Episode Transcript
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Let's hear God's word from Romans Nine, verses four and five. Here we
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come to the last of the things
that Paul Mentions in this list, Christ
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himself, and I'm going to read
from verse one and through a verse five.
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Let's hear God's word. I'm speaking
the truth in Christ. I am
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not lying. My conscience bears me
witness in the Holy Spirit that I have
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great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my
heart, for I could wish that I
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myself were accursed and cut off from
Christ for the sake of my brothers,
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my kinsmen. According to the flesh, they are Israelites, and to them
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belong the adoption, the glory,
the covenants, the giving of the law,
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the worship and the promises. To
Them Belong the Patriarchs, and from
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their race, according to the Flesh, is the Christ, who is God
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over all, blessed forever. Amen, you may be seated. I heard
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this phrase once. Maybe I read
it on the title of a book.
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I'm not sure, but it essentially
said your God is too small. If
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it's not the title of a book, it might be a good one.
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Your God is too small. It
expresses something that's really true, and I
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think about it a lot because it's
something that we all, including me,
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fall into. Even when we worship
the true God, when we don't have
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our minds on any other God but
the one true living God of the Bible,
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we often do think of him a
lot smaller than he is. We
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love him a lot less than he
deserves. If you're not so sure about
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that, here's a test that you
can apply to see if I'm talking not
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just about myself, but maybe about
you too. Have you ever thought about
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your future, upcoming plans and and
then only to realize, maybe even years
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later, maybe even in this moment
right now, that in your thinking about
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your future and you're dreaming up your
visions of how things will be, that
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God didn't have any part of it, not a background role, not a
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supervising role, not an immediate note
role, just wasn't there. Have you
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ever thought about your future and where
God wasn't replaced, but he just was
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absent? Have you ever doubted one
of the attributes of God and the or
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maybe the extent of it? Maybe
you've doubted the depth of his love or
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the fairness of his justice? Maybe
he doesn't really know all things as he
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says. He does, or maybe
even though he knows all things, his
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ability to do all things or to
do all things well is limited in some
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way. If you have these kinds
of thoughts, doubt about God, about
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his attributes, if you don't think
of him and everything you do, perhaps
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your God, or the your conception
of God, is too small. Have
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you ever tried to flee from God, to get away from him or the
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things that he's doing, or if
you ever tried to control him, as
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though he was a statue that could
be tucked under a tent or a bunch
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of clothes? Have you ever thought
that God is unwilling to take care of
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you or unable to take care of
you, or that he's got all things
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in his hands? I think we
all have these thoughts and we all struggle
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with our small conceptions of God.
It's not that God has any fault in
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him. We often struggle in our
faith because our faith is not really in
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God, and at least in God
is he presents himself. But the good
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news is that our big God loves
us and he push is back on these
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misconceptions and he pulls out the rug
on them time and time again, and
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he loves to do this on Sundays
when we come and we hear his word
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and he speaks to us from the
Bible and he tells us I am not
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small. And when we say God, we are speaking, of course,
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of our triune God, Father,
son and Holy Spirit. Here Paul has,
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in Romans nine, Jesus particularly in
mind, the son of God,
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the second person of the Trinity,
when he says to them belong the Patriarchs
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and from their race according to the
flesh, is the Christ, who is
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God over all, blessed forever.
Amen. He pushes back on this.
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When Jesus comes into the world and
reveals God to us, when he casts
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out demons, when he walks on
water, when he forgives sins and heals
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ailments and disfigurements, when he reaches
into our hearts and knows them, we
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see that God, that Jesus,
is not small, but indeed he is
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God and he is God over all. It reminds us of his greatness.
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And in this they are all kinds
of implications, all kinds of ways,
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and I've hinted it some of them
already. Some of the ways in which
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we fail to conceive of God properly
are corrected here. or at least should
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be corrected here, when we submit
ourselves to his word, and there are
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a thousand others. God, who
is as great as he is, has
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implications for every detail and area of
our lives, and this is what our
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passage does. Today. I want
to help us all grow our conception of
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who God is by focusing on these
words that Paul uses when he talks about
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the Christ, who is God overall. But before we can talk about who
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is the Christ and understand we have
to understand what is the Christ. Maybe
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that's not a question you've thought about
very often, and it is a little
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odd to sounding, isn't it?
