grace can extend that to others. 2 (33m 51s): And so if we pray, we say, Lord, I don't know how to do it, but I want to do it. I don't have the capacity, but God make me capable. Lord, would you help me? And then we just begin to do what we say, Lord, I forgive that person. I released that person from their, their debts. I don't want to hold that against them anymore. And then what happens is that your soul gets scrubbed and you begin to feel free in Jesus name. You begin to feel the, the new life that is meant to be yours in Christ Jesus in Luke 17, three through four, Jesus said, so watch yourselves. If another believer, the Greek word is your brother. If your brother sins rebuke that person, then if there is repentance forgive. 2 (34m 37s): But if that person wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again and asked for forgiveness, you must forgive. Like, Lord, Lord, are you crazy? Are you being serious? Like they keep hurting me. They keep offending me. And that's why sometimes we just need to forgive and distance ourselves. So we're not continually being hurt by the same person. So there's wisdom in that. We forgive them from a distance. We love them from a distance by God's grace, but we need to continue to forgive. And so maybe if you're in a situation where you're just continuing to get hurt, continually getting hurt by the same person, just maybe it's time to figure out a way to distance yourself, get some counseling with that person, with a counselor who can help you mitigate the problems and deal with the problems. 2 (35m 17s): But, but forgiveness is not optional. Jesus is pretty clear about the topic of forgiveness. It's not optional. Paul's appeal to an Islamist versa. That is why I'm boldly asking a favor of you. I could demand it in the name of Christ because it is the right thing for you to do. Paul saying, I, as an apostle of the Lord, Jesus Christ, knowing the, the plans and purposes of God, I could demand, but isn't it so much better when we can from the heart, allow God to change us. And from the heart begin to extend that grace and mercy, that's what Paul wanted for five Lehman. 2 (36m 0s): He knew that if he could appeal to his heart and get a heart change, that it would be a lasting grace and forgiveness. That can be, that could be extended. He said, but because of our love, I prefer simply to ask you consider this a request for me, Paul, an old man, and now also a prisoner for the sake of Christ. Jesus. I appeal to you to show kindness to my child. Onesimus I became his father in the faith while here in prison. Onesimus is the name means useful and that's telling, and now this next verse goes, he, his name means useful. 2 (36m 43s): And so in verse 11 says, Onesimus, hasn't been of much use to you in the past, but now he is very useful to both of us. I am sending him back to you and with him comes my own heart. I wanted to keep him here with me while I'm in these chains for preaching the good news. And he would have helped me on your behalf, but I didn't want to do anything without your consent. I wanted you to help because you are willing not because you were forced. It seems you lost Onesimus for a little while so that you could have him back forever. You lost him as a slave for a little while, but you're going to have him back forever as a brother in Christ, living together with him forever and ever into eternity together with the Lord. 2 (37m 34s): And so you lost him for a moment. God wants to reconcile you back together, not as slave and master, but as brothers in Christ, you see at the foot of the cross, the level that the ground is level, we all come to Christ the same way in desperate need of his mercy. So whether slave or master, whether a parcel or whatever it may be, we come to the Lord desperately in need of his mercy and grace and people all around us desperately need that from us. They need Jesus with skin on maybe, and maybe just maybe your extension of grace to someone else will warm them up to the extension of grace from the living God, as they experienced it in the human realm, that they might experience it in the spiritual realm from the Lord, Jesus Christ. 2 (38m 24s): He is no longer like a slave to you. He has more than a slave for you as a beloved brother, especially to me. Now he will mean much more to you, both as a man and as a brother and the Lord unforgiveness negatively impacts God's family. That's why Paul is writing this letter, hoping for reconciliation. That's why I'm preaching this message today. Hoping for reconciliation, that grace would be extended across the aisle and to one another in the congregation of the saints, the believers at harvest church. And beyond that, we would extend this grace and mercy to the people we know and people who we don't know, but we'd be free. And Jesus, just to let people be forgiven and forgiveness negatively impacts God's family. 2 (39m 10s): Forgiveness is not optional. Number two, and number three forgiven people must learn to forgive others. Forgiven people must learn to forgive others in Matthew 1821 and 22. Then Peter came to him to Jesus and asked Lord how often is not a great question, how what's really required of me, Lord. How often should I forgive someone in the Greek? My brother? How often should I forgive? My brother who sends against me seven times seems generous. No Jesus said not seven times, but 70 times seven can continuously forgive your brother continuously. 2 (39m 58s): Forgive those who have sinned against you. We must as the body of Christ who have been forgiven by the mercy and grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ. We must learn to extend that to other people. It's the gospel work in the earth that God wants to accomplish. He wants the body of Christ to be United and merciful and gracious to one another and United and gracious and merciful to the world so that we might draw people to Jesus. So if you consider me your partner, Paul writes, what's the partnership having to it's the partnership in the gospel, right? 2 (40m 39s): He said, Hey, if we're taking this gospel message to the world, if we're taking it to our world, and yet we can't forgive one, another of what, where's the power in the gospel message. If that power, if that gospel message doesn't have the power to transform our lives so that we might forgive others. Then where is the real power? So if you consider me your partner, welcome him, as you would welcome me. If he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge it to me. I, Paul, write this with my own hand. I will repay it. And I won't mention that you owe me your very soul. 2 (41m 21s): So Paul was instrumental in leading Phi Lehman to the Lord. Paul was instrumental in leading Onesimus to the Lord. And so now, as brothers in the Lord, he's working with them to help reconcile their lives together so that when the world, well, for a number of reasons, so that when the world sees us as the body of Christ, the world sees this United gracious group of people who are just trying to, by faith with endurance, serve the Lord together. And so that when they world sees that there'll be drawn in by that incredible and supernatural work of God that they're not seeing in the world and beyond just the impact that our ability to forgive others will have in the world, in the church, we get scrubbed of all of that junk. 2 (42m 14s): That's in our soul. That's holding us up and that's blocking us from really moving into supernatural life as a follower of the Lord, Jesus Christ. So Paul is giving five Lehman the big picture perspective, Hey, sometimes we can get so focused right here. So narrow and so focused on the wrong Stephan. And Paul's like, say, Hey, step back a bit and imagine what God might want to do. If you're freed up from all of this stuff, we sometimes feel justified and holding onto our unforgiveness. We want to hold on to it because it's a safe, familiar thing to us, but it's really cancer. 2 (42m 57s): And it's really eating away at us and destroying our fellowship and string our ability to trust God together and move forward together. Verse 20. Yes, my brother. Please do me this favor for the Lord's sake. Give me this encouragement in Christ. Paul's all in it. He's like I'm being impacted by this together. Let's work this out and, and find some resolution and some reconciliation. I'm confident as I write this letter that you will do what I ask and even more poly great confidence. And if I Lehman, and even as I preach this message, I have great confidence that God is working in this congregation of believers, that he's working in your hearts and minds, bringing you to a place of tenderness so that you might extend forgiveness to those in your life. 2 (43m 43s): And then with that tenderness and forgiveness, freedom in Jesus name re renewed joy and confidence in Christ, renewed passion for him, renewed love for people. When we let all that injury go and allow God to heal us where we've got capacity to love people. Again, we've got capacity to love God. Again, we've got people capacity to bring people close to us. Again, some of us have been so guarded because we've been so hurt that we've got people at a distance. We've got God at a distance and we're just trying to survive life. And God's got mad at, you said I got a better plan for you, better life for you, better purpose for you. Just let me just let me heal you in Jesus name. 2 (44m 24s): So I've got great confidence that as you listen today, and as we've read through five Lehman and going to finish up here in a moment that God's going to do profound things in our lives, I've been a testimony to it as I spoke a few weeks ago. And as I'm still feeling just the grace on my life because of the, the, the journey that God took me through and allowing me to see my need to forgive my dad. And it's just been incredible. He says, unconfident as I write this letter that you will do what I ask and even more. And one more thing you said is please prepare a guestroom for me, where I'm hoping that God will answer your prayers and let me return to you soon. 2 (45m 5s): So he says, Hey, when you deal with this thing, yeah, get, get a room ready for me. And you know what I like to eat. And you know what? I, you know, what I'm comfortable with. And so take care of that. For me, William Paul is giving five Lima, the big picture perspective, showing him how to live his life in the context of kingdom, life and perspective. And then he writes in verse 23, the pap us, my fellow prisoner in Christ. Jesus sends you his greetings. So do mark. Aaron Stark is Demas. And Luke, my coworkers may the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ be with your spirits. And that's what I will say over us. 2 (45m 46s): May the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ, be with your spirits as you surrender to him and yield to God and allow the word of God and the spirit of God to direct you and to heal you and to set you free. There's great stuff in store for us. So with that, let's go ahead and stand up. We're going to worship. And so I would just encourage you to do business with the Lord. God has been speaking and he's got purpose in his speaking. And so allow God to finish the work that he's begun in your life and just watch what will happen. It's going to be good. All right, let's get ready to worship. Thank you Lord. As these guys get ready, Lord, we just, we thank you. 2 (46m 26s): We thank you, God that you speak to us and that you call us to greater purpose, that you don't let us wallow in our sin and our unforgiveness, but you call us by your grace and mercy to greater Heights and greater purpose and a greater life. And so Lord help us to walk in that by your grace in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's worship 1 (54m 2s): Your name is Terraform. We thank you for this moment that we get to sing to you. Jesus, that we get to lift your name. Hi, Thank you, father. You are good. And We thank you, father. You were faithful When we are faithless, you are faithful. So we love you. We praise you. It's in your precious name. We pray.

Boogie Down Friday - Dope Saturday Showdown - Dope Boogie Man Channel - Dope DOT.CONNECTOR.PODCAST by BMC - DOPE If you weren't lucky enough to catch us live over the weekend I feel extremely bad for you. Although NOT being Boogie or Bexx, I already felt bad for you. HHHEEEYYYYOOOO!!! We've been busy as hell these last two weeks but it's not what you think. I personally, have been knee deep in the strangeness, realness and the research. Last week I made such amazing leaps and bounds I truly thought I was only about a day away from finding the key to the exit of this BS simulator - of course, I'm still here so you know how the hell that went. Just when I thought I was making read headway I (nobody else but me) through a wrench in my spokes. I found a collection of old videos that not only hinted but practically proved that our simulation was one that was being run by entities of even higher intelligence and technology than those that are running our simulation now. Meaning God, religion, the fallen angels, the watchers, the Elohim, the Cherubim, Ophanim, Seraphim, the Demons, the Devils, the Satans and eve the Jhin were all being duped by someone else. Who is smarter than God himself? That was the question that was running off of my tongue all week. This meant that God was fake, religion was fake, all historical landmarks were BS and everything else that I felt safe to endure was all a load of crap. Not only was it all crap but I had been spoon-feeding it to myself my entire life. This felt like shiz - like total shiz. It was the worst feeling in the world to know you had fooled yourself and nobody else is responsible for the shenanigans. It's a sad day in hell when something like that happens. So I ask the dome for some answers. I do this every once in a while and when I do I'm shown messages. Really good messages but I never ask it much to show me these things - first and foremost, I'm forgetful and never remember to do it. Plain and simple. Secondly, the last time it showed me a message after asking it - it was downright scary. The message it showed me last time was all about war. War of our people, our people against our people. Most importantly it was a war against an attack brought on by a germ, a virus or a sickness of some sort. This was before Covid and it has nailed Covid right on the head. It was beautiful! At the time I had no idea what the hell Covid even was. I obviously wasn't scared of something I didn't know but now I'm scared shitless of it now - that's for sure. As you can see Covid has done more than just killed over 600,000 Americans but it's taken what and who was left and ripped them all apart and turned us all against one another with these vaccinations and the mandatory implementations of them. If you've never had a chance to see this video I urge you to take the time to watch it. It's absolutely a work of art! Skydome Atlantis: Signs and Wonders in the Heavens & in the Dome; There is a War Coming! Get Ready   Let's get down to this weekends' live shows for those of you that missed them! There's no way to sugar coat the sort of information you'll learn when you look through the dome with answer as your intent. This isn't a game and i t's not for the light of heart. You come to the dome with an open heart, an open mind and no exceptions or you don't come to the dome at all. It doesn't take you a long time at all of shooting the dome before you realize God truly is all around us. We most definitely live within a closed system, a simulation and the ruler of this realm is NOT who you think. Not unless you're 100% sure Satan truly is the king of the castle. If this takes you by surprise then you'll really, truly be shocked to know that Satan is NOT who you think and not such a bad guy at all. In fact, he is a fair, just and compassionate God. There are at least 8 Satans but Lucifer is whom we are discussing tonight. Tonight you're going to hear it straight.

