Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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If you're able, please remain standing
and will hear God's word this evening from
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Philippians chapter four, Philippians four,
two through nine. Hear the word of
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the Lord. I entreat IODIA and
I entreat Syndici to agree in the Lord.
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Yes, I ask you, also, true companion, help these women
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who have labored side by side with
me in the Gospel, together with Clement
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and the rest of my fellow workers
whose names are in the book of life.
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Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice.
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Let your reasonableness be known to every
one. The Lord is at hand.
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Do not be anxious about anything,
but in everything, by prayer and supplication,
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with Thanksgiving, let your requests be
made known to God, and the
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peace of God, which surpasses all
understanding, will guard your hearts and your
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minds in Christ Jesus. Finally,
brothers, whatever is true, whatever is
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honorable, whatever is just, whatever
is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever
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is commendable, if there is excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise,
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think about these things, what you
have learned and received and heard and
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seen in me. Practice these things
and the God of peace will be with
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you. God bless the Reading and
preaching of his word may be seated well
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here. At the end of the
book of Philippians and the chapter four,
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versus two through nine, Paul begins
to close his letter to this church with
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some instructions. Some of them are
very specific, addressed specifically to two women,
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even named, possibly even a third
named person. Will come to that
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a little bit later. But addressed
to these two specific women who are told
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that they need to get along.
I'm. He entreats them, I'm,
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openly and publicly, perhaps indicating that
there was some kind of public nature to
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their dispute. He calls them to
agree in the Lord. But in addition
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to these specific instructions to the specific
individuals, Paul also gives instructions in a
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general way that without a doubt apply
to our church, to covenant OPC just
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as much as it did to the
Philippian Church, instructions that we are to
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heed, to he year and to
follow. I'm just as Paul says,
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they're at the end of Philippians four, verse nine. He says, what
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you have learned and received and heard
and seen in me practice these things.
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This is what our God has called
us to do through his through his apostle
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we also, though the Apostle Paul
hasn't been among us in person, has
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certainly been among us in other ways. We have his his acts, his
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works, his life given to us
in quite a bit of detail in the
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pages of scripture, in the acts
of the apostles, in that book and
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and throughout this letter and in many
other places. I'm there are many ways
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in which we can look and see
each of these things. I'm written for
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us. Commands to follow, but
also commands that are written in the example
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of this apostle, commands that teach
us as as church who we are ought
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to be, the kind of church
that we ought to be. So I
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want to consider those with you tonight, thinking very particularly about our particular church.
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What kind of church has God called
us to be? Well, first
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in verses two through three. will
go through these in order. I'm versus
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two through three. God calls us
to be a unified church. This comes
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out implicitly in his exhortation or admonishment
to Yodia and to synthikeate. He says
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that they are to have unity with
each other, we are to find peace
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among themselves. The fact that this
applies to us is obvious. I think
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I'm just from it being written.
But to prove it with yet one other
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thing, we could note that what
he says to them to be of one
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mind or to agree in the Lord, is something that he's said at other
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times and in other ways throughout the
letter. You Remember, back in Ephesians
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chapter two, verse two, Paul
says this. He says, complete my
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joy by being of the same mind. He also says in verse three,
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do not thing from selfish ambition or
conceit, but in humility, count others
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more significant than yourselves. or in
verse five, have this mind among yourselves,
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which is yours in Christ Jesus.
And these various ways, Paul calls
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us to seek unity. He says
a similar thing we read earlier in Romans
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Fourteen. He says welcome the weak
brother, but not to quarrel with him.
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We of course do this. We
find people that we can disagree with
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simply for the purpose of disagreeing,
I'm not for the purpose of finding unity,
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not for the purpose of coming closer
together. Paul, here, I'm
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doesn't take sides, he doesn't tell
one and he doesn't actually give them very
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specific instructions about what to do.
He simply says, you need to agree,
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you need to work it out.
He puts the responsibility on them.
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He says, in a certain sense, you're mature enough to handle this.
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I'm you need to come to one
mind. He calls this, he calls
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them to this, and also,
I'm calls the church to this as well.
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He addresses someone in verse three and
asks that this person help them.
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He says, yes, I ask
you, true companion, help these women
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who have labored side by side with
me in the Gospel, together with Clement
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and the rest of my fellow new
workers whose names are written in the book
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of life. There's the sense that
these women, along with Clement and along
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with this other, possibly unnamed person, have all been a part of the
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same team, along with Paul,
working together for the sake of the Gospel.