What is Christ? WHAT IS THE CHRIST?
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It sounds a little odd because we
know Jesus is the Christ and there
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is no other Christ, and his
name in fact gets so associated with that
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title Christ that it almost becomes like
his name, Jesus Christ, and he
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is use that way throughout throughout scripture. Who is Christ is the question people
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have been asking since Adam and Eve. Who is he going to be?
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WHO IS CHRIST? WHO IS THE
CHRIST? But whenever we ask that question
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we're asking it beat with a particular
understanding of the what in mind? What
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is Christ? So what is Christ? WHAT IS THE CHRIST? Well,
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Christaus is the Greek word for Messiah, which is a Hebrew word, and
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both these words Christ Messiah mean simply
anointed. They mean anointed. Now that's
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an old testament concept, anointing.
Anointing is an action where a person is
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marked as chosen, a person is
marked as set apart for a particular purpose
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and particularly unto God. So in
the Old Testament, as you read,
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there's all kinds of things that are
anointed. The furniture and various vessels in
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the temple, for example, were
anointed. What does that mean? It
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means that they were chosen, they
were marked out as being holy and specifically
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purpose to do something for the Lord
and of the Lord. So this lamp
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stand is now not just any old
lampstand, it is the lamp stand of
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God. It has been anointed.
Right, it's not just things, but
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also people. Before the priests could
serve as priests, we read that they
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had to be anointed, they had
to be marked off as people that were
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particularly belonging to the Lord. Now, this was often done with oil,
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but it symbolized the work of the
spirit of God be pouring out of the
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oil symbolize the pouring out of the
spirit, and you get these concepts coming
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together, for example in Isaiah Sixty
one one, where it says the spirit
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of the Lord Yahway is upon me, because Yahway has anointed me, God
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himself marking things and people off for
his service. But among all the things
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and people that were marked off and
set apart and anointed for this chosen,
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Holy Service of God, one thing, person stood above them. All other
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things were anointed, but one thing, the Christ, was the anointed,
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the anointed one. There was one
person, one particular anointed person, who
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stood about all, above all the
rest and for home all the rest belonged
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and to whom they were all connected. This anointed one, this Messiah,
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is Christ is prophesied about as far
back as the very first few books of
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the Bible, sometimes implicitly and subtly, sometimes very explicitly, like when in
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Deuteronomy Eighteen, Moses says there will
be a prophet who comes after me,
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who is like me. What does
he mean like? What does he mean
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by that when he says one who
is like me? Well, he means
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particularly one who is going to establish
something. Moses wasn't just any old prophet,
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he was the Prophet, he was
the special chosen one of God.
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The prophets that came after him were
it not like Moses. Moses established the
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word of God, he mediated a
covenant, he brought about a whole new
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order of things. The Messiah,
this coming Prophet of the Lord, prophesied
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by Moses, would be one who
would do this. He would also mediate
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a confidant. He would also establish
a whole new order, and this,
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of course, was Jesus. Moses
spoke about it. David spoke about it
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too, or rather, we can
say that the Lord first spoke about it
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to David when he promised David that
there would be an anointed one, a
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king, one of David's sons,
who would sit on his throne and establish
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the order of God, the Kingdom
of God, this royal this Royal Kingdom.
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We have all the prophecies. We
have Isaiah's Emmanuel God with us,
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this Messiah who would come as a
mighty king, ruling over the world,
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bringing salvation for many, for people
in particular, who are lost and broken
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and sad poor. When you go
back through the Old Testament and you read
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about the anointed one, when you
read about the Messiah, and there's a
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lot to read. You come up
with this picture of a conqueror, of
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a prophet, of a Savior,
of a servant, of a King,
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of a mediator, who would be
the son of Abraham, who would be
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the son of David, who would
be like a new Moses, he would
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be this promised seed who would destroy
the serpent, as was promised to eve.
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I know this is a lat especially
if you're not very familiar with the
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Bible, but the point is this. All the hopes and expectations of the
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Old Testament were leading and dependent on
this anointed one. The Salvation of the
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world, God's plans for humanity,
everything was dependent on this anointed one,
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this Christ, and that's who Jesus
is. The Christ, the Messiah,
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the anointed one, is the key
to everything God had been doing, and
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you can you can see that in
these words that he's already used in Romans
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nine, four through five, I've
so consider them with me briefly again.