Elihu presents God’s kingly reign in ways that warn us against pride as well, but only God gives the answers to the problem of suffering - in Christ. - Sermon Transcript - Turn in your Bibles, as we continue in our study in Job, we're looking at chapters 34 and 35 today. A.W. Tozer in his classic, The Pursuit of God, said these words, "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us." It's an amazing statement. What comes into our minds when we think about God is our theology, our theology. And Tozer says this is the most important thing that can be said about any one person. What do they really think about God? Well, I would say if that's true, if that statement is true, it's especially true during suffering. In our time of suffering, what we think about God is vital to whether we will go through that suffering well or poorly. That seems to me to be one of the central points of the entire book of Job. To enable us to think exalted, majestic, true thoughts about God while we go through great suffering. Satan, as he did with Job, wants to use the suffering to put a wedge between us and God, so that in some way, we'll end up cursing God to his face, that we’ll be severed from our sincere and pure devotion to God and to Christ. That's what Satan wants to do in suffering. And God uses, therefore, the word of God to teach us instead, truth about God. That we would think about the unchanging nature of almighty God. And we come to Elihu for the second week. And Elihu is going to focus on Job's central and scandalous accusation that God has been unjust toward him, has dealt with him in injustice. Now God is going to clearly put Job in his place in due time. And we know that, and that's where we're heading. And no human being can ever do better than God at that kind of ministry, than God himself. But Elihu's arguments and his lofty words are extremely powerful and they help put us in our place as well. God can use this. My approach to Elihu, who, as I told you last time, since we have no statement from God about Elihu, we don't really know what to think about him. It seems to me best, hermeneutically, interpretatively, to just accept Elihu's speeches, these chapters, as we would any Old Testament wisdom literature. That we should just accept the statements, not find fault with them as many commentators do, to try to pick apart Elihu. But as we're going to see in a moment, Elihu urges us to sample words as a tongue tastes food. So we should do that with Elihu as well. And any Old Testament book, the author to Hebrews tells us is shadow, the reality is Christ. So we're going to find in Elihu some shadowy wisdom, some good sound things that will help us, but the reality is going to be ultimately in Christ. So we need to think about God and his justice. So we, all of us, think about God in too lowly a manner. We think too low thoughts about God, we struggle with conceiving of God's absolute sovereignty, we wrestle with how we feel about that. We tend to find fault with God in little ways and some of us at sometimes in very big ways, especially during suffering. At the back of our minds there's always some question that we have, it seems, about the justice of God. We see so many things wrong with the earth, we see so much suffering. Both suffering that comes from forces of nature and earthquakes and inanimate things, but how much more suffering that comes through human instrumentality. We see the wickedness of people, that people do to other people. And we see people getting away with murder it seems, and we wonder how God could actually be running a planet like this. How could a good and wise and loving and powerful God actually be in charge of a planet like this with all of these things going on? How can he be so silent when there's so much obviously wrong on earth? Now how much more would we be tempted to question the justice of God when some great tragedy may come into our lives, we have done it. We've been with other people who have done it. And it seems to be for this very purpose, the book of Job is written. Because we tend to break out at that point in complaints and murmurings against God, questionings. And it tends toward open assertions of doubt and unbelief and that's, I think, Satan's purpose. And yet none of us has ever had anything happen to us, even remotely close to what happened to Job, the instantaneous loss of all his wealth, the instantaneous loss of all 10 of his children, and then subsequently the loss of his health. And Job, yes, did indeed begin very well. In Job 1:22 it says, “In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.” And then later he said to his wife who urged him in words that should remind us eerily of what Satan said would happen. She urged him, "Curse God and die." And he replied to her, “’You are talking like a foolish woman, shall we accept good from God and not trouble?’ And in all this, Job did not sin in what he said.” Yet, as we've noted again and again, in this long book of Job, trials go on much longer than we want them to last. They wear on us, they wear us down, they break us down through their chronic nature. And so when Job's friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar begin pressing him with their theology, that Job was just suffering because he had committed some sin, God directly judges sins, and because of his suffering being so staggeringly great, then his sins must be staggeringly great as well. Well, anyway, when they did this, it tempted Job and it pressed him to begin complaining against God. It seems, as I've mentioned, that Job has accepted from time to time at least, their basic theological structure. That people suffer in this world as a direct retribution for the sins they have committed, it's a law of sowing and reaping. He accepts their basic premise, but he refutes the concept that he himself is wicked. He's a blameless man, he knows the truth. There is no great pattern of sin in his life. So accepting that premise, he then turns on God and accuses God of injustice. And yearns for his day in court when he can prove to God how righteous he is. Job 19:6 and following, "I know that God has wronged me and drawn his net around me. Though I cry, ‘I've been wronged!’ I get no response. Though I call for help, there is no justice. He has blocked my way so I cannot pass. He has shrouded my path in darkness." So Job concludes his words with his masterly defense of his own blamelessness, Job 31, and we walked through that. He goes into lengthy detail in the nature of his blamelessness, his righteousness. Which consisted of absolute sexual purity, commitment to sexual purity, wise and moral leadership of his own household, just and sacrificial dealings with the poor and the needy in his community, and many other things. Job 31, the portrait of a truly righteous, a blameless man walking through life. And amazingly, it's all true! It's all true. God himself had boasted about Job to Satan. Job 1:8, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him. He is blameless and upright, a man who fear God and shuns evil." So Job's friends, ultimately, became silent and could say nothing more because Job had bested them. He'd won the chess match. Job was utterly convinced of his own righteousness and that God had wronged him. Suddenly another man speaks up. Elihu, a man we didn't even know existed, didn't know he was there, but who it seems was listening to all the dialoguing between Job and his friends. And he was angry. He was righteously angry that the honor of God had been so impugned. Job 32:2-3, “Elihu the son Barachel, the Buzite to the family of Ram became very angry with Job for justifying himself rather than God. He was also angry with the three friends because they had found no way to refute Job and yet had condemned him.” So last week we looked at Elihu's introduction and then his first speech, Job 32 and then 33. His contribution last time brought a new perspective to the problem of suffering. A new angle on it, a different way to look at it. The basic concept that the only possible explanation for human suffering in the world is God's direct retribution for specific sins committed. That explanation is inadequate. It's partially true, but it doesn't cover everything. “There is another explanation,” says Elihu. Namely, that God uses suffering, including sickness to warn people ahead of time against committing sins and to protect them from the ultimate consequence of sin. Job, 33:16-18, “God may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings. To turn man from wrongdoing and to keep him from pride, to preserve his soul from the pit and his life from perishing by the sword.” So that's a new angle, a new approach, and it's beneficial. It's helpful. Now, we're going to continue on studying Elihu. And then I'm going to say to you: while Elihu's words are majestic, while they're helpful and beneficial, we're still left wondering if he has missed some aspects of God's character. And at times it seems that Elihu takes the exact same approach to Job that the friends do. The law of sowing and reaping, you get what you deserve. And he doesn't seem aware of the uniqueness of Job's situation. He is a stunningly righteous man, singled out in a very unique way for a role in redemptive history. How could he know all that? And so sometimes Elihu will sound just like the friends. So as profound as Elihu often is, we're going to find that only God alone can give the full and final answers to the problem of suffering. And he doesn't do it through a Elihu, and he doesn't even do it in the book of Job. He does it ultimately in the person and the work of his son, Jesus Christ. And in Jesus Christ, in his life, his sinless life, his substitutionary death on the cross, his resurrection triumph over the grave, in that all of the questions are ultimately answered. Now I began this sermon quoting A.W. Tozer, that statement from The Pursuit of God, “What comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you.” Well, C.S. Lewis heard that statement. He read it when Tozer wrote it and he said, "By God, it is not the most important thing about a man." C.S. Lewis. "How God thinks of us is not only more important than how we think about God, but infinitely more so." So just ruminate on that while I preach the rest of the sermon, and I think both of them are true. I don't think Tozer would've refuted anything C.S. Lewis was saying there. And I think in the end, isn't it marvelous that even when we are... I don't know, temporarily insane in the midst of our suffering, God never loses his perspective, always knows what he's about, knows how to navigate us through it in Christ and bring us safely to the other side. Praise God for that. So I thank God for both A.W. Tozer and C.S. Lewis, they both help us. In the end, what God thinks about us, even in the midst of our suffering and what he has done for us in Christ is infinitely more important than what we think about God, however, it is pretty clear that 42 chapters in the book of Job are given to help us think well about God and rightly about God when we go through suffering. And that's important too. 1.Elihu Judges Job All right, let's dig in on this second section on Elihu. Elihu and his judgment of Job. And he's going to stand in judgment over Job. And he's going to begin or continue to demand to be heard. He's already spoken some, but now he has more to say. Job 34:1-2, "Then Elihu said, 'Hear my words, you wise men. Listen to me, you men of learning.'" So he is directly addressing not only Job, but the three friends whose failure to correct Job was so offensive to him. And through Elihu, the Holy Spirit is speaking to all of us, “All of you people listen now to the words that Elijah's going to say,” then he says, "The ear tests words." Look at verses 3-4, "The ear tests words as the tongue tastes food. Let us discern for ourselves what is right, let us learn together what is good." So we're going to sample the truth of the words, we're going to test them. Speech is a fundamental gift from the Lord to the human race. It is part of what separates the human race from animals. Part of what it means, I think, to be created in the image of God is the gift of speech, of language. But words, according to Elihu, have to be tested like food has to be tasted. Think of a master chef that runs a five star restaurant in Paris and he samples all of the sauces and the dressings and the bubbling concoctions that all of his sous chefs are making under his direction in the kitchen. He goes from one to the next with a spoon and tests them and samples them, his skillful tasting, his pallet, enables him to correct the heat at which the sauce is being heated or stirred in the sauce pan, or the exact blending of the spices in the dressings, or the exact makeup, the balance of the ingredients in the soufflé, he's doing this, he's sampling all of this. That is how we're supposed to come to words, especially philosophical words or theological words, significant words. We're going to sample them. We're going to weigh out arguments, we're going to use logic and reasoning and illustrations and applications. And with all of them, we are going to evaluate: is it true or false doctrine? Now in the book of Acts we meet the Bereans, who are noble minded, and they took everything Paul said and brought it back to scripture to see if what Paul said was true. And so that's what I want to do for each of you. I want each of you each, and you're already doing it, you're doing it right now, “Pastor, we're doing it. Trust us.” You're evaluating, you're listening, sampling to see if it's true or not. We need to do that with Elihu. And we need to do that in general, says Elihu. Helping us in the new covenant, helping us Christians is the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Isn't that marvelous? We have the indwelling Spirit who enables us to sample words and to come to right doctrine. He illuminates, he brings us to truth. Praise God for the ministry of the third person of the Trinity! It says in 1 John 2:20, "You have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you knows the truth. I don't write to you because you don't know the truth, but because you do know the truth.” And so the Holy Spirit enables us, when you hear something, even for the first time to say, "That's true. I just know it." Even if you've never heard that teaching before, you just know, you've got that anointing from the Holy Spirit, the indwelling Spirit helps you. Now, this sampling of words has been essential to the whole study of the book of Job. Where you have to sample, we're kind of in trouble a little bit in this book. When God pans, or rebukes Job for what he says, "Who is this that speaks words without knowledge?" It's like, “Well what do I do then with Job's words?" It's kind of tough. And then later he says that, “Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar have not spoken what is right about me as my servant Job has.” Oh, okay, so some of what Job says is true and some of it isn't. And some of what the friends say is true, and some of it... So we are sampling. And with Elihu, we're like, "I don't know, what do we do?" And so we have to take and evaluate everything Elihu says alongside the truths we have from other passages of scripture, we have to sample them. Then Elihu goes into Job's claim. He goes into the basic problem. The thing that stirs Elihu up, gets him angry. Job's claim of innocence, verse 5-6, “Job says, ‘I am innocent, but God has denied me justice. Although I am right, I am considered a liar. Although I am guiltless, his arrow inflicts an incurable wound.’” That's the basic problem. Job is claiming to be innocent and God is attacking him. And so he judges Job, verse 7-9, "What man is like Job, who drinks scorn like water? He keeps company with evildoers; he associates with wicked men. For he says, ‘It profits a man nothing when he tries to please God.’" Now it seems like Elihu is saying that in questioning God's justice, he is associating with wicked people in general who do that all the time. What wicked people do all the time is question God, whether he exists or not and whether he's good or not, or just or not. And when Job joins up with them he's just, it seems, hanging out with wicked people like they are, acting like them. Now, I'm not in entirely sure what it means, "What man is there like job who drinks scorn like water?" Maybe afterwards, one of you can come and tell me what you think that means. It's like, “It doesn't matter how much scorn you pour on this guy; he drinks it and just keeps on going. Nothing seems to change his mind.” I don't know, maybe that's what Elihu means. Then the things get even more challenging after that. Because Elihu digs in and speaks of a majestic God. A God whose righteousness and holiness and majesty soars so far beyond anything we can comprehend. And I think we need to hear these words, the perfect justice, the omniscience of God. And that is the foundation of God's righteous throne in heaven. We who live in 21st century America, we are staggeringly casual about God. We are familiar with God in ways that I think aren't helpful. We are informal. We're a casual people. And we need to not be that way with God. And Elihu's words can help. Elihu in verses 10-12 zeros in on God's perfect hatred of evil, "So listen to me, you men of understanding. Far be it from God to do evil, from the Almighty to do wrong. He repays a man for what he has done. He brings upon him what his conduct deserves. It is unthinkable that God would do wrong, that the Almighty would pervert justice." so what he's saying is God hates evil at a level we can scarcely imagine. And this is the unified teaching of the Bible. God, 1 John 1:5, "God is light,” straight through his being. He is pure, “God is light, and in him there's no darkness at all.” There is no evil in God. So nothing God ever does is evil, he is pure light. So according to Elihu, anything that God has done to Job must be perfectly just, perfectly right, because God did it. Now in heaven, I do believe we will review all of God's actions in history. We'll review all of God's judgments and we'll find that God acted with perfect justice in every case. And that unrepentant sinners actually do ultimately get paid back in full. It says in Romans 2:6, “God will give to each person according to what he has done,” plain. So ultimately, Job, your sense that wicked people get away with murder and all that, we'll come back to that one. But everything that God does is right. And God deals justly with the wicked. "We who live in 21st century America, we are staggeringly casual about God. We are familiar with God in ways that I think aren't helpful. We are informal. We're a casual people. And we need to not be that way with God. " 2.Elihu Exalts God as Sovereign King God's authority as king, his right to rule is independent of his creatures. Look at verse 13, “Who appointed him,” God, “Who appointed him over the earth? Who put him in charge of the whole world?” God is king of the universe. Okay, who is the king maker? Was there a search process for that? Was there an electorate during that time? No, none of the above. God derives his being and his authority from himself. That's the aseity of God. Everything comes from God himself, nothing from the creature at all. So what that means is we never voted God into office and we can't impeach him, we have no power to vote him out. No creature gave God his throne. It is his by virtue of his person and his work in creating the universe. God the creator made this universe. It is his, he can do with it whatever he pleases. And he made it, and so therefore he can rule over it absolutely as king. God's absolute power also extends to life and death. Look at verses 14-15, and also in verse 20, "If it were his intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath, all mankind would perish together and man would return to the dust." and again, verse 20, "They die in an instant in the middle of the night. The people are shaken and they pass away. The mighty are removed without human hand." So we exist through the will of God at every moment. It says in Acts 17:28, "In him, we live and move and have our being." whether we acknowledge him or not. God sustains the life of every human being at every moment. Hebrews 1:3 says concerning Jesus, "The Son sustains all things by his powerful word. He upholds the being of every creature." It is completely dependent on God's purpose and will whether any human being continues to exist or not for another second. And that's true, not just of humans, but of every creature that God ever made. Psalm 104:29 speaking of all creatures out in the fields, in the mountains and in the valleys, all of them out they're on planet earth: "When you hide your face, they're terrified when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust." That's true of humans; that's true of everything. God has therefore, as I've said before, created a needy universe. It needs him. Every atom of the universe needs God to continue to exist. I don't think we can think too much about this or too highly of this. If God wanted to kill a single individual, or if he wanted to kill a whole nation alike, he could do that with no preparation at all. He doesn't need any help to do that. As Moses said to Pharaoh in Exodus 9:15, at this point, they're well into multiple plagues and Pharaoh still doesn't get it. Remember how Pharaoh began that interview with Moses, in the exchange with Moses. "Who is the Lord? I don't know the Lord." Well, he is getting an education. And God said to Pharaoh through Moses in Exodus 9:15, "For by now, I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would've wiped you from the face of the earth." "Do you not know who I am? I have that kind of power." It says in verse 20, Elihu says, "The mighty are removed without a human hand." Meaning God doesn't need any allies at all if he wanted to kill anyone or even any nation, he doesn't need any help to do it. Verse 20. Jonathan Edwards in his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, zeroed in on this powerful ability of God to take life at any moment, without any preparation, without any equipment. I mean: nothing needs to get arranged. This is what Edward said: It is no security to wicked men for one moment that there are no visible means of death at hand. It is no security to a natural man that he is now in health, that he does not see which way he should now immediately go out of the world by any accident. That there is no visible danger in any respect in his circumstances, the manifold and continual experience of the world in all ages shows this is no evidence that a man is not actually on the brink, the very brink of eternity and that his next step will not be into another world. The unseen, unthought-of ways and means of persons going suddenly out of the world are innumerable and inconceivable. Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they will not bear their weight. And these places are not seen by them. The arrows of death fly unsoon at noon day. The sharpest sight cannot discern them. God has so many different, unsearchable ways of taking wicked men out of this world and sending them to hell. This is an elaboration of the very thing Elihu is saying, when God takes away their breath, they die, and they go to the dust. It would be good for us to meditate on this as well. “In God I live and move and have my being.” It's the very same thing he said in James. “We should say, ‘If God wills, I will live and do this or that.’" Do not presume on the future. Do not presume you'll be alive tomorrow or a week from now. God also, according to Elihu is totally impartial. He's not impressed by people's positions. Look at verses 16-19: "If you have understanding, hear this, listen to what I say. Can he who hates justice govern? Will you condemn the just and the mighty One? Is not he, the One who says to kings, 'You are worthless.' And to nobles, 'You are wicked.' And shows no partiality to princes and does not favor the rich over the poor, for they are all the work of his hands. They die in an instant in the middle of the night, the people are shaken and they pass away, the mighty removed without a human hand." First of all, in that little section, Elihu says God could not rule as he does if he hated justice. Although human history is certainly marred by tyrants, who ruled with an iron fist and hated justice, God isn't like them. Actually, God's love for justice is the foundation of his throne. Psalm 89:14 says, "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Love and faithfulness go before you." God is so powerful and sovereign over the kings and princes of the earth that he has no trouble judging any of them, any time. He sees how many of the kings are actually worthless men and how many of the princes are wicked. And he shows no partiality to them at all, but he removes them in an instant. They die at night with no warning. That's true today. We look around at the heads of state, whether presidents or premieres or prime ministers or any of them, these words are still true. All of them. So Job's contention that God tolerates the wicked and that they die peacefully in their beds with their loving families around them and there's no retribution at all, Job 21, may occasionally be true. But the norm is that God is actually, as it says in Romans 9, “bearing with great patience the objects of his wrath.” That's what's happening, he's just putting up with them. And that at the right time, according to his wisdom, he brings the hammer down. Justice is served. Now in verses 21 through 28, Elihu speaks of God's perfect knowledge of all of the sins of all men. There's no hiding from God. Verses 21-28, "His eyes are on the ways of men. He sees their every step. There's no dark place, no deep shadow where evildoers can hide. God has no need to examine men further that they should come before him for judgment. Without inquiry, he shatters the mighty and sets up others in their place. Because he takes note of their deeds, he overthrows them in the night and they are crushed. He punishes them for their wickedness where everyone can see them because they turn from following him and had no regard for any of his ways. They caused the cry of the poor to come before him, so that he heard the cry of the needy." So God's judgments of all human beings are perfect. They're based on complete knowledge. Men in their sins, often deceive themselves into thinking that no one can see them. No one knows. Elihu reminds us all that there's never a moment in which God's omnipresent eye does not see everything that we do. Elihu says specifically, "God doesn't need anymore information to judge us. There's no need, Job, for a court trial. There's no need for witnesses to be called. He already knows what we are in our hearts and what we did with our bodies.” Do you remember that time when God showed up and told Abraham, "A year from now, Sarah would hold the child." Remember that? And they'd been a barren couple. Do you remember what Sarah did? Do you remember? She laughed in her tent. And then God said, "Why did Sarah laugh?" And she was afraid. So she lied and said, "I didn't laugh." And God said, "Oh yes, but you did laugh, period. Next paragraph." That's a little microcosm of judgment day. "Yes you did. Period. This is what you said. This is what you did. No witnesses are needed." And God knows our hearts. He knows the motive behind our words. He knows why we did everything that we did. So Job's longing for a hearing is not necessary. God already knows who Job is and what he's done. So if I can just stop and let me just reach ahead for an application and do it right now. Wouldn't it not be good for all of us to walk continually in the fear of the Lord? Isn't the fear of the Lord the beginning of wisdom? Isn't it right for us to see that there's no darkness with God? Even the night is day to him. Wouldn't it be good if there are patterns of sin in our lives, to put them to death immediately? To not act like no one will ever see, no one ever knows? Shouldn't these words move us to that kind of a holy fear? I think so. Let us not be trapped in our vain imaginations about God and think he doesn't see us. Let us not live a double life, whitewashed tombs that look good on the outside, but inside are full of corruption and dead men's bones and everything unclean. What other people wrongly think about us will not matter at all on judgment day. All that matters on judgment day is what God thinks about us. At the final judgment, the court will be seated, the books will be open and the dead will be judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. It's that clear. "Let us not be trapped in our vain imaginations about God and think he doesn't see us. Let us not live a double life, whitewashed tombs that look good on the outside, but inside are full of corruption and dead men's bones and everything unclean." Now it seems to me, the Holy Spirit has to say this kind of thing to us again and again, because our faith is so weak. Faith is the eyesight of the soul by which we see invisible, spiritual realities. Past, present, and future. We sin through unbelief, we forget that a holy God is watching us right now and will later call us to account. So the stronger our faith is, the stronger our eyesight of the invisible spiritual world is, the less we will sin. We need to lie openly under the word of God and let it search us and know us. Hebrews 4:12-13 says, "The word of God is living and active, sharper than any double edged sword. It penetrates even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything's uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we will give an account." We need to just let God's word do its work in us. Let it cut us open, let it do its surgery on us. Let it hurt us in order to heal us. That's what we need. So God works in us a clear view of judgment day and causes us to repent and make changes while there's still time. And it is by working in sinners, a deep conviction of sin that God saves us. This deep conviction of sin brings us to the cross of Christ. And then it continues, doesn't it? To serve us well the rest of our Christian lives. So that we are deeply convicted of sin the rest of our Christian lives. We should also remember that God is patient with us, gives us time to repent. He doesn't deal with us immediately, but we should not presume on that time. We don't know how long it will be. And we should realize that as soon as you're aware of sin in your life, put it to death by the Spirit. In verse 29-30, Elihu who speaks of God's freedom to rule as he sees fit: "But if he remains silent, who can condemn him? If he hides his face, who can see him? Yet, he is over man and nation alike to keep a godless man from ruling, from laying snares for the people." So Elihu speaks of the freedom that God has sometimes to speak powerfully in judgment, just like that. And other times to be silent and give the sinner more time. God can do whatever he wants. There's no telling. God alone can decide which of these he will do. Remember the story of Jonah? Where Jonah comes and preaches to Nineveh, and the king of Nineveh commands the whole city to repent and to humble themselves before the God of heaven? And then says these words, "Who knows God may be merciful to us?" Do you realize the theology of “who knows?” God can do what he want. He doesn't owe us another day. And so who knows? God may, in some cases, give more time. Other cases: done. Nebuchadnezzar, he gives him seven years, and Nebuchadnezzar repented. King Herod? Killed him immediately, instantly. God can do either one. Now, Elihu is speaking of God being over both man and nation alike. God is so powerful that he can bring judgment on a single man in and afternoon. And he can do the exact same thing to a nation. He can kill 185,000 of Assyrian troops in a single night. That's the power of God. III. Elihu Urges Job to Repent So, therefore in Job 34:31-37, Elihu urges Job to repent, “Suppose a man says to God, ‘I am guilty, but I will offend no more. Teach me what I cannot see; if I have done wrong, I will not do so again.’ Should God then reward you on your terms, when you refuse to repent? You must decide, not I. So tell me what you know? Men of understanding declare, wise men who hear will say to me, 'Job speaks without knowledge; his words lack insight. Oh, that Job might be tested to the utmost for answering like a wicked man. To his sin he adds rebellion; scornfully he claps his hands among us and multiplies his words against God.'" So it's interesting, Elihu seems to write Job's script for him here: “Suppose a man says, ‘I am guilty, but I will offend no more. Teach me what I cannot see; if I have done wrong I will not do so again." Effectively, he's saying, "Job, say that to God. Say it to God." "I will confess that I've sinned and I'm guilty, but I promise never to do it again. I yearn Lord for you to teach me the truth about my sins." The rest of this section, if I can be honest with you, brothers and sisters, I found extremely difficult to interpret. Some things are clearer than others. So I walked through this saying, “Okay, what am I going to say to the church about this?” And since I don't really know, I'm gonna just move on to the next section. IV. Elihu Exalts God as Independent of All Humanity There's so many things in this book that I don't fully understand. And so in chapter 35:1-8, Elihu exalts God as independent of all humanity: “Then Elihu said: ‘Do you think this is just? You say, 'I will be cleared by God.’ Yet you ask him, ‘What profit is it to me, and what do I gain by not sinning?' I would like to reply to you and to your friends with you. Look up to the heavens and see; gaze at the clouds so high above you. If you sin, how does that affect him? If your sins are many, what does that do to him? If you are righteous, what do you give to him, or what does he receive from your hand? Your wickedness affects only a man like yourself, and your righteousness only the sons of men.’" So Elihu is giving a sense of the infinite transcendence of God. And we spoke of that earlier in the book of Job. God is not benefited by us in any way. God doesn't need us. We don't make God feel better. We don't help God with his program. Does that make sense? He isn't served by us as if he needed anything. He doesn't need anything. We spoke of this earlier. God is higher above us than the clouds, or even the most distant stars. He is lofty and exalted; you're not going to affect God in himself at all by how you live. So if Job says, "What benefit is it to me to avoid sinning?" Then you need to know your sins are only hurting yourself and the people around you. You're not hurting God or affecting his throne at all. Elihu then in verses 9-13; cries out against the oppression of the poor by the powerful. Look at these verses: "Men cry out under a load of oppression; they plead for relief from the arm of the powerful. But no one says, ‘Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night, who teaches more to us than the beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds of the air?’ He does not answer when men cry out because of the arrogance of the wicked. Indeed, god does not listen to their empty plea; the Almighty pays no attention to it." So all four men, Job and his three friends, have spoken passionately about their concern for what we call social justice. For the poor and needy, Elihu adds his voice to theirs. Here however, Elihu says that even the poor oppressed, themselves are sinners. They do not think of God often in the midst of their afflictions, they are poor. It's true. They are suffering. They are socioeconomically disadvantaged, but they're still sinners. And in the midst of their sorrows they do not think properly about God. They suffer, but they wickedly forget God and they don't cry out to him. And when they do, God does not listen because they do not pray properly in faith and repentance. V. Elihu Again Judges Job And then in verses 14-16, Elihu ends again by judging Job. "How much less, then, will he listen when you say that you do not see him, that your case is before him and that you must wait for him, and further that his anger never punishes and that he does not take the least notice of wickedness. So Job opens his mouth with empty talk and without knowledge, he multiplies words.” So bottom line, no human being ever, no matter what they're going through can rightly accuse God of wrongdoing, ever. Not Job, not the poor, not the mighty, no one. "So bottom line, no human being ever, no matter what they're going through can rightly accuse God of wrongdoing, ever. Not Job, not the poor, not the mighty, no one." VI. Lessons All right. So what lessons can we draw from this? Well, I've already given you one of the main lessons and that is that we should walk wisely and circumspectly in the fear of the Lord. An omniscient God, a holy God who sees us at every moment. Now, I already told you that was the foundation of Job's righteousness. Wasn't it? It was the foundation of his piety. That's how he lives such a holy life. He never forgot that God saw him all the time, and we need to do that as well. Now the primary benefit of that meditation, by far, is to drive us to the cross of Christ. We are guilty. We have violated God's holy laws. We have no hope in and of ourselves. In our own righteousness, we have no hope. But we understand that the only righteousness that will survive judgment day is a perfect righteousness and that was only ever found in one man, Jesus Christ. And God in his goodness offers that freely to all of us, every generation, he cries out before us and holds out his own, Jesus holds out his own righteousness and offers it to you as a gift. And he offers to take all of your wickedness and all of your rebellion and take it on himself and suffer and die under the wrath of God on the cross that we might be free from guilt on judgment day. Christ is our righteousness on judgment day. And in Christ’s imputed righteousness, we will shine like the sun forever. So if you are walking in grief and sorrow now, you're going through trials; you're burdened by that; come to Christ. If you are a sinner and up to this point you have never trusted in Christ as your Lord and savior, come to Christ. Even if you're a Christian and you've walked with the Lord for many years and are in no particular pattern of suffering right now, come again and again, develop a strong habit of coming to Christ in any and every situation because you know, likely maybe even very soon, you're going to be suffering your own version of Job's trials. And so Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for this time with Elihu. These words are deep, they're complicated, they're not easy to understand. Pray that you would guide us, Lord. Help us to have a majestic vision of God, that our hearts and our minds would soar as far as these words imply. So that we see that God is above the heavens, even the highest heavens, which cannot contain you. And that we would draw near to our mediator, our savior Jesus, and find in him full forgiveness and find in him strength for the trials that we're going through. And we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com.Usually about this time of the year, we do this every year, where we focus on the DNA of Mosaic. The reason why we do this is because every single organization has mission leak or mission creep, where they forget why we exist. So we remind ourselves of why we exist and we communicate that with the three words, love Jesus simple. This is our DNA. Why do we use the word DNA? DNA is the information within every single organism that gives identity, that dictates function, how we are going to function, and it dictates the activity of this organism. I use the word organism because church is an organism. It's not just an organization. Church is alive. Jesus Christ says that the church is His body. It's alive. It's an organism. And the church is His bride. It's alive. It's an organism. And that's why we use the word DNA. The DNA is the blueprint, it's the recipe, the code for who we are.Last week we talked about love is the motive for everything that we do, because love was the motive for everything Jesus did. Jesus Christ loved God and loved people by primarily loving the church. So we do the same. And today we're talking about Christ as Christ is the center of everything that we are. He is our identity, and He as we proclaim Him, His word, that we proclaim Christ crucified, that is the power of God onto salvation. St. Paul said, "The power of God is in the gospel for anyone who believes." The reason why we do this series is to remind ourselves of the mission of God. CS Lewis says, "There exists in every church something that sooner or later works against the very purpose for which it came into existence." So we must strive very hard, by the grace of the church focused on the mission that Christ originally gave to it.At the center is Jesus Christ. He's the center of everything we do. He's the main point of everything we do. He's the main point of the Christian life, of the Christian faith. And this is our message that your happiness, your eternal happiness, the eternal happiness of every single person wholly depends on Jesus Christ, what you do with His life, death, burial, and resurrection. If you believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins, you are saved by grace through faith, saved meaning you need to be saved. By grace is a gift from God, and it happens when you believe that Jesus Christ didn't just die, He died for your sins. When you believe that Jesus didn't just come to show us the way to God, that He is the only way to God. It sounds outrageous, I know, and it always has. But when the message is proclaimed, people do get saved. So that's why we do this on a weekly basis.Our text for today is 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, 1 Corinthians 1:18-25. I didn't bookmark it, so let's see if Pastor Jan knows his Bible. Oh yeah, right there, 1 Corinthians 1:18, "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.' Where's the one who is wise? Where's the scribe? Where's the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."For the foolishness of God is wiser than men and weakness of God is stronger than men. Consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you are wise according to worldly standards; not many were powerful; not many were of noble birth. But God shows what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of Him, you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. So that as it is written, 'Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.'"And I, when I come to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling. And my speech, my message were not implausible words of wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." This is the reading of God's holy and infallible, authoritative Word. May He write these eternal truths upon our hearts.Why do we preach Jesus Christ crucified? That's why. I can just say amen and pray. That's why. The scripture says, "For each Christ crucified, that's all we do." Did St. Paul write to the church in Corinth? Did he tell them any other things other than Christ crucified? Yeah, of course, he did. But the central message that impacts everything else is that Jesus Christ died on a cross for our sins. Three points to frame up of our time. First, the cross is folly. The cross is power. And the cross is wisdom. St. Paul starts with where everyone knows the first time you hear the message. The secret to the universe, the secret to reality, the secret to understand yourself, the people around you, the secret to understand all the world history is the fact that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sin. The fact that when you hear that, the first time you ever hear, the natural reaction is: "It's folly. It's foolish to believe. You believe this? You gather on a Sunday to proclaim it? You believe this?"Yes, it sounds folly. That's the point. In verse 18, "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing. But to those who are being saved, it is the power of God." On the one hand, yes, it's folly, but it's also power. Let's start with it's folly. St. Paul in this text, he talks about two groups of people, the Jews, and he talks about the Greeks. The Jews he's talking about, religious Jews, that grew up with the mosaic law, the 10 commandments that God gave through Moses. They believed that they were religious. They believed that they could save themselves through their own efforts. And then the group, the Greeks on the other hand were too sophisticated. The Jews are too religious for Jesus. The Greeks are too sophisticated.So we start with the Jews. For the Jews, the cross was a scandal, scandalous to say that God became man. It was scandalous to say that God's Messiah was crucified. That's like saying God sends a king who then loses, He's crucified. It was an impediment to them, first of all, because in law of Moses, there's a Bible verse in Deuteronomy that says, "Cursed is anybody who hangs on the tree." So when St. Paul comes in, when the disciples come in, they say, "Our Messiah died on a cross." They looked at text, and like, "You're saying our Messiah was cursed? That's blasphemous." On top of that, they hated even the idea of crucifixion because so many of their countrymen died through persecution. The Romans would come in, and anytime there was an insurrection, they would take all of the people, hundreds and thousands of them, and on the way into the city put up cross after cross after cross and execute people. So for Jews to hear that your Messiah was executed through crucifixion, they had the same visceral, emotional antagonism to it as telling a 20th-century that your Messiah died in a concentration camp. The same visceral reaction.Besides the cross, telling Jews that the Son of God died was ludicrous. They had a high view of the divine transcendent God. They had a very inflexible commitment to monotheism, that God is one. It was in their Shema. It was blasphemous to say that there's a second person, there's trinity, there's God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, but it's one God, three persons. That was blasphemous to them. So they had theological, intellectual, emotional opposition to it. And we see it all culminating in St. Paul. Paul before he became Paul, he was Saul. He studied under Gamaliel. He's the greatest theologian, probably theological mind to have existed probably second to Jesus Christ.What did Paul do in his early ministry? Well, he thought that he was doing God's work by persecuting Christians. When he heard about Christian, when he heard about Jesus Christ dying on the cross, that this is the Messiah, he had such a visceral reaction that he wasn't just motivated to speak out against it. It wasn't just about him not liking the message. He would actually physically hunt down Christians, persecuting them to the point of terrorizing them and then killing them. And that ministry started with him watching the death, the stoning, physical stones were thrown at the first martyr, Stephen, and Paul was there. He hated that message. And what changed his mind was when he met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus.So for the Jews, the religious people, they had a visceral reaction against this truth. And for the Greeks, they just felt too sophisticated to believe that their hope, their eternal happiness, eternal life hinges on what they do to a carpenter who then became an itinerant rabbi who died in Judea on a Roman cross and that crucifixion had anything to do with God. Because there was a stigma attached to crucifixion. The elite Greeks and the Romans were embarrassed that this was even a part of their society. The scholars who study the writings of the Greco-Roman literature at that time, they point out the fact it's rarely ever mentioned. It's like the French never talking about the guillotine.This is in us. They would rewrite their own history. They didn't want it to be part of what they did as a society. Crucifixion was regarded as the worst form of death. It was worse than dying in an arena where animals, beasts were released from trap doors. They weren't fed for days and released to tear Christians limb from limb. Dying in an arena eaten by animals was considered more noble and honorable than being crucified. Being crucified was worse than even being burned to death. Crucifixion was that brutal, and any person that was crucified left a legacy as being the worst kind of criminal scum. That's why the early churches was ridiculed, mocked for worshiping. And they said, "An evil man. Your God is a criminal. Your God was crucified. How can you believe this?"Archeologists excavated the quarters of the Imperial pages in the Palatine Hill in Rome. It dates back to the third century, so the 200s. In it, they found this carving on a wall, and it's a picture of a little boy who's got his hand raised as if he's worshiping someone on a cross. It was a body on a cross. And instead of a head, they put a head of a donkey. And underneath it said, "Alexamenos worships his God." Little boys were mocking a Christian little boy who worshiped Jesus Christ dying on the cross. It was blasphemous for them to believe this is true. And you can Google it, Alexamenos worships his God, to see the depiction.Not many people worship someone who's been executed with an electric chair. No one puts little electric chairs around their necklace or a needle for lethal injection. No one hangs a noose around their neck as a little symbol of something great. No one does it with a guillotine. Yet we do as Christians. We wear little crosses to remind ourselves that our savior died on a cross, experienced excruciating pain. We had to come up with a word to describe just how bad crucifixion was. We worship a Savior who died the death of the most heinous, monstrous criminal. And on top of all of this, for the Greeks and the Romans to tell them, "It wasn't some political statesman like Cesar who died for your sins. And it wasn't some philosopher like Socrates who died for your sins. It was just some obscure carpenter, amateur rabbi." And here come the Christians proclaiming what? Proclaiming the secret to human life is found in some rabble-rousing rabbi from a distant Judea, telling people that the meaning of life is found in the life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension of Jesus Christ.And as we do so, that was crazy then, it's just as crazy now. It's always been crazy to get up and to tell someone, "Hey, unless you believe in Jesus Christ that He died on the cross for your sins, you're going to spend eternity in hell, apart from God." that's always nuts. It's always crazy to say that. But that's what the early church did in the beginning. And that's what we continue to do. And by the way, here's the other challenge of doing that. The moment you say that, that very moment, what else are you saying? What else am I saying when I say Jesus Christ is the only way to go? What am I saying? I'm saying there's no other way. I'm saying there's no other way. So what I'm saying is every other way is wrong, every other way is a lie. Jesus Christ is the only way. Right, that doesn't feel good. That sounds so intolerant.If there was another way, then Jesus Christ would not have had to die on a cross. It was the only way. That's what it took. There's no other way. So yes, I'm standing up here, and I am saying that everything else is wrong. Islam is wrong. Buddhism is wrong. Atheism is wrong. Secular is wrong. It's all wrong. And you saying Jesus Christ is one of them, that's wrong too. When our world hears that, they say, "That's folly. That's folly." But for us, we love this message. Yes, it's naturally repugnant. Yes, it's naturally faintly ridiculous. But it's also wonderful to us. What makes us think it's so wonderful? How could anyone think this is wonderful? How could anyone give their life to this message? Give their life for this message? Give their time, talent, treasure to invest resources in the propagation of this message? It's so improbable, so unsophisticated. It's so offensive to our culture or taste. It's foolish.But it's got power. And that's why we do what we do. This is the only thing that can really save us. And this is the second point, that the cross is power. 1 Corinthians 1:22-25, "For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." So the Jews would say, "Hey, we want more evidence. We want more signs. We want signs like Moses. Moses did the signs as he led the people of God out of Egypt, out of captivity. We're looking for the same political Messiah, and we want signs to go along with it.For the Greeks, they want sophia or wisdom. Their civilization astounded the world with its progress. Their advances caused many to abandon belief in traditional God. We want something that polished. The Jews said, "We want something religious." These guys said, "We want something really, really polished." St. Paul comes in and he says, "The greatest sign that God could give is that God the Son, Son of God, Son of man died on the cross for our sins, and He came back from the dead." For the Jews, a crucified Messiah was an oxymoron, like a married bachelor. For the Greek, it wasn't so much more irreverent, it was just ridiculous. But St. Paul says, "There's another piece, there's another element. It's not just this message. It's not just information. This information, when God the Holy Spirit takes it and applies it to your heart, when the God of grace gives a man, a woman by the Spirit of God a brand new heart, summons that heart to Himself, what was first thought as foolish is recognized as the deepest wisdom. Initially thought as weak and silly, it's nothing less than the actual power of God.This is where the power is. The power source is the proclamation that Jesus Christ died for your sins. Karl Barth in the 20th century was probably one of the most influential theologians. At the end of his life, he was giving a lecture in the '70s in Princeton, theological lecture. At the end, he was doing a Q&A, and one person asked him, "Hey, Dr. Barth, you have read tens of thousands of theological tomes. You've written hundreds of theological tomes. If you could synthesize the greatest, the greatest truth that you discovered, the greatest nugget of gold to share with us from your vast experience, what would it be? And he said, "That's easy. Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so." That's it. That's our message.Jesus loves us so much that He was willing to die on the cross for our sins. And when you realize, when it goes from, oh, Jesus did that thing to He died for my sins, my particular sin, when God reveals the darkness of your sin to you, the cross becomes life and life when you realize that nothing short of the death of the Son of God would be adequate to atone for our sins. And this is what we do every single week that I stand up here and I just remind you how evil you are, that you don't understand yourself, you don't understand the world, you don't understand anything. You don't understand parenting. You don't understand that they are born as little evil, cute little baby. They're evil. You're evil. You don't understand marriage unless you understand it's two evil people getting married. You don't understand the economy unless you understand it's evil people. Politics, it's all evil people. It's all evil. You don't understand any of them unless you understand that we're all evil. And it took Jesus Christ dying on the cross for our sin.Every single person, there's two realities to you, to every single person. The first one is who you are on paper. The first one is whom you project yourself to be to the world. It's what you have achieved. It's what you look like. It's your LinkedIn, it's your social media. That's one part of you. And then there's the real part of you, the daily life part of you, the no one's in your car when you're on Storrow Drive part of you. My wife tells me, "Don't forget that our back windows are tinted, but the front ones are not. So when you drive, Pastor Jan, you just need to remember that people are going to see you." I'm like, "I know, I want them to see me. I want them to hear my horn when I'm discipling them to be a better driver. I want to do that."So there's two parts of it. There's the you part when you interview for a job and they're asking you, "Hey, what's your greatest weakness." "Is I work too hard. I work too hard. I care too much. I can't stop working. That's me. That's my greatest weakness. I'm going to put in 100 hours a week on this job. Tremendous." And the real part of you is one month into your job. That's The real part of you when you work 10, maybe 15 hours a week. Maybe. So your company knows that you're online, you get the little Mouse Jiggler so when you stop working it just says, "You're online. You're online." That's the real part of you. The real part of you is... Your roommates, ask them the real part of you. Your spouse. Yeah, I know the real part. That's every single one of us. And deep inside we know that for all of our moral goodness showboating, for all of our virtue signaling on our bumper stickers and our yard signs, deep inside, when no one's looking, there is so much evil right in there. We just don't have the power, most of us, to sin in the way that we really would want to sin.If you were a trillionaire, and you can do whatever you want, would you live a holy life for God? There's sin in our hearts, every single one of us. We're all moral failures, inveterate sinners, no more able to rid ourselves of our pride, selfish impurity, sexual sin, hypocrisy, dishonesty, envy and different-stored God. And that's really what it boils down to. God created you. He has power over you. And if you are indifferent toward Him as if God doesn't exist, you are living your life as a huge middle finger to God. I don't care. That's the greatest level of sin that there is. You created me. You have total claim over me. You have a moral code for me that I don't even know what it is.And then we also have standards for ourselves that we break. We have standards for other people that we ourselves break. And as soon as we realize the true weight of our sin, that we sin against the holy God, we deserved what Jesus Christ went through. He went through hell. We deserved that, but He was willing to take it. We see the holiness of God, the justice of God, and the love of God all coinciding at the cross. When you hear, and when you understand that this terrible death, it was horrifying, and it was horrifying for Jesus. It was terrible because it had to be terrible. Only such suffering, such a sinless victim that God, man, He alone could pay the terrible debt that we owe God. And when you realize that Jesus did that for me, He died on the cross for my sin and my sins, that Jesus Christ is the only one that stands between me and the judgment of God that I deserve, when you see that, now the terrible cross becomes the most precious message that you've ever heard. It's wonderful. It's powerful.Scripture says, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung upon a tree.' Jesus Christ was cursed. Deserved blessing, was cursed because we deserved that curse. He was doing it for us so that He could extend blessing to us. We're like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. For the son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. Why did Jesus do this? Because He loves us. He loves us. That's the only reason why He did it. 1 John, 3:16, "By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers."He died for us when we were His enemies, when we were His sinners. He did that because He loves us, so that He can forgive us. Jesus Christ loves you. We are not to take that for granted. Jesus Christ the God of the universe whom we've rebelled against, turned our back on Him, He loves us. 1 John 4:9-10, "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. And this is love not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." On the one hand, God loves you, but that doesn't make sense unless you understand that God hates you. It's true. A lot of us, we've just taken the message of Christianity, "Jesus loves you," put that as a bumper sticker. Your buddy, Jesus? Yeah, yeah, you're cool. Look up the word propitiation. It means He absorbed the wrath of God. Meaning God has a wrath against you. God hates you. In your sin, apart from Christ, God hates you.When people say things like, "Every single one of us, we're a child of God." No, we're not. We're creatures of God. But if you reject Jesus Christ, you're not a child of God. You're still in your sins. So for love of God to make sense, you need to understand what it took for God to not hate you anymore. And it took Him pouring out His hatred, His wrath,... on Christ for your sins. We receive the love of God when we believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins.Here's what the early Christian father, Tertullian, described this. This is how he described the place of the cross, the heart of the early Christians. He says, "Every forward step and movement, every going in and out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, and all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead sign of a cross just as a reminder that the cross is the center of everything we do. The cross is power. And also, the cross is wisdom." St. Paul uses this word 17 times in the 1 Corinthians, wisdom. In the first three chapters, 16 times. In all of his other letters, he uses the word wisdom only 11 times. So this is crucial to him. It's the Greek word, sophia. I remember I loved that word so much in seminary. I named my first daughter after wisdom, Sophia, Lord give us wisdom. If anyone lacks wisdom, God gives us sophia. So anytime I say Sophia, just a reminder that I need more wisdom from God.I went on a roll in seminary, and then we had our second kid. I was still in seminary, cage stage, where everything's about seminary. And then I had my second kid, my second daughter. I liked the ESV's Bible version so much I named my second daughter ESV, Elizabeth Seraphin Vezikov. I was going to keep doing that with all my other kids. My wife was like, "That's enough. That's enough. We're not going to play that game." But he talks about wisdom here as this is how you understand the world, that you do not truly understand reality unless you understand that Jesus Christ was crucified for our sins. And that's why he does this analysis of it doesn't matter how wise you are in the world. It doesn't matter if you have a PhD from Harvard. It doesn't matter if you're a president of Harvard. Doesn't matter how much money you have. It doesn't matter you're noble birth. None of that matters when it comes to knowing the greatest truth at the center of the universe is that Jesus Christ is Lord, Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior.If you don't know that, if you don't believe the greatest truth at the heart of the universe, you're wrong. If you don't know that this is true, you're wrong about the most important fact. Therefore, no matter how wise you are from an earthly perspective, you're a fool. If you don't believe that Jesus is Lord, if you don't submit to Him, you're going to die. You're going to stand before Him, and all of your eternity you're going to be saying, "I was a fool. I was wrong about the greatest truth." That's why he talks about wisdom. And that's why in 1 Corinthians 1:25-2:5, he goes on and he's like, "Consider your calling, bros. Not many of you were wise, not many by worldly standards, not many powerful, not many of noble birth, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera." And what he says, "What makes the difference, what made you a Christian, it's not your education. It's not your bank account. What made you a Christian, what made you a Christian is that God chose to save you so that no one boasts.And that's why he goes on, "God chose... " That's verse 28. He starts at 27, "God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of Him, you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, and sanctification, redemption. So that as it is written, 'Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.'" So if you are a Christian and I ask you, "Why are you a Christian? Why are you a Christian?" and if you say anything along the lines that begins with I, if you say anything where it's like, "I believed. I studied. I read. I chose Jesus," then I don't know if you're a Christian. Because it wasn't you at all. The answer is, "Jesus saved me. Jesus chose to save me."Christians need a robust understanding of election and predestination. But what makes the difference between an unbeliever and a believer? What makes the difference between someone who's dead in their sins and someone who is alive to God? What makes the difference? What role did you play to decide that you are going to be born? Nothing. No one asked you. No one gave you a vote. You weren't interviewed. Nothing. Same goes with becoming a Christian. You become a Christian, the only reason you're a Christian: God saved you. The only reason I'm a Christian. God saved me. And I can't believe God saved me. If you know me, I have a hard time following Jesus as it is. But if I wasn't a Christian, if I know the Holy Spirit, I would be one bad guy. I'd be a terrible dude. I'd be a gangster or a legal gangster. That's working for the IRS and stealing money from people legally because taxation is theft. I'd do one or the other.But God saved me. That's it. This is what he's saying, he's like, "You heard the message that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. Jesus was crucified for you. You Heard it, but what makes the difference between one person hearing another person hearing is God chose you. God by the power of the Holy Spirit saved you. You need to understand, you played zero role in that. If you're like, "Well, how do I know if I'm elect?" Choose yourself. That's how I say. Choose Jesus, and then you're elect. But you only chose Jesus because Jesus chose you. That's how it works. So that there's 0% of your work in being saved because Jesus saves.You know who we are? We're the degenerate, reprobate sinners. We should have been left in our sins. I got one Bible verse, one very special Bible verse the Lord laid on my heart today. At the next Mosaic members meeting, this is the next... 2020, my t-shirt idea was, "2020, skubula happened." If you don't know what skubula is, look it up. My idea for 2021 is from 1 Corinthians 4:11-13. Let me read the text. "To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless. We labor working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted; we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become and are still like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things." I want a t-shirt that says, "Mosaic Boston, scum of the earth." That's what I want. Or if we ever rebranded the church, I want to be scumoftheearthchurch.com. That's what I want. This is tremendous. What's your message to the world? You're all scum. We're the worst scum of the earth.Jesus Christ died for us. The Son of God died for us? What? To make us children of God. I can't believe it. And by the way, this message is what transformed the world. St. Paul was writing to Christians who lived under tyranny. Not only was it illegal to be a Christian, but they were persecuted for their faith, made a show in arenas where tens and hundreds of thousands would gather to watch Christians getting eaten by lions and crucified upside down, et cetera, et cetera. And by the way, if you're not a Christian, you have to answer the question of how did Christianity, despite the odds, how did it grow from one Jewish guy, kind of a rabbi, kind of a carpenter? He had 11 guys and then St. Paul gets saved. And then with them in 100 years is 25,000 Christians in the Roman Empire. And then when that generation of eyewitnesses died, it became even more powerful so that by the time Constantine comes to power in 310, we go from 25,000 Christians in the year 100 to 20 million Christians by 310 A.D. In 200 years, it grew by 40% per decade, the greatest movement in the history of the world. How did that happen?It happened with people proclaiming the message: Christ crucified. Just to give you a perspective, it was illegal to be a Christian. They didn't have church buildings. They didn't have any institutional resources. So how in the world did that happen? They proclaimed the one message that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we are to submit to Him. We haven't submitted to Him. We deserve damnation, but Jesus Christ is also savior. And then once you're saved, you've got to bring everything, every part of your life in submission to Jesus Christ. And startled the message, Jesus is Lord. And they got that from Deuteronomy 6:14 where it says, "Hear all Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord you got with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength."The Lord is one. Yahweh is Lord. Jesus shows up and says, "I'm Yahweh. I am Lord. I'm king over everything." God is one, and the task of our lives is to bring every aspect of our lives under the reign of Jesus Christ, every aspect of our life, from our finances to our work, to our domestic life, to sexuality. Everything we bring under the reign of Jesus Christ. And the reason why we focus on Jesus in particular is because that's how the New Testament explains how we are to do ministry. God the Father puts Jesus in a position of preeminence, and the Holy Spirit blesses the church when the church focuses on Jesus Christ. Why? Because of the role he played in redemption, but also the role that God the Father gives Jesus as sitting at the right hand of God the Father.Psalm 110:1 says, "The Lord says to my Lord," so God the Father speaks to God the Son, "'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.'" And Paul even suggested the actual function of the Lordship was given by the Father to the Son, it's passed to Jesus. Ephesians 1:20-23, "He," God the Father, "raised Him," Jesus, "from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named not only in His age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under His feet and gave Him as a head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all."So Jesus is in the position of preeminence, and that's why we focus on Jesus. That's why we talk about Jesus all the time. If you ever move away, and you're looking for a church, this is the secret sauce of finding if it's a good biblical church. When the pastor gets up there and preaches a sermon, he's got to say the name of Jesus at least 50 times. That's just from my professional experience. It's got to be at least 50 times. You just talk about Jesus. If you don't talk about Jesus, huge red flag, huge red flag. And if you change the name of Jesus, if it's like Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints, no, don't change the name, it's just Jesus Christ. You talk about Jesus Christ because the Bible tells us to talk about Jesus Christ. And when we talk about Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit takes that message. It is power, and it is wisdom. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Him. Our identity, our destiny as a church must be inextricably linked to Jesus Christ. He's the only way into a relationship with God.A lot of churches talk about God in general, some nebulous idea, so that you can think God is whomever you want, that God demands whatever you think he demands. But when we say Jesus Christ, this is a historical figure who lived in a particular time, particular place, human body. He really lived. He really taught. He really died. Historical fact. We're not talking about spiritually or this is metaphor for something. He literally died for our sin, and He literally rose from the dead. So when we talk about Jesus, we're talking about what's at the heart of scripture. Jesus Christ is the door. He's the connection to God the Father.George Adam Smith, 19th-century biblical scholar, but wanted to see the holy land. He meets a shepherd in the holy land, and the shepherd was very hospitable. They spent the day together. And at the end of the day, the shepherd said, "Hey, do you want to see the fold where I keep the sheep?" And he goes into an enclosure with four walls, and there's an opening in one of the walls. The sheep all came in, and the shepherds said, "This is where they go at night." And then George Adam Smith asked, "Hey, where's the door? Where's the gate." And the shepherd says this: "When the light has gone and all the sheep are inside, I lie at that open space and no sheep ever goes out but across my body, and no wolf comes in unless he crosses my body. I am the door."Jesus Christ is the only way into a relationship with God, and He's the door because He laid down His life for His own sheep. Apart from Jesus Christ, we are nothing. Apart from Jesus Christ, we have no message as a church. Apart from Jesus Christ, we have no mission as a church. We take all of our talking points from Jesus Christ. I pray that we never become like the Church of Laodicea, which a lot of the churches in Boston, historically, they became the church in Laodicea. Church of Laodicea, Jesus Christ is standing outside the door knocking. A lot of people use that verse in Revelation 3 to say, "Oh, Jesus is standing at the door of your heart, and He's knocking." No, Jesus doesn't stand at doors, and He doesn't knock. He breaks the door down and regenerates people. That's how Jesus saves people.But he's talking about Jesus not in terms of one particular soul. He's talking about Jesus Christ is standing outside of a church. It's the Church of Laodicea. How did Jesus get outside the church? They forgot to let Him in. Jesus is standing outside the door knocking. They forgot to let Jesus in. So the question we're going to ask is, for myself, is Jesus Christ the Lord of my life? For my family, is Jesus Christ the Lord of my family? Is Jesus Christ the Lord of my community group? Do you talk about Jesus in your community group? Is Jesus Christ at the center of my conversations with other Christians, or do we talk about the Red Sox finally going to turn things around, or the Pyths, they really got a squad this year? Or are we're going to talk about politics?What really brings things into perspective is when someone dies, someone close to you dies. I had a family member that passed away this week. And we had a gathering with my family yesterday, completely different. Just the reminder of how close we are to death. You know what we talked about? We talked about Jesus. We hugged each other. We cried. We told each other how much we love each other. We focused on what matters. Every single one of us needs to live every day like that, that this day could be my last. Because there will come a day that will be I last, and we have no idea when that day comes. Imagine if we lived like that, that every time you saw an unbelieving friend, you want to tell them about Jesus. This is the only hope you have. This is the only way to God. This is the only way for your sins to be forgiven.And with Christians, why aren't we talking about Christ all the time? It could be our last day. The greatest example I see this is in Elijah. I'll do this, and I'll close with a quote from John Stott. Elijah in 2 Kings, the day before he gets taken up to heaven, it's his last day on earth, you know what he does? He wakes what's up, and he preaches the gospel in Bethel, preaches about God, preaches in Jericho, preaches in Jordan. What you realize is he's just living a normal life. It's just what he did every day. He just shared with people about God over and over and over. He followed the normal schedule. He so followed God as shepherd. Didn't have to do anything out of the ordinary on his last day alive, and he goes to heaven in glory. He's lived his day every day like it was his last.Imagine if we did. Imagine if we as a church had that kind of urgency. There's people around us who are dying, who are going to die and spend eternity either with God in heaven or apart from God in hell. It all depends on what they do with this message. I can't save them with the message, but I can proclaim the message and then let the Holy Spirit do what the Holy Spirit will do. Jesus Christ is our touchstone. He's our defining center. He's our founder. And therefore, he has preeminence in our life as a people, our life as a church.Oh, here's the last thing I wanted to say before John Stott. The gospel is something so simple that every child can understand it. And the gospel is the wisdom of God, that once you start to plumb the depth... It's like the message, "Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior or Christ crucified," and you read it and like, "Oh, tremendous." But then it's like you take the message and you pull it out. It's like an accordion. And you see it's like level after level after level after level. And then you see it's dimensions. You're not just talking about one dimension or secondary, you're talking about multiple dimensions of the gospel as it applies to every aspect of your life. That's why we focus on the gospel.Okay, John Stott, end of his life. If you want more theology on the cross, the greatest work written on this and the most accessible is written by John Stott. It's called The Cross of Christ. It's probably one of the greatest books of the 20th century. It's a modern classic. In the preface to the masterpiece, this is what he writes: "I try to show that the cross transforms everything. It gives us a new worshiping relationship to God, a new and balanced understanding of ourselves, a new incentive to give ourselves a mission, a new love of our enemies, and a new courage to face the perplexities of suffering. In daring to write a book about the cross, there is, of course, a great danger of presumption. This is partly because what actually happened when God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ is a mystery whose depths we will spend eternity plumbing. And partly because it would be most unseemly to feign a cool detachment. For willy-nilly, we are involved. Our sins put Him there."So, far from offering us flattery, the cross undermines our self-righteousness. We can stand before only with a bowed head and a broken spirit. And there we remain until the Lord Jesus speaks to our hearts His word of pardon and acceptance, and we, gripped by His love and brimful of thanksgiving, go out into the world to live our lives in His service." Let's pray.Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are the head of the church. Jesus, we thank you that you died on the cross for our sins. Jesus, we thank you for this message, and we thank you for the power that you bring by the power of the Spirit when this message is proclaimed, when this message is understood and when this message is believed. I pray for every single one of us. Make us a people who love the message of the cross and love the way of the cross and live in a manner worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And Lord, I pray that you continue to save many people in this city, in this region. And use us in the process as we proclaim your gospel and pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

