Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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If you're able to remain standing,
please do and give your attention to Ephesians
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chapter one. I'm going to be
preaching on some words from versus six and
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seven, but I'm going to read
one beginning at the at the beginning of
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the chapter, Chapter One. Ephesians
chapter one, let's give our attention to
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God's word. Paul and Apostle of
Christ Jesus, by the will of God,
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to the saints who are in Ephesus
and are faithful in Christ Jesus,
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grace to you and peace from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Blessed be the God and father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, WHO's blessed
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us in Christ with every spiritual blessing
in the heavenly places, even as he
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chose us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be
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holy and blameless before him. In
love, he predestined us for adoption as
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sons through Jesus Christ, according to
the purpose of his will, to the
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praise of his glorious grace with which
he has blessed us in the beloved.
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In Him, we have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses,
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according to the riches of His grace
which he lavished upon us, and
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all wisdom and insight, making known
to us the mystery of his will,
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according to his purpose, which he
set forth in Christ as a plan for
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the fullness of time to unite all
things in him, things in heaven and
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things on earth. In Him,
we have obtained an inheritance, having been
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predestined according to the purpose of him
who works all things according to the counsel
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of his will, so that we, who were the first to hope in
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Christ, might be to the praise
of his glory. In Him, you
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also, when you heard the word
of truth, the Gospel of your salvation
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and believed in him. We're sealed
with the promised Holy Spirit, who is
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the guarantee of our inheritance until we
acquire possession of it, to the praise
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of his glory, you may be
seated. What marvelous passage. I just
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can't get over how rich this is, so dense, so packed. Perhaps
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you've done a little bit with stones
before, minerals and things like that,
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and you know some things are like
Pummus, very light, and other things
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surprisingly heavy, surprisingly dense. This
passage is definitely like that, so full
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and that's one reason we've been moving
slowly, carefully unpacking on these various things
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that Paul is is bringing to our
attension here. But as we do that,
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I don't want you to to lose
the sense of movement that and the
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objective that Paul has here, which
is to bring us to praise, to
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the praise of his glory, as
it mentions a few times, or as
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we have in verse three, blessed
be the God and father of our Lord,
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Jesus Christ, who has blessed us
in Christ with every spiritual blessing in
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the heavenly places. The theme of
Ephesians is very much about what Paul says
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in Verse Ten, that in Christ, in the fullness of time, he
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is uniting all things in in him, things in heaven and things on Earth,
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and we are going to spend a
lot of time thinking as we go
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through this book about what that means. The new creation is inaugurated and united
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in Christ. But before we get
to unpacking that in more and more detail,
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Paul is just pouring into our minds
the one who has united these things,
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what it is that he has done, how it is we have been
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made a part of them. He
is and so tonight we continue our meditation
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on the Wondrous Works of God,
these works by which he has established something
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new, something wonderful. Paul's expression
of this began in verse three, as
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I just read, in kind of
a general way, general just meaning in
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an overview, comprehensive way, when
he says who has blessed us in Christ
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with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly
places. Then he goes on from there,
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and this is leading up to where
we are tonight. I'm bringing you
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up to versus six and seven.
After verse three, he establishes the beginning
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of this new work, which is
really a beginning before the beginnings, right,
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because he says even as he chose
us in him, before the foundation
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of the world, so before the
Bible says in the beginning God created the
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heavens and the earth, the Bible
recognizes or tells us that there was something
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before that, in some way humanly
speaking, something in the mind of God,
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in an action of God, even
before the foundation of the world,
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in which we were chosen in him. And then he gives us a reason
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for that, the purpose. So
if that's the beginning of the foundation of
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the work that God is doing.
Then he tells us about the end,
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and it's this that we should be
holy and blameless before him. Then he
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goes back to the beginning and says
in love he predestined us. Then here's
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the reason why, for adoption as
sons through Jesus Christ, according to the
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purpose of his will, to the
praise of his glaorous grace, and that's
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what we've covered so far. Tonight
we begin with the phrase with which he
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has blessed us in the beloved.
We begin here because Paul breaks up these
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passages not according to the sentences that
we have in our English translation, but
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according to these periods that I talked
about long time ago, back at the
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beginning. You can go listen to
that sermon if you're a little if you're
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interested in that. Paul begins a
new period here, a new a new
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breath, a new thought, and
we don't usually begin our English sentences that
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with the word which, but Paul
Paul does in a way. Here he
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says which he has blessed us in
the beloved. This is a remarkable thing
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that he says here and I do
want to draw your attention to it.