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And how Jesus relates to each one
of these? Well, to Israel belongs
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of the adoption into the world through
them, through this Messiah. Well,
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how is this? Let me throw
in their glory as well. The second
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on this list, Hebrews. The
book of Hebrews, ties these two things
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together when it says that Jesus was
made like us. He took on flesh
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and became like his brothers so that
he could bring many sons. There's that
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connection to adoption, to glory.
Jesus came, the Messiah came into the
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world to gather worshippers up out of
the world. He is the fulfillment of
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the covenants and the promises of the
covenants. He is this new Moses,
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as we've thought about already. We
have here in this list the giving of
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the law, and indeed the Messiah
is intimately related to that as well.
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He is the reason for the law. He is why we must be holy.
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He who comes into the world to
judge it and to rule it,
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will rule it righteously, and we
are required to be righteous. But he
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is not only the righteous law giver, he is also the one who keeps
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the law on our behalf. He
was holy not just so that we could
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know what holiness is, but Jesus
was holy so that we could be holly
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in him as a substitute. The
sin that we confessed earlier are breaking of
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the law. That problem is solved
by Jesus. He blesses those who come
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in his name and curses those who
are apart from it. He is the
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answer to the law, he is
the fulfillment of the law and he fulfills
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it in us. He is,
in the worship of God, the promised
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sacrifices and indeed the aim of our
worship as well. He is the one
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who we worship and he is the
one to whom we are able to worship
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or through whom we come in order
to worship. He fulfills every promise God
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has ever made. He fulfills those
promises that we thought about, that God
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made to Abraham, that through him
a seed would come through whom all the
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nations of the world would be blessed. He belongs to those Patriarchs, as
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Paul points out here, is from
their flesh, but they are also his
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servants, as he says in John, before Abraham was I am the Messiah,
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then, we see, is the
one who brings all the things that
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God is given to Israel, all
these things that belong to them. He
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brings them all together in himself,
through himself, by himself, to himself.
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And when we put all this together, and we understand them as we
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have, as we've gone through them, we come to the undeniable conclusion that,
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Paul Makes, this anointed one is
not just another prophet, not just
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another king. In some ways,
though he's like Moses, he's also very
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unlike Moses too, because, as
Paul says, he's God. He is
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God. We come to this undeniable
conclusion that Jesus, this man born of
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Mary, is God, not just
one who's used by God, not just
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a holy person, a servant,
but God himself, God with us,
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not just in his works, but
in the person of the Sun. Isaiah
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does call him mighty God, and
when you read and remember of the words
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from the beginning of John, one
of these things are expressed to us very
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clearly about who the Christ is.
We read in the beginning was the word,
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and the word was with God,
and the word was God. He
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was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through him and without
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him was not anything made. That
was made in him was life, and
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the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and
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the darkness does not overcome it.
What is John Telling us? Is Telling
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US what Paul tells us, that
Jesus is not just a servants, he's
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not just an anointed one, he
is God himself. He is eternal from
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the beginning with God, he is
the Creator, he is the giver of
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Life, and Paul makes that point
here too. From Israel, Abraham,
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Isaac Jacob, this woman made named
Mary, the light of the world,
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came into the darkness, the son
of God who took on humanity to be
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the Christ he came. When you
think about that and you go back and
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you think about all those Christmas stories
that come from the Gospels, when you
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think about the fact that God himself
came into the world to fulfill all the
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promises that he had made in the
Old Testament, is it any wonder that
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his birth was accompanied by Miraculous Stars
in the heavens, choirs of angels seeing
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prophecies being fulfilled, the birth of
a or the giving of birth from a
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virgin? This is amazing. These
stories that we have are like fireworks going
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off in the sky, in some
ways somewhat literally, telling us he's here.
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The grave promised anointed one has come, and you see it not only
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in all the announcing that God does
through the angels and and all the other
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things that go on, but in
the the antagonism and hatred that comes from
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the Lord's enemies, Satan doesn't see
this is no big deal, just another
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servant, just another prophet to be
killed off. No, immediately his plans
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go to work. We see an
explosion of demonic activity throughout the gospels that
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we don't see in the rest of
the Bible. We see the King Herod
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trying to destroy all the babies in
the land to make sure that this king,
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this prophesied King, this Messiah,
would not come to pass, that
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he would be put to death.
