Episode Transcript
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Through eleven verses I read last week
and will focus a little more on this
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week. First, Corinthians, chapter
six, versus nine through eleven. Here
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the Apostle, the Lord Jesus Christ, rights to the Corinthians and also by
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the will of God, he also
writes to us. He intends for us
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to hear and to treasure these words. So let's hear them now with ears
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of faith. Or do you not
know that the unrighteous will not inherit the
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Kingdom of God? Do not be
deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor
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idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men
who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor
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the greedy, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the
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Kingdom of God. And such were
some of you. But you were washed,
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you were sanctified, you were justified
in the name of the Lord Jesus
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Christ and by the spirit of our
God. Praise God. Now, men,
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you may be seated. A pustle. Paul, by the Holy Spirit
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of God, speaks to us this
morning about inheritance, in particularly talks about
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who or who gets to do the
inheriting and what has happened to us that
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we might inherit. But let's talk
a little bit, just first about what
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we inherit. You know, hopefully, what it means to inherit. For
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those who are littler among us,
imagine this. Imagine that you have a
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very old grandfather who has a collection
of tenzerod spoons, a lot of spoons,
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right, I know, maybe too
many spoons, but he has this
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collection tenzero spoons, and the W
he says, when I die, I
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wore all my spoons to be divided
equally among my ten children and grandchildren.
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Well, that would mean that your
inheritance from your grandfather would be a thousand
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spoons. You and all the other
grandchildren and children would get a thousand spoons.
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Now, I wouldn't because I'm not
his grandchild. I'm not his child,
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but you would receive that. Now, that wouldn't be a really big
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deal to me because I don't want
a thousand spoons, but perhaps it would
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be if you told me that each
spoon could easily sell for a thousand dollars,
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if you told me that this collection
of a thousand spoons was actually worth
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a million bucks. Well, maybe
now I'm a little bit interested in grandpos
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spoon collection. All of a sudden
this inheritance, now that I know how
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valuable it is, a becomes important
to me. But, as you know,
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as Nice as a million bucks might
sound, there's no guarantee that any
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amount of money can bring us happiness. We know this from experience and we
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know this from the scriptures. All
the things that you can buy with that
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money, whether it's more than that
amount or less than that amount, Jesus
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tells us it can get lost,
it can get stolen, it can get
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destroyed. Our passage in First Corinthian
six talks about a different kind of inheritance,
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and inheritance that can never be lost, can never be destroyed and can
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never be stolen. Also, it's
an inheritance that is of inestimable value.
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It is impossible to calculate how valuable
this inheritance is, because it's not just
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money or abundance of material possessions.
It is that in the Kingdom of God
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that we had inherit. We inherit
everything you could possibly ever need or want.
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But it's more than that. The
inheritance that we receive in the Kingdom
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of God is a place new heavens
and a new earth, and that place
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is a place not just with abundance, but it's a place described in the
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scriptures as a place of great beauty, as a place of great safety,
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or perfect safety, of protection,
of joy, of communion and fellowship,
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both with the fellow citizens and family
members of that kingdom and with the ruler
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and head of that kingdom itself,
our God, our try in God.
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If you want an earthly picture of
the Kingdom of God, you could think
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of the garden of Eden, write
this beautiful, abundant, a place of
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filled with the presence of God,
where a man and woman dwell together and
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harmony with one another and with God
and the animals and all of that.
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or You can think of the Kingdom
of Israel as it was called to be,
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as it was promised to be,
blessed of the people obeyed, again,
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a place of beauty and community,
of joy and love and abundance,
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of safety and protection. These,
the scriptures tell us, were in fact
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earthly pictures, little shadowy sketches of
what the Kingdom of God that we are
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looking forward to would indeed be.
But, as we know, both Eden
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and Israel never really grew up into
that perfect kingdom of God because of sin,
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Adam and Eve were cast out of
Eden Right an angel of the Lord
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barring the way, keeping them from
the tree of life, keeping them from
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that place of joy and abundance and
instead putting them under God's righteous judgment.