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He doesn't say exactly in what ways, but they are laboring side by
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side, even as he has called
us to do in the church. I
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don't mean to be coy about this
third person. I'll just kind of get
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this out of the way. It's
a little bit difficult to know who he's
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addressing in the way it's translated here
in the ESV. It doesn't a name,
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a particular person, and all kinds
of guesses have been made as to
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who it is he's addressing, without
any particular person being very convincing and conclusive.
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One possibility you might see in your
notes is that a word that he
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uses here is actually a proper name
when he says I ask of also of
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you, true companion. In the
notes here it says or loyal, scissor,
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sidgus. This is a possibly he's
it's a it's a person who's named
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after a quality, like a lady
might be named peace or or something like
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that. Something like that may be
going on here. It doesn't matter a
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whole lot, just to have kind
of move that out of the way and
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say that what we do have,
clearly, though, here, are specific
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people, I'm laboring side by side
For the sake of the Gospel, and
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Paul wants them to remember that and
to seek their unity in in remembering that.
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Well, the same is true for
us. I'm dismemberment harms the church
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as much as it harms the physical
body, and so unity must be one
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of our main objectives. We must
do it whenever we can and whenever we
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can to bring ourselves together. So
we are called to be unified and to
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have peace. Then in verse four
he says that we are to rejoice,
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we are to be a rejoicing people. This is clear enough. Rejoice in
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the Lord always. Again, I
will say rejoice. Paul repeats it explicitly
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twice, even tells you that he's
repeating it. Rejoice in the Lord always.
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Again I will say rejoice. And
Paul has been rejoicing throughout the letter
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for various reasons. He's called us
to rejoice, if you remember, back
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in a chapter three, verse one. Finally, my brother's rejoice in the
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Lord. So in addition to being
a unified people, we are called to
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be a people that rejoices. We
are to people, be a people who
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knows what it means to have joy
and to let it spill out in prayer
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and in praise. And if you
think about it, there is of course
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much to give thanks for. Think
about what God has done for you,
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just in your physical and temporal needs. Has God not cared for you abundantly
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and in many ways, even in
spite of your many sins? As God
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not provided for you food and clothing, strengthen your body, all kinds of
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pleasures and good things, music to
listen to, things to watch and read
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and enjoy a family, friends and
if you are a Christian, you can
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add to this a whole host of
spiritual brought blessings as well. You are
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a child of God. The Holy
Spirit has enlightened your mind so that you're
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no longer pursuing sin and darkness and
death. I'm he's given you the Scriptures
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and is opened and revealed him self
in his word. He's strengthened your will
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so that you might live your lives
in accordance with that word. He's giving
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you security in his death and in
his resurrection. He's given you confidence in
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your prayers and forgiveness for your sins, and the list just goes on and
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on and on. Isn't God good? Isn't God good? Doesn't he take
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care of US and provide for us
in every way? Paul says that we
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are to be characterized, the Church
of God is to be characterized, by
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rejoicing, and of course he does. We have much to rejoice in,
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and the rejoicing of Christians, he
says, is not a one time thing
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that sort of snuffed out in a
moment, but it is a thing that
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happens always and difficult circumstances as well. We remember that this one who is
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calling to calling us to rejoice,
Paul, is one who sits in a
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prison as he writes these things,
as one who is enduring persecution for preaching
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the Gospel, is one who is
suffering the attacks of even other people in
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the church. And he says,
this one in prison, this one suffering
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these things and many others in his
life, says rejoice, be thankful,
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James says in his letter, in
James one hundred and seventeen, every good
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gift and every perfect gift is from
above, coming down from the father of
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lights and whom there is no very
shan or shadows do to change. To
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connect those ideas that God is good
and that he doesn't change, that he
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is the father of lights and whom
there is no shadow and whom there is
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no variation due to change, and
that he is good and provides good for
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us, should indeed cause us to
rejoice and to rejoice always. So we
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are to be a unified church,
we are also to be a rejoicing church.