You see it all throughout the Bible.
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Even after Jesus first starts his ministry. What happens? He goes out into
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the Wilderness and there Satan is tempting
him, trying him, trying to overcome
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him. All these things are just
reminders to us that Jesus, again,
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is not some ordinary servant of God, not even an amazing servant of God,
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or even the best one. He
is God, the anointed one who
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has come is God and he is, as Paul goes on to say,
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the last a part of this God
over all. This is where we get
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even more to the bigness of God, as we thought about as I began
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your God. I hope you are
already seeing your conception of God is too
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small. Paul presses this point even
further when he says he is God over
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all. Now this, of course, may seem obvious if we seem if
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we say that Jesus is God,
that he is the Messiah, the Christ,
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isn't it enough? Isn't that say
that he has God over all?
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But remember how often we think of
God is small. And it's not just
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us. Israel did it too.
Israel's neighbors did it too. Israel went
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and worshiped other gods. Can you
believe it? They worshiped other gods because
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they didn't conceive of God properly.
And if and then they did, they
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didn't care. They didn't fear the
Lord. Israel's neighbors did the same thing.
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There's this amazing story in the book
of Daniel where Nebuchadnezzar, this great
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Babylonian King, I'm goes out in
a great amount of pride. He goes.
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This is a Daniel Chapter nine.
I'm going to read a little bit
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to you. I'm sorry, Daniel
Four. Neverchadnezzar goes out on his balcony
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and proclaims this great thing, even
after this has been prophesied and he's been
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warned against this and all the rest. Never Cannezzar, this great Babylonian King.
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He goes out and he says,
is not this great Babylon, this
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is a verse thirty. If you're
reading along, which I have built by
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my mighty power as a royal residence
for the glory of My Majesty, You,
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I always imagine him. They are
sort of standing out on the balcony
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of his palace. His arms are
probably behind him or on his hips or
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something like that. You know he's
looking. He's looking out at his kingdom
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right and no doubt he saw some
glorious things, buildings with columns, gardens
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that were magnificent, slaves and people
and all kinds of things all over the
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place, and he looks out he
says, I'm amazing, look at what
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I have done by my hand.
I have done all these things to the
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glory of My Majesty. But then
comes verse thirty one. Your God is
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to or your God is too small. While the words were still in the
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king's mouth, a voice fell from
heaven. o King Nebuchadnezzar, to you,
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it is spoken the Kingdom has departed
from you, and you shall be
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driven from among them, and your
dwelling shall be with the beasts of the
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field, and you shall be made
to eat grass like an ox, and
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seven periods of time shall pass on
over you, until you know that the
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most high rules the Kingdom of men
and gives it to whom he will.
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Immediately. The word was fulfilled against
Nebuchadnezzar. Kids, listen to what happened
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to him. He was driven among
men and ate grass like an ox.
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Can you imagine going out and seeing
your former king in the fields eating grass
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like an ox? His body was
wet with the dew of heaven till his
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hair grew as long as eagles feathers
and his nails were like birds claws.
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At the end of the days,
this wild Nebuchadnezzar, who was once so
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grand and now had been brought so
low in this beast like way. When
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God said, okay, Time's up, you can come out of your time
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out, Nebuchadnezzar lifts his eyes up
to heaven, his reason returns to him
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and he blesses the most high and
listen what he says. Dominion is an
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Everlasting Dominion and his kingdom endures from
generation to generation. He's not talking about
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his kingdom, Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom, he's
talking about God's. All the inhabitants on
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the earth are accounted as nothing,
and he does according to his will among
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the host of Heaven and among the
inhabitants of the earth, and none can
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stay his hand or say to him, what have you done? Nebuchadnezzar,
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at least at this moment, is
at least beginning to get it. And
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this is the conception, at least
the beginning of the conception that we are
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to have, of Jesus, the
son of God, who comes in the
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world, who is God over all, who does his who does the father's
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will in heaven and on Earth.
This awesome power of God who rules over
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all, this Jesus, who has
come into the world, whom all authority
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in Heaven and earth has been given
to you, I imagine, will make
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you feel one of two things,
depending on whether or not you know or
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and trust him as the Christ.