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He said, if you eat,
if you disobey this command, you will
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surely die, and they were separated
from the tree of life and they were
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put under a state of sin or
a state of misery and the curse of
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death. Similarly, in Israel,
they failed to bring about the blessings that
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were promised through their obedience, naturally
so, because they were people that were
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now broken, people that were held
in their sin. The Kingdom of God
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was never able to become that great
thing. There were times, right under
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David under Solomon, where it looked
really good, where there was a lot
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of abundance and people came from far
away places to marvel at it. But,
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as we know, even from those
beginning, the accounts of those of
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the reign of David and Solomon,
it wasn't always good. There was a
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lot of bloodshed and and political intrigue
and usurpations of the throne and all kinds
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of various trials. The Kingdom of
God. However, that Paul is talking
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about in First Corinthians, the kingdom
that these former things pointed forward to but
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never realized because of sin. He
is talking now about inheriting that perfect kingdom,
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and sinners inheriting it. Not unrighteous
sinners, people who are still in
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their sin, but people who were
once these things but now have been washed
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and justified and sanctified in the name
of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit
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and now have that inheritance. The
question then, before us is this glorious
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Kingdom of God, that thing to
which there are so many, so many
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false starts and copy cats in this
world, that wonderful, glorious kingdom?
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WHO WILL INHERIT IT? Who can
belong in it? How can we be
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there? Or, more particularly,
why will the Christians in the Corinthian Church,
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some of whom were really rotten people? Why will they inherit that kingdom?
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Read Verse Nine and ten again with
me, Paul says. Or do
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you not know that the unrighteous will
not inherit the Kingdom of God? Need
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do not be deceived. Neither the
sexually immoraled, nor idolaters, nor adulterers,
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nor men who practice homosexuality, nor
thieves, nor greedy nor drunkards,
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nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit
the Kingdom of God. The CORINTHIAN church
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was, it's, full of these
people. The CORINTHIAN church had people who
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were adulterers, people who were greedy, people who were homosexual as, people
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who were idolaters, people who were
swindlers, people who were thieves, and
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these people were now said to inherit
the Kingdom of God. Such were some
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of you. But then something changed, something happened, something in which the
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Corinthians should be able to see.
Yeah, I see myself in that description
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and I'm not that anymore. Why
is it that these people, as Paul
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describes them here, and there are
other lists in the New Testament that are
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similar. Some include other things.
Why is it that these people can't inherit
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the Kingdom of God? Why is
it that this, the glorious, Holy,
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beautiful, joyful Kingdom of God,
is barred to people like this?
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Paul says, don't you know that
the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of
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God? Why is it that they
know that? Well, is anyone who
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has ever sinned senses, just as
we all know, it's because holy things
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and unholy things don't go together.
Imagine you had a glass of milk,
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delicious, wonderful cold milk, and
then someone came along and poured just a
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little bit of rotten milk into it, just just a little bit right.
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Would you say that your milk is
good anymore? Would you say that you
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would you drink your milk? Or
example, now I can't drink this.
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That's what I would say. I
said now I can't drink this, this
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is bad milk. It has been, it has been ruined by corruption.
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Similarly, you don't put sinful people
in a sinless place. You don't take
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a perfect, beautiful, glorious,
Holy Kingdom of God and then put a
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bunch of immoral people into it.
It's not a place of lawlessness, it's
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a place of righteousness, of love
and holiness, is Hebrews twelve fourteen reminds
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us. Without Holiness, no one
will see the Lord and, just as
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we know, heaven won't receive people
like this. Hell is what they deserve.
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Sin Doesn't just bar us from heaven, it sends us from Hell.
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The Sin of Adam and Eve,
for example, didn't just keep them from
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the tree of life, it put
them into in a state of sin and
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misery of Wrath and curse. That's
what they deserved. If you eat of
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this tree, you will surely die. There are penalties, there are consequences
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for our disobedience, or, as
Paul puts it in economic terms, he
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says the wages of sin is death. That's what you earn for your sinning.
