Episode Transcript
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Back in the fall, I believe
was October, November, sixty minutes on
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CBS aired a video where they showed
for a few minutes, they showed men,
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women and children in Syria being gassed
to death. It was horrific and
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the editor in chief of CBS news
was asked the question why would you show
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that on television and he said this. He said you can read about horrific
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reality all day long, but until
you've seen it, it probably won't change
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you. I realized this couple months
ago and realize it again this morning,
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knowing I was I mean I was
going to preach this message that there are
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a couple of different options of mirrors
that you can get dressed in. In
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my house. You probably have the
same you can get dressed in front of
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the mirror and the bathroom. I
don't like to do that because the the
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image in the mirror, it kind
of squishes the image and I'm trying to
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lose some weight. I don't want
to have my image further squished. There's
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a mirror, a long, full
length mirror, in the corner of our
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room, but it tends to be
long gate the image and I really like
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that that image because makes me look
kind of skinny. Then there's a mirror
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on our wall that is kind of
a perfect medium between those and it probably
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gives the most accurate representation of what
I really look like. But I never
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get dressed in that mirror. This
morning I got dressed in the full length
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mirror. That made me look really
skinny. We're skinnier than I am because
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we want to see ourselves in the
best light. Right. You want to
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do the same. I want to
do that. We like to to look
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at ourselves in those mirrors that make
us look good. Now it's been said
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that the law of God is like
a mirror that you see your true self
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in. Right, but in our
day and age, maybe a maybe a
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more accessible analogy for many is the
law of God and may be more like
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a high definition video. You can
take video with your iphones now or any
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kind of smartphone or other equipment things
you can hold in the palm of your
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hand and get instant, instant video. And I got captured on video a
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couple months ago and someone showed me
the video and I thought, okay,
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do I really look like that?
Like I know the camera adds ten pounds,
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but how many cameras did I eat, and I think that is what
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the law of God is. Look, I guess it's a mirror, it's
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it's like that live, raw video
footage that we look into and we see
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maybe a horrific reality. We'll see
what Jesus has a say about the law
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of God tonight, and so I
would ask you a stand for the reading
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of God's word. Matthew Chapter Five, versus twenty one through twenty six.
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is comes from the sermon on the
Mount. Lord is speaking about the law.
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Matthew Five, Verse Twenty One.
This is what Jesus says. You
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have heard that it was said to
those of old you shall not murder,
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and whoever murders will be liable to
judgment. But I say to you that
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everyone who was angry with his brother
will be liable to judgment, whoever insults
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his brother will be liable to the
council and whoever says you fool will be
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liable to the hell of fire.
So if you are offering your gift of
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the altar and they remember that your
brother has something against you, leave your
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gift of there before the altar and
go first be reconciled to your brother and
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then come and offer your gift.
Come to terms quickly with your accuser while
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you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to
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the judge and the judge to the
guard and you be put in prison.
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Truly, I say to you,
you will never get out until you have
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paid the last penny. A man. Please be seated. A couple of
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you know the story because I got
to church with you and you've seen her
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on facebook. But back in February
my wife and child and I were coming
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back from speaking out a missions conference
in Tennessee and on the last leg of
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the trip our child was a little
fussy. He's just turned to children under
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the age of two get Fussy,
children over the age of to get Fussy,
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adults kid Fussy, but especially kids
who have a sinus infection, whose
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ears won't pop as you get up
into the sky, and so a sending
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and descending his his ears hurt and
so he started to fuss, he started
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to cry and the couple right in
front of US started to get really angry
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with us and they turned around and
they stared at us like they were staring
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through our souls, that kind of
intensity, and then they started talking about
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my son in a fairly loud tone
where everyone around them could hear what they
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were talking about and who they were
talking about. They even spoke about my
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son in expletives, saying I can't
wait to get off this plane in away
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from this bleeping child. Then they
made gestures to each other in talking about
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my son as if they were wrangling
him, and words can express how angry
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I was won't do it justice,
but I didn't say anything to them.