If you live apart from him, if
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you refuse him, if you hate
him, if you wish to stone him
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and deride him and reject him,
even as the people of his own day
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did, even as his own people
did. If you hear this news that
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he proclaims and said in his saying
I am the son of God, I
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am the light of the world,
I am the savior, and you hear
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that and you say, I hate
him, I don't want to have anything
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to do with him. Then to
hear that he is the God over all,
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that he is the one who can
take the mightiest king of the world
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and put him on his knees,
then I hope that makes you fear,
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because who dares cross the God over
all, who dares ignore him and refuse
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him? All that is owed to
God is owed to Jesus, and all
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that is owed to God is everything, and no amount of bargaining or pleading
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will allow you to escape his righteous
judgment on your pride. If God can
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bring low a king as mighty as
King Nebuchadnezzar, certainly he can do it
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with peons like you and me.
God is powerful, our Lord Jesus is
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powerful and he promises that when he
comes on his day, he will rule
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all all things. We will see
coming under subject action to him. There
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will be people who cry for the
rocks to fall on them because of their
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fear, but it is also because
of this awesome power that we can be
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saved, because Jesus comes as the
divine King, as the Divine Prophet,
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is the Divine Warrior, as the
divine priest. It means that Jesus is
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able to accomplish everything that he promises
to do. It means that when God
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sends Jesus and the world, he
doesn't send Moses, who messed up so
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bad that he wasn't able to go
into the promised land. It doesn't mean
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he sent David, who sinned very
greatly and his kingdom eventually fell apart because
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of it, or he didn't send
any number of the other kings of Israel
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and prophets who failed over and over
again. He sent the son, the
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father, sent the son who did
it all and did it perfectly. And
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by this awesome power, by this
authority, he transgresses every single human boundary
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that keeps US apart. He crosses
over racial boundaries, familial boundaries, national
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boundaries, cultural boundaries. He takes
Jews and one hand and gentiles of the
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other hand, and they hugs them
all and says you're my he takes us,
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whether we're rich or poor, wise
or stupid, and he takes us
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all together and he glorifies himself by
drawing people from all over the world.
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He is not a provincial God.
He's not just the God of the Jews,
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though he is reveals himself from the
Jews, and though Jesus comes from
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the Jews, he's not a provincial
God that's tied to a particular territory or
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household. Yes, he is the
God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob,
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but through Christ he becomes the God
of us all. He's not a small
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territorial God or a philosophy of some
ivory tower or little cafe. He is
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the Christ, he is the God
over all and he comes into the world
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to save the world. He is
the hope of the world, the light
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of the world. And so that
means that if you are a Jew and
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to you belongs the Christ, what
reason do you have to refuse him?
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What reason do you have to walk
away, to not give you the to
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not receive the thing that God has
been promising from the very beginning? And
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if you are a gentile, if
you're not a Jew. It means that
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you don't need to stand outside looking
in, hoping, wishing, wonder.
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It means that you don't need to
sneak or beg or bargain with God,
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but you simply walk freely into the
Kingdom with the invitation in your hand,
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saying this belongs to me, this
is my residency card. I own this.
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It belongs to me because it's been
offered to me freely by the father
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in his son. This is why
Paul concludes this whole section by saying blessed
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forever. Moving back to my Bible, here to Romans Nine, he says
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to them belong the Patriarchs and from
their race, according to the Flesh,
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is the Christ, who is God
over all, blessed forever. A men,
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God is of course blessed forever.
He's glorious forever. Everything that is
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good is always forever in God,
and that is just yet another reason to
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worship and praise him. But it
affects us in this way. If God
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is blessed forever and gives us his
son, who is blessed forever, that
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we might abide in him, it
means that he's giving to us in himself
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blessing forever. Everything, every good
thing that God has ever desired and ever
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will desire for us as his people, comes to us in Christ. When
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we abide in him, we have
everything. Happiness to the highest degree,
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joy that is complete, life that
is eternal, every way that you can
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come at that blessing, every door
that you can come into that room to
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explore. What does that mean?
It's all for us. It's all for
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us in Christ. So do not
reject him, do not stand far off,
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do not wonder if it's all really
true, because it is true.
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Jesus is the Christ, the son
of God, who is over all and
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blessed forever, and we are blessed
in him, whether we are Jews or
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whether we are gentiles. All the
things that have been given to this people,
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the Israelites, have now been given
to the world, to all who
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believe in him, in the anointed
one, in God. Let us pray