Wrapping up our series on the "Attributes of God" (for now anyway) we are discussing the sovereignty of God. Defined and applied biblically. Meaning God is Lord, has total power and total control. Nothing is outside of His will. Recommended books: Sovereignty of God by A.W. Pink https://www.amazon.com/Sovereignty-God-Arthur-W-Pink/dp/1604596732/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3S4QZHNSMRNHP&dchild=1&keywords=sovereignty+of+god+aw+pink&qid=1623025173&sprefix=sovereignty+of+God+a%2Caps%2C371&sr=8-2 Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by. J.I Packer https://www.amazon.com/Evangelism-Sovereignty-God-J-Packer/dp/083083799X/ref=sr_1_3?crid=62VFGNRSBBTU&dchild=1&keywords=ji+packer+evangelism+and+the+sovereignty+of+god&qid=1623025236&sprefix=sovereignty+of+god+JI+%2Caps%2C216&sr=8-3 God's Devil by. Erwin Lutzer https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Devil-Incredible-Rebellion-Purposes/dp/0802413137/ref=sr_1_2?crid=9920NKSJGDT1&dchild=1&keywords=god%27s+devil+erwin+lutzer&qid=1623025320&sprefix=GOd%27s+devil%2Caps%2C343&sr=8-2 Video lectures: Chosen by God by. R.C Sproul https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--fafICBts8&list=PL30acyfm60fXGiDrDfncbzQgFZ-X-GYyz Steven Lawson: Our Sovereign God https://youtu.be/5D83eBjKebY