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I did say to my wife if
I ever see them again, because they
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live in Tusson, if I ever
see them again, I would dot dot
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dot. What does Jesus say about
that? What does Jesus, Jesus,
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say about not just their anger,
what does Jesus say about my anger?
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Look back in verses Twenty One and
twenty two, Jesus says. You've heard
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that. It was said to those
of old you shall not murder, and
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whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone
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who was angry with his brother will
be liable to judgment, whoever insult his
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brother will be liable to the council, who ever says you fool, will
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be liable to the hell of fire. Jesus says, I'm a murderer.
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Right, I murder, even though
I didn't say anything to them, I
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just thought it. But I'm a
murderer because I have offended, I have
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sinned against my brother, my neighbor, and I really can. I read
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that text and I would say,
okay, Jesus, but really, who
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is my brother? Who is my
neighbor? Well, Jesus had a parable
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or about that. Right, the
Good Samaritan. He says, look,
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your your brother, your neighbor,
is the one lying in the road who
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you would like to have nothing to
do with. That's your neighbor and you've
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murdered him. So that's our first
point, murdering your neighbor. You know,
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in Jesus reminds those listening to him
what the law says. He you
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notice, he doesn't say this is, this is what the law says,
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that you shall not kill. He
doesn't say that. He says you are
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not to murder. There they're two
different words. They mean two different things.
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The law has to do with murder, okay, not not killing in
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self defense, but has something to
do with with a a passion and ingrained
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passion, a feeling, a sin
that is deeply rooted and premeditated. It's
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taking their life in your mind,
in your heart, taking their life because
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you think that they are worthless.
Who here is guilty of that? Yeah,
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you raise your hands if you think
you're okay. You've been angry with
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someone. Okay, good, yes, we were all murderers. If you
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don't think you are, you are
okay. The law has to do with
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murder. Now, the Lord inspired
David to write Psalm for and, and
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it's all him, for David said
be angry and do not sin. Okay,
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and the Apostle Paul quoted this as
he was in writing to the Ephesians
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about what new life looks like in
Christ if we live loud, lived out
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as God had intended us to live. And he says be angry and do
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not sin. But the question is, can we actually do that? Can
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We? Can we actually be angry
with someone, murder them in our hearts?
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Right, because, because when we
are angry with people, we are
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usually murdering them in our hearts.
Can we be angry with someone and not
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sin? Right? There is such
a thing as righteous anger and and I'm
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still trying to to discern whether it. When is the last time I was
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filled with righteous anchor. Right.
When's the last time actually hated the sin
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but didn't also hate the sinner?
Because we say that he'll hate the sin
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but don't hate the sinner? I
can't remember the last time that happened.
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It's all murder now. Is Anger
Wrong? No, but I'm not saying
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that we can't be righteously angry.
We can write and to say we don't
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usually do that angers not out wrong
right. God made us in his Im
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and she's a god of passions,
not just come passion, but passion.
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He is a God who can get
angry righteously. We can as well right,
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but never are are we given the
privilege, given the right in scripture
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by the Lord, to to be
angry with those who sin, even our
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enemies. What did Jesus say?
Pray for your enemies, Love Your Enemies.
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Point is this, to be angry
at sin is to simultaneously be compassionate
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towards the center, because that is
the character of God. Those that we
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show anger towards may have indeed infinited
us for some reason, or those that
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we love in their ignorance and arrogance. But we don't get the right to
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be angry with them, to hate
them. But think, think about this.
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Why is Jesus here preaching this sermon
to these people? And I don't
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mean here, meaning Judea, I
mean here, as in the earth.
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Why is Jesus here? It's well, think about some of the very last
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words that Jesus said on the Cross. He says, father, forgive them,
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for they do not know what they're
doing. Jesus came to live and
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to be killed for and to be
raised again for people who were ignorant and
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arrogant. Incarnate compassion of God has
shown in his love for sinners. When
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someone's like like you, like me, have been spared from God's wrath,
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how can we hate our neighbor in
our anger? Look back at verse thirty
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two again. Are Excuse me.