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It's remarkable for a few reasons.
One is that Paul doesn't describe Jesus Christ
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this way very often in his letters. I'm it does happen, but it's
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not frequent. This word beloved.
He usually uses the words that we've had
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already. Converse one he called Jesus. He referred to him as Christ,
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Jesus or in Verse Three, Lord
Jesus Christ and, by implications, son
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of the father. Verse then he
calls him again Christ in verse three.
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Then in verse five, again Jesus
Christ. So we have these this frequent
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title Jesus Christ, Jesus or Jesus
Christ, back and forth, I'm a
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reference to him as a son.
And then he describes him here as the
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beloved. Why? Why does Paul
talk about him in this way now,
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with with which he has blessed us
in the beloved? Why here and why
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now? Well, one reason is
it's to remind us of the of the
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the context or the way in which
God has been saving us. Remember just
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a few verses before when he says
in love he predestined us for adoption.
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We are loved not just in general, we are loved in Christ according to
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the will of the father who has
loved him. Now, if this sounds
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like I'm about to repreach my sermon
from this morning. That's because I am.
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No, I won't do that much, but it's very much the same
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idea here, and don't be surprised, this is a major theme in scripture,
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that the love which we were,
the love we have, the love
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that we have been saved by,
is not a generic love. You don't
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even want to think of it as
God. Am Sort of this abstract divinity
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loving in some way, but it's
very particular, the Triune God, Father,
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son and Holy Spirit loving us in
Christ, loving us through the beloved
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one. Let me point to you, especially for those who weren't here this
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morning, to John, John Chapter
Ten, and will read just a couple
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verses there and then also read to
you verse I didn't read to you this
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morning a John Chapter Ten, the
verses fifteen and seventeen. Here Jesus says,
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just as the father knows me and
I know the father, I lay
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down my life for the sheep.
Okay, he connects his work. His
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laying down his life, which he
describes a later in Chapter Fifteen, is
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an act of love, is the
greatest act of love. This is in
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the context of him knowing his father
and his father knowing him. Then if
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you go to verse seventeen, he
says for this reason, the father loves
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me, because I lay down my
life that I may take it up again.
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Or if you go back to chapter
three, John Three, verse Thirty
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Five, we read the father loves
the son and has given all things into
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his hand. So you're the context
in which Paul is writing in effusions,
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and he says in him all things
in heaven and earth are united together,
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all things are given to him.
Why? Because the father has loved the
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son. The son is beloved.
Now that might be merely interesting theological trinitarian
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talk and nothing more if it weren't
for the fact that our entire life,
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our entire salvation, depends on this
point, and not just logically depending,
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although that's true, but spiritually it
depends on this. We live according to
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this spiritual reality in which we are
saved in the beloved one, no other
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way. There is no other salvation
apart from him, apart from him whom
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the father has loved and has loved
us in him. The implications of this
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are many. One of them is
this, to the praise of his glorious
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grace, these thoughts bring us back
to God. They pull out the rug
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many kind of selfjustification that we might
be trying to achieve any time, any
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way in which we might be trying
to pride ourselves and the things we do,
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the way we are, the gifts
that we have. The Bible is
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pointing back to us in increasingly complex
and rich and beautiful and wonderful ways who
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God is and what he has done, and that our life is lived entirely
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in him. Again to Ephesians,
with which he has blessed us, in
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the beloved now Paul goes on to
explain this in more detail in verse seven,
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when he says in Him, in
this beloved one, in Him,
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we have the redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to
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the riches of His grace. What
does he mean by this? How should
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we think about the love of God
when we think about redemption? We have
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redemption. What does it mean to
have redemption? What is redemption? Well,
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in the old world, in the
world of the New Testament and the
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Old Testament as well, redemption typically
meant one of two things. You were
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eat it meant you were bought out
of something, either from slavery or possibly
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from kidnapping. Right, this would
be the ransom that's paid. You know,
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if somebody were to kidnap a family
member of yours and demand a ransom,
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you would to use this language redeem
them out of that situation by paying,
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paying the ransom. There would be
this cost that would be paid.