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You don't earn reward, you don't
hear you you sin in some great
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and terrible way, or even in
some small and what you might consider a
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minor way, and then get a
reward of heaven doesn't work like that.
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You cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. You cannot have a rightful place as
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a citizen, as a part of
that family, as a son of God,
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and receive that inheritance as somebody who
is sexually immoral, the someone who
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is a thief, as someone who
practices homosexuality, as someone who is greedy
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or a drunkard or a reviler,
and so on. Unrighteous people do not
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inherit a righteous kingdom ruled by a
righteous God. So that's the first thing
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that they're supposed to remember. This. Do you not know this obvious truth?
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Of course they know it. It's
a rhetorical question. But then Paul
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says this wonderful thing. He says
and such were some of you. You
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used to be characterized by this.
This is how people would describe you,
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this is how you would describe yourself, but no longer. A great change
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has happened in your life. Right, we have minor changes like this to
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happen on our lives. You know, I might say. Once I was
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a public school teacher, right,
once I owned this kind of car or
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had this kind of dog or something
like that. But something has changed,
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right, something about me has changed, something about my way of life.
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You were formally known as a thief
and a drunkard or whatnot, and now
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you're not. Let me deal with
one quick question. Why only some of
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them? Right? Perhaps you're thinking, well, aren't all of us condemned
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under the law? Why were it
all of these people under this why does
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Paul say in such were some of
you? I think there's a possible,
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a few possible good reasons for this. One is Paul does not intend to
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be exhaustive in this list. Just
because your particular sin might not be listed
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here doesn't mean that you get to
inherit the Kingdom of God. Perhaps such
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were some of you and we can
describe other things for others of you.
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So that's one possible answer here.
Paul's list is not exhaustive of all the
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things, which borrows from the Kingdom. Is Point is not to condemn every
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person under the law, as he
does elsewhere and as we are, but
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his point here is to talk about
the huge change that happens in people's lives
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and he makes that point. Another
possibility is that perhaps not all of the
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believers here we're characterized by this,
and this is a great grace of God.
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Some of them perhaps, as some
of you, have grown up under
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the Lord's grace and protection, that
your life has never been characterized by one
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of these things, not that you've
never done these things or that you wouldn't
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be guilty in some way, but
that this is not your way of life,
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that this will you could not say, yeah, I was this.
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Perhaps there are some things in this
list you can really identify with and say
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yeah, that was definitely me,
totally guilty, that was me, and
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then other things you would say not
me right. So again, Paul's not
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trying to be exhaustive in this list
and Paul perhaps has in his mind that
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there are people that the Lord raises
up even from their youth, that are
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never characterized by these things, to
the praise of his glorious grace. And
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we also have to remember that perhaps
some people in the church who were hearing
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these things were still characterized by these
things. Perhaps some of those in the
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Corinthian church had under undergone that change, but then others had not. Yet
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that there were people they're sitting and
listening to him and the word preach,
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who were still cass who could still
be classified under these things. Perhaps there
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are some of you today who,
in hearing this list, know that there
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has not been a change in your
life. You know that you are still
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one of these things. One of
them or multiples of them jump out at
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you and you say, I still
have a problem and I don't have an
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inheritance to the Kingdom of God,
and so we will think about how we
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might respond to that. But notice
Paul's particular point here. He's saying notice,
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though, that some of you here
have gone through a great change.
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Now why is he mentioned this?
Before we talk about the change that happens?