First twenty two Jesus says this, but
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I say to you, everyone who's
angry with his brother will be liable to
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judgment, whoever insults his brother will
be liable to the council and whoever says
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you fool will be liable to the
hell of fire. Now, when someone
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insults his brother, I don't know
what translation of scripture you have, but
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some translations will use the term rock
got says when someone someone says rock got
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to his brother. That's the air
make word, meaning you are worthless,
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you have no value at all.
You will face judgment when someone says you
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fool. Do you know what the
term is? Moron? When someone says
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you moron, you will be liable
to the hell of fire. Now more,
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Moron is not just a word that
speaks to someone who is idiotic.
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It speaks to someone who is in
moral, who is godless, who is
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lawless. That Jesus actually calls the
Pharisees later in Matthew Chapter Twenty three,
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when he's speaking woes against them,
he actually calls them morons. But he
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is fully God and he is righteous, he's holy and he he can call
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them morons in their godlessness, in
their immorality, right in their lawlessness.
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But we, as we sin,
we are showing ourselves, in our sin,
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to be moronic. And when we
act as morons, we as morons,
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don't get the privilege of calling other
morons morons or treating them like morons,
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as immoral, godless people, when
we have acted the same way,
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because we proven ourselves to be just
that. But it's no good incidence that
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Jesus says that those who insult another
are liable to the hell of fire.
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Jesus, they are in verse twenty
two. He speaks of these judgments and
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and and he for a couple verses, he brings up the different judgments of
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the council. And you'll be liable
to the to the hell of fire and
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all these metaphors. Everyone, all
the commentators, agree that there are metaphors
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for eternal judgment. But the language
of hell of fire is something that should
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should appear very familiar to those that
are listening to Jesus sermon, because it
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alludes, alludes to something that everyone
knew about. It alludes to the trash
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heap outside the city walls were all
the refuse, all the garbage, all
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the unwanted things went to be earned. And so if you are saying or
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even thinking that someone was worthless,
surely that would bring up in your mind
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and all the other Jewish minds of
that time that they were so worthless that
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they need to be cast outside the
city walls and burned with all the other
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garbage. They should be destroyed because
when we hate someone in our hearts,
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that's what we're doing right we're destroying
them. We met at physically murder them.
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We may not say the word to
them, and yet we've utterly destroyed
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them in our hearts. Now,
on that plane back in February and one
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millisecond, I tore that couple apart
limb from whim in my mind, in
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my hatred. But at least I
didn't say anything to them. Right,
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don't we excuse or something like that? Sometimes, Hey, at least I'm
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I was a good southern boy.
I didn't say anything. My Mama taught
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me right. You can think all
you want, but just don't say anything.
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You're good. I still murdered them
on my heart. We can't balance
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the scale to just a couple applications
with this this point. First, every
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every person. Every person has worth
because they're made in the image of God.
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Even if we don't like that,
they do have worth. I am
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no more worthy of God's kindness.
You are no more worthy of God's kindness
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than any joe blow on the street, because they're also made in God's image.
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Second, Sin, including our anger. It has an effect on the
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community. Right Jesus says if you're
angry with your brother, that you will
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be liable to judgment, you will
be liable to the council, the Sanhedron,
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in other words, and this should
remind us that God has made us
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for and put us into community where
there is both mutuality a shared call from
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God upon our lives for love and
accountability. The third the hatred that we
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display in our anger. It stems
from pure pride and we have to we
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have to know that it's all pride. You know, pride is the root.
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It's a sin, but it's also
the root of all sin. At
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C S Lewis said, there is
a test that psychologists give called the narcissism
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test. It tests to see how
narcissistic you are. Go figure. But
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but just in the last couple of
years they have looked at the result of
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this narcissism tests and seeing that the
results were quite extraordinary. It tests for
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things like how do you agree with, how much you agree with with comments
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like I believe I'm extraordinary or I
love to be the center of attention,
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and across the board, over the
last two decades the average score of this
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test has increased by thirty percent,
meaning that by far I'll call our culture
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in this day and age is more
self focused than two decades ago. But
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that really should not be any surprise
to us right, because pride, again,
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is the root of all sin.