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Next, he says that we are
to be a reasonable people. He
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says we are to be a reasonable
people. Let your reasonableness be known to
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everyone. The Lord he goes on
to say is hand be reasonable. Other
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translations, other English translates and translations
translate this as as gentleness. I think
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Luther had it right when he said
that we are to be those who don't
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insist on our own rights. There's
a sense in which it had reasonable here
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is used in the sense not of
being smart, but in the sense that
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you might say to someone, come
on, be reasonable, that kind of
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tone of voice, that sort of
meaning behind it. Don't insist on everything
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that you might insist on. Show
some gentleness, show some compassion, be
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reasonable here. Consider others interests along
with your own. Remember, Paul says
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that at the beginning of the letter. I'm going back to Luther or I
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want to read to you a little
bit from an illustration he gives of this.
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Luther writes, I can't illustrate this
any better than to them by two
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good friends. How you see them
treat one another is how we should treat
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all people. Now, how do
these two act? Each one conducts himself
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in a way that benefits the other
che each one forfeits, yields, tolerates,
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does allows what they perceive as useful
and beneficial to the other. And
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all of this is done freely,
uncompelled, so each one accommodates and adapts
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their self to the other. Neither
compels the other to act for their benefit,
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and so if one infringes on the
other's rights, they forgive them.
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In brief, there is no law, no rights, no compulsion, no
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necessity, but rather pure freedom in
favor. Everything is done in such abundance
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that even by law and compulsion,
we would not be able to produce even
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a hundredth as much. And this
is true, isn't it? You can
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try, for example, in your
workplace, to set a kind of a
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mission statement and, and I was
set of rules. This is how we
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treat each other in this workplace.
In your families, you can set a
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list of rules and and regulations down
to the finest details about how we will
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speak and how we will act.
And even if those, even if the
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rules were kept exactly, it wouldn't
have the joy and the freedom and the
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love that comes out when we are
reasonable with each other, when we are
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gentle with each other and loving toward
one another, when we're not insisting on
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our rights and insisting that everything be
perfect. All the time exactly in the
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way that we think it ought to
be. One good example of that,
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going back to the passage we read
earlier in Romans Fourteen, is a perfect
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example of that. It's not an
ideal situation Paul describes there. The weak
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person is characterized as weak, the
strong person is characterized as strong. There's
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a kind of inequality among the among
the faith of these diff varying believers.
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There are mistakes and difficulties. It's
kind of a messy situation, but he
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calls them to love nevertheless. He
calls them not to all everybody insist on
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their own rights, but to be
gracious and gentle toward one another. This
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is to be true of our church
as well. We are to be a
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reasonable people, a gentle people,
people that do not insist on their own
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rights, but treat each other,
even those we might have a hard time
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getting along with, as friends.
So we are to be unified, we
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are to rejoice, we are to
be reasonable, and then we are to
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be prayerful. Excuse me, the
air conditioning keeps blowing my pages away.
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Here we are to be prayerful.
He says this in verses six and following.
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Do not be anxious about anything,
but in everything, by prayer and
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supplication, with Thanksgiving, let your
requests be made known to God, and
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the peace of God, which surpasses
all understanding, will guard your hearts and
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your minds. In Christ Jesus,
when you think about the anxious person,
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I hope you'll think of a slave. An anxious person is a slave.
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There are a slave of the things
that they're anxious about, whether it's a
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particular fear they have, is often
someth what it is, or a particular
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love that they have. People are
anxious about money, people are anxious about
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getting things done, they're anxious of
people's perceptions or their particular cares or responsibilities.
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Sometimes they're anxious about things that are
terrible and you should never love to
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the smallest degree. But oftentimes we're
anxious about good things, but we are
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anxious and fearful and slaves to them
in a kind of inordinate and unholy and
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even sinful way. We are in
we are slaves to them. We are
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not slaves to God. When we
are ruled by our our care for money
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or people's perception or getting things done
or any number of things you might list,
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we are, it trapped we are
enslaved. The answer is not to
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give up on good things, nor
is it simply to wait for a favorable
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solution from God before we finally say, okay, well, I don't have
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to be anxious anymore. What is
scripture say? The answer is to our
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anxiety. It is to pray,
simply to pray. John Calvin compares prayer
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to an asylum. It's a place
that you can run to and seek protection
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when you are tormented. We do
so with Thanksgiving, a sort of on
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the way there, and while we
are there we lift our hearts up with
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Thanksgiving, because we come to God
knowing that he will answer prayer. If
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you come to God not believing that
he will answer, what kind of prayer
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is that? If you go,
for example, and you ask your boss
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for a raise that you know they
won't give and don't have the money in
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the budget to give sort of what's
the point? Do you think your boss
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will hear you? And if your
boss knows your heart on these things and
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he knows that you know the money's
that there and he knows that you know
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you haven't been performing well and he
knows that you know, he won't give
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it to you. It's nothing more
than mocking, perhaps an action of insubordination,
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of causing strife. Whatever it is, it's not good when you do
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the same thing, when we go
to God, not believing, not with
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Thanksgiving and praise in the God who
is good, as we've talked about earlier,
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the God who takes care of us. No, we go to God
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in faith, knowing that he hears
our prayers, that he is good,
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as we read from James or we
remember from Jesus's words that, like a
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father, he is pleased to take
care of his children. He gives us
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what we need. He even tells
us to pray for what we need.