Prophetic dreams and visions God wants me to share

There will be moments when we experience pain from people throughout our lives. Yet as believers in Jesus Christ, we are called to imitate and respond like him and not the ways of the world. Meaning God, is able to use our painful moments and receive glory by using us as his humble servants; to draw people closer to him, while teaching us a lesson. However, when we are able to learn from our lesson. It is then we are able to count it all joy and respond the way our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, did throughout his life. By obeying the commands of his Heavenly Father, even when it was not always comfortable, but necessary. Scriptures Within This Episode Listed Below: 1 Peter 2:21 1 John 2:5-6 John 3:30 Matthew 14:3-21 Matthew 25:35-40 1 Corinthians 13:4 -- to the beginning of verse 8 Matthew 6:26 Luke 22:47-51 Matthew 26:39, 42 and 44 Matthew 5:43-48 Luke 23:34-43 Isaiah 41:10 Philippians 2:1-4

The Faction Election War Won (17) (Audio)  Usurpers Removed Harlot Witches & the Lamb Isaac Payne - 1/21/21 (David’s notes in red) This was a very brief dream. I saw a few Harlot witches on the left side. Also, I saw a young lamb standing on the right side. The Harlot witches attacked the young lamb and forcibly seduced this lamb. (Who is the Lamb? Jesus said in Luk 10:3  Go your ways; behold, I send you forth as lambs in the midst of wolves. We are the body of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, He called us to take up our cross to die to self. He said if we refused we could not be His disciples. Lambs dont fight with wolves.  They meekly try to convert them.  :o)  What about the witches?  1Sa 15:23  For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft …. So lets mention a few of these witches that are rebellion who are seducing the lamb.  According to Mat 18:34,35 unforgiveness turns people over to the tormenting demons. In this political battle some have come to make themselves wolves who see the left as something to devour politically instead of some people who need Jesus or they can never be changed. We are not permitted to wrestle with flesh and blood but principalities, powers, and rulers of darkness. Also we are forbidden to judge those without the body for they have no ability to be godly but are at the mercy of the devil. 1Co 5:12  For what have I to do with judging them that are without?… Also among the right are many lost christians who are only religious but dont know the Lord. They are leaven to the body.  Also there are many new agers, unitarians, Gaia worshippers among the right wing who believe that everybody’s god is God. But Jesus said in Joh 8:24  I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for except ye believe that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.  Act 4:12  And in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved.  These people are believing that getting rid of the DS and partaking of the "hidden riches” and the many inventions the DS has hidden from us, will bring about “heaven on earth”. This is ignorance of the coming tribulation shown in Revelation. We indeed will partake of some of these benefits but Rev 6 is coming with wars, famine, death, etc., now.  Now many are seduced into a political battle and ignoring the Word which has power to save, heal, deliver, preserve, etc. In Exodus the plague passed over before the riches were given to the Israelites. I believe it will be this way now because the factious will be taken down by this and not partake of the benefits. The right are cutting the left out of the benefits of the GCR. We were shown the faction in the Church will run parallel to this. We have seen them taken down by the plague and not partaking in the benefits.   Words given by faith at random on 1-22-21 about the failure of this usurpation MH. 1Ki 1:43-46  And Jonathan answered and said to Adonijah (The traitorous usurper of the throne - Biden), Verily our lord king David hath made Solomon king: (Solomon means peaceful. Trump is the one who has peace and has brought peace)  44  and the king hath sent with him (The true leadership of the Church) Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and the Cherethites and the Pelethites; and they have caused him to ride upon the king's mule;  45  and Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king in Gihon; and they are come up from thence rejoicing, so that the city rang again. This is the noise that ye have heard.  46  And also Solomon sitteth on the throne of the kingdom. (And so the true leadership of the Church installed the true king/President and the usurper was vanquished. I asked, Lord do you want us to kick the usurper out of the government. And I got, YES. I heard this verse: Psa 149:5-9  Let the saints exult in glory: Let them sing for joy upon their beds.  6  Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, And a two-edged sword in their hand;  7  To execute vengeance upon the nations, And punishments upon the peoples;  8  To bind their kings with chains, And their nobles with fetters of iron;  9  To execute upon them the judgment written: This honor have all his saints. Praise ye Jehovah. 2Ki 16:1-4  In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah Ahaz the son of Jotham king of Judah began to reign. Just before this we read: 2Ki 15:37  In those days Jehovah began to send against Judah Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah. What happened then was they sought to put a usurper on the throne over the people of God. We see this same story in a text we also received just recently: Isa 7:1-14 where the Man-child destroys this conspiracy to put a usurper over God’s people. Isa 7:1-14  And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria (The beast kingdom of the DS), and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel (Apostate northern 10 tribes who rejected the temple in Jerusalem and made their own alters and golden calves and priests who were not ordained of God. A few days ago Michael and I met a sister who was very grieved that she sent her daughter to a Bible College she thought was Christian and her daughter came out a liberal leftist for Biden. This was a main line denominational school like many out there that have been taken out by this spirit. The CCP has given money to some of these to bribe them. Many Trump republicans, some Christian, have crossed the isle to the demoncrats.),  (Continuing our text this unholy alliance) "went up to Jerusalem to war against it (to install a usurper king over it), but could not prevail against it.  2  And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart trembled, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the forest tremble with the wind.   3  Then said Jehovah unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shear-jashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, in the highway of the fuller's field;  4  and say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither let thy heart be faint, because of these two tails of smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.  5  Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have purposed evil against thee, saying,  6  Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set up a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeel;   7  thus saith the Lord Jehovah, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.  8  For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken in pieces (DS judgment on apostate Christianity), so that it shall not be a people:  9  and the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.  (Do you believe that God will not permit this conspiracy to put a usurper over God’s people to stand? How will God stop this? He gave Ahaz a sign to show him.)  10  And Jehovah spake again unto Ahaz, saying,  11  Ask thee a sign of Jehovah thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.  12  But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt Jehovah.  13  And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David: Is it a small thing for you to weary men, that ye will weary my God also?  14  Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Meaning God with us!! Jesus is coming in His David Man-child Body of reformers to take down the factions just as David did.)   SG. asked for an encouraging word and got:  Jer 32:42  For thus saith Jehovah: Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them. DL received: Mat 2:5-6  And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written through the prophet,  6  And thou Bethlehem, land of Judah, Art in no wise least among the princes of Judah: For out of thee shall come forth a governor, Who shall be shepherd of my people Israel. The shepherd, Jesus, is coming to repeat history in the Man-child body of reformer leadership so Jesus can come in His people before coming for His people. Deb received from a center column reference: (Job.5:21) Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue; Neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh. and. (Psa.31:20) In the covert of thy presence wilt thou hide them from the plottings of man: Thou wilt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. Everyone is watching to see what the Right wing patriots will do, trusting in them to save us, but WE are Called to cast the Dragon down.  The body of the dragon is left and right, all of the unsaved, whether they call themselves “Christians" or not. The body of the dragon is the antithesis of the body of Christ.  They are antichrist! There are only two men in the earth as the Lord said, Christ and Antichrist. As we will see the Saints cast down the dragon and this usurper is one of the leaders of it.   Red Dragon Falling From Heaven Andrew Gelinas 1/6/21 (David’s notes in red) I dreamed I was outside of a supermarket that I'd never shopped in before.   I told my wife we should go in and check it out. So we went in and shopped for our usual groceries. My wife then went on ahead to the checkout as I browsed a few more things. When I caught up with her at the register, she was very distraught with me and said "Because you went and spent all of our money, all we have left is $15! So this loaf of bread is all we can buy now!” (The Church will go through a period of famine caused by the DS/Communist red Chinese, red dragon, who will die for this and other abominations. Bi-ll G-ates is a eugenicist and is buying up all the farmland he can get his hands on. The DS has been destroying our bread basket to depopulate and control us.) The next thing I remember was that we were driving home when suddenly a big white missile with a red nose or tip appeared flying directly over the road we were traveling down. (Russia came to the back of my mind as I saw it) It flew right over us heading in the opposite direction. Then I was watching it travel from an overhead bird's eye view. Then an all white smaller missile-like object began to fly hovering just above the larger one. It seemed to be trying to disable the larger missile before it could hit its target. (We have been told that the Star Wars initiative came into being and takes down incoming missiles) Then the larger missile flew into the ocean just off shore and detonated very violently under the surface. I felt that even though it had gone off under water, it was still going to cause some damage to the coastline nearby.  Later on I saw a red dragon tumbling from the clouds in the horizon. (At the beginning of the tribulation, when the Man-child ministry is born, in Rev 12, the red dragon and his swarm of angels are cast down by the saints through the angels of God. Rev 12:5-14  And she was delivered of a son, a man child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and unto his throne.  6  And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that there they (The Man-child) may nourish her a thousand two hundred and threescore days.  7  And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels going forth to war with the dragon; and the dragon warred and his angels;  8  and they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven.   9  And the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he that is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world (The seven headed ten horned body of the dragon is the whole world, The seven heads are the seed of seven world ruling kingdoms who ruled over Gods people. The ten horns are the 10 kings and the 10 continental divisions of the whole world.) ; he was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him.  10  And I heard a great voice in heaven, saying, Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, who accuseth them before our God day and night.  11  And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony; and they loved not their life even unto death. (Notice it is the saints, not the aints, that bring down the dominion of the dragon with the usurpers. Jesus said that What we bind on earth is bound in heaven. He is in us by His Word and Spirit.  Let us cast down this usurper according to our authority in Mat 18:18-19  Verily I say unto you, What things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.  19  Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father who is in heaven. and Mar 11:23-24  Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass; he shall have it.  24  Therefore I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. Luk 10:19  Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall in any wise hurt you. — Sooo In the name of Jesus, we agree together to cast down this usurpation over the US, which is over the world. We bind and forbid DS leadership over this country in Jesus name. All of his reversals will come to naught.  Now thank God till you see it come to pass believing you have received. )  12  Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and ye that dwell in them. (Why rejoice?  Where is this heavenly place of safety?  It is abiding in Christ. Eph 1:3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ: Eph 2:6  and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus:  What is it to abide in Christ? It is to keep His covenant that was given in the beginning. 1Jn 2:24  As for you, let that abide in you which ye heard from the beginning. If that which ye heard from the beginning abide in you, ye also shall abide in the Son, and in the Father. Woe for the earth and for the sea: because the devil is gone down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time. (The devil has permission to persecute the earthly people who do not dwell in heavenly places. This is to drive the people to seek safety in their heavenly places in Christ.)       13  And when the dragon saw that he was cast down to the earth, he persecuted the woman that brought forth the man-child.  14  And there were given to the woman the two wings of the great eagle (This is the knowledge given by the Man-child of how to enter into heavenly places and safety. When? At the beginning of the Tribulation), that she might fly into the wilderness unto her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.  As the dragon hit the earth, what looked like a huge swarm of thousands of tiny red dragons exploded into flight filling and darkening the sky. (These are the dragons angels/demons)  The dragon that had fallen from Heaven crouched on the earth in the background of the swarm, glaring at me through the swarm with great wrath in his eyes! (the devil is gone down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time. In this form of the dragon the devil no more exists after the middle of the tribulation. He is destroyed by the saints.)   Desolation of the Red Dragon Andrew Gelinas- 1/12/21  (David’s notes in red) In a dream I was riding a bicycle around in the basement of a work building, amazed at how easily I was able to do extremely complex and difficult freestyle tricks without any effort at all, and without ever practicing or learning them beforehand. They just seemed to flow out of me. Then a man who seemed like my coworker came downstairs while continuing to do his heavy labor work. He watched me spinning around on one wheel as I kept a big grin on my face. (The world has only seen the Church enjoying spinning around in a circle and going nowhere at this time.)  I don't think I ever stopped my miraculous bike riding when I asked him "Did you see The Desolation of Smaug 4 yet?" (I seemed to stutter the word "four" so it came out as 444.) He was surprised and asked excitedly "Is it in theaters yet?" I replied "It's actually out right now.” (We are seeing this theater manifesting before us now! It is the dragon who is seeking to devour the man-child which is being brought down. The gematria of 444 seems to speak of the war between the Man-child and the dragon - https://www.gematrix.org/?word=444 Words equals 444 in Gematria - English, Hebrew and Simple Gematria Calculator Values Phrases equals 444 in Gematria, Online Gematria Calculator with same phrases values search and words. English Gematria, Hebrew Gematria and Jewish Gematria and Numerology www.gematrix.org  Examples: Lord God’s Coming / Iesous / Rise up / The time has come / Demons are coming / Took the mark / Serpent change / The snake has been beheaded / Smartmatic - Just became famous in the vote debacle),  The Desolation of Smaug was the middle film of The Hobbit trilogy based on a J.R.R. Tolkien children's novel called The Hobbit. Smaug, a huge reddish colored dragon, causes great desolation when he rains fire on the men, women, and children (DEW weapons/Paradise)  of Lake Town after being stirred from a nearly century's long slumber on his immense pile of stollen gold. (The DS dragon has been sitting for nearly a century on a mountain of stolen gold. Trump has repatriated as Cyrus was to be shown the “hidden treasures of darkness”. We are told that this is 34 quadrillions in gold, silver, precious stones, art, etc.) Smaug's rampage is cut short when he's slain with a single black arrow via a tiny soft spot where he'd lost one of his iron-like scales many years before. (As an arrow went between the joints in the armor of Ahab, the apostate leader of God’s people, and he died)  His limp body then crashes down into the flaming ruins of the town below. I'm not sure if the word "desolation" is meant to refer to the destruction the dragon causes, the death of the dragon itself, or meant both ways. (The abomination that maketh desolate is the beast in the holy place, which is the situation in most churches. The DS dragon will judge the apostate Church but will be destroyed for it.) This is the third dream about a red dragon I've had in only one month.          Select LanguageAfrikaansAlbanianAmharicArabicArmenianAzerbaijaniBasqueBelarusianBengaliBosnianBulgarianCatalanCebuanoChichewaChinese (Simplified)Chinese (Traditional)CorsicanCroatianCzechDanishDutchEsperantoEstonianFilipinoFinnishFrenchFrisianGalicianGeorgianGermanGreekGujaratiHaitian CreoleHausaHawaiianHebrewHindiHmongHungarianIcelandicIgboIndonesianIrishItalianJapaneseJavaneseKannadaKazakhKhmerKinyarwandaKoreanKurdish (Kurmanji)KyrgyzLaoLatinLatvianLithuanianLuxembourgishMacedonianMalagasyMalayMalayalamMalteseMaoriMarathiMongolianMyanmar (Burmese)NepaliNorwegianOdia (Oriya)PashtoPersianPolishPortuguesePunjabiRomanianRussianSamoanScots GaelicSerbianSesothoShonaSindhiSinhalaSlovakSlovenianSomaliSpanishSundaneseSwahiliSwedishTajikTamilTatarTeluguThaiTurkishTurkmenUkrainianUrduUyghurUzbekVietnameseWelshXhosaYiddishYorubaZulu Powered by Translate Printer-friendly version

This episode is to help you top step out of your normal. Meaning God has so much in store for you than you can ever imagine. Walk by faith, and not by sight. HAPPY NEW YOU! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/angela009/support

The Alpha and Omega // The Revelation. God's Strategy For Victory (Part 4) If you like our Podcast and what we do at iCan Community Church, please click the link to support us: http://bit.ly/iccdonation. In this four-part series, we will be exploring the book of Revelation to uncover God's unique strategy for victory. We will also be studying the book to discover its implications and application to our current situation. In this message, our concluding episode, we learn that Christ reveals himself as the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. According to Bishop Malcolm, when Jesus calls himself the Alpha and the Omega, he is referring to the circle of God's intention and divine purpose. Meaning God will get in the end what he wanted in the beginning and we will always come back to God's original intension for man. Bishop Malcolm also went on to say, God has placed us in Christ, Therefore, the victory of Christ is our victory and the promises that were made to Christ is now applicable to us all.