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Well, in addition to kidnapping,
a slavery was the other way in which
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this would happen, as someone would
be a slave, indebted somehow, in
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some way, and that person could
be redeemed out of that situation by a
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price being a price being paid.
Now, this is a very common and
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strong image. Remember, we sang
about that in one of our hymns.
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By his redeeming grace. You might
remember in Sunday school this morning I told
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you to beware of Bible words that
you just sort of repeated your mind without
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really knowing what they are. What
does it mean that God has saved us
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with not just grace, but redeeming
grace? Specifically, what does that mean
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that God has done for you,
for us? It means that we were
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slaves and we have been purchased out
of slavery. That's the particular or kind
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of grace that we're talking about when
we talk about his redeeming grace. Let
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me just ask you, as a
point of application, is that a a
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way in which you think about your
salvation? If not, this is a
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good time to start, because here
it is and God's word. He's bringing
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it forward to you and saying this
is something to pay attention to. This
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is what I have done for you. I have redeemed you in him.
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We have redemption through his blood.
That's the payment. Will get to that
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in a moment, but think a
little bit more about this, this image.
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It is, of course, a
spiritual reality, which is why sometimes
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we we forget this point. Hopefully, none of you have experienced kidnapping or
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slavery. As far as I know, that's that's not true, and if
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it is, I'm very sorry.
It does happen in the world still.
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It's a terrible thing, and let
me ask you, if you imagine yourself,
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if you put yourself in the shoes
of someone, let's say, who
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had been a slave and had been
purchased out of that, how much do
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you think that would affect the way
you live your life today, the way
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you think about yourself, the way
that you live in the world? The
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way you hear things, when you
hear words like redemption or freedom, or
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or life or slavery or any of
these kinds of these kinds of words.
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My guess is that would forever affect
everything, that it would be a remarkable
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moment, a a a signal moment
in your life, a touchstone that you
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would constantly be going back to.
Would you people asked you, Oh,
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where'd you grow up? And on
these kinds of getting to know you questions,
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it would be one of those things
that first would come out. Well,
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I should probably tell you I was
a slave at one point. It's
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a significant thing. Right now,
most of us haven't experience that in sort
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of this world, in this age
and physical terms, but we if we
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are Christians. This is exactly what
we have experienced if we have been redeemed.
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One of the most powerful and common
examples of this in scripture is the
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redemption of God's people out of slavery
from Egypt. A lot of times when
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redemption slavery language is used, it's
used with reference to that. What does
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it mean to be enslaved? While
we know in those chapters of exodus,
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they, God's people, were under
a power which they could not extricate themselves
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from. It was a superior your
power to them. It kept them in
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bondage. They hurt, they suffered, they died. They served a foreign
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power, they served easy Egypt.
They had to belong to Pharaoh and that
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society, and it was it was
awful. But God brought them out of
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this. He brought them out of
this slavery, and that's what Paul is
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saying. He has done for us. But slavery to what? What is
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it that you were once a slave
to? Do you know? Do you
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remember? It's expressed in various ways
in scripture. John Thirty Four says everyone
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who practices sin as a slave to
sin. Perhaps you have lived your life
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at one point where you were a
slave to sin, where there was no
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stopping you, where you consistently,
constantly presented the members of your body to
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sin as your master, your thoughts, your actions, everything. There's another
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way in which scripture talks about our
slavery before the redemption that we have in
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Christ, from glacians. I'll read
a little bit of that to you now.
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This is the book right before Ephesians, glacians, chapter four, verse
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three. Here's what, all rights, he says in the same way.
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We also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of
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this world. But when the fullness
of time had come, God sent forth
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his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem
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those who were under the law,
so that we might receive adoption as sons.
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Hear that Ephesians language. They're right, adoption as sons. And because
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you are sons, God has sent
the spirit of his son into our hearts,
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crying ab of father. So you
are no longer a slave but a
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son, and if a son,
then an heir through God. Formerly,
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when you did not know God,
you were enslaved to those that, by
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nature, were not gods. I'll
stop there. So what does Paul say
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we were enslaved to? He says
three things. He says first, that
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we were enslaved to the elementary principles
of this world. Second, he says
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that we were enslaved to the law
because of verse five, he came,
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Jesus came to redeem those who were
under the law. And then, third,
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in Verse Eight, he says that
we were enslaved to those that,
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by nature, are not God's.