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When you pray, pray like this
and give us our daily bread. God
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calls us to ask for these things
and says that he will take care of
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us. And so we have anxieties. Rather than making up excuses for why
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we are rightfully so anxious about these
things, or rather than simply waiting for
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them to be over, we are
called to be a prayer for prayerful people,
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to go to God and to rest
on him for these things. We
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are called to pray and when we
do so, we are told that a
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peace, a peace which surpasses understanding, will guard your hearts and minds.
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The image is like a battalion of
soldiers guarding and protecting. God says that
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when we go to him in prayer, constant prayer, he will protect our
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inward lives from going a muck.
So we are to be a prayerful church,
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a unified church, a rejoicing church, a reasonable church. All of
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this is concluded. All of this
is concluded in verses eight, when Paul
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says he gives this kind of statement, this long list of things by which
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we are to then judge all things. One way you might connect these various
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ideas is each of these things that
we've been called to be prayerful, rejoicing,
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reasonable, unified. We are to
approached it and to strive after it
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through this particular lens as well as
the rest of life. It's a way
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to direct our prayers, to focus
our thoughts, to find unity and rejoicing
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and many more things. What does
he say? Verse Eight? He says,
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finally, Brothers, whatever is true, honorable, just, pure,
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lovely, commendable, excellent or worthy
of praise, think about these things.
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What are our conversations like? What
are the things that we talk about.
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What are the things that we enjoy
when we com together and fellowship with one
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another? What are the things that
we are pointing one another toward? These
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are the things that are to be
the work of our minds and hearts,
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things that are true and noble and
excellent and Pure and praiseworthy. Through,
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through this filter, everything that we
come into contact must pass, and not
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just once but continually. Notice the
verb Paul uses. He says practice these
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things. He says, practice these
things, practice, grow in them,
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try it again and again and again. Become in the habit of thinking on
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these things. In them you will
not only find holiness, but a holy
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God. You will not only find
peace, but a god of peace,
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as he says, practice these things
and the god of peace will be with
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you. So this is the kind
of church God calls us to be,
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a church that is unified, a
church that is reasonable, a church that
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is a rejoicing and prayerful, a
church that thinks about things that are excellent
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and praiseworthy and loves to meditate on
them and dwell on them, a church
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that directs all of our hearts and
our thoughts on through that particular lens or
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filter. Now I will have failed
entirely at my job if I were not
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to say that these things were entirely
impossible and told and are totally unattainable to
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those who live their lives apart from
God. We can't simply say these things
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and say here is what you are
to be, now go and do them,
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as if it were that easy.
We know in our sinful flesh,
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as we hear these things over and
over, that we have not done them,
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that we are at Church, that
is guilty, at Fay, and
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Fay has failed at every single one
of these points. We can think about
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it in our individual lives and some
of our relationships with one another, and
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we can think of it a corporately
as well, not just here but our
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denomination and Christianity as a whole.
We have not always done well on these
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things. In fact we've probably done
more poorly than we've done well. We
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don't have anything here that we can
pat our backs on, our pat our
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backs and say keep on keeping on. There is a lot to be humbled
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about, but it is even worse
for the one who seeks of these things
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apart from God. They're not just
difficult and and challenging, but they are
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impossible, entirely unattainable, and the
scripture is very clear about this. These
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commands and the expectation for their fulfillment
is directed specifically at believers, specifically at
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these believers, and the same is
true for these promises. Take a look
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at them again briefly, verses two
and three. This unity that they have
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is not an arbitrary unity. It's
not a unity that they are here to
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be seeking in something that is that
is simply decided upon from them, but
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they seek a unity in something that
is higher than them, namely the Gospel,
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which convicts them of their sin and
promises salvation in the death of Christ
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as those who are unified in him
and him in his death. These sisters,
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this church is to seek a unity
that they already have. They are
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not to attain it entirely, as
as though they were to work for it
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and simply attained on their own.