It makes us want to be God
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even though we're not. Adam and
Eve sin because they bought into the lie
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that their world, that God had
put them in, was all about them.
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That's not true. The novelist David
Foster Wallace, who died a few
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years ago, he gave a commencement
address in two thousand and five at Kenyan
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college where he spoke about this.
This reality is very sad reality, and
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this is a man. He was
not a man of faith at all,
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but he said this. He said
everything in my own immediate experience supports my
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deep belief that I am the absolute
center of the universe, the realist,
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most vivid and most important person in
existence. We really talked about this sort
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of natural basic selfcinnerness, because it's
so socially repulsive, but it's pretty much
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the same for all of us deep
down. It is our default setting,
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hardwired into our boards at birth.
Think about it. There is no experience
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you've ever had that you were not
at the absolute center of the world.
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As you experience it is right there
in front of you. Were behind you
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are to the left or right of
you, on your TV, on your
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monitor or wherever. Other people's thoughts
and feelings have to be communicated to you
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somehow, but your own are so
immediate, urgent and real, so true.
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Our pride makes us feel that we
are more important, more superior,
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infinite, infinitely more worthy than anyone
else. This leads us to not only
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destroying our neighbors, murdering our neighbors, but it also leads us to destroying
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ourselves, murdering in essence, ourselves. There is a movie that came out
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in the S. it's a comedy, it's pretty funny and has a lot
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of old actors and actresses, like
Peter Sellers, who's in the pink panther
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movies, and it's about this one
millionaire, billionaire, rich guy lives in
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this kind of spooky mansion out in
the woods and he invites all the world's
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greatest detectives to his mansion for the
weekend to try to solve this crime that
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he is set up. And this
one detective couple are staying at that mansion
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over the weekend and they go up
to the room that first night and the
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Butler is leading them and he opens
the door and what they see in the
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room is just dust and cobwebs and
and they say wow, it looks like
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that. No one has lived in
is stayed in here for years, and
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he said that that's right, no
one has stayed in here since Madam killed
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her she's being Badham murdered herself.
And they said, don't you mean she
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killed herself, and he says no, it was definitely murder. She hated
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herself. What is hatred? Her
Anger? Due to US internally destroying the
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Bible, about two sons of David, absalom and Amnon, am no on
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raped their sister Tamar, and Absalom
wanted to murder him, but he waited
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two years. He waited, he
plotted, he waited some more, plotted
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some more, waited for the right
time and then he killed his brother Amnon.
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But we hear that story, we
read that story in scripture and sometimes
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we may think, well, that
was a heroic killing because Amnin he was
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he was going to get it,
he deserved it. We like heroic killings,
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right, like like Edmund Dantes and
the County Money Cristo. Right,
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he's he's falsely imprisoned by his friend
and he goes to the Chateau de prison.
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You think he's never going to get
out, where everyone goes there to
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die, and he escapes and he
gets all this money and the stead of
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going right to that old friend who
stole his life and stole his love from
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him and kill him. Then he
waits and he waits and he plots and
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then at the very end he gets
it and we cheer. Yes, he
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got it. Way To go,
Edmond. It's a heroic killing. We
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love it when the bad guy gets
it right. But what did that do
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to Edmund? Internally, what did
I do to Absalom? And internally,
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what did that do to me or
to you? Harboring anger is like drinking
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poison and waiting for the other person
to die. It only takes one word,
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one thought, to absolutely destroy someone
else. But we like to stay
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angry right why? Because on some
level it's delicious. I want to be
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angry with that person that you know. My wife and I various times are
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o marriage. We do something or
say something to the other person that's unloving
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and we are very quick to apologize
and very quick, but not very quick,
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to forgive, sadly, sometimes,
and we'd say to each other.
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I just I just want to stay
angry, just for a little while,
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because we like that. We like
to harbor anger, we like to wait
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to take out vengeance on other people. But you know, hatred does linger,
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it grows and it isn't satisfied actually
when that person is destroyed. ABSOLOM's
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anger was not satisfied when am non
was killed. Neither is ours most of
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the time, because if you give
us time, we will find someone else
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to fall victim to our pride.