Now this might be a little bit of
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a confusing thing, but this is
very important. If we're asking the question,
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how was I a slave? From
what have I been redeemed? Well,
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Paul is saying two things that go
together, but it might be a
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little bit to get difficult to understand
if you're not familiar with this. He's
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saying that we were enslaved to the
law and he's saying that we are in
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slower under the law, and he
was also also saying that we were enslaved
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to sin. The law, however, is a good thing. Sin is
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a bad thing. So how can
Paul Talk so strongly about our slavery,
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particularly under the law, as this
negative thing? How can he equate it
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to serving other gods? The answer
we find, if you'll permit me to
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skip to yet another passage of scriptures. In Romans seven, Paul explains this
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here. He addresses this question.
How is it that the law which enslaved
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us is good? And here's his
answer. He says in the seven verse
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five, for while we were living
in the flesh, our sinful passions,
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aroused by the law, were at
work in our members to bear fruit for
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death. In other words, he's
saying that when we lived under the law,
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we lived in a particular state.
The law is good, but are
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our sinful flesh, our sinful passion, passions aroused by the law, brought
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forth bad fruit, blaw good thumbs
up, our life under the law bums
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down. Why? Because of the
way we responded to it, because of
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the death that we brought forth.
Skip down to verse eight in that same
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passage. Roman seven, he says, explains this. But sin seizing an
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opportunity through the commandment produced in meet
all kinds of covetousness. For apart from
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the law, sin lies dead.
I was alive, apart from the law,
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but when the commandment came, sin
came alive and I died. The
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very commandment that promised life proved to
be deaf to me, for sin seizing
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an opportunity through the commandment deceived me
and through it killed me. So the
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law is holy and the commandment is
holy and righteous and good. You see
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what he's saying? He's saying that
when, when our sinful desires, when
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our flesh is corrupted by sin,
when God says you shall not covet sin
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doesn't respond to that in a righteous
way. It's Sin Right. Sin Responds
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to it in a sinful way.
So when God says you shall not covet
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sin goes the other way. Ah, covening, I remember that. That
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sounds good. Let's do that.
That's what sin does and that's what somebody
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who is enslaved to sin does.
That's what somebody who is under the law
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does and always does, because the
power of the law holds us there.
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We can never rise to meet the
law because of these passions that are inside
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to us. And so it's this
one terrible cycle of sin and death and
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slavery and bondage. God speaks the
law, holy and just and we respond
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to it in a sinful way.
We bear forth the fruit of death and
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we die and we suffer and we
respond to that not and by repentance and
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obedience, but by breaking the law
again and again and again. And Paul.
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For Paul this is personal. Remember
that word me. He says,
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when the commandment was spoken to me, Sin came alive in me and produced
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all kinds of covetousness. Is His
example there. But any commandment will do.
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No doubt you have experienced this.
So remember what Paul says in Galatians.
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He says that Jesus has come to
do something else. God has sent
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his son, his beloved son,
to be born under the law, to
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redeem us from the law. Right
or stay here in Roman seven, when
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he says, but now we are
released from the law, released from the
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law having died to that which held
US captive. He uses died because he's
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using this other example which I won't
get into the context here, but he's
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saying it no longer has power over
us. It's it's dead to us.
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To use that phrase for the moment, he's saying, but now we are
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released from the law, having died
to that which held us captive, so
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that we can live lawless lives.
No, so that we can serve in
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the new way of the spirit and
not in the old way of the Rick
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and written code. Going back to
Ephesians. Now, what do you say?
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What does he say? We are
saved to to be holy and blameless,
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not to be reckless and unrighteous.
Here you're released from the law.
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Now go and sin and be married. All right, that's not the point.
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The we are released from the power
of the law, because the power
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of the law over US is death. Something different has to happen. The
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Standard of the law has to be
met. And the penalty for the law
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has to be paid, and until
that happens, that power remains over us
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and we are nothing but slaves to
our own sinful passions. The law is
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good, the power of the law
is good, but to us sinners it
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is death. Something has to happen
in relation to sin in order for us
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to be released. What well,
nothing that we can do, but certainly
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something God has done, and that's
what he is getting at. In Rome
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arth, well, in all of
these books, in Ephesians. In Him
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we have redemption. How through his
blood, that was the price of the
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ransom. Jesus lived his life in
such a way that he obeyed the law,
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so that the law, which promised
life to Paul, all you have
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to do, Paul, is obey
it and you will live, but ultimately
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proved death because he couldn't obey it, because he was continuously sinful. For
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Jesus, however, who knew no
sin and obey the law, it did
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prove to be life, and not
only for him but for all who are
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in him, in the beloved one
who meets out then, who meets the
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commandment of God. He loved as
he was required to love, and that
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is good news for us, because
in that it means that the the righteous
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requirements of the law was met in
him, and the curse and the penalty
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which was supposed to be paid by
us, God says, I'll pay it
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all, take care of it.