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Paul mentions this because we've been saying
because the Printhians, Corinthians had a
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something of a pride problem. They
were boasters. They weren't people who thought
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very much of themselves and here they
were in the new church and they were
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happy for the things that were going
on and they were boasting in Paul or
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a Paulas and various others, and
they had become part of the society in
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this new community. And unfortunately,
many of them, instead of seeing the
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distinctiveness of the church and the ways, the new ways in which the Kingdom
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of God operated different from the world, instead they were bringing all those worldly
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things into this life and they were
priding themselves on them, priding themselves to
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be there. But there's no room
for pride here. Paul says, yes,
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you have inherited the Kingdom of God. Nothing better could happen to a
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person, nothing that you could imagine
would be better than this. But remember
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how you got here. You were
these things and you were washed and sanctified
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and justified. That's how you're here. You're not here because of your own
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strength, you're not here because you're
super eloquent, you're not here because you're
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super rich, you're not here because
you have a bunch of fancy friends.
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You are here and you remain here
only because of the grace of God.
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Such were some of you. Let's
just take a moment and remember that as
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you deal with your relationships with other
people, as you think about being boastful,
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as you think about putting other people
down, as you think about ignoring
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newcomers and visitors, as you think
about keeping things for yourself and not willing
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to be hurt or defrauded, or
those things that we've considered before, just
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take a moment and remember where you
came from. Christian Macarthur was preaching her
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recently about the prodigal son. You
know, this is like saying to the
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Prodigal son, you know who.
Let imagine what's continue the story and imagine
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that he came into the father's house
and then he starts boasting to all the
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guests about well, yeah, I
am a pretty awesome guy. My father
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goes to this. Let me just
remind you for a moment that moments before
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you were in a pig pen eating
pig food. This is who you are,
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this is who you were. Rather
enjoy the party. My son be
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here. Enjoy these things, but
remember how you got here, through the
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love of God and the Work of
God. Don't post don't be proud,
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but instead give all clothe, all
praise and honor to him. And so,
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those of you who perhaps aren't changed, Paul says to the Corinthians implicitly,
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and the word the wholely spirit says
to you today as well. Here
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is promise, here is hope for
those of you who feel like you are
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still entrapped and bound by your sins, those of you who are still characterized
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by these habitual things going on in
your life, know that there is freedom
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for you, a change in life, a new way, and that's what
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Paul describes next, and that's what
we'll finish with. What happened to these
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people? What is the equivalent of
that father pulling up his his clothes and
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running to his son out of love
for him and receiving him into his household?
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Well, here it's described in different
terms. Paul says, and such
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were some of you. But you
were washed, you were sanctified, you
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were justified in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of
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God. Let's look at the first
word, the word you were washed.
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I'm this could perhaps be translated a
little better, because it doesn't just describe
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washing, but it describes the washing
away of something, which is kind of
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the same thing. But Paul uses
a particular word here that has that meat,
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that has the focus of putting things
away, of not just getting in
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water but taking things away by by
means of that water. Um. The
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second thing that is interesting about this
word is it's not entirely passive in the
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way that the following words come.
So what I mean is this that you
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notice this parallel in verse eleven.
You were washed, were sanctified, were
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justified. In the Greek it's a
little different. Washed is different than sanctified
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and justified wash. It has what's
called of the middle voice, which usually
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focuses on the activity or the interest
of the person involved. So it's not
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entirely passive. There's the sense in
which he's like saying you went and got
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baptized, be something similar to this. You went and washed yourselves, or
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you went and washed so that you
could be changed, so that you could
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be cleansed. The focus is not
so much on someone else doing it,
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but one's personal interest in it.
And you can imagine why Paul would say
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this. He says a change happened, you are involved in this, this
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is similar to the way acts.
Two thousand, two hundred and sixteen speaks.
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We read. And now, why
do you wait? Rise, be
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baptized and wash away your sins,
calling on his name, make the change,
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take the action. Don't stay in
this place any longer. That's the
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call, and acts twenty too,
and that's the the respe way that the
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Corinthians responded, and Paul's calling attention
to that. You washed away your sins.
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You're no longer this former thing.
So, as Paul reminds them of
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what has happened in this cleansing that
they've undergone, he also reminds them of
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what undergirds that, why that happened, how that happened. In here we
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get into the more what is called
a passive tense of these verbs. He
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says you were sanctified and you were
justified. Yes, they might have gone
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and gotten washed, yes, they
might have gone and gotten baptized. In
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these things were removed. But how
did that happen? It happened because of
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the work of God in them.