They are to strive to and enjoy a
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closeness that they already possess. They
are already sisters, they already work side
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by side for the sake of the
Gospel and are united in it. In
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a sense, you could say it's
not so much about getting a blessing,
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but getting out of its way.
They are called to be unified, not
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in something arbitrary but in something foundational, and that's namely the Gospel, something
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that his unified them together before they
unified themselves. Similar thing is true with
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rejoicing. Those who rejoice apart from
Christ have a baseless joy. They have
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they treasure things that will soon be
taken away and removed. That's not the
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case for Christians, though. We
can be commanded and expected to rejoice and
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even fulfill it in a certain measure, rejoicing in all things, because we
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rejoice specifically in the Lord. Hardships
don't overly concern us or trouble us because
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we have Christ Christian martyrs can go
to their death and say, you can
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take my life from me, because
I have everything and you can't take him
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from me. Nothing can separate me
from his love because of the strength of
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his love, not because of the
strength of my faith, but because of
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what he has done. It is
God who guards and protects and works for
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our good. It is God who
has forgiven our sins, resurrection from death
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and victory over Satan. We are
freed from sin and therefore freed to rejoice.
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But if you are enslave to your
sins, what is there to rejoice
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in? What is there to rejoice
and when all the world and even God
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himself is against you? To consider
the good things of God and yet were
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to reject him is only to incur
a greater ground for his judgment. But
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those of us who worship and rejoice
in the Lord do indeed have something to
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rejoice in. This is why Paul's
reminder at the end of verse five the
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beginning of verse six is so helpful. He says the Lord is at hand.
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When you know that the Almighty God
loves you, how easy it is
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to let go of fear, to
let go of your rights, to let
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go of your slavery. It is
God who works in us. It is
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God who is protecting us and is
watching out for us. These thoughts,
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these assurances of our salvation, are
the things that start to put to death
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our fears, our anxieties, our
slavery's you remember what David says and the
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Psalms. Though I walk through the
Valley of the shadow of death, I
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will fear no evil because of God
watches over him, who is his rock,
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who is his salvation, who are
the WHO has the wings that overshadow
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him and protect him. This is
why we can find unity and rejoicing in
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gentleness and prayer, because we find
it not in some arbitrary standard or some
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kind of end to which we are
trying to attain, but because of God,
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because of what he has done for
us already in Christ because of the
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kind of people he is established.
We're not trying to establish the church that's
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already happened. We are simply trying
to act in accordance what God has given
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us. A church that is adorned
with these graces described here is a church
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that is adorned in this way not
because of her amazing effort, but because
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of God's amazing grace. Another way
to think about it is to say that
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the peace of God belongs to us. When we belong to the God of
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peace, when we are taken care
of him, we are taking care by
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him. When he watches over us, we know that we are watched over.
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When we pray to him, we
know that he hears our prayers.
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We belong to him because he has
made us his own, and that's what
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it means to hear these commands as
Christians. It's to hear them, not
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in the strength of our own wills
and to get up and say we will
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create this church, but it is
to say this is who God has made
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us to be, this is the
kind of place, in the kind of
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people he has created through the work
of his son, through the Holy Spirit,
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in welling us, the trying and
God has worked in us. And
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it is entirely in this perspective that
Paul is framing all these commands to rejoice
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in the Lord, to pray with
Thanksgiving in the Lord, to find peace
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in God, to be united side
by side in the Gospel. All of
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these things remind us that, as
we just seek and desire to be the
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kind of people God has called us
to be, we do it knowing that
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God is the God is the kind
of God who he is. So we
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are called not merely to seek morality
but to seek God, not just excellent
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and praiseworthy things, but the excellent
and praiseworthy king who has revealed himself to
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us in Jesus Christ and the God
of all grace in the good news to
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us is not only that he has
he revealed himself very freely in this way,
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but they the god is also promised
that all those who seek him will
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find him. So let us seek
him, let us search after these kinds
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of things and these graces that he
has has called us to. Let us
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seek to obey the commands that he
has given us as a people that have
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been called and made in his name, because when we seek after God,
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we will find him and he will
bless us. Let us pray