MEANING - God and Time are two huge mysteries; relating them probes the nature of God, and perhaps even the existence of a Creator. If God is in Time and experiences its passage, then how could God have created Time? Also Leibniz's famous question: "Why didn't God create the world sooner?" Featuring Brian Leftow, John Polkinghorne, Ernan McMullin, William Craig, Varadaraja Raman, and Robert Russell.

Romans: The Foundations of Faith“Good News”(Romans 3:21-26) For bulletin in PDF form click here.Message SlidesThe Atonement - Leon MorrisIntroduction: Soteriology - The Riches of Divine Grace The Good News of the Gospel (3:21-22)• Content: The righteousness of God is available to us. • Epistemology: OT Prediction & Foreshadowing • Means: Faith in Jesus Christ Justification (3:23-24a)• Meaning: Right Standing before God • Origin: The Gracious Gift of God • Means: Redemption in Christ Jesus Redemption (3:24b) • Meaning: Free from Enslavement to Sin • Means: The Work of Jesus Christ Atonement/Propitiation/Satisfaction (3:25-26) • Meaning: God’s Justice and Wrath is Satisfied • Means: Faith in the Death of Jesus Christ • Need: The Righteousness of GodRedemption in ChristTransforms the Convicted to the Pardoned.Next Steps• Tell your friends or close circle of friends what you appreciate about your salvation.• Slowly read Romans 3:21 every day this week. Meditate on the significance of these verses every day.Home ChurchOur Home Churches meet weekly to facilitate quicker relational depth, study the same passage taught Sunday to help apply Scripture in the context of community, and pray with one another. Home Church helps our body seek God’s best for one another. Home Church Questions • How is everyone really doing this week? • Read Romans 3:21-26. • What was the main point of the message this week? • Talk about all the ways (as many as you can) the old Testament points to Christ and His provision for us. Which ones are new to you? Which ones do your really appreciate? • What does bondage to sin mean? It doesn’t mean we always sin. What does it mean? • Salvation is a free gift of God’s grace, yet it was very costly. How do those two realities fit together? • Read Leviticus 16—the Day of Atonement— and highlight the places where Christ is clearly the fulfillment of the picture presented there.This Week’s Growth GuideGod’s Word is both central and critical to your spiritual growth. We invite you to utilize the Growth Guide during the week to further your application of the Truth from the message.• Monday - Ephesians 2:1-10• Tuesday - Ephesians 2:11-22• Wednesday - John 3:1-21• Thursday - Galatians 3:1-9• Friday - Romans 3:27-31 FinancesWeekly Budget 25,962Giving For 09/13 17,577Giving For 09/20 29, 312YTD Budget 311,538YTD Giving 285,081 (under) (26,457) Generations CampaignTotal Pledge 1,618,432Received-to-date 1,454,625 Click Here if you would like to give a gift.To make a gift or a commitment to Generations, you can click Here. Operation Christmas Child Packing Party Monday, October 12 & Tuesday, October 13 - 6-8:00 p.m. FBC it is time for us to gather to pack our 2400 Operation Christmas Child gospel opportunities! In light of the current COVID situation, we are going to host the pack a little differently this year. In order that we can all spread out a little, we are going to have a two night packing party. We will need all hands on deck to prep these precious messages of hope through Jesus Christ. This is a great opportunity to come with your family, home church, friends, and teammates. We will be wearing masks during the pack. To sign up for one of the 2 nights, register at www.fellowshipconway.org/occ This will help us to space people/families accordingly. We are looking forward to this fun and important night of packing!New to Fellowship? We are so glad that you joined the Fellowship Family to worship this morning. If you are joining us for the first time or have been checking us out for a few weeks, we are excited you are here and would love to meet you. If you would fill out the “Connect” section of your bulletin, tear it off, and bring it to the Connection Center in the Atrium, we would love to say “hi” and give you a gift. Home ChurchFellowship’s small group ministry connects our community by building deep relationships with other believers through the bonds of Christ. Together you will study God’s Word, pray, and serve with one another. To get connected go to Fellowshipconway.org/homechurch. Fellowship App Have you downloaded the Fellowship App? During the summer, we made some improvements and updates to the app. To download, go to your app store and search “Fellowship Conway”. If you have not opened your app in a while, you will be asked to update to the new app. Call to PrayerOur Fellowship Family has weathered the storms of the past 6 months fairly well. However, we still have members who are not getting out and have been pretty isolated for the duration. Many have loved ones in long-term care facilities who they have been unable to visit or limited in visits. We are still in the midst of a pandemic and more and more people have been affected by COVID. Marriages, families, and relationships continue to struggle. Depression has increased. We need to be consistently praying for one another, for families, for marriages, for our elders, our staff, and that God uses this time to further the expansion of the Gospel. Will you join us in praying for one another? Don’t Walk AloneDuring this time of uncertainty, please have people you can walk with that encourage you towards the Lord. Fear, depression, struggles, and so much more has consumed many of us. Staying in isolation will compound this. Reach out to your Home Church or one of the pastors here at Fellowship (call 501-327-3444). If you want professional counseling, Matt Spicer (call 501-291-2629) is a Christian counselor that has an office here at Fellowship. Matt does not take insurance, but does discount for Fellowship members.

Romans: The Foundations of Faith“Good News”(Romans 3:21-26) For a bulletin in PDF form click here. Message SlidesBelief - Lewis Sperry ChaferImplications of Grace - TheilmanImplications of Christ’s Death - TheilmanIntroduction: Soteriology - The Riches of Divine Grace The Good News of the Gospel [ευαγγειον] (3:21-22) • Content: The righteousness of God is available to us. • Epistemology: OT Prediction & Foreshadowin • Means: Faith in Jesus ChristJustification [δικαιοω] (3:23-24a) • Meaning: Right Standing before God • Origin: The Gracious Gift of God • Means: Redemption in Christ JesusRedemption [απολυτρωςις] (3:24b) • Meaning: Free from Enslavement to Sin • Means: The Work of Jesus Christ Atonement/Propitiation/Satisfaction [ιλαστηριον] (3:25-26) • Meaning: God’s Justice and Wrath is Satisfie• Means: Faith in the Death of Jesus Christ • Need: The Righteousness of God Redemption in ChristTransforms the Convicted to the Pardoned.Next Steps • Embrace the good news. • Share the good news. This Week’s Growth GuideGod’s Word is both central and critical to your spiritual growth. We invite you to utilize the Growth Guide during the week to further your application of the Truth from the message.• Monday - Ephesians 2:1-10• Tuesday - Ephesians 2:11-22• Wednesday - John 3:1-21• Thursday - Galatians 3:1-9• Friday - Romans 3:27-31Home ChurchOur Home Churches meet weekly to facilitate quicker relational depth, study the same passage taught Sunday to help apply Scripture in the context of community, and pray with one another. Home Church helps our body seek God’s best for one another. Home Church Questions • How is everyone really doing this week? • Read Romans 3:21-26.• What was the main point of the message this week?• This weeks message was really quite “theological”. Do you enjoy or tolerate these heavy theology messages? What makes them beneficial?• The goods news is multifaceted. Which aspect resonates most with you (justification, redemption, atonement)?• Paul comes back over and over again to the need for “faith” and the work of Christ. Why do these need to be repeated so often?• Share with the group when you first embraced the grace of God through faith in Jesus’ finished work on the cross.• How comfortable are you sharing the good news of the gospel? What would give you more boldness? Finances Weekly Budget 25,962Giving For 09/06 23,385Giving For 09/13 17,577YTD Budget 285,577YTD Giving 255,769 (under) (29,808) Generations CampaignTotal Pledge 1,617,972Received-to-date 1,452,332Click Here if you would like to give a gift.To make a gift or a commitment to Generations, you can click Here. Night of Confession and Prayer | Sept 21 | 7:00 p.m. You are invited to a night of prayer and worship. We will gather as a church body Monday, September 21st at 7:00 p.m. to pray for our families, our nation and our world. In light of all the things occurring right now and Ken’s teaching through Romans, we ask you to join us in prayer asking God to move in our lives, our homes and our world. Be on the lookout for a guide to help us prepare for that night.New to Fellowship? We are so glad that you joined the Fellowship Family to worship this morning. If you are joining us for the first time or have been checking us out for a few weeks, we are excited you are here and would love to meet you. If you would fill out the “Connect” section of your bulletin, tear it off, and bring it to the Connection Center in the Atrium, we would love to say “hi” and give you a gift. Fellowship KIds Baptism Class | Sept 20 & 27 | October 4 & 11 | 10:45 a.m.Starts today! If your child has placed their faith in Christ, we would love for you to join us for this four week class. This is a class for you and your child to attend together as we discuss the character of God, salvation, baptism, and spiritual disciplines. If you are interested, please email Heather McKinney at hmckinney@fellowshipconway.org. Equipping At Fellowship For more information on each class go to fellowshipconway.org/equipping • Apologetics - Mondays, 6:00 p.m. September 14 - October 19 • Financial Peace University - Mondays, 6:00 p.m. September 21 - November 16 Home ChurchFellowship’s small group ministry connects our community by building deep relationships with other believers through the bonds of Christ. Together you will study God’s Word, pray, and serve with one another. Join us at the Home Church booth after service to meet Michael Harrison who can help you get connected, or go to Fellowshipconway.org/homechurch. NEXT | Tonight | 6:00 p.m.You’ve got questions, we’ve got Ken. Teaching pastor, Ken Wilson, joins the NEXT gathering tonight to answer questions about faith, Scripture, love, and life (any question you have). Should be a great evening! If you are 18-25, join us in the College room on the second floor at 6 PM for food, worship, discussion, and community. Operation Christmas Child Special OfferingThank you Fellowship for your faithful generosity and heart to see the gospel proclaimed around the world. We have reached our goal to send 2400 Gospel Opportunities to kids everywhere. God is good!

Welcome back to another week, with another great message. This Roger speaks on going to from pieces to peace. Meaning God will take the broken parts in your life, and use them to make it better. Listen now with video, and audio.

Today we are being called by the depth of Divine Love to uplift each other with justice and compassion. Often, this starts with ourselves - being patient with our progress while focusing on living virtuously, with humility, and living up to all the higher ideas that should come into our daily lives. Day 3 of the creation story symbolizes this in a way: starting to ground the roots of Divine enlightenment and nourishment into our earthly thinking and embodiment. Read more about this here: https://swedenborgiancommunity.org/blog/day-threeOur community's affirming Swedenborgian spirituality, inspired by an interfaith, mystical Christianity, has deeply influenced the likes of Helen Keller, Carl Jung, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman), William Blake, Henry James, Robert Frost, DT Suzuki, George Inness and William Keith.