Jesus said that our righteousness is to exceed
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that of the Pharisees. He said
earlier in Matthew Chapter Five. How does
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this happen? While he says we
are to be poor in spirit, were
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to warn over sin, we're to
humble ourselves before the law of God,
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God and our need for his righteousness. But what we are saying when we're
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angry toward our neighbor and hate them
in our hearts, is that we actually
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don't care about holiness, we don't
care about God's law, we only care
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about ourselves. However, the problem
is that, though are anger, our
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hatred for our neighbors says that we
only care about ourselves, in reality,
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what it does, is it?
It says that we actually hate ourselves,
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because it's destroying as we're drinking that
poison. It's killing US inside. We
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are destroying the image that God has
made after his own likeness. You're destroying
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what God is called good. Here's
what Psalm Ninety seven says. This is
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Oh, you who love the Lord, hate evil. Proverbs eight. The
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fear of the Lord is the hatred
of evil, pride and the arrogance in
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the way of evil and perverted speech. I hate. But here's the deal,
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folks, is that we can't love
the sinner when we lack a hatred
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for hatred, not other people's hatred, now other people's anger, but ours.
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We have to hate it. What
does Jesus say in Verse Twenty Three,
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three, twenty six. Look back
with me, says. So,
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if you are offering your gift of
the altar and then remember that your brother
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has something against you, leave your
gift there before the altar and go first
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be reconciled to your brother and then
come and offer your gift. Come to
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terms quickly with your accuser while you
are going with him to court, lest
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your accuser hand you over to the
judge and the judge, the guard,
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you and be put in prison.
Truly, I say to you, you
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will never get out until you have
paid the last penny. Well, is
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Jesus saying? He says work it
out with your with your brother, work
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it out with your neighbor if you're
angry with him. If you know anything
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about the God of the Bible,
you know that this God is a God
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who is fully intent and is devoted
to having his people show compassion on other
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sinners and to restore relationships, to
reconcile that relationship with one another. But
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my rebuttal to the Lord with my
instance on this on this plane back in
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February, was but Lord, I
don't have relationship with this couple on the
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plane. Here's how I think the
Lord Responds. Oh, you don't have
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a relationship? Are you breathing the
same air that I gave you and them?
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Are you on the same plane that
where I have providentially placed you and
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them? Are you both made in
my image? Do you both need my
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grace? You have a relationship with
them? I came to die for you
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and for people like them. I've
met you together, you know, without
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really knowing you guys, I know
there's probably a lot of confession and repentance
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that might need to take place between
you and someone else. I know that's
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true of me. But as we
grow in holiness, the more that we
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should be angry towards sin, our
own sin especially, and compassionate towards other
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sinful people. Lastly, when you
love your sin more than the law of
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God, that doesn't just lead to
murdering your neighbors and implicitly murdering yourself,
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but you end up murdering your Lord. Peter, in that great sermon that
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you preach, an acts to with
a thousands of people surrounding him. After
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the Lord's ascension, he he started
speaking about this incarnate Christ and he spoke
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of Jesus this way, he says, this Jesus Whom you crucified. Now
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they're thousands of people. There were
some who were present at Peter's sermon,
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and acts too, were some.
Probably they're shouting crucify him, crucify him.
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Before pilot, yes, most likely, but we're also people, they
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are listening to Peter who were not
before pilot, shouting crucify him, crucify
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him, even people that were long
time disciples of Jesus. Yes, so
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how can peter say to them this
Jesus, whom you or in the Greek
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all Y'All, crucified? Well,
look again in verses twenty three and twenty
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four of what Jesus says. He
says. So if you are offering your
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gift at the altar and there remember
that your brother has something against you,
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leave your gift before the altar and
go first be reconciled to your brother and
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then come and offer your gift.