The first word sanctified, it refers to
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being made holy in Effesians chapter five. Let's turn there actually and read what
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what Paul writes there. In Effesians, Chapter Five, Verse Twenty Five,
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we read Christ loved the Church and
gave himself up for her that he might
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sanctify her, having cleansed her by
the wash of water with the word,
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so that he might present the church
to himself in splendor, without spot or
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wrinkle or any such thing, that
she might be holy and without blemish.
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He what he's saying then, as
you are who you are because of what
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Christ is done, this washing that
you have, have, have interest in,
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this washing that you have, have
gone through, that was because of
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what Christ has done for you.
Indeed, he washed you, he purified
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you, he sanctified you, he
made you holy. In the Old Testament,
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the priests were called not only to
offer pure and holy sacrifices, but
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be pure themselves. Similarly, God, when he changes our hearts, when
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he washes US and makes us clean, he not only wants us to produce
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the works of holiness, but produce
them from a holy place. Well,
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how does that happen? It happens
because of what Christ has done for us.
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There's this amazing thing that happens in
our being holy, fied or sanctified,
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are being set apart from God.
He takes sinners who are condemned to
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death, who are under the curse
of God, and he says now you're
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mine, now you belong to me, now you are set apart for a
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different purpose and to a different end. And he god does that in some
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different ways and he focuses on two
specific things here. He says at the
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end of this verse, in the
this you were sanctified, and will get
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to justification in a moment. He
says you were sanctified in the name of
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the Lord Jesus Christ and by the
Holy Spirit of our God, as one
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of the church father says, these
are the two hands by which the father
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works. To be just or to
be sanctified in the name of the Lord
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Jesus Christ means that because of the
work of Christ on the cross, because
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of his blood sprinkled on us,
we now have a new state, a
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state that we might call sanctification,
a say, a state that we might
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call holiness. Paul addresses the church, he addresses US sometimes as saints,
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Holy People. This doesn't mean that
we are entirely perfected, but it means
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that God sees us in a new
way. He doesn't see us as UNRIGHTEOUS,
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unholy people. He sees us as
new creatures, people who have been
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washed, people who have been made
new, who are, using the image
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from Ephesians five, cleansed and pure
and spotless. This happens because of the
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work of Jesus Christ on the Cross. But this relationship that we have with
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Jesus is not just a longdistance relationship, because our Lord and save here sends
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his Holy Spirit to do in our
hearts what he did on the cross,
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to personally apply in our own lives
and in our own person's body and soul
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the work of Jesus Christ. So
he we are cleansed by the blood of
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Christ on the cross, which happened
twozero years ago, and then here in
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your life, sometime over the last
from all of you are less than a
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hundred years old, sometime in the
last hundred years, the Holy Spirit applied
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that work of Christ to your life. He applied that holiness in such a
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way that he changed your heart.
He gave you, in your life,
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during your lifespan, somewhere a new
heart, a new life, a new
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principle out of which holy things come. Now we all know that the flesh
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remains in us, there's still corruption, but guess who's in you as well,
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the Holy Spirit of God, working
and applying that redemption in your lives,
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change things out, bringing things out
in such a way that your works,
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your holy works that you do,
will be presented before God and you
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will be amazed at what they look
like, because all the dross and all
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the filth and all the garbage that's
currently attached to them will be removed and
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what God has produced in you,
which is good, will be shown before
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him and you will be amazed.
I produced that. That work came from
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me. Yes, it did,
because of the work of the Holy Spirit
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in you, holifiling you, sanctifying
you, producing good works, to works
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that are acceptable and pleasing to God. God is at work in you and
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through you, producing a creature of
his own workmanship that he is proud of.
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He does that through the work of
Jesus Christ on the Cross, objectively
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accomplished in time and space and then
applied in your own lives, in your
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own hearts, by the spirit of
our God. This is really amazing.