Audio Transcript: Good morning. Welcome to another edition of Mosaic Boston, Brookline, online. So glad that you are joining us. Hope you are encouraged. Hope you're staying strong in the Lord and abiding in him. Would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's Holy Word.Heavenly Father we pray for peace in our nation. We pray for peace in our city. Lord, I pray that you continue to make us agents of reconciliation, agents of change. Make us peacemakers. As you told us, blessed are those who are peacemakers. And I pray, Lord, give us grace to do that. And Lord, remind us that apart from you not one of us is righteous, apart from you not one of us can justify ourselves, and apart from you we are not good, not at the center.And I pray, Jesus, that you apply your grace to our hearts today, that we take all of our earned righteousness, all of our merit, and we count it as loss in order for us to gain Christ, initially in justification and daily in sanctification, to take everything Lord that you empower us to do and to give you glory for it, it wasn't us, and continue to repent of all the sin, the unrighteousness, the pride, the folly, the selfishness that makes the world a miserable place.And I pray that you continue to transform us into the image of Jesus Christ, whom we long to know deeper and deeper on a daily basis. Bless us. Bless the church. Bless the city. Bless every member of the church. Bless everyone who calls Mosaic their church. And I pray, bless everyone listening today by the power of your Spirit, and we pray this in Christ's Holy name. Amen.We're in a sermon series going through the phenomenal Book of Philippians that we are calling Inner Peace in Utter Chaos. How to find that inner peace and how to keep it, how to cling onto it, how to cultivate it. Today we are in Philippians chapter three. The title of the sermon is How Good is Good Enough? How good is good enough to get me to heaven?A lot of people think that we are made right with God or God accepts us because we are good or we do more good than we do bad. Or if we at least are incredibly sincere and trying to be good, we're not always good, but we try to be good with the hand that we have been dealt. And here, the question arises is how do you know what's good? How do you know that you are good? And this is where other people come into play.Most of us we don't measure ourselves with God's Commandments up to God's standards. Instead, we look at the people around us and we say, "How am I doing in relation to the people around me? How am I doing in relation to my neighbors, my colleagues, et cetera." And this is where, and once you start digging you realize that we do enjoy having enemies, we do enjoy having villains and people to vilify, people to look at and say, "You are wrong, and you are bad, you're unrighteous." And we like that. It makes us feel good. It makes us feel righteous. And we're thankful that we're not like those people.And that reminds us of a story in scripture where a Pharisee goes into the temple and he prays to God as he points to a sinner, a tax collector. And he says, "Thank you, God, that I am not like that guy, that I am not as much of a sinner as that guy." And that sentiment of self-righteousness, that's in every single one of our hearts. And you see it. You see this on a daily basis. You don't even need me to give you examples. It's people who don't watch the same news network, it's people who don't vote in the same way as you, it's people who don't wear the face masks as you do, it's people who wear face masks as they're driving. Self-righteousness is at the root of everything wrong with our nation and with our world.And this is where Christianity is the great equalizer. Christianity doesn't say those are the bad people and these are the good people. When you're a Christian that means you're on the right team, you're a good person. Christianity says, every single one of us is a sinner. We're not as bad as we potentially could be, but every single one of us has every single facet of our personalities, of our lives, tinged, tainted with sin. And we need the Lord, Jesus Christ, every single one of us.And this is what our text is about. It's about righteousness. What does righteousness mean? It means being right enough, worthy enough, good enough, acceptable enough, in relation to other people? No, in relation to God and his Holy standard, his Holy Commandments. And when we look at his Commandments, we look at what he demands from each one of us. We realize how far every single one of us fall short. That humbles us. And we get to a place of contrition of heart and humility and we beg God, "Please forgive me. Please give me grace." It softens our heart and actually gives us the potential to change and be change agents in the world.How good is good enough to get into heaven? Jesus Christ set the standard. It's perfection. To fulfill God's will perfectly. Not one of us has done that. Trying to get into heaven with our good works is like trying to long jump the Grand Canyon. Getting into heaven is harder than getting into Harvard. What's the acceptance rate? I don't know, 4 or 5, 6%? For heaven it's 0% apart from the grace of Jesus Christ.So that's what we're talking about today. Philippians 3:1-11. Would you look at the text with me? "Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh- though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more.Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews as to the law, a Pharisee as to zeal, a persecutor of the church as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.For his sake I've suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order 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 comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith- that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. That by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead."This is the reading of God's Holy inerrant, infallible, authoritative Word, and may it write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame up our time. We'll talk about fake faith, we'll talk about true faith, and we'll talk about knowing God.First, fake faith. Here in Philippians 3:2, St. Paul gives us a warning, a serious warning, an unexpected warning. He says, "Look out for the dogs," what? "Look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh." Dogs? Evildoers? Those who do what with the flesh? And Paul here is referring to false teachers. This is the legalists or the Judaizers, the legalizers who came in and they seemingly accepted the grace of Jesus Christ, the gospel of Jesus Christ, that you're saved by grace through faith.And then they said, "Yeah, but what about the Old Testament laws? What about the ceremonial laws? What about the dietary laws? What about those? Yes, we understand the moral laws, Jesus taught about them and the Sermon on the Mount, but what about the rest?" They didn't deny that you must believe in Jesus, but they said, "Okay, Jesus is great, but you need to add something. It's Jesus plus something. Jesus plus dietary laws, the kosher dietary laws. Jesus plus the Sabbath laws. Jesus plus circumcision."And they argued that if you did not fulfill the dietary, ceremonial laws, of the Old Testament, you cannot be a true Christian. It's believe in Jesus Christ plus something else. Jesus plus something else. And by the way, if you read the Book of Acts, this debate actually arose time and again, so much so that the apostles gathered, in Acts 15, at the Jerusalem council, and they had a discussion, a debate. And the conclusion was no, for the Gentiles, those laws don't apply. They actually don't apply in terms of salvation to anybody, the dietary and ceremonial laws. You're saved by grace through faith. You believe in Jesus Christ, you repent of your sin, you submit to him, and you are saved for all of eternity.Paul actually wrote the Book of Galatians to refute this error. And he calls people who taught this, Jesus plus something equals salvation, he called them false prophets. And he actually calls down damnation on those who pervert the true gospel. He says, "May they be cursed if they preach a different gospel." That's why in Philippians 3:2, he says, "Look out," he uses that phrase three times. "Look out, look out, look out, be aware." Meaning that there's a danger to each of us in that we are susceptible to this kind of thinking because we are all prone to pride and self-salvation. Works through righteousness is the default setting of our hearts.I enter Christianity, I enter a relationship with God, by his grace. Then I need to continue in that relationship, I need to follow Jesus in my own effort, by adding my own works. And one of the reasons why we are so susceptible to form of logic, this false theology, this false philosophy, is because we want just a little credit for what we've done. We want just a little credit for following Christ, the sacrifices we've made. We want a little credit for the self-discipline. We want a little credit for being a Christian.And we had this conversation last week, that God loves honoring those who honor him. Those who deflect all glory to him, he then shares with us. He wants to honor us. And St. Paul just talked about honoring Epaphroditus and honoring people like this. But it's when we crave this honor from other people, from God, in a way that takes it away from God. That's when it becomes sinful. Salvation is 100% a work of God. He begins it and he continues it. It's all by his grace.So he says, "Be aware of the dogs," and hear this phrase, dogs. It's a slur used by the Judaizers against believers, against Gentiles who turned believers. But it began with a racial slur against Gentiles. Because the Gentiles weren't concerned with the clean and unclean, the ceremonial laws of purification, and all those rituals. And dogs, by the way, dogs were not pets back then, dogs were actually scavengers, they were packs of wild dogs that would raid garbage heaps. They ate anything they could find. And the Judaizers would point the Gentiles and call them dogs because they didn't care about the ceremonial laws or the laws of purification.And St. Paul points out that beneath the surface of calling another person, a dog, was a racial or an ethnic pride as if being born a Jewish, as if the Jewish birthright, made people right with God. They ranked themselves higher than any other ethnicity. This is what St. Paul is getting at. And that same pride, this is what we're seeing in our culture. This ethnic or racial pride, this national pride that we're better than everybody else, this is what's making, what's causing the chaos in our culture.How much strife in the world, racial or religious strife is caused by this pride? The Catholic-Protestant Wars in Ireland, be a strike between the Arab and the Jews, white, black. The term ethnic cleansing, what a demonic term that is? Diabolical term. Iraq's persecution. Just look at world history. We're better than you, therefore, you're bad, you're evil, time to get rid of you. That's the same mindset we're seeing now in our culture. You're wrong, therefore, you're bad, therefore, you need to be canceled. What does that mean to be canceled?This is what St. Paul is getting at. These Judaizers had that same mindset. That to come in and say, "You're wrong," therefore, you're bad, therefore, we're getting rid of you. And St. Paul says, "Beware of these people who add something to God's word, who adds something to the gospel of Jesus Christ as most important for salvation."While God did choose the nation of Israel as his people, and they still have a special purpose in this plan, God is no respecter of persons in terms of granting salvation. Look at Romans 10: 12-13. "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."Anybody. Anybody who calls on the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ, "Lord, I call on you. Lord save me," anybody, anybody, anywhere, no matter what you've done, no matter what your past, your future depends on what you do with Jesus Christ. He says, "Beware of the dogs who pervert the gospel of Jesus Christ and be aware of the evildoers or the evil workers." They outwardly were zealous about obeying God's law, outwardly they were good in moral in terms of fulfilling religious activities, but in God's sight, he doesn't just look at our behavior, he doesn't just look at our actions, he looks at our hearts.And in their hearts, they trusted in themselves, not God. They trusted in their works, not God. They trusted in their merits, not God. They trusted in self. And when they glorify self, that nullifies the work of Christ on the cross, on their behalf. Yes, faith without works is dead. The Apostle James makes that so clear. Faith without works is dead. Faith, true faith, always leads to works of righteousness. But the order is important. The order of faith leads to works, not works lead to faith.And be aware of those who mutilate the flesh. Be aware of those who look to religious rituals for salvation or gaining some kind of merit before God. And here, it's a play on words that St. Paul makes in terms of, circumcision in the Greek it's peritome, and here he used the phrase, false circumcision or mutilation and used the word katatome.Just as the pagan priests of Baal in the Old Testament in the time of Elijah, they would cut themselves in a frenzy in order to make themselves right before the idols, before their gods, in order to get their attention, in order to show them, "Look how much we love you, how much we care, please accept us, please have favor on us," these people were doing something similar. They were trying to earn favor with God, curry favor with God.Paul argues this in Romans chapter four when he says, "Look, God gave the right of circumcision to Abraham as a sign of the circumcision of the heart." That God does heart surgery on us, that God cuts through the hardness in our hearts in order to sensitize us to the will of God, to love God. This is how he enlarges our hearts so it's filled with love toward God and people. And then the outward circumcision was a sign of the inward transformation. And this is why Jesus gave us baptism.That's what baptism is in the New Testament. Baptism is an outward sign of an inward reality that we die to sin and we're raised with Christ, we're washed of our sin and we're raised to follow Christ in a life of righteousness. And even with Abraham to whom this rite was given. Righteousness wasn't given to him by circumcision, that's not what made him righteous, it all started with faith. Abraham believed God's word, and God counted Abraham's faith as righteousness. It's salvation by grace through faith.A lot of people today, if you ask them, "Are you a Christian?" They'll say, "Yeah. Yeah, of course. I'm a Christian, I was baptized. I'm a Christian, I participate in Communion. I'm a Christian because I've attended church or I was dedicated as a child or I was baptized or yes, we had a Christian wedding in a church." And you looked at things that you've done or have been done to you to say, "This is how I justify my relationship with God. This is how I justify myself." But really there's no relationship with God. It's just outward deeds.Jesus told this to religious Nicodemus. He says in John 3:3, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Unless there's a regeneration, a transformation of the heart, the spiritual heart surgery, where you experience God's grace filling your heart, desensitizing you, getting rid of the numbness toward God, you don't yet know God.And therefore, Paul here is warning us to be aware of trusting in any form of human goodness, any form of worth, merit, good works, as the basis of what makes us right before God. If you ask someone, "Are you going to heaven?" And they point to anything other than, "Yes, Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins. He's my Lord and savior," if that's not the heart of the answer, then most likely they, you don't know God.1 Corinthians 1:27-31, "But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being may boast in the presence of God. And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, 'Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.'"This is so brilliant. God knows the only way that he can transform us is by making us good while keeping us humble. If you were God, how would you do that? How would you make people good and keep them humble at the same time? The better someone gets in their career, the more someone accumulates some things, their stuff, the more reputation someone gets, the more clout that they get, the more popular that they get, what happens to the ego? It grows. It's inflated. So how do you make someone good while keeping them humble? And the better they get, the more humble they get? Whatever system you use, it has to be something profound. It has to be something miraculous. And this is what the gospel of Jesus Christ does.He says, "We, you, we are all wicked sinners." We are so bad, the only way for us to get saved was the Son of God, dying for our sins on the cross. That's how bad we are. And yet we're so loved that he was willing to do it. That's what it took and he was willing to take it. And every day when we realize, "Wow! God did that for me? And that's what it took? He was willing to take it?" It humbles me. And I realize that all of my righteousness is actually his righteousness. Therefore, I can grow in goodness, and grow in humility at the same time. And this is what it means to grow in goodness. It means to grow closer to God. And the closer you get to God, the smaller you feel and the more humble you get. Well, that's true Gospel Christianity, it's not a legalistic Christianity, as the Judaizers taught, where you need to change your behavior and that's what makes you right before God.Dorothy Sayers is one of my favorite writers. She tells the story of a very bad legalistic missionary who goes to share the gospel he thought, and he's sharing the gospel to a poor native chieftain in some primitive tribe in the world. And the chief says, "Let me get this straight. If I become a Christian, I can't kill my neighbor and cut off his head, right?" And the missionary says, "Yeah. Yeah, that's right." And the chieftain says, "That means I can't kidnap the wives of my enemies and take them into my harem. Is that right?" "Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can't steal someone's wife." And he says, "Also I can't loot their villages and burn them?" And the missionary says, "Yeah. Yeah, that's right." And the chieftain says, "Well, I'm 70 years old. I can't do these things anyway. I'm already a Christian. I can't chase people. I can't rape women. I can't plunder villages. I'm already a Christian."This is how many people unfortunately think of Christianity, people in the church, people outside the church. People in the church, I need to become a better person so that I can become a better Christian. That's how it works. You become a better Christian by focusing on the gospel. Living in a manner worthy of the gospel, getting your heart filled with grace and the Holy Spirit on a daily basis. It's all gospel centered. And then if you're not a Christian, a lot of non-Christians say, "I can't be a Christian because I'm not good enough. I can't go to church. Do you understand what I've done? Do you understand that my lifestyle... I can't do it. I can't be a Christian."And this is where the gospel comes in and says, it doesn't matter what you've done. You can't change your behavior. You can't save yourself. You come to Christ as you are. You repent of your sins, saying, "Lord, forgive me for everything I've done. I can't change myself. I can't be the person who I know I need to be. I'm not that person. Please save me." And the very moment that you do, God pours out his power into your heart that then begins to transform you from the inside out. It's all about the gospel.How does a person get into heaven? Jesus made this absolutely clear in the Sermon on the Mount. Look at Matthew 5:48. "You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." And what does he mean by that? Well, he spends the whole Sermon on the Mount explaining that. And he's talking to, in particularly to Pharisees, who thought they were good enough to qualify for heaven, qualify for the presence of God because they fulfilled outwardly the law.So we never murdered. I've never killed anybody. And Jesus says, "If you've ever been angry, unrighteous with another person in your heart, you've already broken God's law. Unrighteous anger is tantamount to murder. The Pharisees prided themselves in never committing adultery. And Jesus says, "Have you ever looked at another person with lust for them in your hearts? You've already committed adultery." Meaning God expects righteousness, not on the action level, but on the heart level, on the thought level. Well, if that's the test, who of us passes? Who of us is accepted? Nobody except for Jesus Christ.And this is the gospel that Jesus comes, he fulfills the law. He never sinned, not in action and not in thought, not in inclination of the heart, fulfills the law perfectly, and then gives himself as a sacrifice for our sins. He who knew no sin became sin on the cross so that we might become the righteousness of God. It's called the double imputation. That Jesus got our sin and we get his righteousness, and righteousness is not our own, and this leads us to true faith. When you begin to understand that, that's when you begin to grow in true faith, not fake faith. Fake faith is outward.True faith starts in the inside out, fake faith is all about behavior modification. I'm going to force you. I'm going to bully you. I'm going to pressure you into changing. That's how society works. True faith says, "No. Come to Jesus. He'll fill your heart with grace and love. And that's what transforms you in the inside."Therefore, you can extend grace and love to those people that you disagree with. And you can tell them, "Yes, I disagree with you. Yes, you're wrong. But that doesn't mean I'm better than you." I can disagree with you and still love you at the same time. That's what God does with us. So this is true faith.Point two. False faith kills joy. False faith kills joy, true faith gives joy. Religion kills rejoicing, grace fuels rejoicing. That's why he starts with, verse one, by talking about joy. "Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you." He says, "Rejoice in the Lord." By the way, this phrase, this is the summary of Christianity, to rejoice in the Lord. True faith always produces joy in the Lord.Verse three. "For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh." This is so freeing. He says, "We, by God's grace, have had this circumcision of the heart." He's cut off everything that's in the way of me loving God and people. Therefore, I worship God by the Spirit of God. That means to live a life of awe and gratitude, love for God. God is Spirit and those who worship him, worship in Spirit and in truth. And we glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in ourselves. He's our confidence. He's our glory that frees me from myself from self-focus. It frees me from self-reliance.Jeremiah 9:23-24. "Thus says the Lord: 'Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.'"Put no confidence in the flesh. We put no confidence in our spiritual resume, in our accomplishments, we put all our confidence in the Lord. And when the focus is from self to the Lord, to Christ by the Spirit of God, that leads to so much joy. Because God's perfect. He makes no mistakes. He will never, ever, ever change. He's immutable. That's incredible.Colossians 2:10-11. "And you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by cutting off the body of the flesh..." Excuse me, "By putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ." Meaning there's a putting off and a putting on.And he deals with that in Colossians chapter three. "We are the circumcision that's the spiritual inner work performed on us by Christ." And I love that he says, "This is what happened. These are the facts. This is who Christ is." That's chapter one. Specifically, chapter two, look at his humility. That he descended. He served. He made himself nothing. He humbled himself. Fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact. When you accept those facts, it leads to experience. When you receive the truth, it leads to this experience of transformation of joy. It's a feeling. It's emotion.Dear Christian, how's your joy? In this season, how's your joy? Are you rejoicing in the Lord? It doesn't say rejoice in your circumstance. It doesn't say rejoice in politics. It doesn't say rejoice in news. It doesn't say rejoice in your salary. It doesn't say rejoice in your job and your family or your relationships. It says rejoice in the Lord. He's the one that fills you with joy.And by the way, St. Paul knows the difference between life-giving true faith and dead false faith. If ever there was a person who could make themselves right before God on the basis of keeping Jewish law, it was him. He had credentials by his birth. He had a track record of experience. But on the road to Damascus, he was met by the resurrected Christ and everything changed. He got an experience of God. True faith counts all human merit, all human merit, everything we've ever done, as loss. There's nothing that I've done for the Lord that matters in terms of my salvation and I give all that up to gain Christ. That's what he's about to do in verses four through six, but the theology of our righteousness apart from God, we get from Isaiah 64:6, among other places."We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away." All of our righteousness, every good thing. A lot of people think, if I've done more good than bad then God sees, okay, I made it. I got a 51 in the exam. That's enough. Okay. Now I go to hell. That's not how it works. So all of our righteousness is like a polluted garment. It's not enough. We're not enough in our righteousness. And that's why St. Paul says, "I tried."He says, verse four, "Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more; circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless." Wow! What a resume. He gives us four inherited points and he gives us three acquired points or qualities. Four inherited, three acquired qualities.First, the inherited one is the rituals. He says, my family obeyed all of the rituals. I was circumcised and I wasn't just circumcised, I was circumcised on the eighth day. Check. My race, I'm a blood born citizen of the covenant nation of Israel, specifically of the tribe of Benjamin. Tribe of Benjamin and whose territory it was Jerusalem, the Holy City. And by the way, Benjamin provided the very first king, King Saul, and remained a tribe of Judah in the Southern Kingdom when the Northern tribes broke away. And not only am I of Israel, of the people of Israel, I'm also a Hebrew of Hebrews. Meaning I'm of this race, I'm of this nation, and I speak Hebrew. I speak Arabic. Those are my four inherited qualities.And then my acquired qualities, religion. I picked the right religion. I was a Pharisee and this was the strictest sect of Judaism sought to obey the law in the most scrupulous way possible, tithing even of their spices. As to rules, look how zealous I was. I found people who didn't believe like I did, and I persecuted them violently. And as to righteousness, I was blameless. Outwardly, I was blameless. There were no violations.So you could ask St. Paul, "St. Paul, are you a believer in God?" At that point in his life, and he says, "Yes, my family believes the right way, circumcision." Or, "St. Paul, are you a believer?" "Yes, I have the right race. I am of the people of Israel." "St. Paul, are you a Christian?" "Yes. Not only am I of the people of Israel, I'm of the tribe of Benjamin. I'm of the Hebrew of Hebrews." "And by the way, St. Paul, are you a Christian?" "Yeah. I've never broken one law."And by the way, in the Book of Romans, he tells us that he realized after he became a Christian, that he broke laws all the time. Specifically, the law of "Thou shall not covet." All the other laws he could do outwardly, but "Thou shall not covet" is on the heart level in a way that's deeply personal. And he realized that he'd sinned.I think a lot of people think like this. "Are you a Christian?" "Of course, I am. I'm American." I've got a lot of Slavic friends. "Are you a Christian?" "Of course, I am. I'm Russian Orthodox." Italian friends. "Are you a Christian?" "Yes, of course I am. I'm Catholic. I'm Italian. Of course, I'm a Christian." "I'm a Polish. Of course, I'm a Christian." "I've been baptized, I'm a member of a church. I'm reformed. I've got the right theology. I'm a good person." But here's what St. Paul is saying, you can't get saved by osmosis. You can't just be around the right people and that's enough for you.St. Paul was doing that. He was using the wrong measuring sticks, pedigree, purity, performance. Remember verse seven he says, "Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ." Bishop Lightfoot, writes this in St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians. He says, "All such things which I used to count up as distinct items with a miserly greed and reckon to my credit, these I have massed together under one general head as loss."It's as if St. Paul has an Excel spreadsheet of gain and loss, he says all of my gains, everything that I've done, everything I think I've done to profit something. So I'm transferring all of that to the loss column in order for my gain column to be filled with Christ, the righteousness of Christ. He's saying, "I write everything off, everything I've inherited, everything I've acquired, I write it off as loss."Verse eight. "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ." He actually doesn't call his credits loss because I give them up, but he calls them garbage. He says, "After an understanding of the gospel, I realized all my righteousness, it's garbage." And perhaps he's playing off, he's calling Judaizers dogs. Let the dogs eat the garbage, go after my former garbage.But the word for rubbish here, by the way, it's a very polite translation of the original Greek. And I would submit to you, it's over polite. It's a Greek word, skubala. He says, "All of my righteousness is skubala." The King James Version of all the translation is the most like the closest where it translates this word as dung, D-U-N-G. That's what the word skubala is. It says, "My righteousness is a heaping pile of skubala. And I give all that up in order to gain Christ."By the way, this year, this is my submission to Mosaic Boston's members meeting that's coming, hopefully, in December. This is my submission for the T-shirts. Right here. If you look at the screen, 2020 skubala happened. We're still in it. We're still in the thick of it. But this is just to give you an idea. That's how strong of a word this is. St. Paul is communicating this, that my righteousness, that's what my righteous is compared to the righteousness of [inaudible 00:39:47], compared to what God demands from me. And that's why in verse seven, I counted as loss. It's a perfect tense, completed action, ongoing results. I've done it.And his salvation, I counted everything good I've done as loss. And then verse eight, I count everything as loss. It's present tense. Ongoing. That means St. Paul, at the end of every day, he would go full tilt, serving God with everything he had. And at the end of that, he would sit down and he would say, "What have I gained today? What have I gained? What have I gained? My dedication, my labor, my work, my persecutions, anything I've done." He sits down in his Excel spreadsheet, and he transfers all that gain to the loss column, to make more room for Christ, to make more room for grace, to make more room for the Holy Spirit. That's what pride does. Pride crowds God out of our hearts. It crowds the Holy Spirit out of our hearts.Jesus says, "Apart from me, you can do nothing." True faith means gaining Christ as the only basis for acceptance and doing this on a daily basis. Over and over again, he repeats this verse seven, "Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order 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 comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death."Talk about fake faith and then true faith, but gaining true faith always leads to personal knowledge of Jesus Christ. We don't just believe in, we know him. We don't just know about him, that's point three, knowing God, and it's not just knowing about him, it's knowing him. It's a personal knowledge.Look at verse three, eight. No, chapter three, verse eight. "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus," Our Lord? Not just our Lord, my Lord. He's my Lord. He is mine. Mine. Some of you are 26 and under, and you're under your parents' health insurance. You're under the family plan. Some of you want to save money on your cell phone, so you're under your family's plan. There's no family plan in Christianity, is Jesus your Lord personally. Can you say Jesus Christ is my Lord. Today he's my Lord. There's no group discounts. God doesn't have grandchildren.My daughter Milana, she knows this so well. She's the youngest. She's almost three. And she's got to compete with three other sisters for our attention, not for our affection, but that's what she thinks. And my daughter Ekaterina is five and she's a tremendous snuggler. She's so good at snuggling. Yesterday, she ran to us in the morning and she climbed to the bench. She's like, "Hi dad, I'm here to snuggle." And right after her, it's Milana. And Milana's favorite phrase is, "No mine. Mine, papa. Mine, papa." And she's trying to push her out of the way. She understands that I am her father personally. She has a harder time understanding that I'm also father of three other daughters.But a lot of Christians don't understand the personal part. That Jesus is my Lord. He is my God. He's not just our God, he's both. And that's what St. Paul focuses on. It's knowing Christ Jesus my Lord on a personal level. And also on the positional level.Verse nine. "And be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith." To be found in him. What a phrase! Meaning when you become a Christian, you are placed in Christ. Everything that's true of him is true of you. In him we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. God, the Father, views us through the merits of his son. And when you trust in Christ, you are clothed in his righteousness. The rest of our life we're trying to grow into that clothing, but you're clothed with his righteousness. And when God looks at you he says, "Behold, this is my beloved son or daughter in whom I am well pleased." He delights in us.Once you're a Christian, there's nothing that you can do to get God to love you more. And there's nothing you can do to get God to love you less. There's incredible freedom in that. And what's the goal of the Christian life? It's to know Christ deeper and deeper. And that's what makes us become like him.John 17:3, "And this eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you've sent." Christianity is primarily about growing in our relationship with God as he reveals himself in Christ. And that's what changes everything about our lives. It begins with the initial introduction. This is Christ. This is Jesus. He's your Lord. He's your maker. He's died for you. But then as in any relationship, it needs to be cultivated. And how's any relationship cultivated? Time together, communication between one another. We can't know him through philosophy or speculation, we can't know him through someone else's ideas or someone else's experience of him, we can only know him through the way that he's chosen to reveal himself, which is his word. And as you spend time in God's word, the Holy scriptures, what it does is it focuses your attention on God, on Christ. The written word focuses your attention on the Living Word.For example, Hebrews 1:1-3, as we're reading the scripture, what does the scripture do? "Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he's spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high."Dear Christians, the way that you grow in knowing God is knowing scripture. And as you study scripture, you don't just study the truth, you study the experience that God is... You don't just absorb the truth, you absorb the Spirit. This past week in community group, as we were doing prayer requests, one very courageous brother said the following. He said, "Please pray for me. I don't feel like reading the Bible. I have no desire to read the Bible. It's like the hardest thing in the world."And after he said that, almost every single person after him, as they're giving their prayer requests, they're like, "I feel the same thing. I've got the hardest time reading scripture in this season." And I'll tell you why, because there's demonic warfare. And that's what shows us the power of the Holy Scripture, to enrich our souls and to enlighten our minds and edify us. Satan doesn't want you to, therefore discipline is so important.I was just sharing the way I do it with myself. I Pavlov's dog, myself. Pavlov's dog, the bell rings, and the dog salivates. For myself, is if I want a cup of coffee in the morning, I first have to read scripture. You got to figure out something that works with you, but it's got to be self-disciplined. And the reason why it's so hard is because it's actually so beneficial. Just like working out. Before the workout, you're like, "I don't want to do it." After you do it, you're like, "That was great. Why didn't I want to do it?" Same thing with scripture.He talks about knowing Christ and also knowing the power of his resurrection. That's Philippians 3:10. "That I may know him and the power of his resurrection." Jesus Christ said, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live even though they die. Whoever lives by believing in me will never die." Jesus said, "I am the resurrection." Not just that he has been resurrected. He says, "I am the resurrection." What's the point here? Well, it means that the resurrection is a fact to be believed and it's an experience to connect with. The resurrection is a fact to be believed and an experience to be connected with. It's a fact and experience. It's both. It's a real connection.Yes, Christianity has some real hard edges to it, which actually shows us that it came from not us, but from God. If we agree with everything in Christianity, it would show us that most likely it was a work of people, not of us. Has truth to be believed. We believe in the resurrection of Christ. We believe that he really lived, really died, that he was really raised. We also believe because we've experienced him.We experience the presence of Christ. We experience his resurrecting power by the power of the Spirit. Ephesians 1:19-20. "And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand i the heavenly places." The same Holy Spirit that resurrected Christ when he was dead, is the same Holy Spirit that resurrects our hearts and souls when we are saved. And the same power that saved us is the same power that transforms us.Romans 8: 11, "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you." The same Holy Spirit who conquered Satan by resurrecting Christ is the same Holy Spirit that gives us strength to conquer the temptations from the evil and to conquer the temptations of the flesh and the world.Philippians 3:10. St. Paul says, "I know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings becoming like him in his death." We will never share or enter into the same sufferings in the same way as Christ went through because most of Christ's sufferings were spiritual anguish not just physical, but we must learn to go through suffering in the same way that he did. To entrust our souls to God, to humble ourselves and say, "God, you're in control. And this season that you have me in, you brought me here for a reason, and you will get me out of this season."Hebrews 5:8, "Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered." Jesus didn't have to learn obedience because he was disobedient, but obedience is a form of suffering. To make the right choice, to say no to sin, it's hard. It's difficult. It's actually painful. It's painful to submit to the Father and that's what Christ did on the cross. It's not my will, but yours be done. And God uses our suffering and he uses it to purify the draws out of our souls.Illustration of this is in the Book of Daniel. Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, thrown to fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar. And then he's looking in, and he doesn't see three, he sees four. And he says, "One of them is like a Son of God." It was Christ right there in their suffering. Christ was right there in their fire. And they came out unscathed.Paul knew this fellowship of suffering as he was preaching in corrupt Corinth. And he was afraid. The Lord appears to him in a vision. Acts 18:9-10. "And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, 'Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.'" Becoming like him in his death is to speak God's word by putting sin to death, mortifying flesh, and self taking up the cross daily.A lot of people want to come to Christ for forgiveness of sins. Christ doesn't want to just leave us there. I don't just want forgiveness of sins, I want freedom from sin. And that freedom comes at a cost. The cost of denying self, taking up my cross daily and following Christ.Galatians 2:20. "I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me." And then Philippians 3:11. "That by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead." It seems as if he's almost talking about, I need to earn this resurrection. And that's not what he's talking about, because that would contradict everything that he was just talking about, a righteousness that's not my own.What he is talking about, first it shows there's no presumption. I hope I'm saved. Every day, I need to confirm that calling and election, there's no presumption. There's no saying, "I'm going to heaven. I can live any way I want." There's no presumption. But by any means possible, it means whether in this life, whether I'm alive, when Christ comes, or whether I die and I'm resurrected in a new glorious body, by any means possible, I will do everything I can, however God chooses, to bring me to him.I'll close with this. 1 John 3:2-3. "Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure." I don't know about you, but it feels like we're living in the end times. Read some Book of Revelation and then look at the world outside. I think this is what Christians all throughout the ages have felt. And by the way, it's good to feel that, that we don't know. We don't know when we die and we don't know when Christ will return. Let us be faithful to the Lord today.Religion and gospel are diametrically opposed, the fake faith, the true faith. Religion says, "I obey, therefore, I'm accepted. It's all about me." My gospel says, "No, you're accepted because of the work of Christ. It's all about him. Therefore, we obey." Changes the motivation. Fake faith says, "Motivation is based on fear and insecurity. If you're not a good person, you will be punished." And the gospel says, "The motivation is based on grateful joy. All my sins are forgiven because of the work of Christ. I'm motivated." Obedience is I obey God in order to get things from God, in fake faith. In true faith, I obey God to get God. Fake faith prayer is I'm going to get stuff from God. True faith is I'm going to get God. Fake faith is joyless, and true gospel faith rejoices in Jesus Christ.If you have not accepted Christ yet, we welcome you to do that today. If you have accepted Christ, continue to count all your righteousness as loss and gain Christ daily.Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time and the Holy Scriptures. We thank you Lord for this word that reminds us there's nothing that we can do to make us right and righteous before you. We just accept the righteousness of Christ, and what a freedom that is. But then also give us grace to live in a manner worthy of that righteousness, to grow into that righteous clothing as we draw near to you, to grow both in goodness and humility at the same time. I pray all this in Christ's Holy name. Amen.