What Jesus is doing is exposing something that
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we're all guilty of, and that's
trying to balance with a lot of good
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things, right balance the scale,
a lot of good things to cover up
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all of our sin, right to
weigh against our sin. And the Pharisees
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were experts at this. They just
didn't go to church or Synagog Temple,
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you know, one time a week. That would go multiple times a week.
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They go every single day. They
just didn't tie ten percent. That
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would tie even upwards of eighty percent
if they could. They made sacrifices all
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the time. They brought gifts to
the altar. They did all those things
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while hating their brother in their hearts. But for a god that has commanded
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a sacrifices be brought to the altar
in order to reconcile this people to himself.
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Where's the value and where is ultimately, the worship and that act of
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worship? If you harbor sin,
it's not worship, apart from continue worship
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yourself and your pride. But Jesus
says, you know what you have done
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to the least of these, you've
done to me, and we can take
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that in a positive way and in
a negative way, right, for again
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and for ill. If you have
done good, if you've loved your neighbor,
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what you've done to the least of
these, these outcasts, the people
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you don't like, the you have
also done to me. But if you
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have sinned against them, if you
have murdered them in your hearts, you've
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also murdered me. That's why Jesus, or that's why Peter says, an
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acts to this Jesus whom you crucified. Jesus hung on the Cross because of
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our sin. We put him there, we crucified him. Point is this,
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when you try to Turne for your
own moral failure by doing good,
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to balance his scales, you're saying
I don't need saving and therefore, you
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don't need Jesus. He's worthless to
you, and if you don't need him,
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then you have proven to be a
godless and lawless men, and lawless
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men were the ones who murder Jesus
again, not just Romans, not just
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Jews, but us our sin.
Jesus was cast out past the city walls
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to a place called God Gotha,
carrying his cross. They'll goth is the
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place where they would put all the
garbage. It was the trash heap.
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We're all the worthless things went,
and he did so. He went to
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that place so that you and I
wouldn't have to face the hell that he
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faced. He paid every last penny
of your debt and of my debt that
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we owed the Lord because we could
never balance a scale enough to earn God's
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favor to get us out of jail, to get us away from the judgment
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of God and his wrath. But
the same one whom you crucified, Who
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I crucified, God also raised from
the dead so that we might be raised
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with him. That's that's the beauty
of the Gospel, that's the hope of
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the resurrection. He made you and
me, who were an enemy and a
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moron and a fool. He made
us a friend, even though we didn't
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deserve it, even though we can
never be worthy of God's love. He
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counts us as worthy because all of
our worth is found in Jesus saying to
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his father, father, there with
me, there with me. So how
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do we respond? Well, I
don't want to make any assumptions. I
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would even though I would say probably
all of you here are Christians, but
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if you are hearing, you're not
a Christian, or at least if you
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have relationships with a non Christians,
which you should. You should have many
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of them. The point is this, that Jesus is the judge of all
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men. He is the prosecutor who
holds up the Mirror of the law of
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God or held, holds up that
live raw video footage, and your exposed
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for all of your law breaking,
all that that horrific detail, no matter
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how good you think you might be, or good those other people think they
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they might have, all the good
they might have done. And so your
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response is to repent, repent and
believe in Jesus, that Jesus was put
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on the Cross because of your sin
and you need to obey God's Law and
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Follow Him repent of your sin.
Believe that he is taken as far as
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the East is from the West,
so that you may know a life that
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is beautiful, a life of flourishing
and goodness and peace, and life of
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restoration and reconciliation between you and God. But whether you're are a Christian or
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whether you're not a Christian, you
also have to know this is that Jesus
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not just your prosecutor, he's also
your defense attorney. He stands between you
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and the wrath of God. Is
Perfect. Obedience to God's law should be
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the impetus for our obedience. Right
it should be, if you believe in
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him. Must we follow God's law? Yes, we have to, but
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the love of Jesus, for fools
like us, it changes are our our
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hearts to the point where we look
at God's law we say, not only
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do I have to follow God's law, but I want to. I want
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to do we love God's law more
than we do our pride. If we
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do, then we will respond to
others in love and we can lead them
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and the love of Christ. Let's
pray