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Sometimes we wonder as reformed Christians,
what do I have to do with the
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spirit of God? Will here's one
of those things. As he works in
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you, as he changes you.
We have commune in with him, and
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one of the things that we do
as a result of that, as we
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worship him, we give praise and
honor and glory to the spirit, to
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God the spirit, and to God
the son, and also to God the
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father. Are Try you and God, who is at work in us that
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which is pleasing to his sight.
He makes us holy. He also justifies
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us. This is amazing. He
takes unrighteous people who are barred from heaven
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and he gives to them his own
righteousness. If I could go back to
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the him we saying earlier, the
verse five says this. Now my conscience
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is at peace. Why? Why
would anybody's conscience be at peace, especially
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people who could be who were formerly
described as sexually a moral idolaters, thieves
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and so on. How can a
person who has done those things or things
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like them, how can their conscience
be at the hymn continues. Now my
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conscience is at peace. From the
law, I stand acquitted again. How
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could that be? How could a
person so guilty of those things stand acquitted?
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The him continues. Christ has purchased
my release and every sin remitted or
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forgiven not nothing remains my soul to
grieve. Jesus sinners doth receive. If
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you have, let's say, an
unpaid ticket and someone pays the ticket,
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the government can't come to you and
say you need to pay us the ticket.
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Why it's been paid. You can't
pay something that's already been paid.
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It's a similar way. The law
can't be brought against us because the law
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and all of its demands has been
fulfilled. Colossians describes it as being nailed
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to the cross. All of the
things that God demanded, all of the
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sins which you have committed have been
nailed to the cross. God isn't when
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God considers your sins, he doesn't
stand there and say, HMM, I
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don't know, he says I know
and they're right over there, paid for
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completely. So then the question the
hymn brings up or points out as I
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have nothing to grieve about nothing.
My sins have been forgiven. My soul
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is at rest. Now, why
does that happen? Because is Christ has
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forgiven them on the cross and because
the spirit confirms that in our hearts.
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And so because of that, because
Jesus sinners doth receive, we are saved.
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Because Jesus dies on a cross to
forgive us our sins. Because the
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Holy Spirit applies that work in our
lives, we are saved. We can
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say, Yep, that was me, and not anymore. Not only have
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I been justified, not only have
I been sanctified, but this new principle
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of life has been brought about in
me by the very work of God,
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in such that these things which habitually
used to characterize me, that's no longer
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true. Now I have a principle
of grace that is in me, a
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principle of life and godliness. Instead
of constantly desiring and running after these things
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which only led me to destruction,
now I love the things of the Lord.
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Of course, this isn't perfect in
our lives and won't be until the
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end, but guess who is doing
that work in you? The Holy Spirit
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of God. Guess who is sanctifying
you and guess who is accomplished all of
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these things perfectly for you so that
you know they will be completed? Of
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course, Jesus himself. Because of
what God has done through the son and
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through the spirit, we can look
back at our lives and we can say,
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once I was lost, but now
I'm found. Once I was blind,
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but now I see. Once I
was enslaved, but now I have
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freedom, and on and on and
on. I, as a son,
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as a daughter, am a rightful
heir because of the work of Jesus Christ,
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by the power of the Holy Spirit
and in inheritor and air of the
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Kingdom of God. So, as
we look around us and enjoy the benefits
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of this party, the benefits of
this rejoicing, is the benefits of this
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family, of the benefits of this
kingdom. Brother Sisters, let's not be
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proud, let's not be both full
people in ourselves. Let's not push each
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other out of the way, elbow
one another on the way to the kingdom.
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Instead, let's hold hands, come
arm in arm and call out to
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those who do not yet know the
Lord. And if you do not know
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that the no do not yet know
the Lord, receive him as he has
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offered you in the Gospel. Let's
pray. Our heavenly father, we pray
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to you and we asked that you
would continue to impress the