As we step into the month of May focusing on listening prayer, Josh looks at passages in 1 Peter and John 14 which illustrate who Jesus is and His invitation to us to trust Him -- even when He does not appear to be who we think Jesus is. Like the disciples, we expect Jesus to behave in a certain way and when He does not, we find ourselves in a space that offers the opportunity to build that trust in Jesus. There's no way to trust if there's no space to build it. Acts 2:42-47; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14. Josh shared 3 quotes in today's message. 1) Dr. Cheryl Bridges Johns: "My movement talks about prayer. We are a praying people. But, we are inclined toward penitent prayer or the life of ongoing repentance. Lack of teaching on this subject has made us people who love to praise God, while at the same time, compromised by personal and corporate sin. I firmly believe 2020 should be our 'penitent year.' We don't need to get America to 'cry out to God.' We, the church, need to cry out in fervent, penitent prayer. Both we and our ancestors have sinned. There is a whole generation who have never experienced the heavy, convicting cloud of God's Presence. They've seen smoke machines and even danced before the Lord. But, they've never been overwhelmed by the Glory or trembled under the weight of the 'Holy hush.' The only way there is through the door marked 'penitence.' " 2) Shannon Michael Pater: "Tumultuous teens, in fact, know this space of faith in their very body and soul. No longer in the relative safety of childhood, but not yet in the supposed self-sufficiency of adulthood, adolescence is a space of liminality, that is, an in-between space. Door frames are liminal places: a space between rooms, a portal from outside to the inside. Teens need a companion who can be both midwife and chaplain, someone who will help them navigate the loss of infancy and facilitate a safe crossing to the terrain of adulthood. For the adolescent disciples, that will soon be the Holy Spirit. The Comforter will come to cure their diseased hearts and help them stand firm in the coming transformation." 3) Debie Thomas: " 'In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places,' Jesus tells his sorrowing disciples. Meaning: God is roomy. God is generous. God is hospitable. God can handle your doubts, your fears, and your questions. And God’s offer of belonging extends far beyond the confines of this mortal life. 'I go and prepare a place for you,' Jesus says as he stands in the shadow of his own cross. You have a place with me. You have a place with God. You have a place. A grim setting. Real questions. An offer of comfort. The promise of home. The Way. This is a Gospel for our time. The story — your story, my story, our collective story of this precarious, overwhelming moment — will not end in death. Though we might feel alone and frightened right now, the Way is open before us. We know it. We know Jesus, and because we know Jesus, we know God. The Way will safely bear us home. Do not let your hearts be troubled."

" The Messiah's Mission: Born to Die? " Isaiah 52:13-53:12 December 22, 2019 Pastor Bob Bjerkaas The Five Stanzas of Isaiah 52:13-53:121. Prologue 52:13-152. Fact: A life of rejection 53:1-33. Meaning: He suffered for our sins 53:4-54. Fact: An oppressive death 53:6-95. Meaning: God’s will is accomplished in the deathand resurrection of the messiah 53:10-12   1.  The Shocking Truth     a.  The wisdom of God: “Jesus did not use ordinary human means to draw                men to himself!” – Henri Blocher     b.  As many are “astonished” at the messiah             a.  AHD: “To fill with sudden wonder or amazement; confound.”             b.  Psalm 40.15, 1 Kings 9:8, Jer. 2:11-12             c.  Ezekiel 26:16; 27:35; 28:19             d.  Astonished: To be suddenly and utterly appalled – without words.     c.  Many nations will be “sprinkled” by him            a.  A purifying and consecrating act            b.  Isaiah anticipates 1 Peter 1:1-2 2.  A Life of Undeserved Suffering     a.  The Facts            a.  Jesus was utterly unappealing            b.  Jesus was rejected, avoided, despised, and thoroughly disrespected     b.  The Meaning            a.  A retrospect: we believed God was dealing with him justly!            b.  A Clarification: But he endured contempt and violence for our sins –                   not his     c.  WE deserved what HE received 3.  A Death of Unequaled Accomplishment     a.  The Facts           a.  He was killed without protest           b.  Three key words: slaughtered. Cut off, buried           c.  He was killed despite his absolute purity     b.  The Meaning           a.  This apparent tragedy was God’s plan!           b.  Christ died in our place for our benefit           c.  Christ will be raised and rewarded with those whom he suffered and                    died for   ApplicationThis Christmas, worship Christ as the Holy One who gave himself for you.Like the Christmas shepherds, spread the knowledge of him that “many” will be accounted righteous!Have you believed this message? Has the “arm of the LORD” been revealed to you?  

There are quite a few stories in the bible where God uses what already exists and either transforms it or multiplies it so solve a problem.  Meaning God uses the substance that already exists instead of pulling something out of thin air.  We are that substance God uses to bring about transformation.  

Episode 18 dives deeper into last weeks truth of "If I can't hear God's voice, He can't heal my heart." You'll hear all about John 10 and the guidance it gives us in knowing God's voice and hearing God's voice above the noise in this world. God put it boldly on my heart that it all has to begin with knowing the spiritual condition of my own heart, learning His voice by getting in His word, and then begin trust His plans even when I cannot see past my circumstances. Knowing The Spiritual Condition of Your Heart In seasons of adversity, suffering, and chaos it can be hard to see past the fog of your circumstances. If you're struggling to get in God's word ask a few others to be praying specifically for what's happening and for the supernatural desire to get in the word. When you begin to feel the fog lifting you can find yourself secure in His hands. John 10:27 - My sheep hear my voice I know them and they follow me. We as believers have discerned the difference between God's voice and the rest of the noise in the world. He knows ALL of us, and this is by us choosing to have a relationship with Him. We follow Him. He doesn't make us follow Him. God gave us the choice to free will. Example: In the movie 101 Dalmatian's when the puppies were following their parents Pongo and Perdita through the snowstorm when fleeing from the evil Cruella de Vil. The puppies were emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausted. At one point they had to turn around because they were going the wrong way. I can see it so clearly there was one of the puppies who put his sweet little head down and turned around without even seeing his daddy. He trusted him, he knew his voice, and he knew he would always lead him to safety. This is just like our relationship with Christ. When we begin to really understand who He is and His voice, we can trust Him when we aren't sure exactly what's happening. John 10:1-5 - “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5 A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” He who does NOT enter the sheepfold is a thief. Meaning: Evil, Sin, & Destruction (outside/worldly noise) He who enters the door is the shepherd. Meaning: God entering in our HEART. The Shepherd leads and goes before the sheep. Meaning: The Lord, our light, ALWAYS leads us. A stranger they will NOT follow. Meaning *Sin always makes us lead our own life, the enemy leads us to the sin then we choose to indulge in it. * Let's stop and discern all the noise we're allowing to enter our life. Who and what are we hearing from? Does it leave us feeling safe and secure? Or squeamish and dirty? If you're like me you may find yourself unfollowing, unsubscribing to blogs, deleting playlists, and not spending money on certain things or at certain places. Join me this week in getting quiet with God and asking Him to reveal these things in our lives so we can more clearly hear from Him or learn what His voice sounds like if you've never felt like you've experienced it. Living With Less Podcast, LLC © 2019. All Rights Reserved

Jesus the light of the world, God has all power and there is no higher power.Because they are one it was them who came into my heart and living there. Meaning God so loved he sent his son Jesus. Again therefore they saved me so I surrender my all to them. I trust God and I believe in and on his son. It is most important to surrender to them because  surrendering make me more powerful. Why? I am operating in their power which is all power.

This episode of She Walks In Truth kicks off a four-part series with not just one, but two guests who share their testimonies. Teresa Ann is a previous guest and is the host of Let’s Talk with Teresa Ann on YouTube. In this series, her longtime friend Celina Baginski and amazing creative designer of Pearls in Bloom joins us for a three-way chit chat. With these two together, I just know God is going to release something special for you in this episode.   Celina started her walk with God at a young age in a loving, but rocky home. She grew up believing that if bad things weren’t happening to her then God wasn’t testing her. Meaning God had either forgotten about her, or the bad things were coming soon. It wasn’t until her twenties that she began to question the paranoia and fear that she had as a basis with her relationship with God. She then found His love that would carry all the way through her first child and her battle with cancer. And through these struggles her friendship with Teresa stood as a steadfast monument to that love. Let their sisterhood inspire you to take step forward with faith first in you relationships with family, friends, and God.   If you haven’t listened to the previous episode with Teresa Ann, you can find it right here: Made New In Christ | Episode 014. It’s one of our most listened to episodes and for good reason. Her testimony shows her travels from a wayward daughter to being redeemed. Together, Selina and Teresa Ann share their journey together as paved by the singular love of God.    Want to get connected with Teresa and Selina? You can find them at LetsTalkStudio.com & PearlsInBloom.com !  Listen to this episode and then continue the conversation over in our Facebook community and be sure to sign up for the She Walks In Truth weekly newsletter at www.shewalksintruth.com. 

MEANING - God exists? God does not exist? I find flaws and fallacies in both sides. So I step away from "arguments" about God and ask how to approach God's existence. What's the process?

MEANING - God is supposed to be all-powerful, all-knowing and all good. In addition, is God is supposed to be 'all-free'? What does it mean for God to be perfectly free? Can God do literally anything? Can God make choices or must God always do the 'best', whatever 'best' may mean for each action? Are there any limits on God's freedom?

MEANING - God is supposed to have perfect knowledge, which includes all true statements about the future. Does this mean that God knows everything about what is to come? But if the future doesn't yet exist, then there is nothing now to know. Theologians battle among themselves.