You See, our slavery under the law
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and under sin and death, was
not something that we're not responsible for.
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It's our sin, it's our punishment. We can't look at our former slavery
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and say, yeah, that was
a really terrible situation. Has Really Nice
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to God to help me out of
that now. It was a situation which
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we put ourselves into, in which
man shows to listen to the words of
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the Evil One, to disobey the
requirements of the law and to plunge us,
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I'm all, into an estate,
as the catechism says, of sin
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and misery. So here we are
in a state of rebellion, of sin,
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of misery, of slavery, and
God comes and he says come out,
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let my people go, and we
are released. And as the lambs
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blood was shed on the door and
death passed over the house of Israel,
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so to the lamb of God,
Jesus Christ, who came into the world
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when his blood was shed. It
was shed in such a way, and
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it was valuable and worthy and holy
in such a way that God would and
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did pass over the death that was
due to us and brought us out of
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slavery and into the Kingdom, as
Paul says, in of another place,
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of his beloved son and Clausians.
In Him we have redemption through his blood,
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the forgiveness of our trespasses according to
the riches of His grace. If
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you had been bought out of slavery, would you not forever remember that,
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be more by it, think about
it, recognize the freedom that you have
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today. Is that as one who
came free? And if this happened in
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in sort of on a human level
and merely for this age, how indebted?
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Let me ask you this, how
indebted would you feel to the person
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who bought your freedom? I fewer
slave and someone purchased your freedom. How
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would you feel to that person for
the rest of your life, forever and
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die? How could you? What
could you even say about that? How
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could you ever express enough gratitude,
enough thankfulness? How could you ever show
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enough appreciation? How could you ever
live in a way that was worthy of
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that? You know, many ways
you could never but Jesus didn't just redeem
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us from a temporary human slavery situation. He redeemed us from the slavery of
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death itself, from bondage to sin
forever, that we should be wholly and
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blameless and enjoy eternal life and freedom
in him. How does that affect your
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life? If it does, if
you are a Christian, it must,
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even if you have not been fully
aware of all of these facts, the
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spiritual react, lady, the truthfulness
of it is all the same. And
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as you become more aware of what
it is God has done for you,
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how much more will that affect your
life, shape the ways you think and
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walk? There are so many applications
to this I'll mentioned three quick ones and
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then let you have fun with the
rest. One is when Paul talks about
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in Romans six, he says,
if you've been brought out of slavery,
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where you used to present your members, the namely the physical parts of your
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body, if used to present these
things to slaves of righteousness, your slaves
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of God, now present your members
to him. Give yourself over to him
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as one who has bought you with
a price, who's lavished His grace upon
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you and set you into freedom.
Another way the Bible talks about this and
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applies this is Paul's trip pulling his
hair out in glaciers, and he's saying,
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how can you be turning back to
the law? What are you doing?
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How can you after you've been set
free from this? Why are you
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going back to this? Another thing
that some of us need to apply to
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our lives, and a third thing, which Paul Mentions in Ephesians, is
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that because of this, we have
a unity in Christ and with other's that
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expands all boundaries. Slave or free, he says, male or female,
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Jew or gentile. We have been
brought out of this death, out of
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this sin, out of this bondage, so that we can now be united
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with others. He is lavished upon
not just this individual and that individual,
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but a body of people, saints, Holy Ones. It affects how we
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think about each other. You too, you too, you are a slave
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too. Just like me, I
was rescued from bondage to it affects the
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way we talk about it. It
gives zeal to the way in which we
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express our lives. Who We are
in Christ, how it is we have
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been loved. We can go on
all night, but I'll leave it there.
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Let's ask that the spirit of God
but speak to our hearts, tell
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us about the fatherhood of God and
our brother, the beloved son. Let's
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pray
